Podcasts serve as a convenient broadcast medium for tech founders interested in staying on top of the latest trends, news, and insights. If you're a tech entrepreneur, your most precious resource is time. This audio format allows you to easily integrate entrepreneurial learning into your daily life without taking valuable time away from priorities such as fundraising, courting investors, and developing next-generation products.
"As an entrepreneur, you will never stop learning. While there are plenty of articles, webinars, infographics, e-books, etc. out there to assist with helping your startup grow, too many people are overlooking one of the most convenient types of content — podcasts," says John Rampton, entrepreneur and Inc. contributor.
The Best Podcasts for Tech Entrepreneurs
The Lean Startup Podcast
After penning a New York Times bestseller for innovative founders, author and entrepreneur Eric Ries went on to develop The Lean Startup Co. The complimentary advanced learning hub provides live events, educational programming, and an online media library that expands upon the book's core principles.
The podcast hosts industry leaders covering a wide variety of topics, with a focus on advanced management practices that transform culture, drive long-term growth, and enhance product development. Past topics have ranged from how to prevent your own domain expertise from getting in the way of responding to customer needs to the key steps to framing successful entrepreneurial experiments.
Listen: https://leanstartup.co/
Startup Grind Podcast
Startup Grind is best known for its global events designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. However, the organization also produces an amazing podcast.
Startup Grind executes in-depth interviews with high-profile tech founders like Stewart Butterfield of Slack, Niklas Zennstrom of Skype, and Steven Chen of YouTube. The podcast also invites popular authors like Nir Eyal, author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-forming Products, to expand upon the topics in their books, and leading VCs, like David Teen of Venture Capital, to discuss topics like algorithmic investing.
Listen: https://www.startupgrind.com/the-startup-grind-podcast/
a16z
Hosted by VCs Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz, a16z provides entrepreneurs with digestible factoids on trends like cloud computing, big data, and crypto tokens. Additionally, listeners have access to valuable advice on fundraising, management, hiring, and more. Founded in 2009, a16z has built a global network of industry-leading influencers. Startup founders can use this insider intel to tackle industry roadblocks and scale with ease.
Listen: https://a16z.com/podcasts/
Clockwise
Hosted by Dan Moren and Mikah Sargent, Clockwise features two special guests per week. Episodes are only 30 minutes long. The hosts introduce four tech topics and guests share their thoughts during a "rapid-fire" discussion. Topics range from third-party API restrictions to Facebook's new privacy controls. Clockwise is an ideal tech podcast for founders interested in accessing bite-sized information related to the biggest tech topics.
Listen: https://www.relay.fm/clockwise
Rocket
Rocket is hosted by Christina Warren (senior cloud development associate at Microsoft), Brianna Wu (head of development at Giant Spacekat), and Simone de Rochefort (video producer at Polygon). Every week, the team delivers "accelerated geek conversation" to thousands of listeners. Rocket does a great job of conceptualizing and illustrating current tech information and trends. This is a superb podcast for listeners interested in staying up-to-date on all the latest tech news.
Listen: https://www.relay.fm/rocket
The Future of Everything
It's easy to get caught in "the tech bubble" when scaling a startup. If you are looking for a general overview of where the world's leading industries are heading, check out The Future of Everything. Produced by The Wall Street Journal, this podcast provides interesting overviews of developments currently being discussed by industry insiders.
Listen: https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/browse/wsj-the-future-of-everything
The Twenty Minute VC
Have you ever been curious about how someone becomes a VC? If so, The Twenty Minute VC has you covered. Founded by serial entrepreneur Harry Stebbings, the podcast features 20-minute interviews with today's most successful venture capitalists.
Harry poses a series of similar questions to each guest, including: Why did you enter a career in venture capital? What steps did you take to get there? Each episode wraps with a "quick fire round" where guests provide their immediate thoughts to three surprise statements. Past guests include venture capitalists Guy Kawasaki, Brad Feld, Jason Calacanis, James Altucher, and Mike Seibel.
Listen: http://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/
Masters of Scale
Masters of Scale is a unique podcast showcasing how various companies grew from zero to profitable. Exactly what makes it so unique? It's the only podcast on our list hosted by the founder of a multibillion dollar tech company. Reid Hoffman was the cofounder and executive chairman of LinkedIn. Currently, Hoffman is a parter at the venture capital firm, Greylock Partners.
The podcast is structured like a detective story. Hoffman tests his theories with famous founders like Selina Tobaccowala of SurveyMonkey. Hoffman gives his listeners an inside look into how prominent tech founders and CEOs deal with the industry's biggest challenges.
Listen: https://mastersofscale.com/
StartUp
StartUp is the documentary series about entrepreneurial life that inspired the ABC sitcom Alex, Inc., starring Zach Braff. The podcast is produced by Gimlet Media, an award-winning, narrative podcasting company that aims to help listeners better understand the world and each other.
What makes StartUp unique is its emphasis on storytelling and character development. In a recent episode, entrepreneur Mokhtar Alkhanshali described his quest to produce the perfect cup of coffee. Despite the challenges of growing beans in the midst of a Yemen war zone, Alkhanshali has managed to partner with some of the world's finest brands to distribute his coffee. Another interesting episode followed StartupBus, a hackathon initiative, as it brought together a group of strangers to launch companies within one week. Check out StartUp for a mixture of quirky and insightful programming.
Listen: https://www.gimletmedia.com/startup/
Eventual Millionaire
After leaving the corporate world with $70,000 in debt, Jaime Masters created a strategic plan that eliminated her debt in 16 months. Afterwards, she found herself returning to the same questions she had asked as a young adult: What is it that makes millionaires different? How can I use my own talents to hit my first million? How can I network with millionaires and thought leaders?
This resulted in The Eventual Millionaire podcast. Today, Jaime has interviewed more than 350 multimillionaire entrepreneurs about their experiences, stories, and resources utilized on the road to riches. She is a best-selling author, entrepreneurial coach, and mother.
Listen: https://eventualmillionaire.com/blog/
This Week in Startups
In this podcast, host and Silicon Valley personality Jason Calacanis promises listeners a rotating group of guest experts and a weekly discussion on "the best, worst, most outrageous, and interesting stories from the world of entrepreneurship." Known for his blunt delivery, Jason isn't one to shy away from touchy subjects or follow-up questions.
Expect to see similarly big names on This Week in Startups as the aforementioned podcasts on our list. Whether you're looking for tips on how to grow your company further or are just wanting to catch up on what's happening in Silicon Valley, you can't go wrong with This Week in Startups.
Listen: http://thisweekinstartups.com/
Discover the Resources Needed to Scale Quickly
As you can see, there is no shortage of options when it comes to podcasts for tech entrepreneurs: everything from tech news updates, to futuristic musings, to no-holds-barred interviews are available for your professional growth and development. Are you looking for even more resources to scale your tech startup?
More than a coworking space, RocketSpace is a nontraditional tech accelerator designed to help Seed to Series C funded startup founders scale faster. Members enjoy entrepreneurial programming led by industry luminaries, open office hours with advisors, and warm introductions to top VCs. The best part? We never ask for equity, allowing you to maintain complete control of your company.
