Appreciating Your Competitor
By: Eeds Mckenzie
Tags: Podcast, Bumpers, Startup Lessons, Squatstudios, Recording

In their June 2018 WWDC Apple announced a staggering total of 550,000 podcasts on their platform Apple Podcasts, a 5% increase on their previous number in April of the same year.¹

With more Podcasts, comes new demands for technological solutions for an industry still in transition. Solutions — like sweaters — come in many variations, and although we believe @Squatstudios is the solution to help increase the growth of audio creators in the UK, through our app based studio marketplace, whilst sustaining the Recording Studio market. There are others out there who believe the future of Podcasting is actually in our hands already. Enter Bumpers, the mobile recording studio app.

I found Bumpers whilst producing a Podcast before my current one Don’t Alert The Stans. The Podcast was categorically undefined, hosted by myself, and two friends. The trouble we had was, two of us were based in London, whilst the other lived over two hours away in Birmingham. So with an intention to record this podcast weekly, we needed to find a solution to our distance problem.

After failed attempts via skype, and many other complications, we finally stumbled across an app allowing us to record our conversation together whilst in different locations; An American startup with a single lidded Pyramid and headphones for a logo called Bumpers.

Their goal was simple.

Pick up your phone

Plug in an audio input (usually headphones with a microphone),

Record and Edit your Audio on your phone.

Hashtag and publish to their community.

Bumpers aimed to simplify a process their founder, Ian Owenby, described as “insurmountable.”

@IanOwenby

Ian Owenby

Uploading and editing a podcast via Bumpers

However, the company fell short of achieving their long term goals due to a few reasons they outlined in their farewell post here.

As you can see from our businesses, Owen and I have conflicting views when it comes to Podcast production. Owen sees the process as arduous to the podcast experience, whereas I believe the two can co-exist harmoniously and within an affordable budget if you source your studios correctly. This is in no way an attempt to discredit the legitimacy for the creation of Bumpers. Let me make this abundantly clear; I LOVE Bumpers.

Which is why I was heartbroken to discover they were closing down.

As a founder, my first reaction to this was fear. Even though the closing of an app aiming to indirectly disprove the necessity of recording studios should suggest we (Squatstudios) were in a better position, I couldn’t help but feel somber in response to the reminder of possible failure. After all, Ian and I share the same goal:

The Simplification of a creative process.

We are taught by the business world that our competitors are our enemies and must be defeated at all costs. Although this may be true if we are being completely realistic, there’s a side to this we should also consider. The why behind the creation of your company, and also what such a momentous loss means for the future of an industry you hold dear.

Do I see a world where Podcasters record purely through their phones? Yes. That is a possibility as technology improves and the industry starts to deviate; the same way the music business deviated from pure sales (CD’s) to Itunes after the threat of pirate sites like Napster/Limewire, and now, streaming. I just believe the Podcasting community are still finding their feet.

I wanted to end this on a note to Ian Owenby and the Bumpers team. A huge congratulations to everything you guys achieved and the wonderful community you built. Although Bumpers may be ending soon, you have inspired and helped create wonderful shows from the bedrooms of creators all over the world.

Thank you.

Love,

@EedsMcKenzie

¹ We use Apple Podcasts statistics as an example of the growth of the Podcast industry, as they are still the number one podcast streaming app in the world.