Women Who Podcast - How to start, run and grow your podcast · Alison Fraser

Stacey Simms on lessons learned from 10 years of podcasting

·45 min·1 clip

Type 1 diabetes is an every-hour-of-every-day disease that kills you in a week without treatment.

Stacey Simms starts with the moment that changed how she listened. After her son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, she turned to podcasts to learn more. When she could not find what she needed, her husband suggested that she make her own show. That idea became Diabetes Connections, which now has more than 600 episodes over nine years. She also hosts Diabetes Connections type 2. On top of that, she is the author of The World's Worst Diabetes Mom and its sequel, still The World's Worst Diabetes Mom. Alison Fraser begins the conversation by connecting with Stacey through Threads and setting the episode up around practical podcasting lessons. The tone is warm and easy from the start. Stacey talks about what she would do differently if she were starting a podcast today. She says launching now is harder than it was in 2015 because the space is crowded and people are busier. That does not make it impossible, but it does change the work. Her advice is to treat the first run like a test, not a forever promise. She suggests planning six episodes first. If the show works, you can keep going. If it does not, you still have a finished short series instead of a half-built idea. That gives new hosts a cleaner place to begin and a clearer stopping point if podcasting is not for them. It is practical advice, not flashy advice. Stacey also talks about the reality of doing most of the work herself. She has an editor now, but she still goes into the audio before handing it over because she cares about the details. The exchange makes the workload feel concrete instead of abstract. It also shows how much control many independent hosts keep for themselves. Another helpful part of the conversation is her point about production support. If someone can help produce or book guests, that can make the whole thing easier to sustain. Stacey says she does not solicit guests herself, which fits the relationship-based way she has built the show. That preference comes through as part of the larger shape of how she works. Monetization comes up as part of the practical side of keeping a podcast alive. Stacey shares that her show has successfully monetized, and the conversation treats that as one part of a larger working system rather than the whole story. She also talks about how she connects with listeners away from the feed. Those off-air connections seem to matter to the life of the show as much as the episodes themselves. The tone stays measured and approachable. Alison keeps the focus on what listeners can actually use instead of turning the conversation into a lecture. Stacey answers like someone who has lived the work for years and is still thinking carefully about what matters. The result is a grounded look at podcast growth from someone who has built one show, then another, and kept both moving.

As heard by us

A steady conversation about what it takes to keep a podcast going.

Stacey Simms frames Diabetes Connections as the answer to a listener gap, then follows the show as it grows into a long-running body of work. The focus stays practical: how a short first run turns into something durable, how support and monetization shape the plan, and how…

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Hear how one mom turned a missing resource into a long-running podcast.

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