The Hidden Advantages of Building a Podcast Audience

What's going on everybody? Welcome to the First Class Founders podcast. The goal of this show is to equip you with powerful mental models and frameworks so that you can master the art of decision-making. In each episode, I introduce and apply these concepts in real-world scenarios. My name is Yong-Soo Chung and I'm the Founder of Urban EDC, an e-commerce brand selling everyday carry gear, and GrowthJet, a Climate Neutral certified third-party logistics company. For the past 7+ years, I bootstrapped an 8-figure business from scratch. And now, I'm ready to pull back the curtains and take you backstage with me to show you how I operate my own business.

On today's episode, we discuss why I created the First Class Founders podcast and my top 5 reasons for why everybody should consider having a podcast whether that's for your own business or for your own personal brand.

Podcasting has seen continued growth year over year and it sure looks like the growth is here to stay. I'm here to tell you why it's such an exciting medium to communicate your voice and your message and why it's not too late to get started.

By the end of this episode, my hope is that I have inspired you to create your very own podcast and that you'll have a better idea of my own personal reasons for First Class Founders.

Let's get down to business!

So let's talk about the podcasting medium as a whole. Since 2006, there's been a steady rise of Americans who have listened to a podcast in the past. It's grown so much that big media companies are now spending a lot of money to produce podcast-only shows, which wasn't the case even 5-6 years ago. Podcasting was really more for small independent voices who had an interest in a particular topic, but now we can see that mainstream podcast production is gaining steam. 

Having said that, if you've been meaning to launch a podcast, it's not too late.

As of 2022, there are close to 600 million blogs and 38 million YouTube channels, but just over 2 million podcasts.

Over the past four years, the number of people listening to podcasts has grown 100%, and over 116 million Americans listen to podcasts each month.

So there is currently just north of 2 million podcasts out there but when you start digging into this data, it actually turns out that over a million of those podcasts aren't active. So what does that mean?

They haven't launched a single new episode in 90 days. What's even crazier is that half of these podcasts haven't launched more than 10 episodes. So these are podcasts that started out and just fizzled out. People who thought they would get into podcasting who didn't stick with it and realized podcasting wasn't for them. 

So when you combine these two data sets together, there were actually only about 400,00 podcasts that have published anything in the last 3 months and have published more than 10 episodes ever. This should give you some idea on how early we are still in the podcasting space.

Also, another data point worth mentioning is that podcasting advertising is still only a very small fraction of the total dollars that are going into traditional media like television and radio today. In my opinion, podcasting will eventually overtake mainstream radio so this gives you an idea of how early podcasting still is.

Okay, so we've determined that we’re still early in podcasting.

So when you've decided to start a podcast, the most important factor in your podcast's success is consistency.

And what’s the secret sauce for consistency? You genuinely have to enjoy the art of podcasting. The most common mistake that I see people make is that they're starting their podcasts to make money. Yes, you will have opportunities to monetize, but honestly, if you're not honing in on your audience or putting out the best content you can, none of that will matter. So in the beginning, you will want to stay laser-focused on getting feedback from your listeners and continuing to improve the content that you're putting out.

One way of looking at this is something that I adopted from Tim Ferriss, who obviously, many of you are familiar with. He has a very successful podcast called the Tim Ferriss Show and he said that he began his podcasting journey with the mindset that if podcasting failed for him, he would still make it out on top because of the networking opportunities that he would have with the show. In other words, even if his podcast didn't turn into one of the top podcasts today, he would still be able to connect and meet many people who are on the top of their game in whatever industry they're in. It’s a win-win situation.

So this leads us to the first reason why I started First Class Founders and why you should also start your very own podcast is that you get to meet really awesome people. 

I wanted to meet other like-minded entrepreneurs like myself who loved seeing the world through frameworks and mental models. It can be pretty lonely being an entrepreneur without a support system and while I was busy working and building Urban EDC and GrowthJet, I wanted to meet and hang out with others who weren't in the corporate world and saw the world how I saw it as a business builder.

So in that way, I adopted Tim Ferriss's way of looking at this, and even if First Class Founders doesn't grow at all, I believe that it'll be worth it to connect with other like-minded entrepreneurs. This is one of the big reasons why I started First Class Founders.

Okay, let's go on to the second reason, which is that podcasting is similar to email in that no third-party service owns it. It's your owned media. Just like how you own all the email subscriber data if you have a newsletter, podcasting is similar in that it's a platform-agnostic medium that will live in perpetuity. This is very different from let's say Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. If any one of these platforms changes its algorithm or decides to ban you from their platform, you can't do anything. Podcasting, on the other hand, is different. You get to build a personal relationship with your listeners, just like when you send out a newsletter to your email subscriber list. They've opted-in to receive your content. Now, of course, they can opt out at any time if they aren't getting any value from your content, but that's the beauty of a medium like podcasting. Your listeners have a choice and they've chosen to listen to you. Even if Apple or Spotify someday go away, which probably won't happen any time soon, but if they do, your RSS feed for your podcast will live on.

Let's talk about the marketing funnel really quickly because I think it's important to bring it up here in relation to owned media. At the very top of the funnel, you have paid media. This is all the stuff you do to get in front of another person's audience. Advertising, at its very core essence, is someone else paying money to get in front of someone else's audience. That's it. So you have paid media at the top of the funnel. These are going to be your coldest leads. You have to warm up to them before they commit to you and buy anything from you.

It's kind of like dating. You don't go out on a Friday night and meet someone new and commit to them right away. You know, you talk for a while, you get to know each other, go on a few more dates, etc. In this dating analogy, paid media is similar to paying for a ticket for let's say a speed dating event. You pay for the ticket to get in front of an audience that's being brought in by someone else. 

Now, the next level down from paid media is earned media. Earned media is essentially any online word of mouth. Any type of mentions, shares, reposts, recommendations, or content picked up by a third-party platform. For example, let's say... hypothetically, you are listening to a podcast episode like this one and you're really getting a lot of value out of it. Now, let's say you know a friend or two who are starting their own podcast and you think this content could really help them. So you share and recommend this podcast episode to them knowing that they'll enjoy listening and also get a lot of value out of it. This is earned media. See what I did there? Go ahead and share this episode with a friend!

Okay, last but not least, we have owned media. From the previous example, let's say that after you recommended this episode to a friend, they listen to this podcast episode. Then, they enjoy the content so much that they decide to subscribe to First Class Founders afterward. This is owned media. Owned media is any online property that you control and is unique to your own brand. So any mailing lists, YouTube subscribers, TikTok followers, Instagram followers... this is all owned media. You can think of owned media as permissioned media. Someone else has given you permission to talk to them. 

Reason number 3 for why you should start a podcast is leaving behind a legacy. As I mentioned earlier, an RSS podcast feed cannot be taken down unless you decide to take it down yourself. Personally, this is a compelling reason for me. I've always considered writing a book of some sort talking about my entrepreneurial journey or writing about the business principles that have worked well for me. But writing a book is a daunting task.

A podcast, on the other hand, is much more approachable. You can do one episode at a time. And plus it’s so much more personal and approachable than writing a book. As I continue on my entrepreneurial journey, First Class Founders will continue to evolve as I evolve as an entrepreneur. In a way, this is my own personal diary or a snapshot of my own entrepreneurial path. In 10, 20 years I'll be able to look back and see how far I've come... or how little I've accomplished. I guess it can work both ways! But in all honesty, I love being able to share my journey and thoughts with an audience in real time. This is something a book can't do either. You work on a book for a year or two and then you release it into the wild hoping that it'll do well. Whereas with a podcast, you can iterate with each episode. You get direct feedback on each episode based on the number of downloads and retention numbers. This is a big advantage and honestly, pretty cool if you ask me.

All right, the fourth reason why I'm starting First Class Founders and why you should also start a podcast is increasing leverage through media. As you guys know, I am a big fan of Naval Ravikant and his business philosophies. He talks about four types of leverage: Labor, Capital, Media, and Code. I talk more about the four types of leverage in episode 3 if you want to check that out, I'll link to it in the show notes!

So with podcasting, what's great is that I can publish an episode and it'll be there a year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years later. Someone can listen to this exact episode tomorrow, or in 10 years. Not only that, but over time, if I can continue to increase my audience and grow the show, this exact episode can be listened to over and over again.

I've heard many podcasters say that people have approached them at conferences and told them that a particular episode that was recorded several years ago really changed the way they thought about some topic, whether that's building habits, or parenting, or whatever podcasting niche you're in. That's powerful leverage. Imagine if you're podcasting for your business, and how much exposure you might get if a particular episode really takes off.

Okay, the fifth and final reason why you should start a podcast is that podcasting, especially subscription-based podcasts is a great business. Now, I said earlier that you shouldn't focus on monetization right now, if you're just starting out. And I still stand by that 100%. You need to hone in on your audience and make sure that the content you're putting out is worthy of sharing. Essentially, you need product/market fit if you're in the startup world, you know what that means. Find your audience, then provide a solution for a problem for them. And the solution doesn't have to be complex. It can be as simple as being funny within a particular topic or niche so you can lighten up their day on their way to work.

Now, once you find product/market fit for your podcast, then it's a good time to build out a subscription. Andrew Wilkinson, the entrepreneur who runs Tiny Capital, a holding company for a number of companies like Aeropress, Girl Boss, and dribbble, said back in September of 2019...

"Subscription podcasting has many of the same characteristics of a SaaS software business (recurring revenue, predictable growth rate, predictable customer lifetime value, predictable churn) with none of the downsides (expensive R&D, expensive marketing, ruthless competition)."

He's right. There's very little overhead. There's no physical inventory like an e-commerce business. There's no growing labor cost and infrastructure cost like a third-party logistics business. I know because I run both types of companies with Urban EDC and GrowthJet. And once your show starts to grow, you will see predictable recurring revenue. Now, it's not easy to build out a large audience. But the opportunity is there. I'll link to his article in the show notes for anyone who wants to read it.

Personally, I use Supercast for my podcast membership backend. Supercast is incredible and I highly recommend it for anyone who is thinking about monetizing via subscription model vs. the ad sponsorship model. You can actually do both as well, if you want. The feature that I love most about Supercast is that you own your own customer data. This is very important to me. If you go with something like Patreon, Patreon owns the customer data so if you migrated away from Patreon, you wouldn't be able to take your customers with you. With Supercast, you own your customer data so you can take them wherever you go. This is the equivalent of having an emailing list that you own, vs. Instagram followers where you wouldn't be able to take those followers with you to say... TikTok, for example. In fact, Instagram's worst nightmare would be for you to take all your followers and port them over to TikTok. But this is exactly what Supercast allows you to do.

Personally, I just love doing business with other businesses that do this and have a more of a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset. I really respect this and applaud Supercast for going this route instead of a closed platform. I've also personally spoken to Jason Sew Hoy, the Co-Founder & CEO at Supercast. He's an awesome guy, and super helpful. They're building something special over there so if you want to check them out, I'll leave a link in the show notes as well.

By the way, here's a fun fact - Supercast is a Tiny Capital portfolio company, run by Andrew Wilkinson. Small world, right?

All right, those are the five reasons why you should start a podcast. I'll summarize them here.

Number 1: You can meet some awesome, like-minded people.
Number 2: Podcasting is owned media - you build connections directly with your audience without a middleman.
Number 3: An RSS feed lives on forever so you can leave a legacy behind for your kids, grandkids, or whoever you want.
Number 4: Leveraging through media - you upload your podcast episodes once, and new listeners can discover them several years later.
Number 5: Great business model - once you nail down your product/market fit for your podcast, you can start monetizing efficiently.

Before we end, I’ll give you a bonus reason. 

Podcasting gives you a lot of great content that you can repurpose onto other platforms. 

So if you are a creator, the process of creating by podcasting will help you brainstorm more topics to write and distribute your message to other platforms. 

It’s a handy way to make sure you have plenty of content going out to all your other channels.

All right, that's it. I hope that was helpful for you! 

On the next episode of First Class Founders, we're talking about how to build your audience. We'll break down each step of the process into an easy-to-follow framework so that you can build your own tribe. Don't miss out!

If you're a new listener and you enjoyed this episode, you can subscribe to the show by going to FirstClassFounders.com. If you're a repeat listener, I would really appreciate a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can head over to FirstClassFounders.com/review to leave us a 5-star review. Thank you so much!

If you want to connect with me, I would love to hear from you. You can follow me on Twitter at @YongSooChung and let me know which episodes you liked. I love hearing your feedback to improve the show. You can find links to all my social accounts in the show notes.

Okay, let's wrap this up. Thanks for listening and I'll see you in the next episode of First Class Founders!