Why Most Podcasts Fail

Did you know that the average podcast does not make it past seven episodes? That's fine if you're doing a mini-series or you're covering a specific topic that only needs a certain number of episodes, but what about a podcast that is intended to run indefinitely?

I am not exactly sure why seven became the magic number for podcast episodes, but I do have a theory: once you decide to make a podcast, those first few episodes are super exciting. Even if you have to schedule things with a co-host or workout guests, everything is just more exciting because it's all brand new.

But after a while, that newness wears off and then the realities of the production routine start to set in. The podcast might start feeling like it's taking time away from other areas in your life, and it starts to feel more like an obligation and less like this really fun project that you are excited about.

So then you might decide to take a break, and it can seem really easy to just skip a week. But if you don't have a clear plan of how to actually come back from that break, then skipping one or two weeks turns into three or four weeks, and then time goes on and your podcast becomes this thing that people just see you and go, “Hey are you still doing that thing? The podcart thing?”

So here are two strategies that I've used to make it to episode seven and beyond!

The first one is to make sure your idea has legs. Coming up with an idea for a podcast is easy, but coming up with an idea that can go on and on for an extended period of time is way more difficult. Even beyond more concrete things like scheduling time for hosts or guests or production time, finding an idea that you can come back to episode after episode is really not as easy as it seems.

It's important to ask yourself how you can approach it in a way that won't exhaust all of your ideas after only just a few episodes, so my recommendation is to brainstorm out a few episode ideas. 10 is the magic number that seems to work well for me, so I'd recommend at least 10, and that will give you an idea of whether or not the show actually has those legs that we talked about.

The second strategy for making your podcast more sustainable is seasons. I've personally worked on a number of podcasts over the years, but my own personal podcast, The Enthusiasm Project, started about four years ago and just past 140 episodes at the time of this writing.

When I started the podcast it was just to share my ideas and get all this stuff that had felt like it was just building up in my brain out into the world. It was basically like a free therapy session, and after 21 episodes I kind of got that outta my system.

So I decided that I didn't want to end the show, but I did want to take a break for a few weeks to figure out how I wanted to approach it going forward. And what I decided to do was that first run of episodes was very internally focused so I wanted to shift it to be more listener focused, to explore topics that I thought would be helpful, beneficial, or at least mildly entertaining to anyone who might listen. After that break, I started another run of episodes that was slightly different in theme, and since the first “season” was 21 episodes, I wanted this season to be 21 episodes too. I ended up doing that for five 21 episode seasons over the period of a couple of years.

But then I realized 21 is a lot and 21 weeks is a big chunk of the year. It started to feel a little exhausting and I started noticing when I was hitting episode 12 or 13, I was feeling a little bit tired. So then I decided to switch things up and do 10 episode seasons.

10 episodes for me has been great because it's long enough to develop a theme or a purpose for the whole season, but it's also short enough that there's always a light at the end of the tunnel. I can always see when I can take a break, and being able to take that break really lets me recharge those creative batteries.

Now, with all that being said, it is important to recognize that sometimes ideas do just run their course. If you feel like every time you're creating an episode that you're trying to choke an idea to life, then it might be time to just let it go and move on to something else. There's definitely a fine line to walk between pushing yourself through a creative slump and knowing when something has reached its natural end.

Ultimately though, I think having a podcast should be fun. Even if your show is about a serious topic or something that's more in depth, I think you should have fun making it, or at least it should be satisfying to create and produce, and anything you can include in your workflow to help that happen is a worthwhile investment.

Check out my full video on why podcasts fail: