Supercasters S1E11 - Jack Rhysider of Darknet Diaries: Growing a High-Quality Podcast to $15,000 a Month in Memberships
Feb 23, 2021
38:20
In this episode we'll hear from Jack Rhysider, the creator behind Darknet Diaries, an award-winning podcast with over 15 million downloads last year. With loyal listeners paying up to $15,000 a month in paid memberships, this podcast focuses on true stories from the dark side of the Internet: on hackers, breaches, shadow government activity, hacktivism, cybercrime, and all the things that dwell on the hidden parts of the network.
Main Points:
- Building a high quality podcast from the first episode
- How Darknet Diaries grew to $15,000 a month in paid memberships
- Getting podcast mentors through cold email
- What podcasters get wrong when asking for money from their listeners
Enjoy!
Join us in the FREE Supercast premium feed and you get to hear Jack talk about:
- 0:37 Would Jack ever join a network? Darknet Diaries' 2020 marketing plan
- 2:42 Why promo swaps are effective at growing podcasts
- 4:12 Winning awards and other marketing experiments
- 4:58 Leverage and getting featured in Apple podcasts
- 6:37 You don't need a large audience to start monetizing
- 8:42 If you want to start monetizing your show...
- 9:43 Price tiers, and why the $1 tier doesn't work well
- 10:59 Paid podcast marketing did not work well, here's why
Sign up here: premium.supercast.com
Timestamps
- 1:32 True crime meets cybercrime: What is Darknet Diaries?
- 2:23 Mixing podcasting and 10+ years in IT Security
- 4:06 From side project to going full-time
- 5:58 High quality standards from the very beginning
- 7:00 Growing Darknet Diaries from the start through blogging and Twitter
- 8:46 Jack Rhysider's mentors for Darknet Diaries
- 11:16 How Email led to Darknet Diaries' podcast growth
- 13:05 Pulling a Darknet Diaries story together through alerts
- 14:54 Describing the listener, and the Discovery Channel
- 17:51 Monetizing a podcast through Patreon and ads
- 20:20 Data-driven monetization and offering value to listeners
- 23:11 Go to the listeners, don't bring them to you
- 24:53 $15,000 a month in memberships and revenue transparency
- 27:23 What podcasters get wrong when asking for money
- 28:25 Sharing podcast stats and findings through lime.link
- 30:20 Megaphone.fm podcasts showing up on blocklists
- 34:00 The future of privacy in podcasting
- 35:23 What Jack Rhysider would do if he started all over again
- 36:17 The evolution of the Darknet Diaries team
Links