Starting a podcast sounds simple enough. You have something to say, a topic you care about and (hopefully) a decent microphone to work with. Turns out it’s much more complicated than that! At a recent Lioness community roundtable, we brought together hosts, guests, producers and listeners to talk candidly about what actually works in podcasting—and what they’d do differently if they were launching right now.
Sustainability isn’t glamorous, but it’s important
Tricia Rose Burt, who is about to launch her fifth season of No Time to be Timid, put it plainly: before you hit record, ask yourself whether you have the energy, the money and enough content to keep the show going. Consistency matters enormously to listeners. If you say you’re dropping episodes every Thursday, they’ll build their week around it. Her current focus is batching recording and editing days so she has, as she put it, “order in the chaos.”
Maartje van Krieken, approaching her 100th episode of The Business Emergency Room podcast, backed that up from a financial angle. Podcasting costs money, or it eats up time—time you no longer have to earn money by doing other things. Her benchmark for success is simply breaking even. The real payoff is the steady stream of listeners who never comment but have been following along for years.
Stephanie Kord Miller, who spent six years at NPR working on podcast production, distribution and monetization, put it plainly: “Podcasting is intensive, rooted in audio and takes time to get ROI out of it.”
The almighty money question
Podcasting often starts as a passion project, but sustaining it requires resources. Sponsorships, patron support, premium content, clients… there’s no single answer.
Julie King said: “Decide whether your goal is to monetize the podcast, get a sponsorship or drive clients to your business.” After all, that decision shapes everything downstream.
Lori Richardson, host of Conversations with Women in Sales, does land sponsors. “If you’re in a niche, it can be helpful,” she said, though she noted it’s harder than it used to be.
Burt has two longtime supporters who fund her podcast directly—a reminder, she said, not to be afraid to ask people who already believe in what you do.
Debra Eckerling‘s podcasts support her work as a book proposal expert and speaker, with a small quarterly check from the Marketing Podcast Network as a bonus. “Being in a community of podcasters that uplift and increase visibility for each other is its own kind of win.”
Anjel B. Hartwell made the clearest case for treating a podcast as a revenue engine rather than a creative side project. Her model: the guest becomes the client. Her intake form for guests is explicit about the fact that she runs a business, so they can indicate whether they’re interested in working with her, maybe interested or not at all. No ambiguity.
“My podcast serves my business, my business serves my life and my life serves my purpose.”
The unpopular opinions
Podcasting has no shortage of received wisdom, and this group wasn’t shy about pushing back on it.
Hartwell’s unpopular opinion: podcasting is audio. “Sound first is where I focus.” She requires guests to have a real microphone and will send them a link to one and give them one chance to come back properly equipped. Helen Jonsen, a former broadcast journalist and host of the This Kaleidoscope Career Podcast, offered a counterpoint: modern editing platforms like Descript have gotten good enough that even a modest mic can sound professional.
Kristen McAlister‘s unpopular opinion: ignore the format police. Her podcast skips the two-minute guest bio entirely; just name, title, then straight into the conversation. She got pushback from “podcast experts” saying that she needed more preamble, but her audience is busy female entrepreneurs who don’t want to waste their time. “Stay true to your audience. Follow your gut. Do not compare, do not compete.”
van Krieken talks to every potential guest before booking. She’s turned people down after that conversation, too. It costs more time upfront but has saved her from recording episodes she’d never use.
Orly Zeewy says that just because you get invited to appear on a show doesn’t mean you should say yes. She once ended up on a show with a belligerent co-host who talked over and attacked her responses on air. “We get excited when people invite us, but not everyone is a fit, even if it sounds like one.”
So, how can you be a great guest?
McAlister preps first-time guests by telling them to forget they’re on a podcast. “This is you and me at a coffee shop. Don’t say ‘for the listeners out there’—that’s when it gets pitchy. Just tell stories.”
And from Judy Baker: “Sound bites rule. Be brief, not verbose. And of course, listen. It’s a conversation.”
Eckerling added: make sure to share the episode more than once. Hartwell makes a point of reminding guests after recording that the content is evergreen. “There’s no reason why, if you do a great episode on my show, you can’t share it multiple times. Rinse and repeat.”
The numbers that might surprise you
Hartwell closed with some stats worth sitting with. There are roughly 4.5 million podcast shows currently registered — but about 44% of them have produced only three episodes. “It is not, by any stretch of the imagination, saturated.” YouTube has 115 million channels. Podcasting is barely 20 years old.
The shows that stand out are the ones that are clear about why they exist, and show up repeatedly, week after week, because someone out there is listening.
For more podcasting tips from female founders, check out this article.
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