Is your podcast trying too hard?

Why smaller audiences means better audience building.

Credit: The Verge

There are plenty of reasons why creating a popular podcast is harder than ever. When you’re some kid nobody knows about (me) recording in the second bedroom of a five-story apartment in a b-market city in Michigan, and you’re competing with Joe Rogan and several other huge celebrity names, it can be pretty daunting.

I’ve been podcasting for more than eight years now. When I started, I hosted music podcasts and would interview artists on their latest tracks. I wanted to be the next Zane Lowe.

Now I’m into sports, and while I haven’t quite figured out what to do when building an audience, I have made several mistakes, although none as big as this one: don’t make your podcast for everybody.

I’m sure we’ve seen these headlines before. Content creators arguing that your platform should focus on niche topics. If you try to make content for everybody, you’ll actually end up tuning out more people than you would like to.

Unfortunately, this is true.

In the fall of 2020, I started a sports podcast with a friend of mine. We still record it today. At first, we tried to make the show more akin to radio than a podcast. That was our first mistake.