Dave Jackson has been podcasting since before most people knew the word existed. He's in the Podcast Hall of Fame. He runs School of Podcasting. He mentors new podcasters constantly. He has seen every tool, every workflow, every pitch.
When I showed him the book builder in PodGlue, he said: "That's wild."
Then, a beat later: "That's crazy."
I'll take it.
Three Hours, One Sentence
Before we got into the demo, Dave told me about a 3-hour webinar he'd just sat through from Circle — a community platform. Three hours. And the thing that stuck with him, the one sentence that landed, came from someone on stage:
"People don't want more courses. They want connection."
Dave said he'd been hearing that more and more. Just filed it away. Good to know.
I thought about that a lot after our call.
The Demo
The book builder surprised him. That was the reaction — genuine, immediate, twice. You put in your podcast episodes and PodGlue drafts a book from the conversations. Your content, structured, ready to build on.
He wasn't expecting it. Neither was the voice coach feature — he called it "an interesting twist. Kind of cool." The newsjacking planner, where PodGlue finds trending news and blueprints an episode around it, got a measured "interesting."
Dave doesn't throw around hype. So "interesting" from Dave Jackson means something.
But what really landed was the end of the demo.
Before, During, After
At some point toward the close, Dave stopped and said — "At first I was like, oh this is all post-publishing... but that last thing you just showed me — no, no, you can use it to plan the episode too."
That's the moment.
He came in thinking PodGlue was a post-production tool. A place to package up what already happened. He left understanding it's the full workflow — before you hit record, while you're in it, and after you publish.
Before, during, after.
That's what PodGlue is. And it took Dave Jackson about forty minutes to see it himself and say it out loud. That means the realization lands correctly when you use it, not just when I explain it.
The CRM Question
He also asked whether it works like a CRM. Could he see the last thing he sent to a guest?
Not exactly — that's a different category of software. But the question confirmed something. There's a version of this that becomes your podcast relationship manager. Not just content output, not just distribution — but the relationship layer. Who came on. What you sent. What happened after.
Dave saw that possibility without me naming it. That's the right instinct.
The Next Thing
At the end of the call, Dave mentioned he and his friend Brendan from Pod Page were planning to do videos together. His studio backdrop needed work. Then: "I know a guy that's pretty good at making the backdrop."
He was talking about me.
Thirty years behind cameras and he's still sending work my way. That's what good relationships in podcasting actually look like. Not the transaction. The next thing.
Same Insight, Different Angle
The Circle webinar spent three hours to get to one sentence: people want connection, not more courses.
Dave Jackson spent forty minutes with PodGlue and landed on "that's wild" for the book builder and "wait — you can plan the episode with this too" for the full picture.
Both of those are the same insight from different angles.
The episode is only one part of the workflow. What happens before it — the planning, the research, the angles — matters. What happens after it — the repurposing, the follow-ups, the relationship — matters.
PodGlue is the operating system for all of it.
If you want to see what Dave saw — PodGlue is in beta now. It's built for podcasters who take the relationship seriously, not just the content. podglue.com