I spent a month studying the world's fastest growing podcast. Here's their secrets...

For the past month, I’ve been obsessed with Steven Bartlett and The Diary of a CEO, his podcast.

For context:

• Steven’s a British entrepreneur and the founder Thirdweb, Flight Story, and Flight Fund

• He’s the host of The Diary of a CEO (7 million subscribers on YouTube)

• He became the youngest-ever investor on Dragon’s Den (British version of Shark Tank)

Most importantly, he makes very good vlogs.

These vlogs show how he runs his multiple businesses, keeps his podcast consistent, and deals with work-life balance. With each episode, he shares valuable business lessons that anyone can apply.

After discovering his vlog channel, Behind the Diary, and watching a few of the videos, I decided I needed to take some notes.

These have already completely changed the way I think about my podcast, and have inspired me to rethink the way I run it as a whole.

I would highly recommend skimming through them even if you’re not interested in starting a podcast or running a business. There’s some very valuable lessons in there for everyone :)

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Podcast Growth

• One of the factors that make them successful is their experiments.

  

  • The podcast is treated like a piece of technology, they focus on iterative approaches, data analysis, and scalability

  • The core of the pod is innovation, with a focus on constant measurement and applying the scientific method

  • They test thousands of small elements in real-time, similar to a science lab

• When researching a guest:

  • They create a research document with as much info as possible about the guest, that Steven then studies before each episode

    

  • One way they discussed growing the personal connection within the episodes is by researching each guest even deeper

    • Example he gave: Nardwuar really researches every person he talks to, they’re all shocked how he knows that much info about them

• He has crazy tech for his podcast to automate/speed up processes

  • They A/B test 100 thumbnail and title combinations for what performs best

    • It’s why when you look at the Diary of a CEO channel, there’s no specific title format they stick with:

      

  • They have a trackpad underneath the host’s side of the desk, that when tapped on, highlights that segment of the live episode transcript. Once done recording, the editors can see the highlighted segments of the episode.

  • Steven: “Our technology is what makes the podcast successful.”

• Distribution is really important

  • He has partnerships with 9 airlines, being the first podcast on some

    • Note: this is how i first found out about him

  • Partnership with 50 prisons in UK

• He makes episodes interactive by implementing real world objects

  • Food and pills from Bryan Johnson, brought out in the middle of the episode

  • Printed pictures to hand to guests

  • Books written by the guest he’s speaking with

• He’s really good at making the guest feel like they’re in a safe space

  • Makes them think he’s curious but not judging and without an agenda

  • Some guests even end up crying in the podcast episodes

• Tips for promoting a podcast:

  • 1. Have good guests

    • If you cant get big guests, create concepts that would intrigue people

    • Don’t just interview people, use creativity to your advantage to get people interested

  • 2. It has to be a video podcast

    • Audio platforms don’t have a social aspect to them, but with video and short clips these get spread across social platforms

  • 3. Have high quality, valuable content

Technical Tips

• Intro segment editing tips:

  • After Steve uses the trackpad to highlight parts he thought were good, he gives to the intro editor

  • In each episode, while recording, the producer takes notes including thumbnail ideas and concepts covered, including subtopics. For topics he thinks would be good for the trailer, he highlights them.

    

  • The producer then decides the alignment of the episode—thumbnail, title, trailer should all focus on the same core concept.

  • Not only should the intro be a reflection of the 2 hours condensed into 90 seconds, there’s promises of little nuggets that they’ll get if they watch the full podcast

• After recording, the intro editor makes notes about what he thinks would be good to include in the intro:

  

• Tip 1 from intro editor: Story is King

  

  • The viewer should be taken through an emotional journey

  • You NEVER want a flat line

• Tip 2: The 1% Philosophy

  • Elevate any bit of work you do by 1% every single time.

  • This philosophy is applied throughout the podcast and his companies.

If you found this useful, I’d love if you could share it with a few friends, and hit subscribe for more like this.

See you in the next one 🫡