For: People considering whether to launch a podcast
Below is a crash course in the information I wish I had before starting a podcast. This is by no means to dissuade you, it is to paint a clearer picture of reality and hopefully save you a lot of time, money and heartache getting to the right answer faster.
Overview
- The Reality of Social Media Distribution
- First-mover advantage
- Algorithmic reinforcement
- Audience lock-in
- Network effects
- How to Break In
- Trust
- Positioning
- Audience
- My thesis that failed.
- Execution and Operation
- Content Strategy: Defining Scope
- Budgeting
- Production: Systematising
- Editing
The Reality of Social Media Distribution
Power laws describe distributions where a small number of content creators dominate the majority of views, engagement, and revenue, while the vast majority receive very little attention.
Understanding why this happens is key to breaking through:
First-mover advantage
Early entrants gain traction before the space is crowded, much like pioneer species colonizing an open ecosystem.
Example: When YouTube Shorts first launched, early adopters saw massive organic reach simply because there was less competition. Now, the algorithm is more selective.
Algorithmic reinforcement
Platforms like YouTube and Instagram amplify content that already has engagement, reinforcing the dominance of top creators.
- YouTube: Prioritizes watch time, CTR (click-through rate), and session duration over raw views.
- Instagram/TikTok: Prioritizes engagement velocity (likes, comments, shares within the first hour).
- Spotify/Apple Podcasts: Less algorithmic, more reliant on search, social sharing, and featured placements.
Takeaway: Knowing the dominant ranking factors of each platform lets you tailor content for maximum visibility.
Audience lock-in
Once a creator establishes trust, viewers are less likely to switch, similar to how pioneer species outcompete later arrivals.
Example: Fans of creators like Andrew Huberman or Lex Fridman don’t just watch their content—they trust them as authorities. New creators entering the same space must work much harder to shift audience loyalty.
Network effects
Success leads to more success. Top creators receive:
• More collaborations (exposure to new audiences)
• Better sponsorships (higher perceived value)
• Opportunities outside the platform (guest appearances, book deals, media exposure)
This further entrenches their dominance, making it harder for smaller creators to break in.
For more info here, you can learn a lot from pioneer species and competitive exclusionary principles ( where later-arriving species struggle to establish themselves because the dominant species have taken most of the available resources).
How to Break In
Most creators struggle to gain traction because they focus on content before they establish trust, positioning, and audience fit. To break through, you need to build trust, strategically position yourself, and validate demand before going all in.
Trust
In order to break through this, you need trust. You can build trust through one or more of the following:
- Domain authority. Think Andrew Huberman, within the first 30s of his podcast he qualifies himself as a Ph.D., a neuroscientist and tenured professor in the department of neurobiology of ophthalmology at Stanford.
- Obvious specific value. Think about it, how do you listen to a new podcast? It has to really be specific to a need you’re looking to fix (female reproductive health) or sent to you by a friend or one of the few trusted people you already follow.
- Familiarity. People love seeing people they know. If you can collaborate with people who have established audiences in parallel domains, the trust bleeds over.
Positioning
- Find a niche that people are actively looking for - a hungry audience
- Identify an Evergreen Pain Point (People will always search for it)
- Find a Unique Angle (What can you offer that’s missing?)
- Validate the search demand - can you even be found?
- Run keyword analyses (more for YouTube than IG & TikTok, there are plenty of free trials that will help you define search intent)
- Thumbnail search (see what is working and how you can mimic it)
- Evaluate your resources - do you have what it takes?
- Stamina, network, runway
- Test & Iterate - refine your hypotheses
- Post 10-20 pieces of content and analyse what sticks
All of this will help to inform your distribution strategy. What platforms you’ll favour and why.
Audience
- Consistency & Volume: Many successful creators say their first 100 videos were necessary just to find their rhythm and audience.
- Community Engagement: Replying to comments, encouraging discussion, and cross-platform interaction boost algorithmic favourability.
- Strong Hooks & Storytelling: The first 5-10 seconds of any clip matter more than anything else in grabbing attention.
My thesis that failed.
I originally believed that fusing Spirituality, Live Therapy, and Evolutionary Psychology would create a niche that wasn’t being fulfilled. The hypothesis was:
“If we cover 21 different topics, we’ll be able to see which ones resonate most and double down. This will help us reach 5,000 subscribers in 6 months and validate the concept.”
Why it didn’t work (potentially):
- Organic growth takes longer than expected.
- We underestimated how much time it takes for a podcast to gain traction.
- We didn’t cater to a specific enough audience.
- Content was broad, making it hard for a clear demographic to latch on.
- We didn’t partner with established authority in the space
- Other people would have helped accelerate discovery.
- Titles & thumbnails weren’t compelling enough.
- If people don’t click, they don’t watch.
5. The niche was competitive and oversaturated.
- Young men searching for meaning is a highly competitive market, dominated by established voices.
Breaking in isn’t about luck—it’s about strategic positioning, trust-building, and ruthless iteration. If you find a niche that has sticking power, you’ll most likely hit critical mass where people who are searching for their need to be met and are satisfied by the result will share it with their friends. Then you tap into network effects and grow.
Execution and Operation
Once you’ve identified your niche and validated demand, you need a clear execution plan. Many creators fail not because their content is bad, but because they don’t have a sustainable production and distribution system. Actually, it’s really because they have distorted expectations about how the sausage is really made.
Content Strategy: Defining Scope
Format: Will you focus on long-form or short-form (clips, TikToks, Reels)?
Cadence: What’s your realistic posting schedule? Daily? Weekly?
Channels: Which platforms will you prioritize?
Engagement: How and who will you interact with your audience?
Budgeting
Your Content Strategy will greatly inform what you need to get, rent and how to support the product. One of the biggest mistakes creators make is overspending on unnecessary gear while skimping on what truly matters e.g. for video, lighting & framing matter more than shooting in 8K. Overpaying for labour is another trap I’ve fallen into multiple times.
Production: Systematising
Your production workflow determines how scalable, efficient, and stress-free your content creation is. If you build strong systems, you can create and distribute content consistently without burnout.
If you fantasise about what you can produce—without proper time assessments, financial expectations and workflow structures—you’ll inevitably pay the price when these expectations crumble. This often leads to frustration, missed deadlines, and misplaced blame.
- A solid system = predictable output.
- A broken system = burnout and inconsistency.
A well-structured workflow should answer:
Pre-Production: What needs to happen before recording? Research? Outlining? Guest prep?
Production: What’s the step-by-step recording process? Camera/mic setup? B-roll capture? Backup systems?
Post-Production: What’s the editing and review pipeline? Who edits? When? What’s the turnaround time?
Distribution: How does content get published and repurposed? Which platforms? What’s the social media schedule?
Check out my templates for:
- End-to-end workflows with time estimates for each stage.
- Set-up checklists to avoid last-minute production failures.
Editing
I’ve spent hours on edits that flopped and minutes on edits that ripped. Editing is a balancing act—too little and your content looks and sounds amateur, too much and you’ve wasted time and money. There is Goldilock’s zone.
There’s no direct proportion between effort and performance in short-form content. If high-effort editing guaranteed success, content creation would be a predictable science—whoever worked the hardest would win. Clearly, that’s not the case otherwise we wouldn’t have a Hawk Tuah podcast. .
Short-Form Video (TikTok, Reels, Shorts)
Success depends more on content dynamics than ultra-polished edits. What matters:
- Instant hook (first 3 seconds)
- Clear captions (many watch on mute)
- Pacing & jump cuts (no dead air)
- Context-driven edits (reactions, overlays, meme elements if relevant)
What doesn’t guarantee success:
- Fancy transitions & VFX
- Over-engineered sound design
- Perfect lighting & cinematography
Example: A raw, engaging reaction video often outperforms a high-effort cinematic ad.
Long-Form Video (YouTube, Podcasts)
For long-form, quality matters more, but only up to a point. You need:
- Good audio (people tolerate bad video, but not bad sound)
- Clean pacing (jump cuts, but not overdone)
- Consistent style (set a visual/audio tone that becomes recognizable)
Warning:
- Over-editing removes authenticity—especially in conversational formats.
- Excess jump cuts can make long-form feel too chaotic.
Example: The Huberman Lab podcast isn’t flashy—it’s simple, well-mic’d, and evenly paced—because the focus is on trust & depth, not spectacle.
Checkout my templates and documentation here:
Notion Operations
Checkout my past experience here:
Completed Work
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