🧐 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@nearly.com.au

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.

🎧 Listeners

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.

🎤 For Creators

I use other ways to monetize, can I also use Lenny?

• Yes. You probably don’t have only one social media account, so why not have more than one way to get contributions for your work?
• Musicians are a great example. They make money from touring, streaming (sort of), album sales, merch, royalties, sync deals and more. Podcast creators shouldn’t be limited!

How do I get paid supporters?

• Let them know on any of your channels — podcast, socials, newsletter, website. Add the Lenny.fm URL or your share link URL everywhere and make a habit of mentioning that people can support your show on Lenny.fm.

Do you have to start an account as a creator?

• No, but do create an account. You’re much more likely to get supporters if you tell your audience. But we’ll notify the email address on your show’s RSS feed when a listener has started contributing to that podcast.

How do pay outs work?

• Start a Stripe account and we’ll get it to you when you request it. Check your balance anytime in your Lenny account page (coming soon).

Who’s behind all this?

• Audio producer Courtney Carthy and three friends who know how to build great software.

Tell me more?

• Sure! Email us — hi@nearly.com.au (still early days getting emails set up)