We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jeff Revilla a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jeff thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I grew up immersed in the skateboarding, punk rock and DIY counterculture of the 80s and 90s. I’ve always held the belief of whatever you create, you should own. You should be in control of your destiny. Don’t sign your creative control away to a publisher, an agent or a label who doesn’t have your best interests in mind.

Around 2001 I started a skateboard mail order company out of my parents basement. The business grew rapidly and within a year I ended up purchasing a building to open a store and a skatepark. The bulk of the business was online and to support that, I started building message boards and social networks based around the business. I started playing with paid ads, email marketing and SEO. When the business folded in 2008, (turns out people stop buying skateboards when they can’t pay their mortgage), I started getting all kinds of requests from people and businesses asking how to do this or how to do that online. During those 7 years I developed a “particular set of skills”.

While I wasn’t doing ecommerce any more, I was consulting and landed a full time job as a Marketing Director.

The idea of pushing forward and pushing the limits of what I can do has not left me. I’ve continued to push digital boundaries with podcasting, live streaming and event hosting. These things have all stemmed from that DIY mentality I picked up as a kid. I don’t want to stop learning and trying new things. I don’t want to hear that something can’t be done. I’ll find a way.

I believe the key to learning any craft is understanding how much you don’t know and uncovering more things you don’t know!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

In 2015, I started a trivia game show podcast where players from around the world could “call in” during a live stream and play trivia from anywhere around the world. The idea was to take this experience, extract the audio and create a podcast version from a live show. Over the years the show has seen a few variations and adaptations to different live streaming providers. The goal was always to run a live show in order to get the audio for the podcast.

That all changed in 2022. I did a full pivot back to the video version when I was asked if we could produce it for television. Now we produce 2 shows per month for Armstrong Neighborhood Channel 100. It airs in 6 states and reaches 300,000 homes. It is a tremendous opportunity and I am grateful for every episode I produce, with David Fedor.

My most recent project is my production company called Poduty. I created this in 2020 to produce virtual, physical and hybrid events and conferences. I’ve been behind Indie Pods United, 1 in 44 Autism Awareness, Trivia Summit and Women of Indie Pods. I’ve really taken to the production side and enjoy that more than making my own content! Poduty can handle everything from scheduling the events, to selling tickets, to providing replays and streaming live.

I’m currently in the hunt for a physical space so that I can produce a dedicated live event for local, national and international audiences.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

It is more important than ever to support local artists and creatives. It is also more difficult than ever!

Social media is going to suppress most local artist’s creations and ideas in favor of paid ads and corporate messaging. You, as a consumer, have to make the effort to seek out who is local and support them.

Before you run off to the big box store, click “buy it now” on a shopping app or binge another mindless show from a streaming service, talk to your friends and relatives, stop by your local theater, search for local markets or visit Etsy. Get to know the creators and artists. Chances are that there is someone out there in your community who shares your passion and makes a living off or producing the goods or performing the services you are looking for.

Start Local!

Ever since I started my skate shop in 2002, I’ve told people these are the types of businesses that will save your town. Locally owned and locally supported will repopulate your downtowns that were decimated by box stores and strip malls.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I now have a saying. That saying is, “No one cares”.

I spent years prior to 2015 hating the way I sounded on audio and looked on camera. I dreaded listening to the playback on everything I recorded. I couldn’t get over it.

Then one day something clicked. I saw parents running children around to soccer fields and ballet studios, people were grocery shopping, others were mailing their bills, and some were just struggling to get by day to day.

That is when I realized, No one cares!

No one cares how I sound on audio.
No one cares how I look on video.

They are not thinking about me the way I think about me. They just want to get through the day and maybe they’ll listen to my silly trivia show for 30 minutes.

If they do invest that time in me, I need to deliver the best solid 30 minute show I can to distract them from whatever they need to be distracted from. They aren’t going to worry about my voice. Whatever I thought my issues were, they were my issues.

Eight years later I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve been complimented on my voice. I’ve had listeners tell me they fall asleep listening to me! It still blows my mind that I was so hung up in my head all of those years. I wish I would have jumped in sooner!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jeffrevilla.com/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrevilla/
• Other: https://poduty.com/
• https://stuffineverknew.com/

Image Credits
Brian Keegan