Podcasts had a pretty good 2020. Even without the endless hours of commuting time, podcasts managed to grow their reach while we were all stuck at home. According to the latest data from Edison Research, 37% of Americans have listened to a podcast in the last month. That's up from 32% the year before, and is more than triple the number from a decade ago, when just 12% were regularly listening to podcasts.
So you should start a podcast right, seeing as there are more people listening to podcasts than ever before? While the latter is true, there are also more people recording podcasts than ever before, with ~850,000 active podcasts in the world. That makes it hard to stand out and build an audience.
Sell pickaxes
There's an old saying that you should sell pickaxes during a gold rush. If you're on the lookout for your next big startup idea (hoping to get it into the first chart from this newsletter) you might be better off building a "pickaxe" — any tool that helps podcasters or podcast advertisers do their job better. Of course, if you're really funny - just start an actual podcast.
