![The Five Questions Behind How I Built It [Day 10 30 Days of Podcast Notes]](https://images.beamly.com/fetch/https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.rss.com%2Fstreamlined-podcaster%2Fpodcast_cover_20260916_122857_a7aaeae9723ee3f8a0758f9d13809543.jpg?w=365)
How I Built It was a short interview show — 30 minutes at most — built on the same five questions every time, ending with "do you have any trade secrets for us?" The predictability is what made it work for the first hundred-plus episodes, the way a procedural show gives you a format you can settle into. The question that mattered most was the one about failure, because in 2016 everyone was talking about their wins and almost nobody was talking about what went wrong. I'll admit past me used "I like to be surprised along with my guests" as an excuse to skip research, and I don't agree with him anymore.
Resources & Links
- Join my newsletter for solo business owners: streamlined.fm/join
- Podcast hosting by RSS.com (affiliate link): rss.com
Disclosure: this episode description was generated with AI.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:04 Hello and welcome to day 10 of 30 days of podcast
00:00:04 --> 00:00:07 notes here on the streamlined podcaster yesterday
00:00:07 --> 00:00:12 I talked about the idea for launching my I guess
00:00:12 --> 00:00:16 second or third show maybe and my most popular
00:00:16 --> 00:00:20 one by far how I built it and so today I want
00:00:20 --> 00:00:24 to talk a little bit about how I decided on the
00:00:24 --> 00:00:27 format and so the format was short interview
00:00:27 --> 00:00:33 show 25 to 30 minutes, and I would ask the same
00:00:33 --> 00:00:38 five questions every time, uh, culminating in
00:00:38 --> 00:00:41 the question, uh, well, the culminating in the
00:00:41 --> 00:00:42 question, do you have any trade secrets for us?
00:00:42 --> 00:00:45 But of course I had the, the titular question,
00:00:45 --> 00:00:49 how did you build that? And so I had a lot of
00:00:49 --> 00:00:53 friends in the WordPress space. They all agreed
00:00:53 --> 00:00:57 to, uh, come on the show. And I would basically
00:00:57 --> 00:00:59 ask them, you know, tell us about yourself. How
00:00:59 --> 00:01:02 did you come up with this idea? What failures
00:01:02 --> 00:01:07 did you face? How did you build that? And do
00:01:07 --> 00:01:11 you have any trade secrets for us? And I really
00:01:11 --> 00:01:13 enjoyed this format because it was short. It
00:01:13 --> 00:01:16 was predictable. At the time, I really talked
00:01:16 --> 00:01:19 about how, you know, you had these procedural
00:01:19 --> 00:01:22 cop shows like Law and Order or even shows like
00:01:22 --> 00:01:27 House that that followed a very Predictable format
00:01:27 --> 00:01:32 and it worked really well for the first hundred
00:01:32 --> 00:01:37 or hundred fifty episodes where I Could guide
00:01:37 --> 00:01:41 people along this path Truth be told I didn't
00:01:41 --> 00:01:45 have to do a ton of research Which I you know,
00:01:45 --> 00:01:48 I disagree with past me on that. I would say
00:01:48 --> 00:01:50 things like well I like to be surprised along
00:01:50 --> 00:01:56 with my guests Today I feel like that's a poor
00:01:56 --> 00:01:59 excuse. Uh, so I guess shame on past me, but
00:01:59 --> 00:02:01 I didn't, you know, I was still learning, right?
00:02:01 --> 00:02:06 Going back to, uh, you know, uh, early on stay,
00:02:06 --> 00:02:08 I think episode one of this series stay sloppy,
00:02:08 --> 00:02:12 right? Or start sloppy, um, and iterate, right?
00:02:13 --> 00:02:18 So I eventually did start doing more research,
00:02:18 --> 00:02:20 but I liked those core five questions and the
00:02:20 --> 00:02:23 show. did take off and we'll take a little bit
00:02:23 --> 00:02:25 more you know I'll talk a little bit more about
00:02:25 --> 00:02:29 why it worked in later episodes looks like next
00:02:29 --> 00:02:31 week possibly over the weekend if I'm looking
00:02:31 --> 00:02:34 at my little chart correctly but I chose this
00:02:34 --> 00:02:37 format because I wanted to learn from others
00:02:37 --> 00:02:40 right so it could not it de facto could not be
00:02:40 --> 00:02:44 a an interview show most shows were interview
00:02:44 --> 00:02:49 or uh or host co -host at the time storytelling
00:02:50 --> 00:02:54 From a single narrator was kind of just starting
00:02:54 --> 00:03:03 to get Popular but I wanted to to tell the stories
00:03:03 --> 00:03:07 of people who did it and I think What made this
00:03:07 --> 00:03:09 format work so well is because I asked that question
00:03:09 --> 00:03:11 about failure Because again, this was kind of
00:03:11 --> 00:03:15 a time This was launched at the time of like
00:03:15 --> 00:03:17 hustle culture and just work hard and make a
00:03:17 --> 00:03:22 million bajillion dollars And we heard a lot
00:03:22 --> 00:03:26 about the successes, but we rarely heard about
00:03:26 --> 00:03:28 the failures. And so I thought that that was
00:03:28 --> 00:03:31 really important. So deciding on the format was
00:03:31 --> 00:03:36 really simple. The main question was in the name.
00:03:37 --> 00:03:41 And that really worked for me. I think it's,
00:03:41 --> 00:03:44 you know, and the format, the segments, that's
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 still something I try to do. I think. I'll talk
00:03:47 --> 00:03:50 a little bit about like the messy middle of this
00:03:50 --> 00:03:53 show in a later episode, but I did get away from
00:03:53 --> 00:03:57 that format for a while and I saw a dip in downloads.
00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 But that format, along with the fact that I was
00:04:00 --> 00:04:02 serving a specific audience, I think is what
00:04:02 --> 00:04:07 made that show work well. So that was the format
00:04:07 --> 00:04:12 for how I built it. Short 30 minute max five
00:04:12 --> 00:04:17 question interview show with me. and a guest,
00:04:18 --> 00:04:22 and I would record, I would lightly edit. Well,
00:04:23 --> 00:04:25 there was one I heavily edited and then I decided
00:04:25 --> 00:04:27 to hire an editor after that, but we'll talk
00:04:27 --> 00:04:29 about that tomorrow when I get to the tools.
00:04:29 --> 00:04:32 So that's it for this podcast. The format, the
00:04:32 --> 00:04:34 original format for how I built it and why I
00:04:34 --> 00:04:37 decided to go with the five questions at first.
00:04:38 --> 00:04:40 So if you enjoyed this, be sure to subscribe
00:04:40 --> 00:04:44 wherever you're listening. If you are a solo
00:04:44 --> 00:04:48 business owner who is trying to stop doing everything
00:04:48 --> 00:04:51 yourself, I help solo business owners with SoloOps.
00:04:52 --> 00:04:55 That is, they build systems so that you can stop
00:04:55 --> 00:04:58 doing everything yourself without hiring a team
00:04:58 --> 00:05:02 or over relying on AI. If you want to learn more
00:05:02 --> 00:05:05 about SoloOps, you can head over to streamlined
00:05:05 --> 00:05:10 .fm slash join. Thanks so much for listening
00:05:10 --> 00:05:13 and until tomorrow. I'll see you then.