Don't Encourage Us

About Don't Encourage Us

Most people watch a movie. We use it as a launchpad for ideas. Don’t Encourage Us takes films and TV apart to uncover the creative decisions, strategic trade-offs, and unexpected insights hiding beneath the surface. From Barbie to 3 Body Problem, we connect the stories on screen to the bigger questions about business, creativity, human behavior, and how things actually work. The goal isn’t to review what’s been done. It’s to discover what it makes us think about, what we can learn from it, and what new ideas emerge when we look at familiar things differently. Listen to the show. Rethink everything.

Publisher

Don't Encourage Us

Category

business · technology · tv & film

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

16 Apr 2023

Latest episode

13 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

59 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   13 Oct 2026

   Story Break: No Reel, No Role. Can This Startup Break Acting’s Catch-22?

   Returning guest Steve Custer pitches a business built around acting’s maddening catch-22: you need a reel to get work, but you need work to get a reel. What begins as a small studio concept turns into a deeper question about business strategy: Who has the problem, and who has the money? The hosts push Steve to rethink his customer, moving from selling reel production to actors toward building a marketplace for the people who cast them. But even a compelling idea faces a less glamorous test: can the business generate enough volume to survive? Plus, Steve learns Kali stick fighting to audition for Dune, turns a building headed for demolition into a guerrilla film set, and finds himself attached to a movie pitched in Frederick, Maryland.

2. 

   24 Mar 2026

   We Fed Our Episodes To AI. Here's What It Discovered.

   AI hosts analyze the podcast's back catalog, revealing its true pop culture identity beyond initial assumptions.

3. 

   18 Mar 2026

   The Adam Project (2022) + The 'Is It Cake' Algorithm Trap

   Hosts dissect how star casting and risk-averse development flattened "The Adam Project" into an emotional flatline, revealing Netflix's algorithm-era content strategy.

Who has been a guest on Don't Encourage Us

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• AI hosts
• Matt Baughman
• Steve Custer
• Variant Steve
• Matthew Baughman

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

4,635

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.5 / 5

8 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 83 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

92

Social presence

91

YouTube

68

Engagement

71

Contact Don't Encourage Us

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.