If you want to create a longstanding podcast, the number one requirement is that you’ve got to LOVE the topic you choose to present on.

Sabrina Ricci and Garret Kruger love dinosaurs. So much so that they created I Know Dino in 2015 and have been podcasting ever since. I Know Dino is a podcast, a blog, a series of books, a Discord community, and more.

In this episode, Sabrina and Garret talk to Zach and Rock about starting their show, becoming experts in the field, imposter syndrome, scoring high-quality guests, making money, creating community, and so, so much more. This interview is STACKED with helpful information for the aspiring podcaster, or the podcaster who needs a little push.

How do you turn a burning passion into a full time job? Sabrina and Garret have got you covered in this episode of Between Two Mics.

Our SquadCast recording stack

  • SquadCast for recording
  • Simplecast for hosting
  • ATR2100 mics
  • Apple AirPods Max headphones
  • Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Audio Interfaces
  • Trint for transcriptions

Show Notes

Episode Transcripts

Rob [00:00:01] Hi friends! Rob here and before we get to this week’s episode of Between Two Mics, I
want to tell you about another show that I think you’re going to love. And it’s recorded on SquadCast. I’m the host
of the Family Vacationer, the go to podcast for families on the move. You can find it wherever you get your podcasts
or at our website, the family vacationer dot live. Now let’s get to Between Two Mics.

Zach Moreno [00:00:36] Welcome to Between Two Mics, the podcast that brings you remote recording
resources from SquadCast.fm.

Rock Felder [00:00:43] I’m Rock Felder, co-founder and CFO of SquadCast.

Zach Moreno [00:00:48] And I’m Zach Moreno, co-founder and CEO.

Rock Felder [00:00:51] On Between Two Mics, we bring you interviews with podcasters, experts in the
field of remote recording. We discuss current events in podcasting and so much more.

Zach Moreno [00:01:01] Twice a month you’ll hear a Founders’ episode. That’s just the two of us
chatting about all things remote recording, updates to SquadCast, what we’re up to and what we’re listening to.

Rock Felder [00:01:13] The other two weeks of the month, we’ll bring you interview episodes. Zach and
I will sit down with experts in the podcast Space to discuss their companies, their podcasts, their thoughts on
podcasting, creating content and more.

Zach Moreno [00:01:26] The most exciting part? We’re recording all of this on SquadCast, the best
place to record remote audio and video interviews in studio quality.

Rock Felder [00:01:36] So let’s get between two mics.

Rock Felder [00:01:41] Before we get into today’s episode, which is an interview with the hosts of
the podcast, I Know Dino, we’ve got a few SquadCast announcements. First, if you haven’t joined our SquadPod Slack
Channel, what are you waiting for? We’ve got a community of SquadCasters chatting all day long about all things
podcasting. They share production tips, look for guests, ask technical questions and more. The community is free to
join for SquadCasters. You can learn more and apply to join us in the show notes of this episode. Next, we’d love to
share your SquadCast story. Next time you record on SquadCast, snap a picture of you and your guests. We call these
SquadShots, and then submit via our share page. Just go to SquadCast.fm/share and we want to amplify your SquadCast
experience. All right. Now let’s get into today’s interview. We’re chatting with Sabrina and Garrett from I Know
Dino. They are wife and husband, team of dinosaur enthusiasts turned podcasters. The homepage of their website
states “rediscover your love of dinosaurs.” And I think you’ll find in our interview that they helped reignite my
childhood love of dinosaurs. The reason we wanted to speak with the I Know Dino team is because Garrett and Sabrina
are an incredible example of how passion podcasting can yield success. Listen in to learn how they turn their love
of The Land Before Time to a revenue generating weekly audio show.

Zach Moreno [00:03:07] Can you please tell us the story about being a dinosaur enthusiast? Where did
that story begin for you both?

Sabrina [00:03:14] Well, like a lot of people in our community, it started when we were kids. For me,
it was Land Before Time. For Garrett. What is also Land Before time?

Garrett [00:03:21] Yeah, I think so.

Sabrina [00:03:22] Yeah. And then Jurassic Park and all that stuff. And then, you know, you get a
little bit older and you just don’t talk about dinosaurs as much. And it was maybe three years into us dating. We
were living on the East Coast and so we were going to the American Museum of Natural History in New York a lot like
any time anybody came to visit, like, let’s go to this cool museum and we’d find ourselves in the dinosaur hall and
kind of realize, oh, wait, you like dinosaurs? I like dinosaurs. Like, let’s let’s start talking about dinosaurs all
the time. So, yeah, that’s how it started. And we we started mapping out museums around the world with dinosaur
exhibits because eventually we wanted to go to as many as possible. And then then we ended up having a dinosaur
themed wedding.

Rock Felder [00:04:04] So I used to love dinosaurs growing up as well. And you all are kind of
reconnecting me with that love. But I guess for each of you, what is it that makes you love dinosaurs so much? I
guess, Sabrina, we’ll start with you.

Sabrina [00:04:14] Yeah, for me, it’s because they were they lived for such a long time. There’s this
one of my favorite fun facts is the time when Stegosaurus lived and T-Rex lived is actually longer than the time
between when T-Rex lived and now. And you think about how there are so many different types of dinosaurs, there’s so
many weird dinosaurs, so many weird things about dinosaurs that we’re learning every day practically. And but
there’s also so much we still don’t know and we don’t know what we don’t know. So there’s this huge mystery factor
like what other and it’s kind of fun to think about. Like maybe there was some kind of pink, fluffy T-Rex type thing
out there. We don’t know for sure.

Zach Moreno [00:04:53] Let’s hope so.

Garrett [00:04:53] Yeah, I think for me it’s similar. My favorite thing about dinosaurs is the
variety of them, just like the weirder the dinosaur, the better. And there are some really weird ones, like the
animal with the longest claws of all time is a dinosaur called therizinosaurus and its claws are, what, two feet?
About long. Yeah. And it was basically like a sloth in a way, but like a ground sloth, if you’re familiar with
those, just like huge herbivores. So it’s like probably friendly, but it had the biggest claws of any animal ever.
And they were sharp. They were like weaponry. Yeah, but on like this big goofy. Some people call it like Jar Jar
Binks looking. It’s got like a long a horse head.

Rock Felder [00:05:32] Jar Jar Wolverine.

Garrett [00:05:34] Yeah, exactly. I love the weird dinosaurs. That’s and are some of the weirdest
animals and the fact that they were huge and so successful and still around in modern birds.

Sabrina [00:05:44] Yeah, it’s great. What was the phrase he used the other day? You likened it to
Pokemon.

Garrett [00:05:49] Oh yea, I often think of them as like Pokemon because there’s like such a variety
of them and they all have their little like skills and advantages and disadvantages and stuff. And I think as a kid
that was really fun, like thinking about like, well what would the Triceratops have as an advantage against a T-Rex?
It’s like well, it has the horns, but then the other one’s got the big teeth and then, like, imagining how that
interacts it’s really fun.

Rock Felder [00:06:09] That’s a great point. Now that I hear you say that, that’s probably what I
like to. There was such a variety and some flew and some were herbivores. Some were carnivores like some were super
scary. And then some seemed like, oh, that could be a pet. Right. I feel like I’m reliving some of my inner child.
And so thank you.

Zach Moreno [00:06:26] And I really love all the movies that you said that kind of got you your start
like Land Before Time. I don’t even know how many there are of Land Before Time.

Rock Felder [00:06:35] There’s a lot.

Sabrina [00:06:36] So Many.

Zach Moreno [00:06:36] It’s awesome. And and then, of course. Right. Jurassic Park. But like if. You
had to say, like, what was it about those films, that content that that really captivated you as children, like, so
much so that it stuck with you through your life and has now led to these amazing careers that you both have?

Sabrina [00:06:54] For me with Land Before Time, it was all about Little Foot.

Zach Moreno [00:06:57] And grandpa. Yeah. That relationship.

Sabrina [00:07:01] Yea yea, And they grow up to be so big too. And those necks, so they could just
reach anything. And I don’t know if that was because I was a kid and I was small and even as an adult I’m still
pretty small. They’re still my favorites.

Garrett [00:07:15] For me, I don’t know. I don’t remember having a favorite dinosaur in Land Before
Time, but my one of my favorite dinosaur types is in there. My favorite is ankylosaur, which are like the low
armored ones with the big club tales. And it’s funny because, like, I’m really tall, Sabrina is pretty short and she
likes the tallest dinosaurs and I like pretty much the shortest dinosaurs, you know. So I don’t know, maybe it’s
it’s they’ve got a big like I like the idea of these like, compact, powerful things that like nothing like me. I
don’t I don’t know if that’s anything, but that’s my best guess.

Rock Felder [00:07:46] So what made you want to start a podcast about it? It sounds like you all love
talking about it. So was it was that the clear next step or where did the podcast come into play?

Garrett [00:07:55] When we started the podcast, I was listening to a lot of podcasts because I think
podcasts are great and I was looking for a dinosaur podcast because there’s tons of dinosaur news all the time. And
I would see like little news clips about, oh, there’s a new T-Rex relative that’s out and I’d like to learn more
about it. You can find like a little article, you know, like a couple of paragraphs on like NPR or something and
read something. And I’m like, but I want more. Where’s the podcast that talks about this for like an hour? We’re
like people that are really into it and there wasn’t anything. And so, like, I couldn’t keep up with the news from a
podcast. And then I told Sabrina about this and she was like, well, maybe we should start a podcast. And I was like,
Oh, man, I’m going from being like a podcast listener to a creator. That is a whole other level. But yeah, we did
it.

Sabrina [00:08:37] Yeah. And we learned a lot along the way because we we didn’t study paleontology.
So there was a lot of things to pick up and then we kind of dove headfirst. We started reaching out to some big name
paleontologists before we realized even how big a name they were necessarily, which I think worked out well.

Rock Felder [00:08:56] Sweet.

Garrett [00:08:56] It was useful ignorance there.

Rock Felder [00:08:58] Well, what was that like to reach out to the paleontologists and say, hey, we
got this dinosaur podcast? Was it easy to get them all excited or was it?

Sabrina [00:09:06] The longer we’ve done this, the more we’ve kind of fell in love with this
community of dinosaur enthusiasts because everybody is so passionate and they’re so it’s so great talking to them
about the paleontologist and paleo artists that people about their work, they love sharing it. It’s always like
fascinating stories about how they got there or even like the specific things that they’re working on. And then
people in the community in general, even just like the enthusiasts, like everybody is just so friendly and loves to
talk about it and loves to be open and sharing and give tips and all that kind of stuff.

Garrett [00:09:37] Yeah. Our first few episodes we were basically recording before like anyone had
listened or maybe like a few people had listened by like the fifth interview. And these paleontologists who are like
some of the most famous, like the people that basically gave direction to Jurassic Park about like, you know, these
are the kinds of things you can do. So they’re like the experts of like T-Rex and stuff like that. We reached out to
them and they literally didn’t ask, like, well, why should I come on your show? Or like, how many listeners do you
have or anything? They were just like, sure, yeah. Like what time?

Zach Moreno [00:10:03] That’s awesome.

Sabrina [00:10:04] A few of them were hard to reach because they were like one person was in
Antarctica for seasonlong digs, oh, we’ll get back to you.

Garrett [00:10:12] But yeah, sometimes scheduling because they could be out in the field, could take
a while or they’re teaching or whatever, but when they have the time, they’re very generous with it. So it’s been
great. Yeah, I’m actually very easy in that respect.

Zach Moreno [00:10:24] I’m really glad to hear that. It’s surprising to me that there wasn’t a
podcast about dinosaurs.

Garrett [00:10:30] Yeah, a couple. But they they just weren’t weekly. And there’s just so much new
news all the time. There’s a new dinosaur discovered almost every week. So like you kind of need a weekly podcast to
keep up with it.

Sabrina [00:10:41] Or there’s a there’s paleontology podcast, but they don’t necessarily talk about
just dinosaurs.

Garrett [00:10:46] Yeah. And there’s enough with dinosaurs to just like when we started, we were
worried all the time that, like, what if there’s not enough news for this week, like, are we just going to have or
are we going to like fluff dinosaur pieces to fill this?

Sabrina [00:10:58] It’s never been the case.

Garrett [00:11:00] But no, every single week it’s like there’s too much every week for the last six
years, there’s been too much news all the time. So we have to figure out what the most interesting thing is.

Rock Felder [00:11:07] You see, that’s what’s blowing my mind here, is because I originally came in
here thinking, like, OK, this is you know, it’s dinosaurs. There’s not that much new stuff going on. I’m ignorant to
the space. How do you keep the content going, especially since 2015? And to hear that, no, you’re actually having
the opposite problem. We need to figure out what we’re going to focus on because there’s so much stuff going on.
That’s incredible. How exciting, though, too.

Garrett [00:11:29] Some people call today like the golden age of dinosaurs, because basically around
the time Jurassic Park came out, I think the number was roughly around like three or four hundred dinosaurs had been
found and named and in the. Asked 20 years or twenty five years, we’ve had like another 700, so it’s like tripled
basically since then. So it’s way more dinosaurs are discovered now than ever were in the past.

Rock Felder [00:11:52] Do you know why that is? Is it just the technology or what’s what’s going on?
More people chasing these?

Sabrina [00:11:57] Yeah, it’s a mix of that. Yeah. The technology’s gotten better. Jurassic Park
itself inspired an entire generation of paleontologists like people. We are we’re seeing that now, I think with
Jurassic World, which is really cool, and it’s spreading out to its places around the world where people weren’t
necessarily looking for fossils or knew much about dinosaurs. There’s now more interest in those areas. And then
local people kind of working on these things, which is led to some really exciting discoveries.

Garrett [00:12:24] Yeah, people talk about how it used to be more of like a colonial style thing
where basically, like the first time Velociraptor was named was a guy from the US, from the American Museum of
Natural History, went to Mongolia because they had reason to believe there might be some dinosaurs there and found a
whole bunch of dinosaurs and brought him back to New York. And then, like, you know, 50 years later, somebody goes
back. But nowadays there’s like a lot more local stuff happening. So, like, China is a huge example where, like,
they’re doing all these construction projects in China and then they happen to stumble onto a dinosaur. And there
are tons of local paleontologists in China. So it’s just like new dinosaurs named all the time.

Sabrina [00:12:59] And that’s where they find most of the feathered ones.

Garrett [00:13:00] Yeah, it’s great.

Zach Moreno [00:13:01] Wow, that’s so awesome. And like Rock said, back in 2015, like I’m curious, it
sounded like it was kind of obvious to you to start a podcast because that was kind of something you had already
framed. You were already a listener, a fan of podcasts and like, surprised that you didn’t find your show. I’ve
heard led to a lot of people starting their show. My recent kind of side project podcast, that was exactly that kind
of same turn of events. And that’s something, though, in 2015 was kind of less obvious than it here than it is here
in 2021. So it sounds like you’re happy with that decision. And would you say that that’s like, because you have the
whole I Know Dino Brand. Do you think of the podcast as the center of that or as one of the spokes off the hub or
how do you think about that?

Garrett [00:13:44] Yeah, when we started it was definitely like a spoke because we were trying to
make I Know Dino like a blog. So we had like the museum map and Sabrina was writing lots of little articles like,
you know, 10 facts about T rex and stuff like that. But as time has gone by, the website has become more of a list
of podcasts like detailed show notes. So like the podcast has become much more of the hub. And part of that is
because, like, you can build a community around a podcast in a way that it’s a lot harder to do with something like
a blog. So we really enjoy having the podcast or the center of it, and then we can like host watch parties. And when
we write a book or something, we can say like, oh, we wrote this book. Yeah, I would say the podcast is like the
central thing now and the other projects are the spokes off of it.

Zach Moreno [00:14:28] That’s really cool to hear. I think that’s interesting how the strategies
evolved over time.

Rock Felder [00:14:32] Why else do you think it works? I know you mentioned that it was a weekly
podcast, but I got to imagine the passion that you two bring to it is a key component. Anything else that you think
is a reason why it’s been working so well?

Garrett [00:14:45] Part of it is the openness of the community. So like early on, we could get good
interviews that really, like, taught us a lot, too, because sometimes we’re in an interview in the early days and
we’d say something and they’re like, no, that’s wrong. So we can learn from our mistakes. But then also. Yeah, so
like the community on that side of it, but then the community and the openness of the fans as well.

Sabrina [00:15:09] And we work with them too, like you were saying, we made some mistakes in the
beginning. We had an episode one where we made a mistake. We said that there was a dinosaur debate that we thought
had been settled and it turned out it hadn’t been. And it’s actually still kind of hotly debated. And so one of our
listeners kindly, very kindly pointed out to us like, hey, actually here is why this debate is still going on. And
here’s some sources. And they worked at a museum and as a paleo artist, and they definitely knew what they were
talking about. So we ended up inviting them on the show to correct us. And we talked about their work as well. So,
yeah, things like that just kind of engaging where we can.

Garrett [00:15:45] Yeah, I like this science podcast format. That’s sort of like where I was when I
was when we started our podcast and we sort of modeled it in a similar way to a lot of shows where basically with
science that’s ever changing and ever evolving and so like focusing on who’s right and who’s wrong and like getting
worried about making mistakes isn’t really helpful. It’s more about like correcting things and then like getting to
the best understanding. And I think that worked well with us not knowing a lot in the beginning, because I think a
lot of our listeners also had some of the misconceptions we had so they can sort of learn along with us. And now I
think we have a pretty good understanding of dinosaurs, but nobody knows everything. Yeah, because it’s like we’re
trying to figure out these details from a few bones that you find in a few places. So it’s always changing.

Sabrina [00:16:30] We also do a thing where our patrons can request a dinosaur of the day with your
Dinosaur of the Day segment, which is a deep dive. And it started out with, like people’s favorite dinosaurs. But
now we’re three hundred and almost 50 episodes in, so we’re getting to the weird ones and some of our listeners have
specifically requested ones because they want to see us figure out how to pronounce a name.

Garrett [00:16:51] Yeah.

Rock Felder [00:16:51] Oh, that’s fun.

Garrett [00:16:52] There’s so difficult some of them. Yes. Some of them are written in extinct
languages. So there’s nobody that knows how to say it on Earth. That’s just like guesses.

Rock Felder [00:17:02] Yeah, that’s amazing. You know, what I love about this is it sounds like we’re
talking about comic book heroes or Pokemon, but this was real. You know, it’s like incredible.

Sabrina [00:17:13] Well, people get attached to their dinosaurs, too. There’s some people, where
Torosaurus is their favorite. Let’s not make that go away.

Garrett [00:17:20] Yes, there are paleontologists like that, too.

Zach Moreno [00:17:24] It’s super difficult, right, to be a professional, full time content creator
podcast. And, you know, respect to you both for having successfully made that that leap in your careers. But can you
unpack, like, how you made that super inspiring transition?

Sabrina [00:17:38] Yeah, it took a while because I’ve been doing this since 2015 and it wasn’t until
February of this year that we both were doing this full time. Garrett’s been working on I Know Dino full time for
the last three years or so, which kudos, he’s done an amazing job.

Garrett [00:17:56] Thanks!

Sabrina [00:17:56] But yeah, how did we get here? There was a lot of a lot of experimenting and
trying new things and getting a little bit lucky. We got lucky a little bit with like Jurassic World coming out, for
example, and around when we launched, it was maybe a few months before that first movie came out and we got featured
on Apple Podcast. So that was like a really good way to get some momentum in the beginning. And then from there, we
were kind of thinking like, oh, OK, let’s see, how else can we tie in with Jurassic World, like especially with the
next movies come out and things like that, and kind of get people where like, hey, you can learn even more about
dinosaurs with us.

Garrett [00:18:32] Yeah. And we learned the value of sort of cross promotions and going on other
podcasts because we did get that big boost from Apple Podcast when we got featured there. But we found that we could
get a similar boost if we got on a similar podcast. And because it’s just a lot easier to get people over into your
audience when they’re already in a podcast listening audience of similar shows. So, yeah, we found some people to
collaborate with and then we would do that. One of the first ones is actually using SquadCast because we met a
classic California podcast association and we didn’t have SquadCast yet, but he did. So we were a guest on his show.
I was like, oh man, this works really well. We got to switch to using this. This is better than what we were using.

Zach Moreno [00:19:12] Glad to hear that.

Sabrina [00:19:13] And then Garrett started working with our community a little bit more like we
launched a Discord server, which has been really fantastic and a really nice especially this past year. You want a
break from anything? People are just on there talking about dinosaurs.

Garrett [00:19:27] Oh, it was so wonderful. Yeah, because like, any time you looked at anything, it
was bad news everywhere. That’s like our our discord server was just like this little sanctuary of dinosaur
information with like, nothing else.

Zach Moreno [00:19:41] We’re going to take a quick break, but we’ll be back soon with more from
Between Two Mics.

Zach Moreno [00:19:48] Hey, SquadCasters, while we’ve got you here, we want to tell you a little bit
about our YouTube channel.

Rock Felder [00:19:53] Since we released our video feature in January, allowing podcasters to record
both their audio and video on SquadCast, that we’ve been working hard to walk the walk ourselves.

Zach Moreno [00:20:03] So what does that actually mean for listeners of this podcast?

Rock Felder [00:20:07] Well, Zach, it means that in addition to listening to this podcast, Between
Two Mics enthusiasts can also watch snippets of our show.

Zach Moreno [00:20:14] We’re working with our friends, Tristan and Justin at Motion Agency.io to
bring you highly produced and exciting video elements. To further illustrate the points that we make with our guests
on this show. We encourage you to check out our YouTube channel and to see how we’re experimenting with video and
how you might be able to experiment with video, too.

Rock Felder [00:20:34] So just head over to YouTube.com and search SquadCast.fm In the search bar and
please don’t forget to hit that subscribe button.

Zach Moreno [00:20:41] Now, let’s get back to the show.

Rock Felder [00:20:46] So one of the takeaways I’m getting from this is like it sounds like you all
just were riding a wave now. Did you know that the Jurassic World Movie was coming out and then release the podcast,
or is it just kind of happened more serendipitously? And it was just great timing on your perspective. And then also
the the part about getting featured on Apple podcast. I mean, there’s books and plenty blog posts and videos on how
to do that. Like, was that part of the strategy, too? Or again, is it just like you were riding this wave in? Just
timing worked out incredibly.

Garrett [00:21:15] Sabrina might not remember it or it might be underselling it, but she had all of
this in mind the whole time.

Rock Felder [00:21:21] Wow!

Garrett [00:21:21] So, she was talking about all these things of like, for example, when we started
the podcast, too, there was at the time people were talking a lot about the new and noteworthy section. So we
released two episodes a week for like the first month or something.

Sabrina [00:21:33] Or eight weeks or so, yeah.

Garrett [00:21:35] Yeah. See, exactly. She she’s like she knows.

Zach Moreno [00:21:40] Mastermind.

Garrett [00:21:40] Exactly to try to get on that. And then when Jurassic World was coming out, she
was like, OK, you know, this is a big opportunity. We have to make sure that like let’s reach out to let’s try to
find the iTunes people. Let’s see if they want to do like a dinosaur promotion. We can, like, present this to them
and like all that kind of stuff. So, like, it’s a cliche about like luck is opportunity meets preparation.

Sabrina [00:21:59] Right.

Garrett [00:22:00] And Sabrina’s good at that.

Sabrina [00:22:01] Well, since it worked out the first time, the second when the second movie came
out, that’s when we started reaching out to them to like, hey, you still work here, you still want to feature us for
this movie that’s coming out.

Garrett [00:22:12] Yeah. And then we made like special Jurassic Park content, like leading up to the
movie. We were doing all this stuff where it was like, oh, what what dinosaurs do we know that have been in Jurassic
Park before?

Sabrina [00:22:22] We got to interview one of the artists who worked on the movies, which is, he’s
great.

Zach Moreno [00:22:26] Super cool.

Garrett [00:22:28] But I think there’s stuff like this you could find in any podcast niche where,
like there’s something going on in the world and you can position yourself to connect with that and connect with
that audience.

Rock Felder [00:22:40] Yeah, that’s totally why I think it’s such an important takeaway. And I wanted
to highlight it just because that’s not always intuitive to a lot of folks, I think. But to to to show you as an
example of how well this can work and how strategic your thinking is, like Sabrina. That’s incredible. What other
types of experimentation have have you all done specifically when it comes to like monetization? I know a lot of
folks are looking for ways to to monetize, and it’s incredible what you all have been able to do. So what type of
other experimentations and what have you learned along the way?

Sabrina [00:23:13] Thanks. Yeah, there’s a couple off the top of my head. Garrett, you could jump in
if you if you think of something else. But we have a few books and one of our books is we did the series for a few
years, like Top Ten Dinosaurs of whatever year, the year we started doing the podcast. And it was to highlight
because there’s tons of dinosaur books out there, but not that many about the more recent dinosaurs necessarily. So
we did is actually inspired by this paleontologist, Bob Barker, who’s one of the inspirations for Dr. Alan Grant in
Jurassic Park. But he wrote this book in the 90s called Raptor Red, which is this fictionalized story of Utahraptor
told through the eyes of Utahraptor, just one of my favorite books. So we wrote kind of short stories about
dinosaurs in that style and turned it into a book. And then after we had about 50 stories turn it into a full length
book, along with fun facts about that, all the dinosaurs that were discovered in the last like five years or so, we
turned it into a book and then we at the end of each chapter, it’s like you can go to this particular episode, our
podcast, and learn more about these dinosaurs. And we dive deep into these specific dinosaurs.

Garrett [00:24:21] That’s a good example of the podcast being like the center in the book, being like
the spoke, it’s like trying to get people back to the podcast is the idea. But yeah, Sabrina also has a background
in self publishing and publishing in general, so she couldn’t resist making books.

Rock Felder [00:24:37] That helps.

Zach Moreno [00:24:37] So I noted, yes, it’s like seven. I think I counted. And you’re the primary
narrator on most and the guy saw Garrett on on the most recent one.

Garrett [00:24:46] Yeah. Yeah. So with those books too.

Zach Moreno [00:24:48] That’s a lot.

Garrett [00:24:51] Thank you. With those books, one of the details was that Sabrina knew that with
traditionally published books, it takes a long time to get the information out there. So when you’re reading a
dinosaur book, usually the information in it is like five to ten years old, maybe older if they’re repurposing other
stuff. And Sabrina was like, oh, well, if we self publish, we could get these new dinosaurs out there in a way that
nobody else is doing.

Sabrina [00:25:12] Yeah, we could also talk about our podcasts a little bit more. That’s true.
Somebody posted on Instagram one time and they tagged us. And it was a book that had been published where we were
one of the sources and they took a picture at the back of the book. And it was amazing.

Rock Felder [00:25:26] Yeah, I was going to want to unpack that a little bit more, Garrett, like are
you are you all starting to become like thought leaders, authority figures within within the space as that started
to happen at all?

Garrett [00:25:38] Maybe.

Rock Felder [00:25:38] Sounds like a little bit.

Garrett [00:25:39] I feel like I have imposter syndrome when it comes to that.

Rock Felder [00:25:42] I hear you.

Zach Moreno [00:25:43] I saw I saw you speak you. Seen some presentations as well, and.

Sabrina [00:25:48] The speaking we’ve been doing has been more about podcasting than necessarily
we’ve done a couple of talks about dinosaurs.

Garrett [00:25:55] I think we’re more comfortable with our expertize in podcasting than dinosaurs.

Sabrina [00:25:59] We don’t have a formal education in paleontology, but we are able to comfortably
speak about things, I think we’ve read enough papers like, you know, in in like generalist terms.

Rock Felder [00:26:12] Yeah. And after six years and doesn’t look like you’re showing any signs of
slowing down. I think, you know, you’re putting in those you’re putting in the work. So I think it’s one day,
hopefully you’ll not feel that impostor syndrome. I don’t think it’s warranted, but I understand why I get it like
you don’t, you know, and I think that’s respectable of like, you know, you’re the paleontologist. They they deserve
a certain level of acknowledgment. But you are becoming experts whether you realize it or not. Like, that’s that’s I
mean, there’s so much confidence you to have. We’re talking about the subject, too. I think that’s a big part of it.

Garrett [00:26:44] There is a funny thing in paleontology, though, because it’s I think it’s because
it’s such a accademia heavy thing, like it takes so many years to get the degree. Even people that have that degree
sometimes don’t want to call themselves paleontologists because they’re not like actually working on bones like at
that moment. So, yeah, so many people I like well I’m a paleontologist, but not really. It’s like you’re definitely
a paleontologist. You can call yourself a paleontologist.

Zach Moreno [00:27:10] I wonder if that’s that that that mental picture that we all have of like Dr.
Grant out there with, like, a little brush and stuff. Yeah, I’m not that’s not me. So, like, that’s somebody else.
That’s cool. And you mentioned some of the experiments that you all have done that have helped you certainly
monetizations a big part of going pro. Right. It’s kind of a prerequisite there. But can you tell us some stories
about some of the experiments that didn’t work for you?

Garrett [00:27:34] Let’s see. A lot of it is social media. I would say Sabrina was like or still is.
She really enjoys trying all the new social media. So we’re like on TikTok and like all the all the things.

Sabrina [00:27:45] We’re mostly just having fun on TikTok. It’s me in a dinosaur suit dancing.

Garrett [00:27:52] We do some dinosaur facts other there to sometimes. Yeah. So like in the beginning
I think we thought that social media would be really important. So we put a lot of effort into like making sure we
were tweeting a lot and doing Facebook posts and doing Instagram things and just like everything. And what we found
was like podcasting and social media don’t really make a whole lot of a difference. Like you can get retweeted by
somebody with one hundred thousand followers and you might not get a single listen, or maybe you get three listens
where if you go on another podcast that has like two hundred listeners, you can get ten new listeners. So that’s the
we found that like the the cross collaboration within the podcast space is really valuable. But sometimes, like some
of the other social media related stuff can be a lot of work and not necessarily much payoff.

Rock Felder [00:28:41] Well, it seems like you found other ways to collaborate and engage with your
audience. I know you mentioned discord and you’re using Patreon. So you have patrons. What do you do on the Discord
like and what’s that been like to engage the rest of the I Know Dino community?

Garrett [00:28:57] We’ve tested a lot of interesting stuff on the Discord that might be I don’t know
if those would count as failures, maybe just not as big of a success as I had hoped, but like.

Rock Felder [00:29:06] Let’s hear ’em all.

Garrett [00:29:07] Sure. We did one of the earliest things, we moved our dinosaur the day requests to
Discord. So that was just like a simple way to be. Like, if you want to request a dinosaur, go to our discord. And
then at least it was a reason for people to go there. And then we have a news channel because like we said, there’s
so much news we can’t cover all of it. So we can talk about news just on an ongoing basis, even more frequently than
weekly, because all these papers are coming out all the time in the discord channel, which I think is maybe the most
valuable. But then we’ve also found that a lot of our listeners are artists. So we have an art channel and people
post pictures of like dinosaur art they like or dinosaur art that they recently made, which is awesome.

Sabrina [00:29:49] We do watch parties every couple of weeks. We started this about a year ago and it
was a big success in the beginning, I’ll say.

Garrett [00:29:58] When everyone was stuck at home.

Sabrina [00:29:59] When everyone was stuck at home. We started with watching Jurassic Park and
Jurassic World movies, and we are still doing the watch parties. But the turnout is a little lower.

Garrett [00:30:08] Starting to dwindle a little bit.

Sabrina [00:30:09] Yea.

Garrett [00:30:10] Some things are big successes. Some things are of the moment. And then it’s
eventually time to move on.

Sabrina [00:30:16] People talk about the projects that they’re working on. There’s actually some of
our Discord patrons that are building their own museums and.

Garrett [00:30:24] Oh, yeah.

Sabrina [00:30:25] And making up their own fossil collection or replicas.

Garrett [00:30:27] Aspiring museum builders. Yeah. In general, I think the main thing that people
like is like the discord, they like the community, they like the bonus content that we make, like we do extended
interviews, things like that. Pretty soon we’re going to start making like extra episodes for our patrons.

Sabrina [00:30:44] A number of people like our merchandise too.

Zach Moreno [00:30:47] I do.

Sabrina [00:30:48] T-shirts and things. Thanks. Yeah.

Zach Moreno [00:30:49] Super cool.

Sabrina [00:30:49] And we’re we’re trying something out right now, we have a competition going right
now where people can design a T-shirt and then we’re going to have everybody vote. And then the winner will be
featured in our store. And we’ll also send them like a prize pack of a shirt and a mug and stuff with their design.

Garrett [00:31:04] Sabrina’s always coming up with new ideas. As you can see. I come up with some of
them, but she comes up with most of them.

Sabrina [00:31:10] I think it’s fun to try.

Rock Felder [00:31:12] Well, it’s super impressive because that’s one of the things that we talk
about a lot on this show is like it’s great to have your podcast and be a podcaster, but you’re much bigger than
that oftentimes. And like having we like to see it as like a show in that like the podcast I think you talked about,
Zach, being like a spoke on that. But you guys still seem like you’re having fun with it. What’s it been like to
continue just adding and doing more? The podcaster’s job is not easy, like it’s it’s a lot like starting a small
company where there’s a lot of different job media done a lot of different hats. Yeah, you’re totally you are
creating your media company.

Sabrina [00:31:48] I think that might just be I like doing new things and trying things. And then you
see like a oh, that’s a new platform we could try or some new tool or something like what’s that like, how can we
use that in in some interesting way. So yeah, I think that’s been, it hasn’t been I don’t think I don’t think we
started out thinking like we’re going to be this massive right away. It was always like small steps, like, OK, we
figured out how we’re going to best make our podcast and, you know, interviewing people and getting the content out
and making sure that’s weekly and that it’s like a high quality show that was that was like the number one thing.
And then once we got comfortable that I was like, OK, well, what’s the next thing? Well, let’s try writing a book
and then just kind of like small steps to each new thing.

Garrett [00:32:31] Yeah. And I think one of the main things for us in terms of like longevity, like
not getting burned out and all that is we go for new things that we would want to do. I always phrase it as like, I
want to do this anyway. And I would enjoy this whether or not it was my job. And so even if nobody listens to this
and nobody cares about it, I’m not going to feel like, oh, that was a big waste of time.

Zach Moreno [00:32:52] Yeah, I feel like that passion is what can often, like, be the raw ingredient
that helps us like persist through like iterations and experiments and and not kind of seeing it as like, oh, we
tried this, it failed. That’s done. It’s like, oh, let’s try something else, let’s try something else, let’s try
something else. And you’re going to be doing it anyway to your point. So I think that’s really kind of a beautiful
way that this show, this business, this empire that you all are building is got a lot of value. It’s not just
monetization, right. Is there’s a lot of value. And, you know, the connection with your your listeners and it sounds
like the discord also may help you with your research of like staying on top of the news and everything that’s
really beautiful, like symbiotic relationship. Yeah. Do you want to touch on that a little bit more?

Garrett [00:33:38] I’ve listened to other podcasts and heard the podcasters talk about like, oh, I’ve
gotten so much help from them. And then they like name, they give the person a shout out for helping with it. It
could be anything. And like we’re getting to a point now where people are helping us with, like, our dinosaur museum
app or like you said, the news we used to have to like we have our Google alerts and all those types of things.
There’s a there’s a mailing list called the dinosaur mailing list that’s been going on for like forty years.

Zach Moreno [00:34:04] Nice!

Garrett [00:34:04] It’s like paleontologists just sharing their own articles all over the place.
Those used to be our only sources, but now we basically get all of that same information just directly from our
listeners. And you can see what they’re most interested in hearing about. So it’s like we don’t even have to think
as hard about like which of these news stories would be the most interesting, because we’ve seen them post it like
five times. It’s like, okay, well, I have to cover that. So it’s it makes things easier in both the sometimes people
are directly doing work we used to do and other times they’re doing like market research in a way by just like
letting us know what they want to do. It’s awesome. We’ve been stressing like the community thing to anybody who’s
interested in podcasting because it’s like that’s what makes it more enjoyable. It’s what makes it easier. It’s just
like everything about it is great.

Sabrina [00:34:48] It’s also like we love podcasting, but some days it’s a little bit harder than
others. And but we still you know, we need to get our show out every week and having this community and hearing the
feedback and people saying, like, oh, we love your show and or this has helped me with something. It feels really
good. And it’s like, oh, yeah, that’s why we’re doing this. That’s why we keep going.

Rock Felder [00:35:09] I couldn’t agree with you more. I mean, community is a huge part of the
SquadCast story, and that’s one of the things that we love, being a part of the the larger podcast community is just
the people that are in it. But it’s easier to say and certainly, you know, something worthy of desiring but like to
actually create it where it’s working to the degree that it’s working with you all is no easy task. And, you know,
something that we’re still building and, you know, always iterating on and looking to improve as well. So, you know,
really commend the work there, because that’s the true essence of like a community to me, or at least a community I
want to be a part of or cultivate, I should say, it’s like they’re helping each other, like you’re just kind of
giving them the platform or the arena, so to speak, to engage and interact with each other. But they’re doing all
this stuff all on their own. And that’s that’s really incredible and special. And it’s only making I Know Dino
better. How long did it take to cultivate that, though?

Garrett [00:36:06] We launched our discord server maybe a year and a half ago. And it did in the
beginning. I was like trying to drive it. So I would at least every week I would post like, here’s some interesting
new stuff and like sort of seed it, which is sort of how it goes with Patreon too. You can’t, like, wait for the
audience to get interested and like sign up and be like, well, I only have one patron, so I’m not going to do
anything.

Rock Felder [00:36:29] You gotta drive it.

Garrett [00:36:30] Exactly. You got to like act like you already have one hundred patrons and then
you might get one hundred patrons. If you act like you have five patrons, you’re going to just keep having five
patrons. So yeah, it took a little bit of a little time to get people over into the discord. But once you get more
and more people, it does like sort of snowball with like the network effect where you can talk about like this cool
things happening on discord and then more people will sign up and go over there and all that. But yeah, you do have
to the audience as well. So it is a chicken or egg sort of thing. It took longer than I expected because we had, I
don’t remember, maybe one hundred patrons or something when we started the discord. And so I figured, like, OK,
well, this is obviously a value that people might be interested in and it’s got news and dinosaur stuff that
everybody likes. So they’ll sign up. And I think what happened was everybody that already had a discord account,
like immediately joined. So we got like 20 people right away or something. But then other people like getting them
to create a Discord account. It was it’s just been like a slow trickle since then, basically. And I think it does
drive people to become patrons, too, since it’s like a patron feature that you get to go into the Discord server.

Zach Moreno [00:37:38] All right. So looking ahead, I know you both have big plans for your continued
work to make I Know Dino awesome. What can podcasters, our listeners expect to come from you both and I Know Dino?

Garrett [00:37:51] I guess our plan is to keep making the podcast. That’s the main thing.

Rock Felder [00:37:57] Oh, sure I hope so.

Sabrina [00:37:57] Keep doing the interviews keep. Yeah. Growing that community.

Garrett [00:38:04] We touched on it earlier, but I think the biggest by far prerequisite for
podcasting is like being really passionate about the topic. So finding that connection between what you’re
passionate about and what there’s an audience out there for, like finding that connection, sort of like presuming
where that community where you can build that community is I think the biggest thing, because if you know that
you’re really interested in talking about something, you’re going to be able to do it on a weekly or bi weekly or
monthly or however often your podcast comes out basis. And consistency is really important with podcasting,
especially if you’re going to try to monetize it and you want advertisers later. If you want your community to stay
engaged, you can’t be just like, well, I kind of like this topic and I’ll talk about it once in a while. Like, I
know there are some podcasts where it’s basically like people talking about what they do with their job and like
sometimes they’ll have an interesting story and they’ll like release an episode. And it’s almost like a journal,
like a periodic journal. And it’s like that’s not good. People aren’t going to build a community around your job.
That needs to be something you can connect with people.

Rock Felder [00:39:09] I think you’re absolutely right. And you two are great stewards of it because
you’ve been doing the podcast since 2015. Yet talking to you, it feels like you’re just still getting started, like
you have this excitement about it, that it’s still fresh and fun. And that’s really been it’s contagious for me to
to be talking to you now.

Garrett [00:39:28] Thanks.

Rock Felder [00:39:28] So I really appreciate it. And I learned a lot and I think of all the
takeaways that probably is the one that you hit home. Is that the passion that you two come with about the topic and
just what you’re doing is incredible and something I think we all can learn from. So thank you for sharing that.

Zach Moreno [00:39:44] Also, the emphasis on your audience. Right. That’s something that is a common
thread in all of the the topics we’ve touched on today is, you know, it kind of blows my mind how the audience can
become kind of a side consideration or or less of a priority for the podcaster because it’s my business, I’m looking
for clients or this is my job. And I’m like documenting that. Right. So very, like creator centric, which there’s
nothing wrong with that. I think that’s kind of one kind of show. But the shows that I think really grow and like
and have the success that you all have experienced is you can’t really get there without deeply considering the
audience at every decision. I think that paints a really awesome picture of the contributions that you’re all are
making to helping more podcasters be more consistent, be passion driven, audience focused. All of these are things
that we like to touch on in the podcast. But you’re inspiring because you’re doing a lot of it. Or most of it. Or
all of it and and really putting that together so that you both can have professional careers and what you love to
do, so it’s inspiring on many levels and just want to share our gratitude for walking that walk and lifting others
up with the work that you’re doing.

Sabrina [00:40:57] Thank you.

Garrett [00:40:57] Thank you.

Sabrina [00:40:58] And a lot of it it helps to be using SquadCast. That’s been a game changer for us
in our interviews.

Garrett [00:41:03] Oh, yeah.

Zach Moreno [00:41:05] That means a lot. Yeah. Really, really glad to hear that. I know that your
your guests are all over the world because of the work that they’re doing. So that’s double cool for from my
perspective.

Sabrina [00:41:16] Yeah. Yeah. And then they just click on the link and they’re in

Garrett [00:41:19] and a lot of times the Internet connections are not great. So having that back end
upload after the fact has been helpful in a lot of cases.

Zach Moreno [00:41:27] Fantastic. That’s exactly what we had in mind. So fantastic that you’re
finding a way to make that part of your workflow. And I personally look forward to learning more from you both. And
this has been fantastic to learn from you here today. Thank you.

Garrett [00:41:42] Thanks.

Sabrina [00:41:42] Thank you.

Rock Felder [00:41:46] Thanks for tuning in to this week’s episode of Between Two Mics.

Zach Moreno [00:41:49] We hope you enjoyed our conversation. If you learn something or are we
intrigued you a bit, let us know on social media.

Rock Felder [00:41:56] You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn by searching
for SquadCast FM.

Zach Moreno [00:42:03] And if you want to show the podcast some love, you can leave us a rating or
review wherever it is you’re listening right now.

Rock Felder [00:42:09] This show is put together by us, Zach and Rock. It’s mixed and produced by
Vince Moreno with help from Arielle Nissenblatt. Our logo is designed by Alex Whedbee.

Zach Moreno [00:42:20] Since we’re a podcast about a podcasts, we want to shout out the brands and
products that we trust. We’re recording using SquadCast.fm and here’s our current stack. For recording: we’re using
ATR2100 Mics, Apple AirPods Max headphones, and Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 Audio Interfaces.

Rock Felder [00:42:40] We edit the show on Adobe Audition in our hosting site is SimpleCast.

Zach Moreno [00:42:44] That’s it for us this week. We’re back next week with more from between these
mics.