This was my question...
@jaltucher @csallen @robwalling After having just recorded my first ever (interview-style) podcast and realizing how much of a podcast noob I am...
— Gabriel Horvat (@TheGabeHorvat) May 6, 2020
Knowing what you guys know now as seasoned podcasters, what's the #1 thing you wish you knew or did differently at episode #1 ?
Rob Walling, host of 'Startups For the Rest of Us' replied...
2. Getting started is the 2nd hardest thing. Shipping every week, for years, is the hardest. Most pods don't make it past the first 8 or 10 episodes, and I think it's because of time constraints, or you run out of things to say.
— Rob Walling (@robwalling) May 6, 2020
Our first 20-ish episodes were packed with info...
5. Ship. Every week (or whatever your production schedule). As Steve Martin said: "It's easy to be great, it's hard to be consistent." Consistency and putting in the work every single week, even when we REALLY didn't want to, is a non-trivial part of how we built our audience.
— Rob Walling (@robwalling) May 6, 2020
Then James Altucher chimed in ...
I started out just doing phone. Awful. Then Skype. Awful (in 2014). Then...in person. So GREAT sound quality. Downloads doubled. Now I'm using Squadcast which records on both sides so almost as good as live. WIth poor sound, nobody shares. You want shares to build podcast.
— James Altucher (@jaltucher) May 6, 2020
And lastly Courtland Allen of IndieHacker fame gave his $0.02 as well...
Table stakes is to keep at it. Most podcasters quit. Do everything in your power not to. Make it fun or make it essential to your life or business. Ideally both.
— Courtland Allen (@csallen) May 7, 2020
Assuming you've got that, #1 thing early on is to experiment. Try things, keep what you like, don't lock yourself in.
This is some great advice.
In short, don't quit, make podcasting part of your life, have great audio so people share your pod and publish every week no matter what.
Oh and also, don't quit.