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Crossed 100,000 downloads!

About a week ago, my podcast Creative Elements broke the 100,000 download mark at Episode 19, four months after launching in late March.

Creative Elements interviews high-profile creators like Seth Godin, James Clear, Vanessa Van Edwards, etc. to learn how they made a living from their art and creativity. (Think How I Built This for online creators).

I have a second podcast called upside that broke 100K downloads as well, but it took that show about two years.

Some of the major lessons learned with this show:

1.) I focused on quality out of the gate

With CE, I spent months interviewing and finding a final episode format that I really liked and thought I'd be proud of from episode one. I focused on high-quality audio for both me and the guest (even though we record remotely with Squadcast).

I also focused on making the format a little more high production, with a lot of post production and some narration throughout.

2.) I focused on big guests out of the gate

Literally my first two episodes with Seth Godin and James Clear, which set a strong tone for what listeners (and even guests!) can expect from the show.

Now, it's a lot easier to pitch other big guests because they see the past guests.

But I also try really hard to ask very unique questions to these guests, knowing they do a lot of interviews. So instead of talking about their work, we talk about how they built the business behind it.

3.) Distribution

I have my own following, but I wanted to be able to reach more people more quickly. So from the beginning of this show, I partnered with the podcast network the Podglomerate

4.) Podcast app features

The show has been featured in Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Castbox, Pocket Casts, and Castro at various times over the last four months.

These features have been the largest source of audience growth, and I'm really thankful for them.

Cheers to the next 100K!

  1. 2

    Congratulations Jay! Really interested in getting to know more about that partnership with Podglomerate - how does it exactly look like and what have the results been?

    1. 1

      With the Podglomerate, it's a partnership. They focus primarily on securing ads and sponsorship and keep a cut of that. They were also instrumental in the launch of the show, because they helped me hone in on the sound and structure, while also helping generate some launch buzz.

      1. 2

        That sounds really great, particularly knowing that the launch of podcasts is when you can get many reviews in a short amount of time, being that super important for iTunes & Spotify's algorithms.

        Really looking forward to following your journey.

  2. 2

    Big congrats @jayclouse! Didn't know your podcast but looks great, will definitely have a listen (or two) ;)

    1. 1

      I'd love to hear your feedback!

      1. 2

        Just listened to the 1st episode and I loved it. Great sound quality, really good questions/answers. It's not easy for me to appreciate a podcast nowadays so I think you're onto something great here @jayclouse!

        1. 1

          It means a lot that you took the time to give it a shot!

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