MY STORY

I hosted my first ever radio show before podcasting was even a thing, for BBC Radio, right after I graduated from university. Somewhat unbelievably, my first ever interview was with former heavyweight boxing champion of the world, Lennox Lewis.

Radio gave way to a ‘proper’ job. Well, sort of. I joined Virgin Atlantic as a flight attendant. I was adamant I would be there for two years. 17 years later, I was still part of the wider organisation, working with Virgin StartUp, Sir Richard Branson’s not-for-profit startup, helping entrepreneurs start and scale their businesses.

Podcasts? I can do that

The first podcast that really got me switched onto the format was How I Built This by NPR with Guy Raz as host. Guy would interview the founders of businesses like Air BnB, Uber, Dropbox and more, and dig into why they have been so successful.

I was immediately hooked. It’s still great, by the way. Perhaps it was my radio background that made me think ‘I can do this’. Perhaps it was my experience with startups that made me want to champion the people behind them. Perhaps it was just that I wanted to be able to tell stories that inspired, entertained and actually made a difference to people.

So I thought ‘screw it, I’ll just do it’ and decided to launch my own podcast and tell the stories of the entrepreneurs that I knew.

If only I could think of a name for the show.

In its first week of launch, Screw It, Just Do It had two downloads: my mum and my wife. I’ll be honest, I was hoping for a few more listeners.

I decided to reach out to some of the world’s most renowned podcasters to find out how their shows consistently ranked among the world’s top podcasts. I got to know the likes of Lewis Howes, Pat Flynn, John Lee Dumas and Chris Ducker pretty well and I asked to interview them for my own podcast.

They all said yes. 500+ shows later, many more people have said yes too. Audience figures grew. In fact, they didn’t stop growing. You know the rest.

But it made me realise that, in addition to presenting Screw It, Just Do It, there was more I could be doing.

Creating Podpreneur

Over the years, I’ve spoken to a lot of people who want to launch their own podcast. Many think they need help to find their podcast voice, but that tends not to be true.

Everyone has their own style and voice. That’s the way it should be. So Podpreneur was never about teaching people to become podcast presenters. Instead, it’s about everything that surrounds a podcast – all the things you’d probably never think about, but which matter just as much as the show itself.

Talent booking, artwork creation, post production and editing, marketing, social media, distribution – that’s what people need help with. And that’s what Podpreneur does.

So if you’re having your own ‘screw it, I’ll just do it’ moment and you’ve decided to launch your own podcast, launch it with us.