The power of replying to five comments a day

Hosted by Ryan Jon and Toni Lodge, Toni and Ryan is a hit podcast known for rude jokes, subtle sexual chemistry, and unfiltered commentary and stories. By developing a close relationship with their audience, this Australian duo successfully made the leap from TikTok and Instagram Reels to building a community with thousands of members on Patreon. One thing that helped fans become members? Members get to the chance to interact with the show, “approve” each new episode, and get personalized shout-outs.

In this episode of Backstage with Patreon, Ryan details his journey from working in radio to going independent as a podcaster and the lessons he’s learned along the way on making your own chances, using your in-between time to engage with your audience, and just how many chicken nuggets is too many to eat at one time.

Subscribe to Backstage with Patreon on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or directly via RSS. Join the discussion about the episode in the Patreon Creator Community Discord server.

Episode transcript

Brian Keller:
Hello creators. You are backstage with Patreon where we open the curtain on how to build a thriving business on Patreon. I'm Brian Keller from the Creator Success Team, and today's guest is Ryan Jon, the co-host of the Toni & Ryan podcast, a hit show based in Melbourne, Australia where Ryan and Toni talk about life relationships, funny stuff going on with them. They've moved to five days a week. It's been amazing on Patreon, and we want to talk a little bit more about their story.

Ryan previously had a job in accounting. He traveled around Australia with the Hit Network there and continues to be a content creator and audio consultant. Since starting the show, it's really taken off. On the weekend, he plays sports, watches sports, talks about he used to play sports. That's what Toni says about Ryan and what they do together.

Ryan Jon:
I was going to say, please, this is written by Toni. This is what she said. This is not what I said about myself.

Brian Keller:
And I think it also talks a little bit about your dynamic. You're making fun with each other, you're hyping each other up kind of on doing that, and I think that's a lot of what people love about the show.
So folks that aren't familiar to your show there, talk a little bit about your start on Instagram, but turning that into a podcast and then eventually deciding to join Patreon.

Ryan Jon:
Yeah, so Toni was an audio producer at a radio station, and I was working at the radio station and Toni was by far and away the funniest person in the building. So there's all these highly paid radio hosts and comedians and blah, blah. Toni wait was way funnier and they just would not give her a chance. So in radio you got to record a demo, like a three-minute bit that you can email to all the radio bosses so they can see how you are.

So I was like, "Well, let's just jump in and record a demo. You're really funny. We need to send this out. I'm happy to help put the demo together." And then we went, "Well, if we're going to record the audio, we might as well record video." And then once we did it, we thought, "Well, if we've recorded this video, we might as well put it on TikTok," and then it blows up on TikTok and people are like, "Oh, this is great. Where can I listen to the podcast?" Which didn't exist at the time and we just thought, "It's nice compliment," or whatever.

But I think after 20, 30, 40 comments say, "Where's the podcast? Where's the podcast?" You start thinking, maybe we should just do this podcast. And again, it was just for Toni to get some practice and do a demo. And we were in lockdown at the time, but because we worked for a media company, we had an exemption to go into the studio to go to work. So we'd finish our work and then duck into a studio at the back and record, and then we start uploading and of it goes.

And it got to the point where I don't think Toni ever emailed the demo to anyone because why would you bother when the podcast is going so well? And then we did our full-time jobs Monday to Friday, then we recorded all day Saturday, edited all day Sunday and then back again. So we did that seven days a week for a long time until we almost died. And then we thought, "Okay, how can we get rid of that Monday to Friday job and do this full time?" And Patreon was obviously a big part of that.

Brian Keller:
The only thing you were mentioning to me earlier is in different parts of the world, Patreon is lesser well known. Tell us a little bit about in Australia and your audience.

Ryan Jon:
Yeah, so similar to the people saying, "Where's the podcast? Where's the podcast?" After we did the podcast, a lot of US listeners, and because of TikTok and a few viral videos I did years ago, we had a bigger US audience than in Australia, which was sort of a running joke that Australia hates us, America is more fun. But in Australia... Oh, sorry. So the people will keep saying, "Well, where's your Patreon?" And we went, "Oh, it feels a bit weird."

And a year later I figured — because in Australia we don't tip. When you go to a restaurant or a bar, taxi, whatever, you don't tip. If you work in a bar in Australia, you get paid like 25, 30 bucks an hour. It's sort of built into the price. And so we kind of associated Patreon with tipping. In the US, it's very common to go, "I really appreciate what you've done. Have a couple of dollars to say thank you," but in Australia we just don't have this tipping culture. So we felt really ick and really... Asking for money just isn't natural, whereas I guess if you are a waitress or whatever, you're working to get tips. Whereas in Australia, a waitress would say, "Oh no, no, no, don't be silly. Don't give me any money." It's just not a part of the culture.

So asking for money felt really strange and really like, ugh. Podcasts are free. Who are we to ask for money? It was just a real mental barrier, a bit of almost a limiting belief. But then we said, well, if people are literally asking where to send the money, and here we are going, "If only we could afford to quit our jobs," I mean, you're sitting there going, "Well, we've got this problem and then people are offering the solutions, so who are we to say no?"

So we set it up and we set it up with a bit of a challenge. So it was like, if we get to a thousand patrons, we'll do this. And that's sort of how we launch. Oh, actually no, we said we'd eat one chicken nugget for every person that became a patron because we thought, oh, 50, 100 people. So what's that? 50 nuggets each? That'll be a bit funny. So within the first few days there was 700 patrons. So we sat down and did a live stream for everyone that subscribed and tried to eat 700 chicken nuggets, which I can highly recommend that you don't do. That was the second dumbest idea we've had with Patreon because obviously after 10 you're like, "Okay, I'm pretty sure I'm done." But it was really good fun anyway.

And then another one, something happened in the show. It was this really awkward situation. I was going to have to call this girl back about something and it was like, "Well, I'm only going to call her back if we get to 1,000 patrons by the end of the month." And then people are like, "Oh my God, I need to hear this phone call. Ryan's going to call this girl." And so that got us to 1,000. So once we got to 1,000, we were like, "Okay, this is starting to feel a bit real," after the few months because Patreon, you literally just click withdraw and it's in the PayPal instantly. Because sometimes numbers on a screen doesn't feel real, but when it actually hits your bank account and you go, "Oh okay, hang on, we might be onto something here." And then, yeah, we kept having little challenges and pushing it along to the point where we left our full-time jobs and we now do this full time.

Brian Keller:
Yeah. And the way you two announced and made that challenge to patrons back in May of 2022 —

Ryan Jon:
Yeah.

Brian Keller:
... I thought it was fantastic. Just what it means to you to have that audience, what it allowed you to do to quit your jobs there. What else did you incorporate in that? How did you really make it your own and where you thought it would really resonate with your audience?

Ryan Jon:
Yeah, so May 2022, we said anyone who becomes a Champion TARPer, and people who are familiar with Patreon know that you can name your own tiers. Because TARP, T-A-R-P is Toni & Ryan podcast. So the people that listen are TARPers. So a TARPer is like $4 a month. They get to approve an episode. $11 a month is Exclusive, so they get some bonus content. $35 a month is a Champion.

And we came out in May and said, "For anyone who's a Champion TARPer, you are going to get a Frank Green water bottle," which is a really nice water bottle here in Australia. And it was a part of the show because Toni used to talk about it all the time, and you might have heard people talk about their emotional support water bottle. It's a real comforting thing. And it was sort of, a character in the show is too much, but it definitely became a character trait of Toni to have this water bottle.

So we got them branded in the Toni & Ryan, and we said, "Everyone who gets that $35 tier is going to get sent one of these drink bottles. And if we get to 3,000 in total subscribers, we are going to quit our jobs and do five episodes a week." And whilst it was all exciting and the drink bottles, like you mentioned, I think I just asked Toni, "What would it mean to you to be able to do this as your full-time job?" And as someone who'd been told no for five years, and now suddenly here it is, we have skipped the middle man. We don't need the radio boss to give us approval. We don't need anyone else to sign off. We can just do it ourselves. And then you sort of speak from the heart a little bit, and people really resonated with that.

So we got there. We have shipped 3,000 Frank Green water bottles to 84 different countries around the world. I'm now an expert in logistics, which I don't want to be and I hate, because we thought, again, 100 drink bottles, but we had to buy 3,000. We had to get some factories to house them. And here's a tip as well, in our top tier have a personalized video. So when you sign up to be a Champion TARPer, I go, "Brian, thanks so much for listening. Here's Toni," we make a little joke about your name. We had to do 3,000 of those. We thought we were going to do 100, we've had to do thousands of them, and we've spent hours and hours doing personalized videos.

But when we did that, it went from some really good hobby side hustle money to, wow, okay, this is really sort of life changing stuff. We can quit our jobs and still be earning more than we were, and we can reinvest in the content. We can do more stuff. We're traveling around, we're buying things for our subscribers, we're having fun, we're having events, and we're using that Patreon money. And that's sort of the momentum of the more money we've got to put on great events and do great stuff, the more people want to subscribe. So it serves itself and gets a lot of momentum up. So we're still going real strong and feeling real good about it.

Brian Keller:
Yeah, that's such a beautiful story. And as your audience and Patreon member base has grown, are you still able to do some of those personalized items and shout-outs? Have you adjusted anything based on the scale that you're at now?

Ryan Jon:
We've discussed taking out personalized videos because that in itself has become a big job. So we have made adjustments. We joined Spotify, and so the audio is exclusive to Spotify, so we couldn't therefore have any bonus episodes on Patreon because that was sort of part of the deal. So we took that out and then we're like, well, what do we replace it with? So now Toni does a weekly written blog on there as well, which I think is an underutilized feature for Patreon because blog's a bit 15 years ago, but when it's a blog by the person who you are subscribed to and you love, that's where there's some real gold in there and people really look forward to it. So we do that.

We do lots of polls. They're really fun in there as well. And monthly live streams. Toni's into crafting, so sometimes there'll be a crafting live stream as a bit of a bonus as well. But I think the smaller things still sound really good because people still like to hear it. So we've launched this thing called the Fuck It Fund. And excuse my French, but basically it's a fund of money for people who have subscribed, who have always wanted to just, I don't know, Brian, what's something you've always wanted to do in your life that you've never had the chance to say, "Fuck it, I'll do it." What comes to mind for you?

Brian Keller:
Ooh, I really love coaching kids sports. I'm helping with soccer for my daughter.

Ryan Jon:
Awesome.

Brian Keller:
I helped with roller hockey growing up and I'd love to not up to work for a while. Just go and do that, coaching and working with kids.

Ryan Jon:
So it's like, all right, well, here's a couple of grand and we'll get the kids' soccer team some new jerseys or whatnot. This one guy in Brazil said, "I've always wanted to travel." It's about 10 hours away by train, but it's the world's biggest water slide. So he's like, "I need a train ticket. I need a ticket to this thing, and my friend's come with me." So we're sending him to go on the biggest water slide in the world, and that comes from the fund because he's like, "I've always wanted to do it, but I've never really had the chance to say, 'Fuck it, I'm doing it.'" So we're paying for that. And then he's going to make a little video. He's a really nice guy. Eduardo's his name.

And so then everyone gets to hear this really fun story. And so every few weeks, there's another person that's going to do something from the Fuck It Fund. Some of them are really big and exciting. Some of them are just small and a bit funny. So one person in... I think she's in Vancouver. Her sister, she just got married, but her new husband, he was cheating on her. So we're giving them $500 to have a wedding dress burning party. So they're going to have this big party, they're going to burn the dress, and it's like having a really good time. All their friends are coming over. So we're paying for this big party to be catered and all the drinks and food and her friends to go round.

And when people hear these stories, they just think this is really fun. So when they're contributing to Patreon, they're not just contributing to my rent, they're contributing to fun stuff they'll hear about later. And again, it's very self-serving because when people comment, they listen to the podcast to hear if their comments are read out. And then when they hear other people's comments read out, that makes them want to comment more. So Patreon's quite a busy place to be. It's good fun.

Brian Keller:
Yeah, you have such cool ways of bringing your audience into the experience. Can you also talk about some other elements? I know you do an anonymous confessional type thing and you also allow your members to be the approvers of the show. What's that about?

Ryan Jon:
Well, every, every podcast starts with us calling a Patreon subscriber and just asking... Well actually, the way it started is one of the people who commented, "You should start a podcast," I said, "Wouldn't it be nice to start the first episode by calling her and saying, 'You said to do a podcast. If you give approval, we'll do it.'" And then she's like, "Oh yes, of course." And then it just sounded a bit cute and a bit fun. And it's one thing to say we've got fans and listeners and subscribers and whatnot, but when you can hear them and they're real people, it just really contributes to that sound of community. So when other people listen and go, "Oh, there's other people listening as well," and so we just did it the next one and the next one and went, "Oh, this is fun."

And people straight away were like, "How do I approve? Where do I sign up?" So then we made that a feature of Patreon. So if you are a Patreon subscriber, that's one of the benefits you get is you get to approve an episode, which is super cute. And what we've noticed is the more stuff we do on Patreon, the more, not only do people sign up, but less people leave. It's one thing to get people to sign up, but it's another thing to keep them there. So obviously there's the things that we promise and we say, "Yep, every month we're going to do this, this, and this," But if we've got a really random question or something to do with the show, I'm like, "Well, let's just go live in Patreon and ask people what they think," because then they feel they're contributing and it's like we're giving a bit extra because they always get more content than they paid for. They're giving us money, so the least we can do is give them that much and more back.

So the ability to just go live, or if we are deciding, "Should we do the live show here or should we do it there?" "Do a poll and Patreon." It's almost like a producer. How many times do podcasters have conversations off-air like, "Do you think the people would prefer this?" Or. "Maybe we should talk about that." I was like, "Just ask them." Don't sit around for half an hour trying to guess what they think. You can ask them and have an answer pretty quick. And even if it's as small as, "Me and Toni are watching a movie and we can't decide. Should we watch this, this or this?" And then they'll choose. It can be very small, but it can be very big. But the more you use it, the better it works.

Brian Keller:
Hey, these are amazing. Now we do have some creators that want to engage with their audience in a bigger way like this, but different obstacles, concerns, "Hey, do I have the time for this? Am I tapped out? Should I do this thing publicly with my whole audience?"

Ryan Jon:
Yeah.

Brian Keller:
What would you say to a Patreon creator like that to convince them about why, hey, do more things that are specific with your Patreon members?

Ryan Jon:
Well, like I said, for a year we had full-time jobs and then worked on the weekend and we were exhausted after that year, granted. But now, I don't want to say set for life, but to think if we hadn't have done it, where would we be? It's hard to comprehend how different our lives are because of just the effort we put in, and effort doesn't have to mean doing a huge-scale video. It could just be when you wake up in the morning and you're scrolling on your phone for five minutes in bed before you get up, instead of just scrolling, just reply to five comments. Because five comments a day, that's an extra 1,000 a year. And it really makes a difference to that audience engagement. It's just replying, whether that's in Patreon or even on TikTok, Instagram, wherever. Someone's spent a minute writing a comment on a piece of content you've done. For me, it's like, well, the least I can do is reply.

And even that as just a first step is creating a relationship. Because obviously traditionally in broadcast, and I'm from radio, it's sort of, we talk at you and you listen and that's it, right? But obviously now it is more of a two-way relationship. So I think replying to a few comments, replying to a few DMs, the little things really add up. And if you think, "That's exhausting and I don't want to do it," then maybe this isn't the job for you. Everyone wants the benefits, but we actually enjoy replying to all the comments. We enjoy sitting down and preparing an episode because that's what we want to do, and now we're doing it.

So I think if you don't enjoy the nitty-gritty, it's going to be a lot harder. But that's actually a good thing because if you do enjoy replying to comments, if you do enjoy preparing good content, it's actually surprising how not many people actually do it. "I want to do this, and I'd love to get paid for it and stuff." "Okay, cool. What are you working on?" "Oh, that's boring. I just want all the cool stuff." So we actually enjoy the nitty-gritty. So if you enjoy it, you'd be surprised how much value it is just replying to comments if that's an easy first step. Because have you ever had a big name, Brian, reply to you or anything?

Brian Keller:
It's special to hear that recognition. It can be a small thing, but it makes someone's day and they'll remember it. They'll talk about it with other people after.

Ryan Jon:
Yeah. You know the rock band, Iron Maiden? One of their guys retweeted something I did once, and I still remember it six years later. And one time this other celeb replied to this guy I like in Chicago. His name's Rod. I don't know if you know of Rod. He talks about all the millennial workers and stuff. He does funny TikToks and Instagrams. He replied to one of our videos once and I lost it. This was the coolest thing ever. And then you think, "Everyone we reply to, they might have that feeling that we are talking about now," and then of course they're going to listen to the next day. It just really solidifies it. So it seems so simple and so obvious, but you would be surprised at the 90% of creators that don't reply to all their comments.

Brian Keller:
Yeah, I love that. The power of replying, but also the responsibility and hopefully the fun if you're really in it for the right reasons around this.

Ryan Jon:
Absolutely.

Brian Keller:
Well, you and Toni did a really cool marketing promotion in Melbourne here with a giant garbage truck in conjunction Spotify. Can you tell people what was the story of that? Where did the idea come from?

Ryan Jon:
Well, the show was described by someone in a review or something as hot fun garbage. And we thought that was fun. We thought that was cool. And we were thinking of, "Let's do something to kick the new year off with a bang. What's something exciting?" And I think we sort of said, "What would other podcasts do? And what's the opposite of that?" Because we are not fancy people. I know influencers and creators, it's a bit of a Venn diagram, but you can imagine when I say influencer, you think something really pretty and aesthetic, and we're at this fancy place wearing fancy clothes. And I was like, well, what's the opposite of that? I don't know, let's just get a garbage truck. What's real different and it feels a bit nitty-gritty?

And then I thought, "Well, someone described us as hot fun garbage. Let's get a garbage truck." And then I've always had this idea, and I thought it was really funny that... For instance, my wife, there's a few items of clothing I own that she's tried to throw out a whole bunch of times. And I feel like in most relationships, if I said, "If you could throw out one item of clothing of your partner's," your mind's already thinking about it. You already know what it is. So I always had this thought that was a funny concept, and how's a way we could get people to throw out their partner's clothes? And then suddenly it all just comes together. You go, "We've been called hot fun garbage. We want to do something a bit gross and grimy that's the opposite of fancy. I've had this idea about throwing out..." and suddenly you go, ah, this all just fits and works really well.

So we got a garbage truck. It was properly wrapped in Toni & Ryan and said, "Hot Fun Garbage," and we said, "Yeah, come down and bring the clothes." And we thought, again, maybe 50 or 100 people would turn up. But it turns out there was a line for a few hours to come and throw stuff in the truck. So with a couple of thousand people. And we did it in St. Kilda Beach, which in Melbourne, big popular beach, middle of summer, lots of people walking past. So it almost worked as a billboard as well as an event, if that makes sense. And we had a huge spike in both listenership and also Patreon subscribers the week after we did that. So that was a lot of fun.

And again, like I was saying before with sort of an investment. We used the money from Patreon to make this thing, and Spotify helped a lot with this one, but we used money to make something big, and then that something big attracts more subscribers and more money. Like I was saying before, we enjoy doing this, so we want to do it. If we just did Patreon to just take the money and piss off, it might not have had the longevity that it has. But I think reinvesting and having fun has worked really well. And how that Hot Fun Garbage truck came together.

Brian Keller:
Yeah, it's such a cool, clever promotion. People should watch the whole video you put behind the scenes on your YouTube page, and also can feel a little bit of that inspiration from the radio days. How do you make a cool, interesting event and get people out and engaged around it?

Ryan Jon:
Well, here's a fun thing for anyone, because I was a bit frustrated in radio as a lot of people are, when you just work for a big company. You've got all these ideas, but there's three bosses and it's hard to do something. I had that idea for the partner's clothing like three or four years ago, and it didn't quite work out. And I always just had this saying, "Just put it in your pocket." You'll never know. If that idea doesn't work now, it doesn't mean it won't work ever. So I'm like, "Just put it in your pocket. Put it in your pocket," and then you never know.

We're chatting, we're talking about this garbage truck, and I go, "I've got this in my pocket." Because we're kind of like, well, we've got the truck. What are we going to do with it? It's funny, but does it have a purpose? And I was like, "Well, it does now because I've had this idea for five years. We're throwing out clothes." All the clothes are donated to charities and given second lives and stuff. But like I said, if you can't get your idea off the ground now, just put it in your pocket. It'll come back. You'll find the spot for it sometime.

Brian Keller:
Awesome. Well, I think that's a great message to end on, to recap some of the things we've talked about. Make your own chance. Get started, do something.

Ryan Jon:
Yeah.

Brian Keller:
Weekend. Make time. Get going with it. You can become an expert in logistics on the business side. That's part of being a Patreon creator and learning that-

Ryan Jon:
Oh yeah, you have to. Yeah.

Brian Keller:
Yep.

Ryan Jon:
It is good to learn new stuff, but it's sometimes a pain in ass. But it's worth it in the end, obviously.

Brian Keller:
Yeah. Take advantage of all the tools to interact, blogs, polls, et cetera. Find your downtime, in between time. Make those replies because of the magic that has with your audience and that special kind of moment there. And I loved your ending point. Keep those ideas in your pocket, save them. You'll never know what the chance is to put it all together. So Ryan, thanks so much for sharing all these insights with Patreon creators on Backstage with Patreon.

Ryan Jon:
Oh, no worries. Thank you, Brian. And yeah, good luck to everyone else trying. I think there's a lot of great blogs and stuff on the Patreon website because we literally started and went, "Well, what are we going to do?" So we just went on the blogs and said, "Here's what other podcasters are doing." I've even messaged other podcasters on Patreon and go, "What are you guys doing? What are you working?"

The community within Patreon and the information within there as well. There's a lot of stuff to help make it really easy to get started and get going and do really well. And yeah, some people are doing very, very well for themselves. So thanks Patreon for making it possible for us.

Brian Keller:
Awesome. Thanks, Ryan.
Tune in next week to Backstage with Patreon when we'll have guests from the Patreon product marketing team to catch us up on three recent product launches that improve the content experience for members and help convert your page traffic into new members. These span video, podcasting, and the main creator page. And we want to make sure that more creators are able to take advantage of the new features.

To catch every episode of Backstage With Patreon, follow or subscribe in your podcast app and leave us a review. We also have transcripts available at patreon.com/backstage. You're growing as a creator by listening to the show, so why not share the insights from this episode with another creator on Patreon or who is running a creative business?

We'd love to have you as an active collaborator with Backstage with Patreon. Come join the discussion in the Patreon Creator Discord. Follow the link in the episode notes, and you can get answers to your follow-up questions directly from the guests and weigh in on what topics we'll be covering next. Editing by Tyler Morrisette. I'm Brian Keller. See you next time Backstage.