5 reasons why you should start a podcast
Creating media = leverage.
Naval Ravikant said there are 2 forms of leverage. In the past there was only capital, but now there are writing code and media. These have “no marginal cost of replication”, meaning you can copy & past to your heart’s desire. Podcasts are a low-drag way to create media, because the barriers to entry are so low. It doesn’t even require a fancy podcasting platform anymore. You can take out your phone, call someone, and record the call. It automatically generates a transcript, and you can upload that to your podcast platform of choice.
Ask better questions.
One of the ways that Tony Robbins says to improve the quality of your life is to improve the quality of your questions. With podcasting, you’re almost required to ask better questions (Unless your “brand” of podcasting is just asking boring questions). Some people create question databanks (Thanks ShaanVP) to refresh their memory on how to think. A question properly asked can bring out the humanity of even the biggest celebrity, and if you get a high-profile guest who has been asked every question under the sun, asking then a great question can get them to open up and will generate some great content for your podcast. You might also get a new friend. Sean Evans of Hot Ones is a case study on great questions.
Meet cool people.
David Senra will be the first to tell you that his podcast has opened doors to meet some of history’s greatest living founders. I will be the second to tell you this.
I’ve interviewed some of my favorite authors (Ryan Holiday, Peter Zeihan, Colin Woodard), culture-changing entrepreneurs (Marc Randolph, Mark Cuban), Netflix-famous Master sommeliers (Brian McClintic of SOMM), because I asked them to come on a podcast. They’ll probably say no, but they just might say yes
Get better at pitching people.
People go on podcasts for 2 main reasons they want to sell something, right now or in the near future, and they want it to seem organic.
Zuckerberg doesn’t go onto Joe Rogan’s podcast to talk about MMA, he wants to tell people about Meta’s AI glasses, or he wants to clear the air on some issue in social media.
Elon Musk doesn’t go on Joe Rogan to eat pizza, he wants to tell people about the cool things they’re doing at Tesla, SpaceX, NeuraLink, StarLink, SolarCity, X,etc.
Bill Gates doesn’t go on Dax Shepard’s podcast to get smoke blown up his ass, although that is inevitable on that show – he does it because he wants to tell people about his book about climate change.
Donald Trump didn’t go on Joe Rogan and Theo Von because he wanted to talk about MMA and Theo’s past Cocaine use, he did it to win an election. It worked, and it won him the election.
What does this have to do with pitching someone? When you start out and you want to get BIG guests on your show, you need to reach out to people you don’t know. The changes they say YES are low, but they are higher when they have something they’re promoting. A book, a new product, an idea, a campaign.
Personal Branding
Edward Sturm has hosted a daily podcast for over 850 consecutive days. It started as a podcast about “networking lessons with billionaires”, then about Meta’s Threads product. Pretty random.
But now it is about SEO. He is the SEO guy, and he sells a knowledge product (read: leverage with marginal cost of replication). He is known as the SEO guy.
What could your topic be? Who would you want to meet? What better questions could you ask?
Create a podcast and you’ll be ASTOUNDED with the opportunities that come of it.