Being an entrepreneur does not leave a lot of time for personal activities. You try to fit in a workout or a meal with friends, but, most of the time, you are working. That is networking, meetings, professional development, or trying to grow your brand or business.
You would love to gain some new business strategies or hear some insights for growing your business. Sitting down to read a book is something you do not have time to do, but you do have commuting time, driving to and from appointments, cooking, gym time, or other pockets of time when you can press play and sink into a podcast.
Podcasts are a great way to escape into a different world. Some are less than thirty minutes and deliver an array of ideas that will give you the ideas and power to plan for success in business from industry experts.
Best of all, podcasts are simple to access; pick up your phone or tablet, be ready to listen to experts in any field you can fathom. As easy as that, you’re set to listen to a podcast.
Podcasts are a great way to get through a flight or help pass time during a long trip in the car.
You will learn from shared experiences of struggles, business insights, marketing strategies and personal growth in the following list of our favorite podcasts for entrepreneurs. You will hear from business founders, venture capitalists, and leaders in content marketing, female entrepreneurs via in-depth interviews with entertaining hosts.
We have listened to each one of these podcasts. We have connected with it, drew inspiration from it, listened to it like the host is speaking directly to us. We have learned from each one, successes and failures alike.
Pop in your earbuds, or turn on your speakers, and try out our favorite podcasts.
The Tim Ferriss Show
Tim Ferriss is an entrepreneur and best-selling author of four books, including The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.
With 4.5 stars, over 200 million downloads, and a current top 200 ranking on Apple podcasts, The Tim Ferriss Show is easy to listen to with relatable content and interesting interviews. His episodes are timely, vary in content, from meditation and how to get more sleep to interviews with LeBron James and Brené Brown.
The podcast features achievers and successful people and Tim interviews in a way that the stories are relatable, and the successes are achievable. Tim speaks to investors, athletes, actors, directors, and more and gets to the bones of what makes them successful in his easygoing, enjoyable way.
Tim is an interesting character himself. He is an angel investor, investing early on in companies like Uber, Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, and Duolingo, after having been successful in his own entrepreneurial goals.
His interview topics range from working on mindset to be a prosperous entrepreneur to how professional athletes train for success to becoming wealthy. This is all done in a way that never feels dry, and always feels entertaining.
Our Favorite Episodes:
- “Sir Richard Branson (#272)” Tim interviews famous entrepreneur and best-selling author Sir Richard and speaks at length about his origins; having dyslexia, growing up, and struggles to get his business(es) started. We loved Sir Richard’s candid storytelling and insight into his life.
- “Shaun White (#140)” World famous Olympic snowboarder and skateboarder divulges how a sponsorship and meeting Tony Hawk (and lots of practice and skill) led to his success.
Recode Decode with Kara Swisher
Kara Swisher is a Silicon Valley-based technology journalist that asks hard-hitting questions of interviewees such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk.
Recode Decode is the winner of Adweek’s 2019 Podcast of the Year for Kara’s frank way of delivering the podcast. Many of the podcast episodes are tech-related, but she also interviews business leaders, newsworthy people, and thought leaders.
Some of the most insightful episodes feature interviews with former US Secretary of State and Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Team USA soccer star and political activist Megan Rapinoe.
Discussions on Recode Decode present commentary on the news of the moment, and Kara dives deep to give her listeners insight on how these guests are changing the world, in their own way.
Our favorite episodes:
- “Kirsten Green: The four types of startups” Kara interviews Forerunner Ventures founder Kirsten Green about problems at luggage startup Away, being a female venture capitalist, and more.
- “David Epstein: Why successful people don’t do only one thing” Kara speaks with best selling author and journalist David Epstein about the habits of successful people, and how most successful athletes, scientists, business people, and more “dabble” in many things rather than sticking to one thing.
HBR IdeaCast
The HBR IdeaCast is a podcast delivered weekly from the Harvard Business Review and features leaders in business and management.
If you already follow the Harvard Business Review, you will be familiar with some of the ideas presented in the HBR IdeaCast.
The podcast is hosted by HBR senior editors Alison Beard and Curt Nickish and is a smart look at the insights of journalists, business founders and leaders, and thought leaders. The episodes focus on hot topics like conflict management, transparency of pay, how to be a leader and marketing lessons.
We love the inspiring stories about failures and subsequent wins, the cohesive awareness that comes of being part of a team, and marketing strategies and management ideas and insights. The podcast is full of
Whether you are starting out in the workforce, or you are a manager looking to build upon a team dynamic, you will find something interesting for you in the many episodes available for download or stream.
Our Favorite Episodes:
- “Why You Need Innovation Capital—and How to Get It” This podcast is a discussion about “innovation capital”—the power to motivate employees, be a great salesperson, and win stakeholders over. Nathan Furr, assistant professor of Strategy at INSEAD and co-author of Innovation Capital: How to Compete—and Win—Like the World’s Most Innovative Leaders maintains that everyone is capable of being an innovation capitalist.
- “The Right Way to Get Your First 1000 Customers” Thales Teixeira, an associate professor at Harvard Business School talks about how many startups are not successful, how to learn from errors and imperfections to be a successful startup, and how companies like Uber, Netflix and more approached building their brand and business by learning from giving “imperfect product” to their first customers.
The Gary Vee Audio Experience
Gary Vaynerchuk is the host of The Gary Vee Audio Experience, which has made the iTunes top 100 podcasts.
Gary, known as Gary Vee, began his career as a wine critic, launched his family’s local wine store to global success. Gary Vee is a social media and digital marketing guru, launching his own communications companies after achieving success in startups and investing. His company, VaynerX, and its subsidiaries are just the tip of what Gary Vee is doing.
Gary has put his stamp on creating apps, investing in app creation, multiple YouTube channels, wine-based companies, satellite radio, and more. His website is chock-full of information on how to create engaging content for your social media or blog, and insights for entrepreneurs and business marketers (but, that’s for another day).
It is no surprise that Gary Vee has a podcast that we want to listen to and learn from. Gary presents media and pop culture stories that relate to (lots of) marketing, entrepreneurship, business creation, in what he calls “fireside chats” and interviews. He believes that “audio and voice” is the future.
His guests range from a LinkedIn strategist to a Shark from tv’s Shark Tank, and social media influencers to rappers and singers. He invites feedback via Twitter or text.
You will enjoy listening to Gary Vee’s easy rapport, as well as be floored by the business knowledge this guy gives away, for free. The podcast site easily links to multiple platforms to tune in, too.
Our favorite episodes:
- “Top 2020 Marketing Strategies That Will Put You on the Map | RD Summit 2019” This episode is not in an interview format, but Gary Vee’s keynote address to the RD Summit in Brazil in November, 2019. He gives marketing ideas, how to make money, happiness in business, and how YOU are the key to distributing your brand. He places the onus on us to market ourselves.
- “Being Unemotional When it Comes to Business- An Interview with Larry King” This episode is one of Gary Vee’s favorites, too. He speaks of his signature moves when it comes to content promotion, what platforms are beneficial, and why to be unemotional in business. Great content from 2016, but so relevant that Gary replayed it in April of 2019.
Mixergy
Andrew Warner is an entrepreneur and creator and host of Mixergy, where Andrew aims to share solutions and ideas about succeeding in business with the “ambitious”.
Andrew and his brother created a lucrative (thirty million dollars) online greeting card business and then sold the business.
Mixergy came from a couple of ideas: Andrew wanted to help other young entrepreneurs by being a mentor to them, and by the success of once-Presidential hopeful Howard Dean. His popularity grew from a grassroots movement of small local gatherings. Howard Dean would talk, and the audience listened.
Andrew interviews presenters in thought leadership and people with a passion for business and life. He says that he wants to help you with your business by featuring over fifteen hundred interviews and courses in various, interesting topics.
Andrew has interviewed the founders of Pixar, Groupon, and LinkedIn. Some of the interviewees you may never have heard of before, but they are all influential, with interesting and informative stories.
Browse through the various interviews and courses, where they are plainly laid out for picking, see if anything is of interest to you. Otherwise, just press play. You will be engrossed in these stories, find advice and strategies, and learn something from each one.
Our favorite episodes:
- “How a Mixergy Listener Built Socialbee” This episode is what this is all about. A listener of Andrew Warner’s podcast, Ovi Negrean, built his social media tools company after being a longtime Mixergy listener. This episode is his story, and he offers insight for you, too.
- “How Clever Entrepreneurs Turned 3 Air Mattresses Into Airbnb, The Site That Makes And Home a Bed and Breakfast” Andrew Warner interviews the co-founder(s) of Airbnb, who were so desperate for rent money that they turned their apartment into a temporary hotel. There are stories of their other ways of earning money, and how they won over an investor who changed their lives with his mentorship.
Also check out:
- EntreLeadership (Host: Ken Coleman)
- Youpreneur (Host: Chris Ducker)
- Marketing Over Coffee (Host: Christopher S. Penn and John J. Wall)
- How I Built This (Host: Guy Ratz)
- This Week In Startups (Host: Jason Calacanis)
- Masters of Scale (Host: Reid Hoffman)
- Online Marketing Made Easy (Host: Amy Porterfield)
- Akimbo (Host: Seth Godin)
- I Will Teach You To Rich (Host: Ramit Sethi)
Listen and learn
If you have just a few minutes to dedicate to listening to something during your busy week, choose something that will help you grow as an entrepreneur.
Choose from our list of the best podcasts for entrepreneurs, or find one of your own. It is important to hear from all sides of a startup, the good and the bad. Understanding that you may have to fall a few times before you dust yourself off and start again will help you in your business and brand.
Use a podcast like continuing education- you are learning from the best marketers, content creators, investors and teachers in the industry to gain insight, skills, and knowledge to succeed as an entrepreneur.
