Mike Chambers’ career has been winding and unique, taking him across the globe and through a variety of focuses.
The Massachusetts native began his career in Washington, D.C., working for Congressman Barney Frank. But during the 2008 financial crisis, Chambers became disillusioned by D.C. politics and sought to pursue a purpose-driven career.
That led him to start two global education organizations in Kenya and Haiti and introduced him to Kayak co-founder Paul English. And, all the while, Chambers was knee-deep in a career as a professional mountain athlete, leading climbing expeditions around the world.
While jet-setting, Chambers developed a deep passion for audio and connected with English over their shared love of podcasts. The duo talked about launching a business in that field, before ultimately tabling those discussions.
Now, nearly four years and a move to Boulder later, Chambers and English have reconnected to launch podcast technology startup Moonbeam.
The company aims to find and deliver quality podcast content, while also shining a light on independent creators.
“The experience we were having as consumers was we were largely frustrated with how difficult it was to find good content,” Chambers said. “On the other side of this discovery problem, from a creator perspective, it’s more and more challenging to get discovered and build audience.”
Taking inspiration from TikTok, Moonbeam has created an app that finds the best curated moments from podcasts and plays them to users via a scrolling feed known as "Beam.” If the user likes the audio, they can then use Moonbeam to listen to the entire episode.
Moonbeam, which launched in June and already has over 9,000 users, has built a team of curators to help deliver the best content to its users. Alternatively, podcast creators can create their own clips as a way to further market their show.
“This isn’t a random sample from a podcast, they are really curated in a way that leaves a listener with some element of inspiration, education or information so that discovery becomes a secondary effect of hearing great audio,” Chambers said.
Moonbeam has 450 hosts signed up to its platform and hopes to grow that number in the coming months.
As the market is flooded with podcasts, Chambers said independent content creators are being pushed out in favor of studio-backed ones. His focus is bringing attention to the best of audio, regardless of its affiliation.
“The biggest learning is that hosts are really desperate for this concept of equitable discovery and a level playing field,” he said. “That’s the demo we’re here to serve.”
The 13-person company is mostly dispersed, with Chambers and the team of curators located in a growing Colorado hub. Moonbeam, which is in the middle of raising a seed round of funding, is eyeing a larger presence in Colorado moving forward.
“We are kind of a global team right now, but when we close this round we’re really going to be looking to put down roots in Boulder,” Chambers said.
