Best Podcasts for Founders

If this is your first time running a startup, you’re quickly going to figure out you have a ton to learn. Everything from the nuts and bolts of forming your corporate entity to building your product to finding customers to paying the bills is going to feel overwhelming in the beginning. With such a big task ahead, you are going to need to be a voracious learner to be successful. I’m personally a big fan of podcasts, so today I’m going to share some of my favorite shows for founders.

At the top of my list is How I Built This with Guy Raz. The host asks amazing questions, they have a fantastic production quality, and they get top founders as guests who share the origin stories of themselves and their companies. You’ll learn a lot about the struggles of getting a business going from the ground up on this podcast. Another podcast I like in this category is Masters of Scale by Reid Hoffman. The host is the founder of LinkedIn and a partner at a leading VC firm, and this podcast gets great founder guests too.

If you are going to be raising money from venture capital investors, you’ll want to learn how they think. There are several great podcasts hosted by leading VC shops. You can get the inside scoop on This Week in Startups and Starting Greatness, both are run by early stage investors. The Twenty Minute VC brings on top VCs as guests and covers a wide range of subjects quickly. The NfX Podcast does deep dives that are great.

As your business grows, you will be looking to grow your customer base. Both the Digiday Podcast and Brand Story Inc. do a great job talking about customer acquisition and marketing with leaders at established growth startups and big companies. You should be able to pick up a good tip or two from these shows.

I’d also recommend you look around for podcasts specific to your industry. Find the shows that your bigger competitors appear on and they’ll usually share details on how they got where they are now and where they are heading in the future. If you are involved in sports tech like me, check out Sports Biz Pod, The SportsTech Allstars Podcast, and FUTR SPRT.

Thanks for reading today's post. All great founders are lifelong learners so hopefully this helps you find some knowledge. To see more Founder Coach posts, please check out our blog on Substack here.