From podcast to platform — here's how Skydeca came to be.
The Origin
Hey, I'm CJ, the Founder & CEO of Skydeca! Our story begins with a love for podcasts.
I started listening to podcasts after graduate school and became fascinated—we get to hear influential people have full conversations. Can you imagine sitting down to hear George Washington and Benjamin Franklin have a discussion? That's the era we live in—from world-changing thinkers to the everyday person with something to say.
I once drove 18 hours through the night to see my girlfriend (now wife), and when I crashed on the family couch, I couldn't fall asleep until I had told her all about the amazing stories and ideas I'd listened to on my trip there. That's who I am — if I hear something worth sharing, I need to share it.
We got married, and as time went on, the idea of beginning a podcast ruminated in the back of my mind, until one day I casually looked up what it takes to begin a podcast. I realized I already had the equipment I needed (the bare essentials), and so the next day I had a friend over to record violin and as an afterthought, I just handed him the mic: "Want to be my first episode? Tell me your story!"
36 episodes later, burning out a handful of times and essentially quitting, only to come back with too many ideas and wanting it to be bigger and better — I faced a decision. I'd only created timestamps and chapters for half my episodes, and I loved timestamps. Was it worth going back through everything?
Yes. I'm obsessive, and I binged about 20 of my own episodes, manually timestamping every single one.