The Last Future Signal Podcast Episode Featuring Jarrett Carpenter | E056

Hey everyone, I hope that you're doing well. This is really weird for me to say, but this is going to be the last Future Signal episode. And before I go any further, if you're more into reading and you don't want to listen to this episode, I'm going to try to keep this episode to about five minutes with no edits. I'm just trying to do like one take and go.

I wrote a blog about why I'm no longer going to be continuing with Future Signal with this podcast. And so if you want to check that out, I'm going to leave that link below in the episode description to go check that out. But that blog is called A Successful Failure, My Podcast Journey. And I just think that that is a perfect way to kind of sum this up.

I have been podcasting with FutureSignals since January 2021. I will be finishing in February 2026. And that's five years. And that is a long time.

But my podcasting journey actually started before that. So if you want to learn a little bit about that and about the English Premier League soccer podcast I had, you can go and check out the blog. I really dive into it. But basically in the last couple of months, it's become very, very apparent to me that over the years, the rebrands that I've done have really kind of hurt the overall brand of what I've been trying to do.

This show started as Wi-Fi and water. It was Wi-Fi and water for about 18 months. Then it became more than blockchain. It was more than blockchain for about two years.

And then more recently for about 16 months, it's been future signal. And every time I did that rebrand, I changed some things. I kind of changed the Instagram. I deleted a bunch of stuff.

I deleted a bunch of stuff on Spotify. I wanted to have it more aligned with the new brand. And every time I did that, it was both great and not great. And in the blog, I say it both worked and it didn't.

The rebrand worked and it didn't work. Now, why did it work? It worked because every time I repositioned myself to basically create a new beacon on the internet to say, hey, people, this is the kind of content I'm creating. Why don't you come follow me?

But at the same time, every tweak and every rebrand and every change of things in the back end messed up essentially the algorithm. And it made it more difficult, I think, for the algorithm to kind of trust me. And here's why. And I don't really dive into this too much in the blog, but I'm going to dive into it on the episode super quick because I think you need to hear it if you're listening to this and if you've been a future Signal fan.

But when I went from Wi-Fi and water to more than blockchain, by adding blockchain to the name, I wanted to be a beacon for people in Web3, crypto, and Bitcoin and be like, this is what he's doing. And I wanted to niche down. I wanted to focus a little bit more on what was going on there. This was in 2022.

This was pre-FTX, pre-Terraluna, if you know what I'm talking about. And it was the time to kind of go for that. And when I did that, I lost a lot of people that were following Wi-Fi and water for what I was doing there. So let's say I had 100 followers at the time.

We just, we use round numbers. let's say 50% or 50 people who now continue to follow the pod, they're just not going to listen anymore. Because now I going to start talking about crypto and Bitcoin and Web3 and that may just not be interesting to them So then when I went from more than blockchain into FutureSignal let say I had then a thousand followers I going to lose about 50 of that So now out of the thousand followers, I have 550, the 50 from the original Wi-Fi and water that don't follow, now the 500 that if they follow me into FutureSignal, they probably still subscribe on both podcast platforms and YouTube, but they no longer engage with the content.

now I have 550 out of maybe a thousand subscribers when I went into FutureSignal that just no longer follow. And that just tells the algorithm that it's kind of dead content. And I've talked with a lot of content creators over the last like three months and they're like, yeah, every time I've switched in the past, it's hurt more than it's helped. It helps because it gives them or it gives me, it gave me like a new direction, a little bit of oomph, a little bit of like, oh, it's great.

New guess. I can go with a new angle, but it really messes the algorithm long, long term. A lot of content creators, like I said, I've been speaking to are like, yeah, every time you even switch just a little bit, people's attention is just elastic. If you think back to your Econ 101 class, you have inelastic and elastic demand.

People's attention is just elastic. The second you do something that they don't like or you share something that they don't like, they're just not going to follow you. That's just kind of how it goes. Or they're not going to engage with your content.

They may still follow you, which is actually worse. I'd rather have people not follow me or not subscribe than subscribe and follow but not engage. because that just tells like the algorithm what he's making is not really great it's not really worth pushing out farther and this has happened not only on podcast platforms and in youtube i can kind of see it but it's also happened on social platforms because every time i've rebranded sometimes i have to start with a new account but other times what i've done and this is not good habits now i know is i just took for example more than blockchain and i deleted more than blockchain and just changed the handle and i deleted a bunch of posts and i just started with future signal And that actually hurt a lot on Instagram, on Facebook, and on X and on some other apps.

Because then, once again, the 50% of people that were following you because they're with Wi-Fi and water, now you go into more than blockchain, 50% drops off. But worse is that they continue to follow you, but they don't engage. And then the same thing happened when I went from more than blockchain to FutureSignal, where I am today. I just kind of continue that you bring people with you that aren't going to engage.

And that just tells the algorithm, this is no bueno. So that has happened enough that I found myself at a point where I'm like, you know what? I think I'm creating great episodes. I think I'm having really cool guests on.

I think I'm doing all these things right, but I'm not getting the assist, and I've hurt myself. And I, at the end of the day, with extreme accountability, I'm definitely one of those people, extreme accountability, it is on me, and now I see it. And so I say all this in the blog. A couple things to kind of end on.

I'm not done with podcasting, but I am going to take a hiatus. Since I started podcasting even before when I started my own podcast in the summer of 2020 deep in the depths of the pandemic with a guy who like my brother Jeff when we started Boys and Bullas I have since that time till today which is February 3rd 2026 I doing this the day of I never do podcasts the day of I done 577 episodes either as a host, a co-host, or as a producer. I was a producer for a little bit of time for a crypto media company.

And if you do the days, it's about 2062 days, which brings you down to one podcast published every 3.57 days, or basically I'm rounding here two podcasts a week since June 12th or June, since June of 2020, I forget the exact date it's in the blog, but for do, but to do and publish five over five years, five plus years, two episodes a week, it's tiring. So first of all, I'm really excited to take a hiatus and kind of step away. But second of all, more importantly, I am going to come back.

I am going to launch a new show. And now I know I've learned so many lessons. I have five plus years of knowledge and knowing how to do this and bringing on guests and editing episodes and sharing it on socials and all the hats I've had to wear, being the on-mic personality, being the audio editor, being the video editor, being the administrative assistant, being the social media expert, the social media manager, all of these things. I'm excited to put all these skills into a new project.

And when I do, I'm going to have a better long-term strategy. I'm going to go an inch wide and a mile deep on just one topic and I'm really excited to do that. But I am going to take a hiatus because like I said, it has been five years of launching essentially two or publishing two episodes a week and I'm tired and I want to just take a little break from podcasting, but I will be back. And then finally, in writing the blog, one of the things that I realized is that all my best performing YouTube videos didn't have guests and they were super niche focused.

So one thing I didn't expect to even say on this episode or even put on the blog that will be out today on February 3rd, 2026, is that I will be continuing to create content on YouTube. I'm not going to probably do it every week. I'm probably going to do it twice a month. It's going to be fine.

But it will allow me to continue to move forward, continue to create content, and continue to better understand that algorithm. I think YouTube is just the absolute beast. A little behind the scenes in my life, it's the only subscription I pay for. I think it's the most valuable platform, whereas I don't pay for any other streaming subscription or anything.

YouTube Premium because I just think the quality of the content there is so, so, so good. So anyway, shout out YouTube. I am, you know, not as, they're not a sponsor of the show, never have been. But I am going to continue to make videos on YouTube.

But this will be the last podcast that will go on Apple or Spotify or wherever you're listening on podcast platforms for future Signal. If you want to see more of the stats of my time and how I get to 577 episodes over the past five years, please go check out the blog. It's pretty awesome. I also shout out some of my favorite episodes some of the best episodes on YouTube which actually led me to think about you know I should continue to put up an on YouTube or put not an episode put up a video on YouTube every once in a while And then I also share the top five most listened to podcast episodes And some of those surprised me because they were from so long ago and they just continue to just get listens and continue to get some love.

So go check that out. If you want to get in touch with me, if you're going to launch your own podcast or you are working with a company and you guys think you want to launch a podcast, you can find me on X LinkedIn or Instagram. I'm going to leave all those links below in the show notes for my personal accounts. And then I guess on a final note, I will be podcasting again, whether it's for myself or for a company.

And a lot of this is due to I like podcasting. I've gotten so much out of it. I've made so many friends. I've made so many professional connections that are really cool.

I've had conversations with people on and off mic before recording that have been really awesome and have given me so much insight. And after 577 episodes, it's like, wow, I got out of cheat code and meeting leaders and meeting creators and builders and all these things. So super big shout out to all of the guests and super big shout out to all of the co-hosts who have been with me on my podcast journey thus far. I call it a successful failure on the blog because I feel like I did fail a little bit because I didn't understand algorithm.

I didn't understand that rebranding was going to hurt more than it maybe even helped. But it was a success. It was a success because I got to meet all these people, and I just had an amazing, amazing experience doing this. So if you've been listening, I want to thank you so much.

But stay tuned. Like I said, I'm going to continue to do podcasting. I just don't know when. I want to take a hiatus.

And one of the things I think I want to continue is because AI content is starting to take over. And the more AI content takes over, the more there's going to be that demand for the human-led, human-faced, non-AI avatar content. And in that world, the medium is the podcast and the storyteller is the podcaster. Two skills that I think I now have and I'm excited.

So whether it's for myself or whether it's for a brand and I'm working on a couple projects and may launch one for one of the brands or work with a company, I'm really excited to continue the podcasting. It's not going to go away. And as I said, as AI continues to ramp and all these AI avatars come out, I think the demand, there's going to be a premium for human-led content that brands are just going to absolutely desire. So anyways, thank you so, so, so much.

This is the last Future Signal episode. Thank you so much for listening. And be on the lookout. Follow me for more updates of what I'm going to be doing.

We'll take a hiatus. I will continue to make videos on YouTube here or there, but they won't be podcast. They won't have guests. They'll be a little bit more niched down, eight-minute videos.

So thank you so, so, so much. Feels weird to kind of sign off. I've been like just blabbing for, I don't know, 10 to 12 minutes. I'm looking at the timer.

Thank you so much. I will see you guys in the next project. Be well and have a great 2026.