Episode Details

Episode 813 - Celebrate the small - pour into your small group of new listeners - How to Launch a Podcast with No Following Mini Series

Celebrate the Small

A small podcast audience can feel disappointing when you measure success through download numbers. Dave challenges that mindset and encourages new podcasters to celebrate the listeners who already choose to spend time with their voice and message.

Build With the People Who Show Up

The first listeners can become the foundation of a real podcast community. Five listeners means five real people may have found something valuable in your show. Ten people listening to you in the real world would feel significant, so Dave suggests imagining those listeners sitting in a room with you rather than viewing them as numbers on a dashboard.

Early listeners also give you something valuable: room to learn. A smaller audience gives you space to experiment with formats, improve your audio and video, develop your hosting voice, strengthen episode titles, and discover which topics create a response.

Grow Roots Before You Chase Reach

Fast growth can expose weak systems. A sudden audience increase can create pressure before your content, workflow, and production process can support it. Dave encourages podcasters to build a show they can sustain before building an audience they cannot yet support.

Pay attention to signs of genuine engagement. Repeat listeners, recurring locations, shares, and conversations about your show can reveal that real connections are forming.

Treat Early Listeners Like Founding Members

Dave encourages podcasters to stop saying, “I only have five listeners.” Those five people could become the people who suggest topics, recommend guests, share episodes, and keep coming back.

Podcasting rewards consistency and relationships. The goal is to become useful, dependable, and worth recommending. That takes time.

Your first listeners matter. Learn who they are, acknowledge them, listen to their feedback, and build the show with them. Stop measuring the present against someone else's finish line. Your podcast grows one listener at a time.

____

Helping Podcasters Everyday! 

https://howtopodcast.ca/
We would love to hear from you - here is our listener survey!

https://forms.gle/GbrFv9DGszV8N4PW6