Fabian Rodriguez: The people that live here — what are the stories you want to hear about? Something weird about Indianapolis? That voicemail starts the episode, and we work backwards from the voicemail.
Nate Spangle: Your marketing for your show does your outbound lead gen for new guests.
Jared Byczko: They become a part of the story, right? Like when they're there and they can see that happening.
Fabian Rodriguez: It was the event-based side of things that really helped us grow.
Nate Spangle: What kept you guys going, and where were some of those milestones along the journey that were like, hey, this is pretty sick?
Nate Spangle: From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between, this is Get IN — the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here. Today I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation. Aberdeen is Indiana's first agrihood and wellness lifestyle community — an upscale neighborhood in Center Grove built with one thing in mind: connection. The whole place is designed to bring people together. One of my favorite traditions they've started: the newest residents to move in get a welcome crate from the last family who moved in, full of fresh produce from the neighborhood farm, a few housewarming gifts, and a letter from the developer. That simple gesture sparks real connection — neighbors meeting and real friendships forming. This isn't just about elegant homes, it's about living in a place where people actually know and care about each other. Learn more at AberdeenLiving.com. Today I have the founding fathers of Indianapolis podcasting live in studio. My guests are Fabian Rodriguez and Jared Byczko, the co-founders of the Drink Culture Podcast. It ran from 2017 to 2020. They put out over 200 episodes over those three years and have reached over 350,000 — yes, that is over a quarter of a million downloads, and still counting. Today, Jared is the owner of Myriad Fitness and Yoga — a lifestyle-based fitness facility in downtown Indianapolis at the Stutz building, you have to go check it out. Fabian is the owner of Culture Collaborative Media, where he helps businesses bring their podcast to life. We're gonna be talking through their journey building one of the most influential podcasts in the state of Indiana from 2017 to 2020, and they're still making an impact beyond. I'm really excited. If anyone doesn't know out there — we started our podcast in about 2023. Drink Culture had to pave the way so Get IN could be what we're doing today. Fabian has been an awesome mentor and resource for me as I've gotten this thing up and running, so appreciative to have you guys in the studio today. Welcome to the show.
Jared Byczko: Thank you so much for having us. What — dude, we sound pretty badass.
Fabian Rodriguez: Well, based on that intro, I mean, you are. That intro's insane, you got that nailed. I love it.
Nate Spangle: Oh dude, it's just like — in another life I think I could have been an in-stadium PA announcer.
Fabian Rodriguez: A hundred percent.
Jared Byczko: You have a lot of life left, bro.
Nate Spangle: Honestly, you're not wrong there. Gentlemen, this is gonna be a really fun one. It's not often that we get to bring podcasters into the podcast studio to podcast. Early on, 2017 — today, in 2025, everyone and their brother has a podcast, and TBD, the jury's still out on who listens to which ones. But you guys have clearly done the thing — over 350,000 downloads since 2017, 200 episodes, countless very inspiring conversations. I wanna know where the idea came from. Where was that first text? Or maybe you were grabbing beers and you're like, dude, we should start a podcast.
Fabian Rodriguez: Well, it literally was a text. And it literally said, dude, we should start a podcast. But the conversations really started at the end of 2016. At that time I'd moved to Indianapolis at the end of 2010, maybe 2011. I was doing sales at Mercedes — selling cars at the downtown location, which is obviously the worst of the two because nobody goes downtown to buy cars. Hated my life working there. I just felt like I needed to do something creatively, I wasn't being fulfilled. So Jared and I had met — I started going to your gym at that point, Nap Town Fitness, around 2012, 2013 — and we became friends and bonded over whiskey and beer, and it was just like, dude, we should start a podcast. And at that time we were both listening — correct me if I'm wrong on any of these details — to this bourbon podcast called Bourbon Pursuit. And we thought, dude, we could do this in Indianapolis. Like, we know a lot.
Nate Spangle: What is Bourbon Pursuit?
Fabian Rodriguez: Pursuit of bourbon. At that time it was bourbon hunting.
Jared Byczko: It was a huge thing — 2016, 2017. Finding where they had allocations, where's Pappy Van Winkle gonna be.
Fabian Rodriguez: Exactly. This podcast was based out of Kentucky — a couple of gentlemen.
Jared Byczko: Kenny and somebody. Kenny and Ryan. It wasn't Fred.
Fabian Rodriguez: No, but Fred is now a part owner of that podcast, because he's the bourbon guy.
Nate Spangle: Fred Minnick?
Fabian Rodriguez: There you go. You can't pay him for a review, and if he reviews your thing it does really well. All the bourbon people love Fred Minnick.
Jared Byczko: And I would also say, to add into that — craft beer at this time was huge. That was the bang of craft beer.
Nate Spangle: How hoppy is your IPA, pretty much.
Jared Byczko: The Citra hops, come on. So it was both the bourbon and craft beer that we thought we were experts in.
Fabian Rodriguez: And why not be the Indianapolis experts?
Nate Spangle: So the original goal was to be Indianapolis's boozy experts.
Fabian Rodriguez: Yes, that's where we thought we were gonna go with it. Because that's a thing we bonded over. I was taking hour-and-a-half lunches to go to all these random liquor stores to try to find stuff when it was being dropped off. So we're like, let's just do it about this. And we got maybe two or three episodes in and we're like, we don't know anything about this. Our knowledge is tapped. True story.
Nate Spangle: Isn't that funny how that works? I know you probably do know a lot more than the average person, but do you know to the extent of hours and hours of podcasting conversations?
Fabian Rodriguez: At the end of it, it's like — how many times can you say Citra hops?
Jared Byczko: It's hazy, like West Coast.
Fabian Rodriguez: That wasn't even a thing — hazy wasn't even a thing in 2016, 2017. But so we got tapped out. We're like, okay, we don't know enough, but we're having fun with what we're doing. And luckily, because of Jared's business, there were so many interesting people that were members there. At this time, I think we had Mike Kelly as one of our first guests. I think the very first was Adam Auger. And then it was David McIntyre as number two, and Mike Kelly was probably number three.
Jared Byczko: But David wasn't a member there.
Fabian Rodriguez: That's true. But then there was also Chris Baggott. So you had these influential people that were building businesses, had built businesses, were in the entrepreneurial business world here in Indy, and I'm just like, dude, we could start interviewing these people. So over time, shortly, we were like, well, let's shift to that. And at that time — and you're gonna notice a trend, we just steal ideas from other people and try to make them our own — we looked at How I Built This and said, why don't we try to do a hyperlocal version of How I Built This and tell the story of Indianapolis business owners and entrepreneurs. So that's where that transition happened, from the bourbon and beer stuff to focusing more on the business community, the entrepreneurial community — or what we referred to at that time as cool people doing cool stuff in Indianapolis.
Nate Spangle: Amen. And I feel like the "How I Built This of — insert your thing here" has been done after that a lot more times. There are a lot of people that go by the method of take things that are already out there and twist 'em a little bit and make your thing — exhibit A, what we're doing here. This is not totally new to the world. It is new to Indiana from the perspective of talking about the entire state, and figuring that piece out. But having people in here and learning about their stories — everyone loves that. So you guys put out the first couple episodes. Everyone loves the idea of a podcast — getting together with their boys, hanging out, drinking a beer and talking, filming it, recording it. Where a lot of times people don't love it is, you press that publish button on your first episode and you sit back and you're like, where are millions of listeners? How many people listen to the first episode? Not that many.
Fabian Rodriguez: Two. There was two of us.
Nate Spangle: And then you put out another one. What kept you going? I think people think you just put out a podcast and all of a sudden hundreds of people just come and listen, and that's not really how it goes. So what kept you guys going, and where were some of those milestones along the journey that were like, hey, this is pretty sick?
Fabian Rodriguez: I just wanna give props to Jared. Jared was already a business owner. My mindset was not there. So when we started, Jared brought this very professional, business-oriented approach to what we were doing. And I brought this consistency of just like, okay, cool, if we're gonna do this, we need to commit to every single week for the next 52. We have to put out an episode, no excuses. And the thought behind that was — the second you make an excuse, and this can be translated to any area in life, once one excuse creeps in, you open the door to a lot more. So that was the thesis there: Jared's gonna bring in the business side, I'm gonna keep us committed and consistent and accountable.
Jared Byczko: I mean, that guiding principle of consistency is really what drove us. Also, at the end of the day — you've already said this, Nate — it was two buddies hanging out, and it forced us to hang out once a week and have a couple of drinks. We haven't talked about the Drink Culture double entendre piece yet, but it also allowed us to find other people to learn about. So selfishly, the first full year I would say we were finding people that we wanted to learn about, or industries we wanted to learn about. We were taking in as much knowledge as we possibly could, growing as individuals, both professionally and socially.
Nate Spangle: Talk about getting accountability to meet new people, network — I hate that term — but to build out your community, to hang out with your buddy and dive deeper into a hobby. That's a nice way to put it.
Jared Byczko: Tell it to my wife.
Nate Spangle: So you commit to 52 weeks. How quickly did the Indianapolis community start to have a thirst for what Drink Culture is putting out?
Jared Byczko: Six months. Maybe even longer.
Fabian Rodriguez: So that's, what, 24 episodes in. And I'll put this out — this is 2017. There were big national podcasts, and then there were some small, low-production podcasts — not to say crummy, but just low production. The idea that everyone had a microphone at their house and could put out an Instagram reel — that did not happen. So discoverability was maybe a little harder to go immediately viral, but there was less Joe Blow with a microphone putting out Instagram reels.
Nate Spangle: So how were people discovering you guys? And to pull back a little — 2014 was Tim Ferriss's first start. That was huge.
Fabian Rodriguez: He just hit 10 years in 2024, 2025. And we were brand new in the sense of people finding us. I think the biggest inflection for us was being in spaces. Once we decided on the double entendre of drinking in the culture — drinking in the culture of that individual, but also physically drinking — we then decided to start going to locations. So we're connecting with you as our guest, but we're also connecting with the business owner of Provider, the business owner of Sun King. We're building those relationships. The one thing that changed for us is we were mobile. Our podcast was always on site at locations, and our goal was always for them to treat us with — hey, what's your specialty cocktail? Okay, we'll drink that, we'll talk about that. What other drinks or food do you want us to promote? So it's free promotion for those people. That's when people physically started seeing us. And I think that was when people were like, wait, what's going on over there? And then you start to see them pointing at you — you become pseudo-Indianapolis famous, where people are like, hey, you know that — we were at lunch.
Jared Byczko: And we closed that deal. Shout out to the Kelley School of Business. We're working with IU, legit, the Kelley School of Business. All came from us out at lunch that day.
Nate Spangle: There we go, come on now. So in the beginning — how long did it take for you guys to start doing the on-location shows?
Jared Byczko: First three months is when we finally were like, all right, let's pivot this.
Nate Spangle: So it's almost like guerrilla marketing — you record an episode, your baby's picking up five new listeners who want to come check it out, and then if they like what they hear, they're like, oh, I was there, I saw that being recorded, now I'm gonna follow along.
Jared Byczko: They become a part of the story, right? When they're there and they can see that happening, they're taking a picture, Instagramming.
Fabian Rodriguez: We slowly started getting into events. We got invited to Creative Mornings — so we did a Creative Mornings session together, Fabian and I led the whole thing. I'll never forget walking out of there — we had, I don't know, 300 people there in the stands at the central library watching us. So it was the event-based side of things that really helped us grow. And you gotta remember, this was before the pandemic, when people were really comfortable with physical human touch and connecting with people. We're getting better, we're getting back to that. So for us it was the mobile side — although that was probably the biggest pain in the ass for you, because you had to carry around all our crates.
Jared Byczko: I used to carry — the whole setup was with us everywhere we went. And that was tough, because that's 30, 45 minutes of setting it up. It's a three-to-four-hour journey every time. We recorded once a week, and year one, you committed to doing this, you're in. Probably had a little bit of a different stage of life where you had a little more free time. I know you guys both have children now and not so much free time. That three or four hours of setting up for an onsite podcast — that's why I love having a studio too.
Fabian Rodriguez: There's a time and a place for both. Being able to go out and do something is so fun, but some of the conversations you get to have in the studio — we get different trinkets and gifts, I call that the fun part.
Nate Spangle: I could see, though, in 2017, helping discoverability — this is pre-Instagram reels. Newsletters, maybe LinkedIn, some places posting about it, but the best marketing would just be — it'd be so strange to see someone with a camera doing on-the-street interviews. Today we walk down the street and you see someone with a camera doing it, you're like, it's kind of weird, but it's pretty normal now. Back then, people were like, oh my gosh, those are celebrities.
Jared Byczko: I got a funny story, but if you got something, go first.
Fabian Rodriguez: Well, before we move on too far from this — we always kind of took this approach, and I think credit to Jared, we looked at this as a brand, not just a podcast. So we always had that in the back of our mind — how do we treat this like a brand? And one of the other things that we stole from this Bourbon Pursuit podcast is they called themselves the official podcast of bourbon. And very early on we decided to refer to ourselves as the official podcast of Indianapolis. We wanted to take ownership of telling the story of Indianapolis through the lens of these people that are making things happen. I think that aspect of it helped with discoverability, because people felt this community around it. They could feel it from our side — being so passionate about wanting to uplift the city, taking ownership over how do we let people know how cool it is to live here.
Jared Byczko: And I talk about that a lot — not just Indianapolis, but the entire state. It's not that it's not cool, it's just the way that Hoosiers talk about things. If I were to say, that's a really nice shirt — thanks buddy, I got it on sale. That's the Hoosier thing to say.
Nate Spangle: Jared, you're from the Region, right?
Jared Byczko: I am.
Nate Spangle: How's the Region?
Jared Byczko: It's okay. Like, it's okay, or it's not bad. No one ever drove two hours to another time zone for "it's okay" or "it's not bad." They did drive up there for 45 miles of coastline and Indiana's only national park, and DeMotte Stadium, Mr. Byczko... right off 65. We are so humble that it almost seems wrong to have nice things. If you lived in LA you're like, yo, this shirt, 500 bucks. 10K for the Rollie, let's go. It's just not in our DNA to brag about things. So we almost think that it's wrong to have nice things. We have nice things — there are very nice things in the state of Indiana — we just have to change our dialogue a little bit. I'm not bragging about it, I'm just proud of what we have here. Sorry, I'll get off my soapbox.
Fabian Rodriguez: No, that's my talk too. I like the energy, because I had that same thing — I was pissed off when people would either talk badly about Indianapolis or say that we didn't have this, that, or the other thing. And it's just like, dude, you're just lazy, you're not willing to go do the work to know that we actually do have that here. So I felt some of that responsibility when we were doing the show — to help prove that to people.
Jared Byczko: That's a lot of what we were uncovering too with a lot of the stories we had. The biggest thing — the very last question — was, who's a guest you would recommend? Who is someone in some circle that we don't know about?
Nate Spangle: And they source all your guests.
Jared Byczko: Exactly. And even if you don't get 'em on the show, today it just makes — I imagine you guys having that, then fast forward to the reels age, I just clip it, put it out, and all of a sudden that person's then hitting.
Nate Spangle: Especially if it's the only one we haven't been able to get. We've had Pat and Caitlin Clark recommended, and we have not gotten those two, but almost everybody else. So you put out a clip saying someone's recommending 'em as a guest, then they're gonna be like, oh my gosh, I wanna come on. It does your own — your marketing for your show does your outbound lead gen for new guests.
Fabian Rodriguez: Well, first off, there's a tradition of Drink Culture that you guys would not only drink in the culture but you would drink and hang out. So should we pop a nice wheated bourbon here?
Nate Spangle: Do you wanna tell 'em the story?
Fabian Rodriguez: So we almost started a bourbon business too. With Drink Culture, we literally almost started a whiskey company. Shout out to our friends over at Eighth Day who cooked this up for us. We had a sponsorship deal with Eighth Day for the podcast, and part of that was them making this batch of wheated bourbon for us. It's at least two years old — at least 18 months old. We had maybe 50 bottles of this, maybe less, 25.
Jared Byczko: I'd probably say 25.
Fabian Rodriguez: So it's pretty limited-edition stuff. If you got a bottle from us — small batch, single barrel, aged. Drink 'em if you got 'em. And to this day I still think it's one of the best things that they've ever made.
Jared Byczko: But I'm also a huge fan of higher-proof wheated whiskey.
Nate Spangle: Has this been popped?
Fabian Rodriguez: No, this is brand new. This is a fresh pop. Hold on — for our ASMR freaks.
Nate Spangle: Ooh, that was nice, right? That was well done. I'll let you pour it up there. So part of what we used to do as a tradition on the show — and I think this is what led to getting some of those great stories — was just sharing drinks with people. Typically we did that in a format of trying three different things — three categories of rye whiskey, so three rye whiskeys, or three different IPAs. We would drink those throughout the conversation, and what would happen is maybe halfway through, those inhibitions come down, as they typically do when you're drinking, and you just get into these side-quest conversations that you wouldn't hear anybody else.
Jared Byczko: It's almost like a magic trick. The drinking allowed you to really just talk freely. I forgot we used to rate stuff in the first six months of our episodes. We'd have three different versions of something, three different cocktails, and we would say which one's the best. And then I think we finally got to the point where, we need to stop rating these and just enjoy ourselves. So we stopped doing that.
Nate Spangle: Cheers. Thank you, gentlemen, I appreciate it.
Fabian Rodriguez: Is this a first for your show?
Nate Spangle: No, we've drank a few times. But usually — this is the issue too. That's chewy.
Jared Byczko: Yeah. And spicy, by the way.
Nate Spangle: Chewy — that's good. I just mean it's got a lot of profiles. It's got some sweetness to it, so I feel like I can chew on it, like a candy bar. I'll tell a fun story about one of the times — the last time I drank bourbon on the podcast, I had a bourbon influencer, Dan Kidd, Heavy Bourbon. I had him on the show and said, let's try four local distilleries. He brought three bottles from four different distilleries — so 12 pours. We did a full three-hour Joe Rogan episode, uncut, unreleased, will never leave the archives. Because by the end of it, dude, I ran home from the studio. I literally had to physically jog home. And then after that I was like, hey buddy, we had to redo the podcast — I had to put him on a pitch count, could only have four bourbons, so pick your favorite four. It was a wild episode. So that was the last time we drank on the podcast. So here's to running home from the studio, y'all. 123 proof, by the way, so be careful on that one.
Fabian Rodriguez: We have a very similar story. Was it the basement of Libertine? Neil Brown. He just unloaded his mezcals and tequilas on us at Libertine — and same thing, three and a half hours long.
Jared Byczko: There was a sake tasting too.
Fabian Rodriguez: Sake, that's right. We learned about the Japanese — sochu or whatever. I think he was just opening up Libertine, down in the basement there on Mass Ave. It's been a couple different things, but Remembrandt's used to be there on the corner, and then right next door there's a bar that goes down into the basement. He's like, hey, I gotta taste all these sakes, do you guys wanna do it with us? And there were so many bottles. That was our first two-parter. They went forever.
Nate Spangle: Our first two-parter. I love it. First of many.
Nate Spangle: So I think a lot of people start a podcast because — you get to network, you get to be the host — and the ones that stick it out, I feel like, realize there's a bigger purpose to what they're doing. It's not just for personal fame or glory, it is because you're telling stories that need to be told, or you're documenting this thing. Where was the moment for you guys that the switch flipped and you realized you were filling a void that Indianapolis needed?
Jared Byczko: I would say it was when we started getting to the event space. We partnered up with the HI-FI and started doing live podcasts, and that was the moment where people started showing up, buying tickets to actually come watch us do live podcasts. We would have a guest on there — one time we talked to Brian Payne.
Fabian Rodriguez: Yes, Ending Racism.
Jared Byczko: We talked to Lauren Day about the Red Line before the Red Line launched. And then we talked to DT from the Colts.
Nate Spangle: That's awesome. So how many people were buying tickets?
Jared Byczko: I would say on average 50, 75. And they're getting people to come listen to you have a conversation. It was upstairs at the HI-FI, they're just sitting there watching us. And then we started getting invited to events. I remember going to the Parks Alliance end-of-year conference, and we were out there doing episodes with different individuals really connected in the Indianapolis community. So that was, for me, where it was just like — wow, people want this. This is cool. And it gave you a little bit more of, okay, I like doing this now.
Nate Spangle: So give us a relative scale — at the end of year one, how many listeners, as you guys evaluated if you wanted to do it for another year?
Fabian Rodriguez: I will tell you that in one second, but I also want to answer the question you just asked, because I think this is really important, and I think part of what you do also goes to what I'm about to say. So Jared talked earlier about us doing this Creative Mornings talk — this is maybe a year into having the podcast. Ryan Huntley, awesome dude, was a big fan of what we were doing, saw the potential and the value in what we were providing to the city, asked us to come do this thing. And after the event, this guy comes up to us and says, hey man, my name's Joey, I've been listening to your podcast, and I just wanted to let you know that my wife and I just moved here from the Region because of your show. We didn't know all this cool stuff was going on. Joey ends up being Joey Potts and Sara Jean Potts, who own Guide & Anchor, who at the time were doing all the artwork for 18th Street Brewery. Now he has his own agency, and when you see something cool that's being done in Indianapolis artwork-related — a space, a logo, a rebrand or branding for a business — it's them that is doing it. So we saw this thing, and at least in my mind I was like, we are having economic impact. There's people moving to the city because of the stories that we're putting out there, because they didn't know that Indianapolis was doing it like that.
Nate Spangle: So you guys brought a mover and shaker to Indianapolis, and it makes you feel like — oh, this isn't about how many events you get invited to. I'll read one — "My husband and I wanted to let you know your podcast was helpful in us deciding to move to Indiana. We are from Southern California, and a couple years ago, with the arrival of our first child, we decided we did not want to stay in California anymore. Long story short, we narrowed the list down to three different states. Two of them had family in them, and Indiana was the only state that did not have family — it was actually the furthest from any family, but it did have two friends. God pressed on our heart to come to Indiana, and though we were really nervous, your podcast really helped us to see how diverse the state really was. We've been here since April and already love it. Indiana is like the middle child — often overlooked and not flashy, but when you stop and pay attention, it's truly incredible. Thank you for what you do to show off this place." That's awesome. Boom, that's it right there.
Fabian Rodriguez: Shout out to them.
Nate Spangle: You talk about why we're sitting here — is it for followers? It's because by elevating stories of people across the state doing impactful things, people can find where they belong in the world.
Fabian Rodriguez: You screenshotted that, right? And put that on your social media?
Nate Spangle: I haven't put it out yet.
Fabian Rodriguez: Oh, you gotta put that out there.
Nate Spangle: It's gonna be out now. I was waiting for the right moment. I just wanted to take that in — you talk about economic development, and in reality it's a lot of just storytelling. How do we tell stories of people across our state that are doing impactful things, and the right people will end up here — the people who care about impact, who want to raise their family, who want to do the things that we get to do here in Indiana. That's pretty crazy.
Jared Byczko: Connection. Community.
Nate Spangle: Quick little detour of the chronological order — because I got my first pour of bourbon down and I'm feeling good. As you think through guests that you guys had on, what was the most surprising story? Sometimes after you've done 200 episodes, there's times where you go in and kind of have an expectation for how a show's gonna go, and it just blows your mind and goes a different way. Is there one that sticks out to you?
Jared Byczko: For me it was when we were sitting in Bar 1-1-4.
Fabian Rodriguez: Martha Hoover's spot, the small little listening lounge.
Nate Spangle: No, I don't know what you're talking about.
Fabian Rodriguez: Right there next to Pizzology on 49th, I wanna say it's Bar 1-1-4. It's right at the end of the block. Napolese is the restaurant — right next there there's a tiny little room.
Jared Byczko: It was like a listening lounge. They had cool speakers. It's not there anymore. It was a very New York-y vibe — the lights were always very dim, there was just one person up there spinning records, a music lounge.
Fabian Rodriguez: I just wanna say this so you get it right — it wasn't kind of dark, it was dark. They blacked out the windows. They only had those thick Italian candles where no light gets through. The bartender is the DJ and is also the chef. They don't have a functioning kitchen, so they sous vide the meat and then flash-burn it. It's a sensory experience. It was insane.
Jared Byczko: So we're there. I've gone on dates there before in the past, and it was pretty cool. Way different. But you would have to get a reservation, because there's literally only like eight or 10 seats. Long story short — Martha Hoover was our guest, and we had gone after Martha for a while. To your point of who can you get on, not get on — and this is just two random guys that started a podcast in Indy, and Martha Hoover's got 17 restaurants, it's all over nationally. We finally got connected, and her marketing person was like, now you've gotta have this interview. So we have it with her there, and the conversation started a little slow — who are you guys — it was more about her asking us questions of why we're doing this. But then, after a couple drinks and some connection, she started telling us a story — she had just gone on a trip with her husband.
Fabian Rodriguez: Somewhere with the lightning. Out in the desert.
Jared Byczko: They went on this excursion they weren't expecting, but it turned out to be this lightning show that people can go out and see. And it was the most experiential experience she and her husband have ever had together. It was a 30-minute story she told on this episode, and Fabian and I were just there, jaw dropped. I could visualize what she was saying. And then I'm sitting back thinking — this is Martha Hoover, one of the most influential people in our city since the eighties, and she's telling us a very intimate story about her and her husband. Where else are you gonna get this from? That's one that gives me a little chills right now just thinking about and talking about it. To have that experience and be able to sit in that seat with her, to hear that story in that moment, in that space — there's no other way we could have done it but with the Drink Culture podcast.
Nate Spangle: You go in there assuming you're gonna learn about the portions of eggs on a perfect omelet, and you're like — no, there's this lightning field in Flagstaff, Arizona.
Fabian Rodriguez: I also really enjoyed — if you ever get the chance, anyone out there — to sit down and talk with Martha. We did talk a lot about her building her business, but she has an economics undergrad degree. She was a lawyer originally, gave that up to start her restaurant. When she talks about the economics behind the food system, and quality versus value — some people start restaurants because they're just really good at cooking food and want to serve other people. She not only wanted to do that, but got the deeper piece behind it. It's no surprise that she built a successful restaurant group because of just the way her brain works. So shout out to Martha. She's doing a lot of cool stuff with Longer Table — stopping food insecurity in central Indiana.
Jared Byczko: And doing it in a way — there's this research where if kids have good food, they're gonna get better test scores, they're gonna show up for school every day.
Nate Spangle: School lunches. She's been involved in that for a while, even before the Patachou Foundation has shifted, I believe, with everything that happened — with her no longer owning Patachou. So I think it's now called Longer Table, and she's just working to solve a problem. Kids in central Indiana, kids anywhere, should not be worried about where their next meal is coming from.
Jared Byczko: I think everyone on any side of any aisle, anywhere, should agree that kids should not be worried about where their next meal is, and that the meal is not bad.
Nate Spangle: Respectfully agreed. All right, cool, we're all in agreement there. So that was one of the conversations that changed — that you did not expect going in there. Talk to me about the journey. So you guys decide to keep doing it, you end up doing it for two more years, you have spectacular conversations. Was it always on site for three years?
Jared Byczko: Up until the very end. Miles Herndon at the time — in Gavel coffee shop, he gave us a spot. Hey, we've got this corner if you guys want it. We were making a hard pitch for people to give us a studio, and he was kind enough and generous enough to give us a studio. So we did that for the last six or seven months — had a dedicated spot.
Fabian Rodriguez: And I don't want to forget — I want to throw this out there before we forget — we did have a third person jump on with us, Hailey. Hailey Brown — shout out Hailey — now Hailey Kre. She jumped in and helped us as a third host, because — Fabian had mentioned this — I really wanted to create this as a business. Our goal from day one was to work him out of a job. He was in the middle of going through some sales training, some tech sales bootcamps, and it was just like, let's try to make enough here so you can always have a job as the Drink Culture podcast. Come to find out it's not necessarily the Drink Culture podcast, but podcasting in general is now his full-time job, which is awesome. It all came from this. But having the two of us only doing this weekly, it did become — you know this, you put out three a week — it is a lot of work to do that. Even doing one a week was a lot of work.
Nate Spangle: What do you need? You're just having conversations. You just get to talk for a couple hours?
Jared Byczko: No way. So then we had three of us co-hosting, doing some tasks. We were meeting monthly, having big vision. We used to meet at the old Quill's right on the canal — they had a small little meeting room, you could get a coffee and go into a meeting room. I think that's a business model that other coffee shops could vastly use, because you can get there early, grab your coffee, and have a whiteboard between you and your friends and do whatever you need to do. You could create a million really cool businesses.
Fabian Rodriguez: We needed to up the amount of whiteboards in coffee shops.
Jared Byczko: And then over time we ended up calling out for volunteers, and we got some volunteers locally who were connecting with our podcast to start becoming a part of our team. So we built Drink Culture to be a team of five or six of us. We had a videographer — in the beginning we did no video, video and podcast didn't really exist in 2016, 2017. But we got a team together. Shout out to Tim on video, Jeff on audio, Michelle helping back-end project manage, and Cole for helping market stuff. So before, we had a team of six of us meeting on some Sundays — what is this gonna look like? And that's where the business side of things started coming in — could we create Drink Culture in other cities? Could we do a 317, do this, or like Barstool, the spinoffs, their Viceroy program?
Fabian Rodriguez: So there's a month or two where we put out ideas of, could we create a license or affiliate in Cincinnati. But too much work. And honestly, it felt like — have you ever heard of the icon problem before?
Nate Spangle: No.
Fabian Rodriguez: The icon problem is when the business owner is the business. Everyone associates that business with you, and as soon as you try to replace yourself, or build an apprentice, or have a co-host — it's not you. For us to find the personality, the combination, the mixture, the back-and-forth that he and I can have, the relationship we can have, to find that in another city — sure, it's gonna take a little while to ramp people up, but to find that person, to find good people to do that, is the challenge.
Nate Spangle: This is so fascinating. So I've been actively thinking about this. We were so ahead of our time, Jared. Really — this is why I don't write our newsletter. It goes out to over 15,000 Hoosiers twice a week. I don't touch it, that's Shane. We have a South Bend newsletter that's run by Elena on our team — I don't touch that, I might look over it and give feedback, but I'm not actively being the person pushing the buttons. Because Nate Spangle is not scalable. And this is the other piece that's interesting — if our mission is to elevate stories of Hoosiers, the way that I do it does not resonate with everyone in Indiana. Me getting really loud and saying I just ate five tenderloins — there are people that hate every video I put out.
Fabian Rodriguez: I've seen a couple of your comment tags and posts to people. You circle, and you're like —
Nate Spangle: But you don't — if we're building a company that is bigger than just Nate getting paid to eat tenderloins, there are people that don't look like me, that don't talk like me, that don't like what I like to do, but they're still in Indiana. And there's a place for them, and that story needs to be told. So where we're headed toward is being able to tell all of these stories and amplify the voices that are doing great things in Indiana — that doesn't always have to be the very energetic "gentlemen, let's get ready to rumble."
Fabian Rodriguez: It's great, but you were totally right — it's hard, it's a challenge.
Nate Spangle: And so that's what kept you guys from really diving full-on into growing Drink Culture in that way?
Fabian Rodriguez: Part of it. Now we're getting to the point in the timeline where we're getting close to COVID, and close to Jared having his first child, and close to the period where Hailey is really starting to climb the ranks at her company. So you have this convergence of all of these different things coming together. And I've always been very open and vocal about this — a lot of the responsibility for Drink Culture, at the end of the day, the logistical side, came down to me. So the convergence of all these things — we're doing more episodes, we are starting families, we're getting higher up in our careers — all that stuff starts to really wear you thin as a team, to where you can't really pursue these bigger goals. And when your entire business model — to try to license or franchise or get out to other cities — is based on telling local business stories and selling local business sponsorship, and then something like COVID hits and it's so uncertain as to where local business is heading, you can't ask those people for money. You can't have them on your podcast — hey, tell me about what's going on — because those stories suck. Those people are shutting their doors, having to fire people. So this whole thing just started crumbling. And for a few months — that happened in March, we ran it through July — there was no end in sight, it went from two weeks to multiple years. We didn't know what was gonna happen. So it just felt like the right time to walk away and say, hey, we had a great run, this is probably the right time to call it.
Nate Spangle: How hard was that decision to make?
Fabian Rodriguez: It was incredibly hard. And you can go back and listen, on Spotify only, to the episodes where we had —
Nate Spangle: That's one of the things — you guys had a Spotify exclusive deal, you'd sold the podcast?
Fabian Rodriguez: That's actually a mistake and a regret of ours that we can share later. But one of the things that we were always influenced by — the StartUp podcast, recording candid conversations and being very vulnerable and transparent — we had these conversations as a group of, where does this go, why is this ending. And it's not just everybody agrees, because not everybody agreed with Fabian saying we need to end this. People were saying there's other ways we can keep this going. But ultimately it was the right call.
Nate Spangle: Hindsight, five years later — five years from your last episode — you would still agree this was the right decision?
Jared Byczko: I say yeah. For me personally, 100%, because I started a business.
Nate Spangle: You went from not a business owner to — I would say a subject matter expert on podcasting in Indiana. Since I've known you, it's been all podcasts. Being able to start — and again, that was the original idea, right? The whole thing is, hey, we wanna get this going so that this could be your thing. And now you have a thing that came largely in part from the success that you guys had with the podcast.
Fabian Rodriguez: A hundred percent. It's solely responsible for it. I wouldn't be doing what I do today if it wasn't for that podcast. And there were many thoughts and opportunities for us to, hey, can we sell this to the Indy Chamber, can we sell this to —
Jared Byczko: IBJ.
Fabian Rodriguez: We didn't really go deep in any of those conversations, because at the same time we were just like, well, this is just a thing, and we did it as a passion project of ours.
Nate Spangle: The question would be — and I don't care if you're cool sharing — did you guys think it was a profitable venture? Thousands, tens of thousands?
Jared Byczko: 2019, we had 20 grand revenue.
Fabian Rodriguez: 20,000. Tens of thousands of dollars. That's not a lie. It was from local sponsorships.
Nate Spangle: But it's not like you guys were making no buku bucks here.
Fabian Rodriguez: We were not.
Nate Spangle: In 2025, being able to charge 2025 prices — and you didn't have the other properties. The thing about it is, we have a ton — we have 13 different media properties. From Instagram accounts to newsletters to blog posts to TikTok accounts, YouTube — there's 13 different properties spread throughout Get Indiana. You guys had, I believe, a podcast to start, and then added a newsletter.
Fabian Rodriguez: Podcast, newsletter — we had the Instagram account, website as well. But we were also living in a world where people weren't investing the amount of money that they're investing now in local podcasts. Not to speak of the larger podcast economy as well — that also wasn't being invested in as heavily. A local bar, even in 2025, doesn't have $10,000 to spend on marketing with a podcast. So figuring out the economics of that in 2025 has still been interesting, and works a little bit better than it did in 2020. You think of the culmination of all these things coming together, and it's kind of like wrong place at the wrong time — or maybe, instead of right place, right time. We've talked about that before — maybe we were just early on what we were doing, in the sense of making this an actual business with the Drink Culture podcast. Because now, to your point, Nate, a lot of people have done this and created this model. And the question for you is — how did you figure out your pricing? I remember him and I figuring out our pricing was like, hey, what number do you wanna throw out there? I don't know. We just threw a number out there, and the first business that said yes, we're like, cool. Then the next business, let's add $25 to that, threw that out there and they said yes. And the next, it just —
Nate Spangle: My big piece to start was, I wanted to work with brands that had statewide distribution. Pretty quickly I realized that local businesses are tough. I want to be able to promote them for free, and I want brands on the other side that know that what we're doing works and they can sell. A few of our sponsors — Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance can sell insurance in all 92 counties, and Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance will do better if my video highlighting the Marengo Tavern in southern Indiana does well and gets 500,000 views, because they're a partner of us and more people will see them. So the economics work, because the partners we work with are big and have statewide or national reach and those type of budgets, versus trying to convince 50 people to go to the local coffee shop.
Jared Byczko: Not saying that's a bad model — but that was a huge issue for us, and you just nailed it. The locality of being a local podcast kind of screwed us, to make this an actual viable business for the future unless we took it nationally and did the whole affiliation or licensing, which we just didn't have the bandwidth for.
Nate Spangle: That's why we're investing — we just announced our acquisition of the Fishers Digest, and we're working on spinning up some more of those, where our statewide partners want to get access into South Bend. We have a South Bend newsletter, it has around 5,000 subs. We have a local writer up there, so Nate's not writing it. It's like, hey, we are doing a pop-up Rare Saint Whiskey event in South Bend this weekend — great, here you go, we're gonna pump you out in that newsletter. And then I can also increase my distribution into those markets — when I was up there visiting, we pumped that out in the South Bend newsletter and they're like, oh my gosh, Nate was up here. But when I'm not up there, we have a local person who wants a platform — Elena wants to share what she loves about 574 in South Bend. So it's interesting. I don't know the answer when it comes to pricing. We are a premium product. No one's willing to go everywhere. I wake up early — yesterday I was on the road, I went to Fort Wayne and spent the day, I worked in Fort Wayne.
Fabian Rodriguez: Did you pay for a driver?
Nate Spangle: No, not yet.
Fabian Rodriguez: Come on man. Dude, I listened to your Tiffany episode — pay for a driver.
Nate Spangle: I know, I think I might work that into whoever our next employee is — hey, be my personal driver. But the stage of life that I'm at — I'm 28, my girlfriend lives in Florida, so I really have unlimited time. Tomorrow we're gonna Evansville and we'll spend 24 hours in Evansville, get all the content that we need, visit the Fall Festival, and then Donut Bank.
Fabian Rodriguez: Oh, I love Donut Bank.
Nate Spangle: It's fire. But yeah, we figure it out, and we put ourselves at — I'll be honest — the top of the market.
Jared Byczko: Well, if you're going to the national corp, the Indiana-wide brands, you can do that. Funny story — do you remember our first sponsor, Central State Brewing? Our friend Jake was one of the co-owners of Central State Brewing — great brewery, doesn't exist anymore. He approached us about sponsoring, because we were also very vocal about looking for sponsors for the show. And we're like, all right, hell yeah, he's interested. So Jared's like, all right, what do we charge him? Like 500 bucks an episode? Bet, that sounds good. So we sent him the email, and if you know Jake, he's very blunt, very matter-of-fact. He goes, I can do 25 bucks.
Fabian Rodriguez: And we said yes. Because people didn't need to know what other people were paying, but it opened the door for other people to be like, oh, there's a sponsor, I can sponsor this. And you build on top of it.
Jared Byczko: 25 bucks. I totally forgot about that. Shout out Central State.
Nate Spangle: Hey, respect him for shooting you straight.
Fabian Rodriguez: But to your point earlier — how many listeners did we have at that point in time? I don't know, maybe 50.
Nate Spangle: So you're at 350,000 total downloads. You say one of the biggest regrets was going Spotify only.
Jared Byczko: We just actually found this out the other day. Not my choice. You talked about when we closed up shop — we didn't really know how to close this up as a business. We did have a tax ID number, so we had to close it up with our accountant, we're paying taxes on all this stuff. But we always — and I know he said 100% the right decision — we'd always hem and haw on whether we should bring this back. There's probably, once a quarter for the last four years, he sends a message — restart Drink Culture. And I'm like, yeah. And then I send him a text just randomly — restart Drink Culture. And he's like, yeah. We've actually fired up a couple episodes that we've thrown out there, of him and I potentially bringing this back.
Nate Spangle: How'd they do?
Jared Byczko: I don't know, I didn't even look.
Nate Spangle: Hey, there's an office right next door if you wanna Drink Culture.
Jared Byczko: It's harder with a family. A hundred percent — if you could just come in and have a space over here. There was a guy that sold advertising on your podcast from his statewide partners — everyone I wanted to meet with was in the evenings, and I don't give up evening time anymore. That's for my kids and my wife. So that's tough.
Nate Spangle: I'm just saying, there's a nice studio that could be next door. What we did was — we didn't forget, we just stopped paying for our hosting fees.
Fabian Rodriguez: Libson was a perfect example. Libsyn had all of our data — that's where most of our episodes went through, and then shot out everywhere else. And we just didn't pay it, because we didn't really think about it, didn't care anymore. And he found out recently that, after two years, they just wipe your data. Because I was like, oh, maybe we will bring it back, the thought got into my brain, so I was like, let me get everything back up. And then I went to Apple, tried to play every episode in Apple, and none of them play. And I'm like, Fabian, what's going on? So I did some digging and found out that Libsyn said, if you don't pay within two years, they just cloud-wipe everything. So all of our episodes on Apple —
Nate Spangle: Another reason that we hate data centers.
Fabian Rodriguez: Now I have to go through the process of going through old hard drives, trying to figure out if I still have those final versions of files, and then upload each one individually.
Jared Byczko: I don't know if you're gonna do that. But that's why we said, on Spotify — Spotify didn't kill it. We have our last 100 episodes live on Spotify only.
Fabian Rodriguez: Only the last 100. Similar thing, where they delete — so just be — that's another thing about this whole content creation world we live in. Things live in a cloud, but then you don't really have control over that anymore. If that business goes bankrupt and is out of business, there goes all your stuff.
Nate Spangle: Hey, shout out Libsyn, please do not go bankrupt — my whole last couple years of work.
Fabian Rodriguez: My body of work would be there.
Jared Byczko: And that's what we talk about — Drink Culture is over, but it's a portfolio for us. But it's no longer a living portfolio to that extent, and that's frustrating, because it's 200 bucks a year.
Nate Spangle: So what was the biggest regret? Not paying for Libsyn?
Fabian Rodriguez: Not paying the Libsyn. 200 bucks, $7 a month, to keep it — which we just didn't know.
Jared Byczko: That was just one drink to keep the culture alive. So then some of our links on our website are completely dead, and now it looks like a half-assed defunct business, when in reality, when it was live, it was legit.
Nate Spangle: Okay, so take us through — you guys have been talking about relaunching, you've been talking, should you do it, should you not. Catch us up — here's where the bottleneck gets created.
Fabian Rodriguez: I think the energy and the passion for it is definitely there. The thing that stops me from actually going — partly you, right, you're already doing it. So I don't want to gaslight people and say, we're only gonna come back, but we're gonna be different, and then we're not different — we're just telling the same stories that Nate's already telling. Where's the value to the listener in that? So unless there's a different approach and a different way that we can tell those stories, it's not worth it to me to bring it back, because it wouldn't fulfill me. We're back to the beginning of, I'm not fulfilled at my job, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't think I would have the energy to just do the same thing again, because I don't think it would work.
Nate Spangle: You're doing too good of a job for that. And there's other people that are doing it as well. Thank you.
Fabian Rodriguez: It also goes back to — there's only a certain amount of stories to tell. There's a lot of them, but there's not a million crazy Hoosier stories. I should be saying that. So that is interesting. But on the other side, the way that you guys tell it and do it is just different.
Nate Spangle: I don't know the right answer to that. So here's the idea that I had — and if there's anybody listening and you want to help out, I'm willing to do it, but I just can't do it alone and I don't have the money to pay. Get this — there's a telephone number. You see it everywhere. Eventually you're like, why do I keep seeing this telephone number, why is it here? You call the number, and the number is this voicemail that tells you, hey, Drink Culture is coming back. There's this weird music in the background, it's telling you Drink Culture's coming back, but we want to hear from you.
Jared Byczko: The people that live here — what are the stories you want to hear about? What is something weird about Indianapolis? What is just this rumor that you've heard?
Nate Spangle: What's a question you want answered?
Fabian Rodriguez: That voicemail starts the episode, and we work backwards from the voicemail.
Nate Spangle: I'm invested.
Fabian Rodriguez: To tell the story.
Nate Spangle: I'll personally write the check today. If you've ever heard of Reply All — one of the best podcasts I've ever — Reply All starts in this very similar way, where they work backwards from this question, and you find the different people that help you find the answer to this question. But it's not an interview, it's a story. It's Drink Culture in a new version, and it's not just you're talking to people. So anyway — we got real estate next door, it's yours, set up the studio, I'll help advertise, I'll fund whatever. This is sick. We need this, because it's the perfect mix of modern talk radio where they're like, call in and tell us about your — and you could have that line for multiple shows too. There could be a story that someone calls in and is like, Nate, we need you to answer, what's going on with Daniel Jones, I don't know. I came up with this idea — I'm talking to your wife right now, so just jot that down so people can't take it from me. Thank you. We — hey, people need to read these receipts, I am 100% in.
Jared Byczko: Do you like that? Do you like the idea?
Nate Spangle: Dude, that's phenomenal.
Fabian Rodriguez: What I like about that — I don't know if this is what you're thinking — my two ideas, if we were to bring something back, it would have to be more episodic, in the sense of there's a section of episodes versus the weekly thing, which just drives me nuts. Knowing that weekly — I know you like to go on vacation, you like to travel. Having a weekly anything makes that very challenging.
Nate Spangle: Seasons, right? I'll fund season one, whatever, for all the staff that we need. This guy's getting involved.
Fabian Rodriguez: And my partners would love that. This is something so impactful. We figure out the logistics to make it happen, so you get to do what gives you energy, and we'll work with our different editors, our different people to make this thing happen.
Nate Spangle: I'll fund season one. I think that would be so impactful. And it's different, because I tell stories of the entire state of Indiana, and some stuff that comes on the hotline could be valuable to us here. I could answer a question that a caller has on this show.
Fabian Rodriguez: It would almost be a little bit of true-crime-y. You find a voicemail that comes in — Denise is asking why — listen to one episode of Reply All. I'll even give you the episode to listen to, and you'll hear exactly what I'm trying to describe. So it's not hot takes, it's not someone calling in — there's that guy in a New York subway that does the hot takes, he's got a hundred million followers. No, it's not hot takes. It's just like, there's a rumor about a body that got found in the river or something. Not an eight-story, but — hey, I've always heard about this thing, blah blah blah. Work backwards from their question and find the people that could help us answer the question or tell the story.
Nate Spangle: And it would be like — I've heard that there's a river underneath downtown Indianapolis, but I've never —
Jared Byczko: And you're like, yes — Pogue's Run. You bring on a historian.
Fabian Rodriguez: This was created to divert water away. Sometimes we would already know the answers, and maybe you bring on a historian.
Nate Spangle: A hundred percent, this needs to exist. And there's a studio potentially right next door — I think it's a commission-off studio.
Fabian Rodriguez: I'm okay —
Nate Spangle: No, I would give it to you for free. I would just sell ads into the show.
Fabian Rodriguez: Okay, so we need to figure out — we're getting into the weeds here — we need to figure out revenue split, how that's gonna work. And I think we have the right partners to bring in to help, because the most important, critical part of this is the intrigue of the number. Where is it? How do we get it up there? This even makes me think about West Fork Whiskey and them heavily investing into billboards — just a better way to market, an old-school way to market, versus investing heavily into digital.
Nate Spangle: I don't know — you tell us, is this idea worth pursuing?
Fabian Rodriguez: I'm already in.
Nate Spangle: But I want you to tell us — does Indianapolis need this style of storytelling? By the way, future guests — bring ideas to Nate and pitch businesses, and the dude will just sign. This is why we continue to grow. Nate's personal checking account doesn't continue to grow, but —
Nate Spangle: I'm all in on this long game.
Fabian Rodriguez: Long game. I love it. Not to say that your two ideas that you also have here aren't important.
Nate Spangle: No, they're bad. But let us know now — we're happy to dive into 'em.
Fabian Rodriguez: The ideas for me were just — make it more just episodes, or seasons, so it's not so stressful. And the other one was just bringing back old guests to do like a rehash — a reunion story. I'm a big — my favorite show is always the reunion one.
Nate Spangle: You're the only person that didn't like Karate Kid but liked Cobra Kai.
Fabian Rodriguez: There you go. But being able to tell everyone's story — where is this person now, what are they doing now. I think that's kind of the story we have. I've been for two shifts — Drunk Culture.
Nate Spangle: Drunk Culture. Drink in the culture. Gentlemen, this has been so fun. We're coming towards the end of the show. I'd love to know — if you look back on those three years of hosting the show, and the five years since then, what are your favorite moments, and what are the moments you still talk about today from your time hosting the show?
Jared Byczko: Getting a day dedicated to us in the city, from the mayor, was probably the coolest thing that's ever happened because of the podcast.
Fabian Rodriguez: One of the coolest things that's ever happened because of the podcast.
Jared Byczko: July 19th, 2019 — Drink Culture Podcast Day. What's up?
Nate Spangle: Nate's like, to-do list. I'm looking at you, governor. I'm looking for the Sagamore of the Wabash. I'm just trying to be the youngest person to win that award.
Fabian Rodriguez: That's good. Just kidding. But not really.
Nate Spangle: That's so you. You can do your second one — what's your second one?
Jared Byczko: We had a two-year anniversary party at Upland in Fountain Square, and just to get all those people together to celebrate what we had done was awesome.
Fabian Rodriguez: Mine's a little bit more emotional, I guess you'd say. Connections, friendship. Fabian and I are still really good friends to this day. Hailey and I are still really good friends to this day. I unfortunately wasn't able to make Hailey's wedding, but we're both invited to Hailey's wedding. That was just a random connection — she messaged us and was like, hey, I wanna do what you're doing, I like what you're doing, can I be a part of this? And then we brought her on, and since then it literally feels like a brother-sister relationship amongst the three of us.
Jared Byczko: Kudos to her for having the — as a 21-year-old — to be like, hey, you guys are doing something cool, I wanna be a part of that. Now she's 30 now and she's crushing it in her own world. But yeah, just being able to use that platform of Drink Culture to then still have the friendships we have together today. And Fabian is a great example — dude's back at the gym now. He left us hanging for a long time, and now he's back in Myriad Fitness, and Hailey's there as a member as well. So I get to see them on a daily basis.
Nate Spangle: The gang's back together.
Jared Byczko: Yeah.
Nate Spangle: Well, the gang's gonna be back together again for Drunk Culture — Drink Culture, whatever we end up calling it. The Indy Hotline, whatever it might be. Name still pending. I love name brainstorming. Gentlemen, we've come to the end of the show where we talk all things Indiana. This next question is brought to you by our friends at JC Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. Check them out at HomeIsJCHart.com. My question for you, gents — why do you call Indiana home?
Jared Byczko: Born and raised in Merrillville, Indiana, and I always disliked Indianapolis, because we always lost to Indy in every championship — I played a lot of sports as a kid, and we always lost to Indianapolis teams. To come down here and play college soccer, and then make this my home, where I started a business in 2011 and have not left since, and will not leave, and will meet — met my wife here, have kids here. We're building downtown right now, so we plan on being here for a really long time. We've already talked about it — the connection, the community, cost of living, just downtown. It's such a small world and you get to know everybody. So that's Indiana for me.
Nate Spangle: Fabian.
Fabian Rodriguez: So I grew up in Illinois. I went to high school in Indiana, I went to college in Indiana, with my wife in Indiana, got my first big-boy job in Indiana. A lot of things here that make me love this place, so that makes it feel like home. But I think more importantly than that — and Jared kind of touched on this — Indianapolis particularly is a city where you are one email or text away from getting connected, maybe two at the most, to whoever you want to get connected to, and they will meet with you. You have to have a lot of prerequisites to sending that email — there has to be a purpose, you have to have a passion, you have to know why you want to meet with this person — but you are one to two emails or texts away from meeting with whoever you want to.
Nate Spangle: We'll just say one, and you can do whatever you want here. Visit Indy — you can use this from us — Indianapolis, you're one call away from changing your life.
Fabian Rodriguez: I like it.
Nate Spangle: Done, let's go. Call the hotline.
Fabian Rodriguez: Call the hotline. The tagline is there.
Nate Spangle: It's so true, though. Granted, it's not like you can just call up your local billionaire and say, give me a job. But —
Fabian Rodriguez: Give you an example — my first call when I left Powderkeg and had this podcast was to the CEO of Sweetwater. Mike Clem. Chuck had been gone at this point. And I said, Mike, I need help. I'm starting a podcast, I'm starting this media company, I wanna build all of — I explained where we would be at today. This was back in the summer of 2024. And he said, great, this is my head of sponsorship, meet them. And Tyler took care of me, and here we are. They were my first sponsor, and they helped us build the studio. And it wasn't just, hey, I want to podcast full-time, will you help me — it was, here's what we're doing, here's the momentum we currently have, I need your help. And people show — it's prerequisites, all the things that lead up to it.
Nate Spangle: I love it. So true. You're one call away from changing your life in the state of Indiana and the city of Indianapolis. Call the hotline. 1-800-HOOSIER. Maybe text the hotline too.
Fabian Rodriguez: No, we need the audio.
Nate Spangle: We need the audio. Okay, these are the same three questions that I ask every guest that comes on the show. First we're gonna go Fabian — what's something the world needs to know about Indiana?
Fabian Rodriguez: I'll give a shout out to my friends at Guggman Haus. The best IPAs are being made in Indianapolis right now, at Guggman Haus.
Nate Spangle: People need to know that Indianapolis has the best IPAs and they're at Guggman Haus. They have two fun locations — I haven't been to the new one yet.
Fabian Rodriguez: Me neither. But I've been to the older one on the west side, over by Tech. Great place.
Nate Spangle: All right. Jared — what's something the world needs to know about Indiana?
Jared Byczko: Connection. We just talked about it — the one email away. You can come here and get connected with nearly almost anyone you want. I was sitting in a neighborhood meeting yesterday, trying to make some changes on 16th Street, and within five minutes I had a list of people — oh, we need to talk about that, talk to that person, this person. And there were two influential people in our city government, just city alliance, that immediately were like, oh, they know we're meeting in here, why don't we just talk to those people right now who can make a huge impact for us. So if you want to get connected, want to be a part of something — and it's not just Indianapolis, it's the rest of the cities as well — it just takes a little bit of effort. Just a tiny little bit. If you just start pushing your car a little bit, people are willing to help.
Nate Spangle: This is where we uncover a part of Indiana that more people need to know about — a specific thing that's not getting enough love. What is a hidden gem in Indiana?
Jared Byczko: I really enjoy a nice cigar to relax. It gives me 90 minutes to two hours of just me time. I have two kiddos, I have a business, I have lots of things going on, so me time is super important for me. And once I have a cigar, it usually leads into a conversation with somebody else, and then I walk out of that in an exponentially better mood. A Blend Bar cigar on 86th Street is my favorite place to go to grab a cigar.
Nate Spangle: Has that been mentioned before in the past?
Jared Byczko: No. If not — Fabian and I, you can find us there usually on a Friday, especially in the wintertime. Just have a nice 90 minutes together, have probably a small little pour of whiskey and a nice little cigar. That's my number one vice in life. I wish I didn't smoke cigars, but it does just bring me fluidity and joy. A Blend Bar on 86th.
Nate Spangle: 86th or 82nd? I'm calling in the hotline — is it 86 or is it 82nd? Answer the question, because that would be one that would be pretty easy to answer and talk about where it changes over. But I digress. Fabian, what is a hidden gem in Indiana?
Fabian Rodriguez: Lake Maxinkuckee in Culver. And don't go there — I'm looking at all of you. Don't go there and mess up my summers. Not that I summer there, I don't summer anyway. But there's a specific weekend in August that I love to go. Don't go there.
Jared Byczko: He went to Culver Academy.
Nate Spangle: No way. I did not know that. So you used to summer there?
Fabian Rodriguez: No, I used to winter there.
Nate Spangle: It's great.
Jared Byczko: Little did you guys know — he stopped Drink Culture and then made $10 million and bought a house on Max.
Fabian Rodriguez: I wish. No, it's great. Two, three years ago we did the Lake Max trip. That's one of my annual trips, I absolutely love it.
Nate Spangle: What led you to go to Culver Academy?
Fabian Rodriguez: Do you wanna start another podcast right now? Like another full episode?
Nate Spangle: Maybe we make this a quarterly catch-up. On the next episode of Get IN Culture, we're gonna talk about why Fabian went to Culver Military Academy. It is military, yeah. But, Lake Max — funny, just because you said that, I picture the picture you showed me of yourself when you were 16. I really wanna see that. Okay, final question, gentlemen. This is where we source new guests, where we learn about other people within Indiana that are doing crazy cool things — they could be outside of Indiana as long as they have ties to Indiana. Who's a Hoosier that we need to keep on our radar, someone who's doing big things?
Jared Byczko: Tinker Coffee. Steve Hall. I don't know if you've had him on yet.
Nate Spangle: I have not.
Jared Byczko: Steve's awesome in so many ways. Tinker Coffee as a whole has a very unique, interesting business model. They started off just making coffee, roasting beans — people would walk in there and not even know they were just a roastery. That was actually one of our first episodes, when we first walked in there. And then eventually they started sourcing out all their coffee, and then eventually started doing coffee shops. That was relatively intentional on their part, and it's a really cool story to hear. But also, they are at every event — they don't say no to events when people need a community event or coffee donations. Not to throw Steve out there, and Tinker, like they do everything for free coffee — they really are community first, Indianapolis first, Indiana first. And it's awesome, they do a great job.
Nate Spangle: I love that. We're gonna have to have 'em on. People need to know about my pickleball coach, Rick Witkin. This dude is — Indiana, bro. Zionsville, Indianapolis tennis legend. His brother Todd was a top-10 ATP tennis pro — unfortunately died, I believe it was a brain tumor. So now he's got this whole other brand called RipKin — he literally carries his brother's honor through him all the time. Todd was a top-10 pro in the nineties, died unexpectedly. But Rick is so involved in juniors, high school tennis, but also bringing pickleball to the younger generation. He will go down in the Hall of Fame as a senior pro pickleball player. He also founded the NPL, the National Pickleball League, which is the premier league for 50-and-over pickleball players. They're just now opening that up in 2026 for players 40 and over. So he's giving an opportunity for these older athletes that are maybe not young enough to compete with the current pros on the PPA Tour to go somewhere else. They just had Danny Wuerffel here — former Heisman Trophy winner, NFL quarterback — he's part of their league. Vince Vaughn is an owner in one of the teams for the NPL. So he's doing awesome stuff out of Zionsville, Indiana. Incredibly charismatic guy, and is launching his new podcast, This Is Pickleball, at the end of October.
Fabian Rodriguez: Well, I'm gonna have him as a guest. He's incredible.
Nate Spangle: I would love that. So I had Dalton Emmon from Cracked Rackets — I had Dalton on.
Fabian Rodriguez: Oh, I just met him when we talked about you. He's great.
Nate Spangle: I just had him on, and he talked about Rick — well, he said Todd Witkin, his brother who passed — and it was like, absolute legend. Crazy. This is wild — but in a span of less than seven days, we've had two similar racket sports.
Fabian Rodriguez: They're hot. Get 'em while they're hot.
Nate Spangle: Gentlemen, this has been such a pleasure and an honor. From this podcast, we have action items — we're gonna bring, I don't know what the name is yet, but something to do with this hotline is coming to life.
Fabian Rodriguez: Hot Indy Line.
Nate Spangle: Something like that. I don't know about that, it kind of sounds not my vibe. But what I will say is, I appreciate you guys — the work that you put into Drink Culture for three years. You paved the way for podcasting in Indiana and have made my life easier. There is an appetite, and obviously life happens, and sometimes it's just the right time. But I appreciate you coming on and sharing the stories — learning about that first couple episodes where you wanted to be the bourbon and beer aficionados, and how much self-awareness you guys have. You could have put out 200 episodes drinking with your buddy, talking about hops, but shifting that into something that was impactful enough for the mayor to dedicate a day to you — in case you guys didn't know, you should know, but in case you — that is impactful. The city needed that. We need to increase the quality in which we talk about our place. And what you guys did, the movement you started, was very impactful. I'm grateful to call you guys friends, and grateful to have you in the studio and excited to be neighbors with you guys next door.
Fabian Rodriguez: I love that.
Nate Spangle: No, I'm serious. We're gonna make something really, really cool happen going into 2026.
Jared Byczko: Awesome. Thank you for having us on, and congratulations to you and all of your success too. I've been closely watching, and it's so cool to see you take this brand and make it into what it is right now, and only getting bigger. So congratulations to that.
Nate Spangle: We're rocking and rolling, baby. Thanks for the kind words. And I literally share your contacts and your Instagram probably three, four, five times a week.
Fabian Rodriguez: Let's go. Keep doing what you're doing.
Nate Spangle: I appreciate you doing — hey, and if you are in the downtown area, and maybe you're looking — holidays are around, you might be needing to get some stuffing off, the Christmas cookies — Myriad Fitness downtown.
Jared Byczko: Hey, we never do free advertisement.
Nate Spangle: And there it is, right there. I appreciate that. Come on, go check it out. You guys got yoga, you got all — give us the pitch on how we can connect to you guys, how can we support you guys.
Jared Byczko: We're located downtown in the Stutz building. We have a 12,500-square-foot fitness facility, and then we have a 2,500-square-foot yoga facility. Our membership is both of those. We're at At Myriad Fit on Instagram — that's probably the best way to get a hold of us — or just email info@myriadfit.com. We have personal training, we have weightlifting — so Olympic weightlifting — we have CrossFit, and we use a Level Method programming system, which I know you absolutely love. And then we also have HYROX. Maybe you've heard of this thing — it's taking the internet by storm. I personally am training for HYROX, I'm going up to Chicago and doing the official one up there. And I am loving the training for HYROX, so we have a HYROX training program right now as well. Every Thursday we have HYROX classes.
Nate Spangle: I want to invite you — I've been meaning to do that — to come to a Thursday HYROX class.
Jared Byczko: Or even do our HYROX on October 25th, 26th — we have a simulation, a full HYROX in our space.
Nate Spangle: Well, I run every Thursday morning with my club.
Jared Byczko: Maybe I bring the guys down. We do HYROX downtown. 5:30 a.m., 6:45 a.m. — those are the two class times.
Nate Spangle: 5:30 — that's when we do it. Perfect, a.m. I'm dead serious — we meet at the Butler track. That's an invite for any listeners out there too — to hang out with us at the track club. I won't give away free memberships, Steve.
Jared Byczko: Come try out a HYROX class.
Nate Spangle: Fabian — how can we learn if there's a podcaster out there, or a potential future podcast? He does great work.
Fabian Rodriguez: Go to CultureCollaborativeMedia.com, or find me on LinkedIn. I'm not as active on social media as I used to be, but we help businesses with podcast strategy, editing, production, and management. So if you need help with any of that, hit me up.
Nate Spangle: Heck yeah. All right, gents. We appreciate you. Thank you for all the hard work. I'm excited to keep the ball rolling. We'll talk to y'all soon. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at Sweetwater. If you want a behind-the-scenes look at everything we're doing across the state, make sure you follow me on Instagram and TikTok at Nate Spangle. Thank you so much for listening and being a part of what makes the Hoosier State great. We'll see you next time here on Get IN.
