Girl Scout Alum Jenna Weiss-Berman on How to Determine If You Have a Great Podcast Idea

Evaluate what’s out there.
“There are over 700,000 podcasts, and it’s hard to figure out what they are and it’s hard to find them,” says Jenna. “So making sure you have a new and unique idea is important.”

“Ask yourself, ‘Do I feel like I have something important to say that other people need to hear?,’” Jenna suggests.

Decide if you’re the right host.
“There are lots of different types of podcasts: podcasts about hobbies, about storytelling,” she says, adding that they all have one thing in common. “People want to have a host they feel is an expert on the subject matter, and they want to learn things. You should host if you think you have something to teach people.”

But passion cannot be faked on podcasts, Jenna warns.

“This is a medium where you have to have authenticity. It’s so intimate,” she explains. “If your passion is ballet, but you think a show about economics will do well . . . you should still do a podcast on ballet. If you’re passionate, you’ll find an audience.”

If you’re not the right host, consider producing.
“Think about your skills beyond being the host,” says Jenna. “Using your skills to help lift up other people’s voices is another really important job.”

“I want to produce podcasts—not everyone should be hosting them,” she adds.

Go into podcasting with your eyes wide open.
“What’s appealing about podcasting is that the barrier to entry is low,” she says, adding that it’s not quite as low as people think.

“People just think it’s talking into a microphone and putting it on the internet, but if you want to make a good podcast, [you must] be able to devote one or two full days on it as the host.”

Set aside a modest budget.
“If you want to do a chat-style show that’s minimally edited and has a little bit of music, it might cost you $1,000 to get started, that is if you’re hosting, producing, and editing your own show,” she says. “After the initial costs, it’s almost free.”

“You’ll need a recorder (we use a Zoom H4n Recorder, which costs approximately $200), a couple of microphones (we use [the] Rode NTG-2 microphone because [it’s] good for recording inside and outside), editing software (such as Hindenburg), and to pay some publishing fees (maybe $30 a month) to a file-hosting service,” she explains, breaking down the initial costs.

Of course, that’s just the barrier for entry. “At the top end, for something super produced, they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per episode.”

Set a goal.
“Because there are so many [podcasts] and they’re hard to find and hard to make, you need to know your goals going in,” Jenna explains. “If your goal is to have 100,000 listeners right away, that’s hard.”

But she adds, “if your passion is knitting and you have 50 devoted followers who feel that you have really created a community for them . . . that’s success to me.”

Know your next steps.
“Once you create a community,” Jenna explains, “help it grow and give other people voices.”

She suggests starting a Facebook group and having some listeners on your podcast as guests.

Don’t assume revenue is out of the question.
“There are creative ways to make money that don’t require hundreds of thousands of listeners,” Jenna says. “You can be more creative with ad sales. Maybe you have 500 listeners on that local knitting podcast. So you go to a local yarn store and say, ‘If you pay me $100 an episode, I will tell people they should come here.’”

“There’s a lot of work that has yet to be done in podcast ad sales, and I have seen a lot of independent podcasts do better than the huge ones.”