3 builders who never spoke to each other · contested
Do not expect a podcast to grow the audience
Long form audio is one of the slowest assets on the internet and rarely spreads without a famous guest attached, so a new show mostly recirculates the listeners you already had. Use it for what it does well, depth of connection, working out ideas and access to guests, and source growth elsewhere. The counterargument is that owning the show beats renting slots on someone else's.
Where this splits
A podcast is called one of the slowest possible ways to build an audience, and separately recommended as the asset to invest in rather than advertising on somebody else's show.
side 01 · 5 claims
A podcast will not grow your audience
Amanda Natividad · Corey Haines · Nathan Barry
- 1Do not start a podcast expecting it to build your audience, because audio is one of the slowest internet assets to grow.
- 2Do not expect a podcast to grow itself: long-form audio does not spread without a famous name attached.
- 3Use the podcast for what it is good at, depth of connection, slow accretion of listeners, working out new ideas, and access to guests, and get your growth elsewhere.
- 4Expect a new show or podcast to mostly recirculate the audience you already have.
- 5A podcast is a retention and affinity channel, not a discovery one. Almost nobody finds you through the show itself.
side 02 · 2 claims
Own the show, it beats renting somebody else's
Arvid Kahl · Justin Jackson
- 1Run your own show to build an audience you own instead of buying ad slots on other people's podcasts.
- 2Switching a solo show to guest interviews moves audience growth off your own back, because each guest brings their audience to the episode. Kahl made the switch around episode 160 and says the growth effect is visible in his metrics.
What it returned
- 2021
He launched the Everything Is Marketing podcast in February 2021 as an audience-building bet and concluded the time it consumed never paid back.
- 224
Nathan Barry LIVE brought 224 subscribers, well over half of whom were already on his list
The viral podcast moments people cite are Obama on WTF with Marc Maron and Elon Musk on Joe Rogan, both a huge guest on an already huge show
Justin points to Basecamp, eBay and CodePen investing in branded podcasts rather than advertising on someone else's.
Sources
- 2021 Year In Review | Corey HainesCorey Haines · corey.co · What didn’t go well · 2022-01-01
- Why I'm building a new SaaS in 2018Justin Jackson · justinjackson.ca · What is Transistor.fm? How does it compare to other podcasting hosting apps? · undated · dissenting
- How to fix podcasting’s critical flawNathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · When was the last time you saw a podcast go viral? · 2018-10-22
- An update on The Audience Building ChallengeNathan Barry · nathanbarry.com · Not so great for subscribers · 2013-12-12
- Amanda Natividad — Mastering Content Creation and Audience Engagement – The Bootstrapped FounderAmanda Natividad · thebootstrappedfounder.com · 2023-12-06
- What I Learned From 250 Podcast Episodes – The Bootstrapped FounderArvid Kahl · thebootstrappedfounder.com · Pivot Towards Connection · 2023-09-15 · dissenting
the second source
Three plays a week, for the phase you are in
No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.
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