Learnings from 100,000,000 views on my podcast in the first year, and why everyone should NOT start a podcast

Hey friends. It's been a while, but here I am.

For 10 years I told myself "this will be the year that I launch my podcast". For the first 9 years, I continued to procrastinate and do nothing. But last year I finally made the leap and I am about to share what I've learned in my first year.

Year after year I would have the same doubts.

"Everyone has a podcast, it's too crowded"

"Nobody cares what I have to say"

"I really don't want to be on camera"

"Social media is stupid"

Finally I talked myself into it and went in with the attitude of "what do you have to lose?"

Here are the 10 things that I've learned:

1. Launching a podcast has an incredibly low barrier to entry. Yes, you heard me right. Anyone with an iPhone or computer can launch a podcast right from their office, bedroom, kitchen, back porch. That being said, see #2.
2. Launching a successful podcast has an incredibly high barrier to entry. People prefer to consume content that looks good, sounds good, and tells a compelling story. This is where things get difficult. If you want your podcast to be seen by millions of people, you have to record high production content, and have meaningful conversations with interesting people.
3. The Podcast starts at episode 21. Building a podcast is a LONG game, however, cracking into the top 1% of podcasts ever is easier than you think. 90% of podcasts don't make it past episode 10, and 90% of those don't make it past episode 20. If you can commit up front to doing 21 episodes you will be in the top 1% of podcasts in history. It sounds easy, but it's not, and that's why so many give up before they ever make it there. If you don't go in understanding that very few people will watch and listen to your podcast for the first 20 episodes, then you will inevitably become discouraged and likely give up before you gave your podcast a chance.
4. Be a student of your craft. Everybody has a story to tell, but not everybody feels comfortable telling it. From the very beginning, friends would ask "what's your goal with the podcast". I think that most of them thought I would define success using some type of metric or KPI. But my answer from the beginning has remained constant. "To become known as the greatest interviewer in the world". I am sticking to this. After conducting nearly 100 interviews, and making minor (sometimes major) tweaks every interview, I can confidently say that I am on the way to achieving that goal. My greatest anecdotal mark of success is when an interview ends and the guest says "I felt so comfortable sharing my story that I forgot that we were doing an interview". Creating a safe space for the guest, and learning how to pull that thread deeper and deeper has made all the difference in the success of the podcast.
5. Don't outsource editing, it's not commoditized. One of the greatest mistakes new podcasts make is using AI or outsourcing all of their short form content editing. You will save money doing this, but I can guarantee you will not produce high value content that has a chance at going viral. While many editors and content creators believe in "keeping up with the viral social media trends", at the end of the day the STORY is what wins. And sorry to burst your bubble, but editing for storytelling is incredibly difficult to do. Eventually you will need to get to a place where you can hire a great editor who knows how to capture the story if you want your podcast to scale. This is the greatest investment you will make in your podcast.
6. You have to be willing to balance playing the game vs. following your hearts desire. When I launched the Rollercoaster Podcast I thought to myself "I am only going to interview people who I want to interview, and who are like me, and I don't care if they have a following online etc". This is directionally right, but not precisely right. You certainly want to stay true to your heart, but also need to be willing to play the game. That could mean interviewing controversial people, people with a following, or people who are experts in a field, even though they may not be your first choice of human to spend time with. This could also mean flying out to different cities and knocking out 4-5 interviews in a day. This could mean talking about topics that you normally wouldn't want to talk about, knowing that they are trending and have a high likelihood of going viral.
7. Collaborate with your guests. When you bring someone on your show you are missing a massive opportunity if you aren't collaborating with them once the interview and content on their episode goes live. There are a few ways to do this. First, have them publish the long form interview on their own podcast platform if they have one. Second, have them post on social media platforms about the episode with a link to the podcast. Third, there is a feature called "collaborate" on Instagram where you can invite them as a collaborator, and when they accept it that piece of content will mirror on their profile. These are how you take your guests audience and convert them to your audience.
8. Don't over engineer the interview. One of the other main reasons I suggest everyone commit to 21 episodes is because of how much you will learn in the first several interviews just by doing them. One of those key learnings for me was to not over engineer the interview. In the beginning I wanted to come in well prepared, knowing every detail about my guest, with every single question well written, and the guest to have those questions in advance so they could come well prepared. Well, I was dead wrong in that approach. Once I realized that I big part of the vitality in my content was the way that I emotionally reacted to these stories, I knew I needed to lean into that. Instead of over preparing, now I come with just a few questions, and knowing just enough of the story, and I use the podcast as a way to discover the story and pull threads.
9. Don't measure success purely on the metrics. You will easily feel discouraged and burned out if you do this. Instead, you want to measure small wins like total episodes, the quality of guests you are getting on the show, your interview skill level increasing, and the few inspiring comments from your audience. This is what kept me going in the beginning when I didn't have the critical mass that I have now.
10. We are still in the first inning. As I was launching The Rollercoaster Podcast was convinced by so many people that podcasts were over saturated, and that I would just get lost in crowded a sea of podcasts. I am here to tell you today that we are still in the first inning. We are seeing that with the ever increasing numbers of people watching and listening every year, with the number of brands stepping in to this space to sponsor podcasts, and with larger media groups starting to acquire and consolidate top performing podcasts. Yes, there are TONS of podcasts, but most of them will quit making it quite easy to stand out if you are simply willing to last longer than the 99%.

On and one more for good measure. Vet your podcast studio before inviting a guest there to record. Most podcast studios out there are pretty terrible. In fact, there is lots of room for new players to come and dominate this space because the bar is so low. That's why I launched Podcast Rocket Studios, a full stop podcast agency that manages pre-production, production, and post-production. If you are considering launching a podcast, or already have a podcast and need some rocket fuel on it, please contact our team at [email protected]

Also, I'd love to personally connect with you if you are considering launching a podcast. I love helping new podcasts get their idea and vision off the ground!

Until next time!