How To Start, Grow and Monetise Your Podcast · Pod School

The Perfect Podcast Launch: Maximising Your First 10 Episodes

·18 min·1 clip

James explains why you must 'birth' your podcast publicly over exactly two weeks to turn listeners into invested stakeholders.

Start before launch. James and Alex build the episode around a simple heat check: move a cold market to warm, then give warm listeners a reason to care. They say they have done nearly 400 launches between them, so their patience for quiet launches is low. A podcast cannot just appear and hope people notice. Launch week needs a map before the show goes live. Newsletter copy, platform posts, launch day actions, links, and supporting materials should be ready instead of improvised in a panic. They are not asking hosts to do everything. If anything, they are pretty blunt about the opposite. Eight, nine, ten tactics done badly will make the week feel busy and weak. Pick a couple and execute them properly. Doing nothing, though, is worse. They take a swing at hosts who launch and then vanish, especially the ones who still have not posted about the show weeks later. If the host will not talk about it, why would anyone else? Review matters too. James and Alex bring the lesson back to their own habits and admit the checking, tweaking, and follow-up after release are where momentum gets protected. The old build-it-and-they-will-come idea does not survive the episode. Audiences are busy. Launch day can also wobble, so creators need to react when something changes. The first 10 episodes matter because they tie that early run to staying with the show, and they say 90% of people do not get beyond episode seven. The close is plain: the free content gives the shape, the course has the full launch plan, and listeners should tell someone else.

As heard by us

A practical launch plan centered on two weeks of buildup, launch-week execution, and steady post-launch momentum.

The episode treats a podcast launch as a tight pressure window: build momentum for two weeks, make launch week count, and treat the first 10 episodes as crucial.

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Why you'd press play

Launch your podcast with a plan for the first 10 episodes.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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