🧐 Frequently Asked Questions

It’s mostly answers.

⛲After years of listening to podcasts, making podcasts and trying to monetise them, we created Lenny.fm.

The mission is to create efficient ways for people to support and connect with creators.

With that in mind we worked backwards from the outcome of mutual benefit to what we’re progressively building.

The first part is ready now, the rest we’ll make incrementally as we find out what everyone wants.

Get in contact — hi@lenny.fm

🎧 What to know if you’re a Listener who wants to support your favourite creators

1. Lenny is dedicated to helping the podcast ecosystem in themost fair and effective way possible.
2. Your support is split between the top 4 podcasts you have chosen that have opted-in to the platform.
3. No supporting payment will be taken until at least one of your chosen podcasts has opted in. We’ll notify the creators you’ve chosen that they have an enthusiastic listener!
4. When one or more does, your subscription will be un-paused and the support payment will be taken within 31 days.
5. The support amount (usually $4) is split between the podcasts that you have chosen AND have opted in — if 1 then $4 per month, if 2 then $2 each, if 3 then $1.33 and if 4 then $1. These amounts from supporters to podcast creators accumulate until the individual creators request the balance to be paid out.
6. Lenny doesn’t represent or promote any podcast creators without their expressed. It’s an unbiased method for listeners to support podcasts and for creators to receive listener support.

Why contribute to podcast creators?

• It make a big difference to creators, every show has costs.
• You’re investing in future episodes from the people you enjoy listening to.
• Be part of what we’re building for listener and creators. This is the first iteration.

Is this a new podcast app?

• No. Listen where you listen now. Lenny is a web app that connects the diverse podcast ecosystem but with a different function to a podcast player app.

Prefer ads?

• Most podcasts don’t have the option to make money from ads. If the shows you listen to run ads then they’re doing better than the rest.
• Lenny helps you support your favourite podcasts who can’t make revenue form ads.

What do I get for contributing?

• Now, appreciation from the creators and us. You’re an early adopter and we haven’t turned on all the features yet.

General 🌐

Why “Lenny”?

• Because of Lenny Bruce. A US comedian and satirist.
• Lenny Bruce paved the way for outspoken counterculture-era comedians, and his trial for obscenity is seen as a landmark for freedom of speech in the United States.

Why build it?

• We made it to be another way Listeners can support Creators. Current options don’t do the job for all the Listeners and other services will be better for some Listeners or podcast Creators. Like Musicians having options we wanted to give podcast creators another one too.

Is Lenny.fm a business?

• Yes. We’re a mission driven business to build efficient products that work for creators and audiences.
• 90% goes to creators, 10% fee. That’s for us to cover costs and keep developing so more people can support creators efficiently.
• Ad agencies charge ~50%, other subscription platforms are between 8 and 30%.
• Creators are notified when they start receiving contributions and are paid on request. We use Stripe mostly to handle the transactions.

What’s ahead?

• Thanks for asking! Plenty ahead, especially as things are new and we’re getting started. More features, better product.

What about privacy?

• Private. We’re only interested in helping people support and contribute to creators. In the future we’re planning some opt-in features. But for now it’s all clean lines.

Who makes it?

• Four people in Melbourne, Australia. One podcast producer and three developers. One just moved to London. More to come.

So it’s like Patreon or BuyMeACoffee?

• Yes and no. Lenny.fm, Patreon and BuyMeACoffee are all great ways to support creators.
• Lenny.fm is the only one that allows you to create a custom bundle of creators to support.
• Patreon’s tiers often create much more work on top of the great content you listen to regularly.
• Subscriptions to Patreon and BuyMeACoffee keep getting charged even if no content has been published during a period of time.