Ep. 19. People Give to People: A Hope Venture Story with Josh Petersen

Ep. 19. People Give to People: A Hope Venture Story with Josh Petersen

Guest episode of Slow & Steady — A Podcast by ARTILLERY. In this episode, Jake and John sit down with Josh Petersen, Hub Director at The Hope Venture, a Lincoln-based nonprofit that connects donors to health and education projects for people in extreme poverty across South Asia and Africa. Fifteen-plus years, thirty-plus projects, and more than 100,000 people helped. Josh is an almost-trained architect who learned graphic design, video, web design, and event design along the way. He built the website the whole giving operation runs on. So it's worth hearing him say it plainly: the website is the tool, but it's not what turns a visitor into a donor. People give to people. This episode is for founders, marketers, and anyone who's ever over-invested in a clever feature and under-invested in the human follow-up that actually converts. It's also for anyone who needs permission to rest. In this episode: * The 100% model, and why donors get excited about funding overhead * Why every new partner starts with about $1,000 and a single project * From 50-cent meals in India to a water pipeline serving 10,000 people in Kenya * The website as the primary giving hub, and the quiz that got zero donations * Why people give to people, not annual reports and data * The life-size mud hut that fell off the trailer on the way to the event * "Unforced rhythms of grace," and the monthly day of space for the whole team * The first-ever $1M donation that came right after a missed goal About Josh Petersen Josh is the Hub Director at The Hope Venture, a Christian nonprofit in Lincoln, Nebraska that connects donors to health and education projects for people in extreme poverty. He leads its fundraising and marketing, and he's worked his way from graphic designer to creative director to marketing director to Hub Director over roughly ten years. A maker at heart, and dad to two boys. His mantra: "The unforced rhythms of grace. We inquire and leap, but then we wait and see what happens. Oftentimes the next best step is to rest." The Hope Venture: https://thehopeventure.org [https://thehopeventure.org] The Heart Behind the Risk (Hope Venture's new podcast on generosity): https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Js2F7NpEcHsYfXfhiapx7?si=c607654a4dc14333 [https://open.spotify.com/episode/5Js2F7NpEcHsYfXfhiapx7?si=c607654a4dc14333] Reach Josh directly: josh@thehopeventure.org [josh@thehopeventure.org] / 402-770-6310 Instagram + YouTube: @thehopeventure Artillery Links Podcast page: https://artillerymedia.com/podcast/ [https://artillerymedia.com/podcast/] Contact us: https://artillerymedia.com/contact/ [https://artillerymedia.com/contact/] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artillery_media/?hl=en [https://www.instagram.com/artillery_media/?hl=en] Jake on X: https://x.com/jakekramer15?lang=en [https://x.com/jakekramer15?lang=en] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artillerymedia [https://www.facebook.com/artillerymedia]

Ep. 18. AI in WordPress: What It's Good At, and Where You Still Need a Human

A solo episode. Just Jake, a 31-page report, and a few thoughts on the matter. SiteGround, the hosting company behind all 500-plus ARTILLERY sites, published "AI in WordPress: The 2026 Landscape for Small Businesses." Jake read the whole thing and walks through it with a practitioner's eye, keeping in mind that SiteGround also sells its own AI tool. Some of the data is genuinely useful. Some of it is worth pushing back on. The big picture: WordPress runs about 43% of the internet, and roughly a third of the people running it are small business owners who never signed up to be web developers. Over half now use AI daily, mostly for research and content. But 41% say it takes multiple tries to get a usable result, and 22% don't trust its accuracy. AI saves time, and somebody still has to know whether the answer is any good. This episode is for business owners who have a website, use AI for the easy wins, and want an honest read on where it actually helps and where it quietly creates more work. In this episode: * Why a hosting company's report is worth reading, and reading skeptically * Why almost 60% of owners say WordPress itself is the hard part * What business owners actually use AI for (research and content win) * The plugin monster, and why 96% of WordPress security problems start there * Where AI is great: structured, repeatable, bounded work * Where you still need a human: strategy, brand, and what the homepage says * "Start with the workflow, not the tool," and keeping a human in the loop Artillery Links Podcast page: https://artillerymedia.com/podcast/ Contact us: https://artillerymedia.com/contact/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artillery_media/?hl=en Jake on X: https://x.com/jakekramer15?lang=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artillerymedia

Ep. 17 — From Wrestling Mat to SaaS Founder: How Keenan McCurdy is Building GearLocker Slow & Steady

Guest episode of Slow & Steady, a podcast by ARTILLERY. In this episode, Jake sits down with Keenan McCurdy. He's a 15-year wrestling coach at Lincoln East, two-time state champion, science-turned-gym teacher, (former) group fitness gym owner, youth club founder, and co-founder of GearLocker, a SaaS platform that helps schools and programs track every singlet, helmet, and jersey they own. Keenan didn't come out of tech. He came off the mat. GearLocker exists because he spent 15 years living with the same Google Sheet nightmare every coach knows: equipment going home, never coming back, parents never charged, and hours of back-office work nobody wants. He vented about it for three Thanksgivings in a row to his software-entrepreneur brother-in-law. Eventually they built it. Several years and ~500 programs later, he's stepping away from teaching to run GearLocker full-time. His framework is built straight out of the wrestling room. Stop riding the roller coaster of short-term wins and disappointments. Stack small efforts. Show up. The same award he gives his wrestlers, the Guts Club, for the kids who simply make it to every practice, is the model he's running his company on. This episode is for founders, coaches, athletic directors, and anyone building something that won't pay off until year three. The compounding is the whole point. In this episode: * The 15-year frustration that became GearLocker (and the Thanksgiving table where it started) * How QR codes on every singlet turned 90 minutes of checkout into 20 seconds * The Guts Club: why showing up beats almost everything else * The Bennington HS football coach who helped shape the product * Purchase requests: the feature nobody asked for that became the most-used part of the platform * Why the K-12 sales cycle is longer than youth clubs (and what to do about it) * Selling without feeling salesy when you actually believe in the product * From Lincoln East to all 50 states, and maybe Camogie sticks in Ireland About Keenan McCurdy Keenan is the co-founder of GearLocker, a SaaS platform for managing the full life cycle of school- and team-issued athletic equipment. He's the head wrestling coach at Lincoln East, where he wrestled under his dad and won two state titles before coming back to coach. He's also a science teacher, a group fitness gym owner, and the founder of a youth wrestling club. He's stepping out of the classroom to build GearLocker full-time. His mantra: "Don't ride the roller coaster of short-term wins and disappointments. Meaningful progress is non-linear." Keenan / GearLocker: https://gearlocker.com [https://gearlocker.com/] Artillery Links Podcast page: https://artillerymedia.com/podcast/ [https://artillerymedia.com/podcast/] Contact us: https://artillerymedia.com/contact/ [https://artillerymedia.com/contact/] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artillery_media/?hl=en [https://www.instagram.com/artillery_media/?hl=en] Jake on X: https://x.com/jakekramer15?lang=en [https://x.com/jakekramer15?lang=en] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artillerymedia [https://www.facebook.com/artillerymedia]

Ep. 16 — Cost Signal, the Corn Belt, and Not Burning Out Chasing Virality with JT Martin

Guest episode of Slow & Steady — A Podcast by ARTILLERY. In this episode, Jake and John sit down with JT Martin, founder of Loudr and the creator behind The Corn Belt, the hyperlocal Nebraska channel with 50 million organic views and 140,000 followers. JT spent over a decade in corporate media in San Francisco and at Time Inc. in New York before coming home in 2020 and building a new kind of media company from scratch. The Corn Belt now functions as a state-wide attention engine. Departments of state government, tourism boards, campgrounds, observatories, a 2024 presidential campaign. They don't run their own social, they rent attention from the channel JT built one piece of content at a time. JT has also coached five Nebraska towns to run their own versions, and quarterly works with a real estate developer in the Cayman Islands using the same hyperlocal formula. His framework is simple but counterintuitive. Stop trying to be good at social media in general. Pick an interest category and commit to winning it, or rent attention from someone who already has. The decider between forgettable video and video that actually moves people is what he calls "cost signal": effort the viewer can see. A 30-foot monopod. A printed map and a dart. Counting to a million on camera. This episode is for any small business owner who has been told they need to "do more on social" and wants the plain-English version of what actually works, and what to stop doing. In this episode: * What "cost signal" really means and why it decides every short-form video * Why JT optimizes for shares, not likes (and the goat yoga test that proves it) * The Reddit shortcut for finding your interest category: the 50k-sub rule * Build vs. rent: two valid paths to attention, and how to pick yours * Why ARTILLERY ranks for "web design Lincoln" using the same logic * The Northern Lights story: how one video pulled 1,000 people to an observatory * Why events are tough and destinations are gold * Sponsorship value lives in the media, not the activation * Jake's wrap on every business becoming a media company About JT Martin JT is the founder of Loudr, a short-form video and social media agency based in Nebraska, and the creator behind The Corn Belt. He came home to Nebraska in 2020 after a decade in corporate media in San Francisco and New York City. Today he works with destinations, tourism boards, departments of state government, and small businesses across the state, plus quarterly engagements in the Cayman Islands. His mantra: "Not burning out while trying to chase virality." Loudr: https://weareloudr.com The Corn Belt on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thecornbelt/ Corn Jam (concert series in cornfields): https://cornjam.com Artillery Links Podcast page: https://artillerymedia.com/podcast/ Contact us: https://artillerymedia.com/contact/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artillery_media/?hl=en Jake on X: https://x.com/jakekramer15?lang=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artillerymedia

Ep. 15 — How AI Search Actually Works (And Why Slow, Steady SEO Still Wins) with Michelle Bourbonniere

Guest episode of Slow & Steady — A Podcast by ARTILLERY. In this episode, Jake sits down with Michelle Bourbonniere, PhD, founder of Words on the Rise, to demystify how AI search actually works under the hood. Michelle is the SEO consultant behind ARTILLERY's own SEO audit (broken down with Brittany Downey back in Ep. 12), and she has spent six months reading Google patents, antitrust filings, and research papers so the rest of us don't have to. Michelle is a historian by training (PhD in African history, of all things). She fell into SEO through editing words on websites, and noticed that when the words changed, Google noticed. Nine years and 288 client sites later, she's built a thriving solo business from a website, an email list, and a few private communities. No social media for six years. No retainers that disappear into the abyss. Her core message in this conversation: AI search is not a new playbook. It is built on top of regular Google search. The same boring, foundational moves still win. Google Business Profile rankings, recent five-star reviews with keywords in them, clear words on your services pages, real engagement on your site. Google does the Googling for you, then summarizes the results. This episode is for any small business owner who has been told they need to "do something different for AI" and wants the plain-English version of what's actually happening, what to ignore, and what to focus on. In this episode: * Why AI search is built on traditional search (and what that means for small sites) * How chatbots actually answer questions: live searches, summarized in real time * The Google Business Profile as the real "front door" for local businesses * Why blogging matters less than it used to (and what to write instead) * Entity pages, services pages, and being literal about what you want AI to say about you * Michelle's "three Rs" of AI search: Brand Recognition, Brand Reputation, Brand Recommendation * Why Michelle has been off social media for six years and why it works * The one thing every business should add to their contact form right now * How a Vancouver wine brand found ARTILLERY through ChatGPT looking for a Divi designer About Michelle Bourbonniere, PhD Michelle is the founder of Words on the Rise, an SEO consultancy specializing in small site SEO. She works with solopreneurs and small teams to develop smart SEO strategies that get their websites and brands in front of the right audience. She specializes in keyword research, content planning, and helping brands show up (and show up well) in AI search results. Her mantra: "Doing things at a human pace. I'm all about work/life balance and doing things well, not quickly." Words on the Rise: https://wordsontherise.com AI search cheat sheet + newsletter: https://wordsontherise.com/ai Michelle's AI search podcast playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6n3yl03K5u2lpqzU52M4Ht?si=83ec938757cc4bdd Michelle on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-bourbonniere/ Michelle's Three Rs framework (full breakdowns): Brand Recognition: https://ckarchive.com/b/n4uohvhx68x5zt7q339qeh68g4oxxtlhv7904 Brand Reputation: https://ckarchive.com/b/k0umh6h566lznc6n33wn4ao9qk346b8h6g73e Brand Recommendation: https://ckarchive.com/b/n4uohvhxrvzd9s7q339qeh68lvvkgflhv7904 Artillery Links Podcast page: https://artillerymedia.com/podcast/ Contact us: https://artillerymedia.com/contact/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artillery_media/?hl=en Jake on X: https://x.com/jakekramer15?lang=en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artillerymedia