5 lessons from 6 years of podcasting
On this day 6 years ago, I launched the first 6 episodes of The Startup Playbook Podcast.
It’s been an incredible ride over the last 6 years interviewing fantastic founders, investors and operators - a lot of whom I didn’t think I would ever be in the same room with, let alone have them give up an hour of their time to come on the podcast.
I’ve learned so much from the guests, made new friends and had doors and opportunities open up, all thanks to the wonderful community of listeners that tune in to the podcast every week.
All of this is to say, thank you to all of you who have either tuned in to the podcast over the last 6 years or come on the show to share your experience and insights.
I recently shared some of the things I wish I knew when I was starting the podcast 6 years ago for Startmate’s Media Fellowship cohort and thought others might benefit from it as well.
So here are 5 lessons I wish I knew when starting the podcast 6 years ago!
1. Everyone is within reach
As someone with close to no network in place when I first started the podcast, I never dreamt that one day I would get to interview people like Malcolm Turnbull (former Prime Minister of Australia & Investor), Cal Henderson (Co-founder & CTO of Slack), DHH (Co-founder & CTO of Basecamp) and +160 others on the podcast!
Some of the guests from the podcasts were referrals from other guests, some were inbound requests but many were from me taking a wild swing through a cold out reach and hoping they would respond, such as the example below.
My first lesson was learning that everyone is within reach, and more importantly…don’t say no on someone else’s behalf!
Worst case they ignore you or say no, but that’s the position you are in now anyway. Open yourself up to the best case scenario!
2. Content > Equipment
One of the most common questions I get asked is what equipment I use/recommend to someone wanting to start a podcast.
I share videos of my setup, lists of my equipment and more, but somehow these podcasts never seem to launch!
That’s because trying to have the perfect equipment from day 1 is a form of procrastination. You don’t need the right equipment to get started, you just need to start!
For the first full year of the podcast (58 episodes) I used this!
A lot of my early guests may remember this little microphone on a tripod that I would place between us and asking them to sit as close to me as possible so we could get the best possible audio quality.
After a year, I thought I should take this more seriously and I decided to upgrade my gear and spent thousands of dollars on new equipment and setup and guess what… it didn’t change anything!
Lesson: People will tune in and listen to your content because it’s the best content…not because you have the best audio and lighting setup.
3. Marathon vs Sprint
This is something I wished I’d learned a lot earlier in my journey.
I’d pride myself on releasing a podcast at the same time and day every week. That included editing the podcast at 3am while on holidays in Bali, or at a hostel in Peru if that meant getting the episode out on time.
But, that also had a bad effect on my health, relationships and everything else.
It took me nearly 3 years to get to a point where I was almost broken and had to take a break. At the time I thought that I had thrown away all of that work and that if I came back, I would have to start from scratch again because people would have forgotten about the show.
But guess what? I came back reenergised and the podcast was bigger and better than ever.
I was in a marathon, but running like a sprinter.
I needed to understand how to win over 100Kms, not 100ms.
4. The value is in the relationship
Often times it can be so easy to fall into the trap of chasing the wrong engagement or metrics. Whether it’s the amount of engagement on social media posts, number of followers/downloads etc.
For a long time, I found that my mood would change based on the number downloads I would get every time I logged into my podcast hosting account or my ranking on the iTunes chart.
But all of this is just artificial.
The best outcomes have come from focusing on depth of relationship vs breadth of reach.
Instead of focusing on the output of downloads, I try to spend my energy on the inputs, like the research before interviews and building better relationships with guests.
5. Trust the process
Once that initial buzz and motivation of starting something new wears off, it can be really difficult to keep going.
This is why about 25% of podcasts only have 1 episode and over 64% have fewer than 10 episodes.
It took me 2.5 years of doing a weekly podcast to see any form of ROI and from speaking to other podcasters, that was quick!
I don’t know what kept me going through that period and to be honest, there are plenty of days even now where I question what the point of doing the show is…
(image credit to @visualizevalue)
But I am grateful that for whatever reason it was, I didn’t stop even when it got really difficult.
Anything worth doing takes a long time. You want to make sure you are in the race long enough to see the other side.
Once again a big thank you to all of the listeners and guests of the podcast over the last 6 years!
If this is your first time coming across The Startup Playbook Podcast or my content, I would love for you to check out the show. Links to the podcast across all major podcasting platforms is below.
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Our Partners
Finally, a big thank you to our partners who help make this podcast happen!
Lawpath
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Scendar
We’re Scendar, an accounting and advisory practice better described as Finance as a Service (FaaS). We’re focused on founders, funders and startups. Clients that are ever-changing and adapting. We like fast movers. And as you might have guessed, we’re not your basic accountancy. We can take care of tax and the books whilst building a syndicate fund and a multimillion dollar exit strategy. At Scendar, we’re empowered by our client’s potential. Find out more at Scendar.com
Dovetail Studios
Dovetail Studios operates a venture studio and VC to transform ambitious ideas into unstoppable businesses. On top of being a renowned product development partner for startups like Afterpay, they also operate a VC fund to invest in early-stage companies that go through their venture studio program. So if you’re a non-technical, early-stage founder looking for a talented team to help supercharge your success, check out dovetailstudios.com