In this episode of The Podcast Geek, host Sumanth Jois sits down with veteran podcaster Jim — host of Cybersecurity Today and Hashtag Trending — to unpack the strategies that grew his daily tech news podcast from 1,000 to over 5,000 listeners.
Jim shares the philosophy, content structure, and monetization tactics that have kept him in the top 2% of podcasters worldwide, offering candid, practical advice for emerging podcasters looking to build an audience and attract sponsors.
Key topics & timestamps:
~0:26 — Jim's creative life today: writing sci-fi (The Compassion Virus), long-form vs. short-form, being "in the zone"
~3:00 — Deep Work by Cal Newport: focus, isolation, and the creative process
~7:00 — Intro to Cybersecurity Today and Hashtag Trending; growing from ~1,000 to 5,000+ daily listens
~9:20 — The "News You Can Use" philosophy and why it drove 5x audience growth
~11:40 — How Jim picks topics: Google, Reddit, and filtering for usefulness
~13:45 — Episode format: under 10 min, newspaper "inverted triangle," no clickbait
~16:35 — Knowing your audience, response rates, and word-of-mouth growth
~17:25 — Jim's new music podcast with a community radio partnership
~21:00 — Audio vs. video, YouTube/Instagram, and social proof over ads
~25:35 — Picking guests who'll promote; audience growth as the #1 podcaster problem
~27:25 — Monetization deep dive: direct ads, affinity vs. announcer-led, media kits
~33:10 — Sponsorships for smaller shows and niche/passion audiences
~36:40 — Cold outreach: leading with value, framing around the buyer
~43:00 — Name recognition, seven impressions, relationship-building
~46:00 — The mindset of great salespeople; the Wayne Gretzky analogy
