How to start a podcast for business development: pre-interviews first, gear later
To start a podcast for business development, do not start with the microphone. Start with the guests. Line up ten people you want to talk to, run a short pre-interview with each, and only then commit to gear, hosting and a launch date. The pre-interviews are where the business happens. The show is what makes them possible.
That sequence is the most useful thing I can tell a founder who has named their show and frozen. I watched it happen on a call at the end of August, and the fix came from Emiliano.
The stall: “when will I find the time?”
On August 31 we had a call with a founder who runs a business in the events and experiences space. He had already agreed on a name for his show. He liked the idea. And then he stalled for a week, trying to work out how a podcast would fit into a calendar that was already full.
That is the most common way a business podcast dies. Not from a bad idea, but from the founder picturing the whole thing at once: the studio, the editing, the publishing schedule, the audience growth, all landing on top of the job they already have.
Emiliano cut through it with a sequencing change. Line up ten guests first. Then commit to hosting and gear. Start the pre-interviews now, and plan the full launch for October or November.
Pre-interviews are sales calls
A pre-interview is a short call before the recording. On the surface it is prep: you meet the guest, agree on a title, and talk about what the episode will cover. Underneath, it is a qualifying conversation.
On that call we laid out how ours work. Five qualifying questions. If the guest is a low fit, the call is about six minutes and done. If they are high value, you go deeper. One line from the call stuck with me: you can qualify a VC in under five minutes this way.
Think about what that means. The guest booked the call because they want to be on your show. They show up happy. You ask them about their company, their problems and their plans, which is what they came to talk about. By the end you know whether they are a buyer, an investor, a partner or just a great episode.
That is discovery, done in a format where the other person is enjoying themselves.
Ten guests before gear
Why ten? Because ten pre-interviews tell you whether the show is working as a business tool before you spend anything on it.
If ten people you wanted to meet said yes and showed up, the show is real. You have a backlog of episodes, a calendar with actual conversations in it, and enough evidence to justify the setup. If nobody says yes, you have learned that cheaply and you can change the theme or the guest profile.
Gear is the last thing to worry about. For this founder the format was StreamYard, which works about like Zoom, live-streamed to YouTube, LinkedIn, X and Facebook. No editing. The authenticity is the point. A founder talking honestly with another founder does not need a color grade.
Warm market first
The first ten guests should come from people who already know you. Current customers, partners, investors, peers. That is what we told him to start with.
Warm guests are easier to book and easier to talk to, so your first recordings will be your most relaxed. They also give you real episodes to point to when you start inviting people who do not know you. And they are often the people you most need deeper conversations with anyway: the customer who might expand, the partner who might refer, the investor who has been watching.
Once the warm list is booked, the cold invites start. By then you have a show with episodes behind it, and the invite reads as what it is: a real show asking a real guest.
The first concrete step: a booking link with five questions
The action item that came out of that call was small. The founder needed to add a pre-interview booking link with his five qualifying questions on it. That was all Charles needed to start routing investor pre-interviews to him immediately.
That is the right first step for anyone. Not a studio, not a trailer, not a logo. A booking link, five questions, and someone sending people to it. Everything else can wait until you have had a few conversations and know the show is worth building out.
The questions do the sorting for you. The low-fit guests get a short, pleasant call. The high-value ones get your full attention. And because the guest booked to talk about themselves, even the six-minute calls end well.
His raise also shaped the plan. The goal was to show three to four months of growth under his new model before going hard at venture investors. Pre-interviews let him start those relationships now, so the investors would be watching while the numbers came in, instead of meeting him cold after.
What the time cost really is
The founder’s question was fair, so we answered it directly. Our view: at most one to two hours a day, with most of it automated, and with us holding his hand through the setup. If the load got heavy, Charles, Emiliano or I could run pre-interviews for him.
Most of that time is conversations. The finding of guests, the invites, the replies and the booking are system work. What the founder does is show up and be curious. Our home page puts it simply: thirty minutes of yours, show up and be curious, no script, no pitch on the call.
Compare that to the alternative. Most founders already spend hours a week chasing meetings that do not happen. A show turns that time into meetings that do.
The abundance part
There was one more thing on that call I keep coming back to. Volume of meetings removes desperation from investor conversations. When you have a steady flow of good conversations, no single one has to work. You stop pushing, and people can feel that.
The pre-interview model is what creates the volume. Ten guests become twenty, then forty. Each conversation is short and easy. And the founder who stalled for a week because he could not find the time ends up with a calendar full of the conversations he was trying to make time for in the first place.
The sequence, in order
- Name the show by who it features.
- List ten warm guests: customers, partners, investors, peers.
- Set up a booking link with five qualifying questions.
- Run the pre-interviews. Short for low fit, deeper for high value.
- Record the first episodes on something simple, live, no editing.
- Then start inviting people who do not know you yet.
- Then, if it is working, think about better gear.
You do not need permission or an audience to start this week. You need ten names and a booking link.
Frequently asked questions
Can I start a podcast with no audience?
Yes. A business podcast is for the guests, not the listeners. B2B guests want the spotlight and the recording, so a small, focused show is enough to book the people you want to meet.
How many hours a week does a business podcast take?
Our view is at most one to two hours a day, most of it in conversations, with guest finding, invites, replies and booking handled by the system. Pre-interviews with low-fit guests take about six minutes.
Who should my first guests be?
Your warm market: current customers, partners, investors and peers. They are easy to book, give you relaxed first episodes, and are often the people you most need deeper conversations with.