from broken hearts to rising charts

WHAT A WEEK, WHAT A YEAR

Last year around this time we found out that Debt Heads had been rejected from the Tribeca Film Festival.

Here’s our rejection letter and the choice words that have consequently served as our vision board since then:

We kept grinding along, working non-stop on the project and hoping to “break the f*ck in.” This year around this time (aka this week) we found out that we’d been chosen as a “new and noteworthy” featured show on Apple Podcasts!

We had a sneaking suspicion it might happen when, a few weeks ago, someone from the editorial team reached out and asked us to send in some artwork, but we didn’t want to jinx it. So we just kept working on the next episode.

And then, on Monday, we were getting the episode ready to go out, and noticed a pretty sizable uptick in downloads. Weird!

That’s when we saw it — right there on the front page.

We were ecstatic! Beaming! And delirious.

The next day, we woke up to realize it wasn’t a dream! We found out we were charting at #23 for documentary podcasts, and more downloads rolled in.

Pessimist that she is, Rachel informed me that this was the pinnacle of our attention - thing would only go down hill from here.

But she was wrong!

Because by the end of the week, when we (and everyone else we know) opened Apple podcasts, Debt Heads was the first show listed! And we were charting #7 in Documentaries and #15 in Society and Culture!! (For reference, This American Life charts #9 in that category.)

WE’RE COMING FOR YOUR ASS, IRA GLASS!

So - it’s been a fun week, but we gotta get back to writing. Thanks to all of our Substack followers (the original cheerleaders!!!) for helping us get this far.

If you haven’t already, it would be absolutely fabulous (and BEYOND APPRECIATED!) if you would take a moment to rate and review the podcast by going here. It takes no time at all!

And definitely "follow” the podcast feed so we can improve our numbers.

Oh! And if you didn’t see, our latest episode landed this week. Hope you like it!

We love you, bye!
J+R