Once again I find myself sitting at my computer in the predawn darkness, sipping a cup of coffee, and working through a “down to the wire” writing and editing session for this weeks blog article.
In last weeks post I mentioned that I really needed to start “writing throughout the week” so that I could simply hit “publish” on Saturday mornings… well, lets just say that I didn’t do very well on that front this week either. I guess I did at least jot some ideas down earlier in the week, and I did go fishing a few mornings this week during times when I could have been writing. So, maybe thats progress? 🙂
Enough about writing… in this post I thought I’d tell you about my top 10 favorite podcasts. Podcasting is growing by leaps and bounds right now, and it is an industry and platform that I find downright fascinating. It is fascinating enough to me that one of my goals for the year is to start a podcast. Although I have technically accomplished that with a podcast for my families farm, I’m working on ideation on several other podcast fronts.
In this post I’ll talk briefly about why I love podcasts, and then we’ll go through the actual list of my top 10 favorite podcasts right now.
My History with Podcasts
I’ve been listening to podcasts for many, many years. Some of my early podcast memories include a number of TWiT podcasts Windows Weekly, This Week in Google, iOS Today among others. (Going to find links for those podcasts I saw their Android show All About Android, so now I have a new podcast to listen to.)
Over the years I eventually moved from iOS to Android phones. At that point I revisited the podcasts I was subscribed to as I switched podcast players. Note, my favorite podcast app on iOS was Overcast.fm, and on Android I use Pocket Casts. During the transfer from one platform to the other I culled a bunch of podcasts that I didn’t care that much about, and since then I’ve discovered and added, and removed, and tweaked and sorted and sifted to get to the list of podcasts I listen to today.
So, Why the Love for Podcasts
I know a lot of people listen to podcasts these days, but if you aren’t one of these “podcast listening people” here are a few reasons why I really enjoy listening to podcasts.
For a bit of context it may help to know a few things about me. I am a single guy in my thirties (still seems weird to say that I’m in that age bracket). I travel from time to time. I am fascinated by the “bootstrapped business” world. I am a web developer by trade. I am also a photographer and videographer from time to time. The tech, cameras and gear behind photo/video fascinates me.
It’s hard to wrap up all of the “generalities” of how I see the world in a single paragraph like the previous one, but all of those things affect the choice of which podcasts I subscribe to. Although I am a busy guy, there are aspects of my days that allow me to listen to more podcasts than a lot of people I know.
I may have more time available than some folks, but at the end of the day the main reason I listen podcasts is that they provide value. Whether it is a podcast following a business that is in its growth phase, or talking about investing, or web development and its many nuances, at some point if I don’t get any value out of a particular podcast I eventually unsubscribe from it.
Yes I do love Audiobooks for a lot of the same reasons, but the great thing about podcasts is the “episodic” nature of the medium. If I find a podcast that I enjoy, there is a good chance that there will be regular episodes. Not only does that give me something to look forward to, but it also means that what I am listening to was recorded recently and is generally current.
The last thing that I love about Podcasts is that it is built on the back of an open standard, RSS (Really Simple Syndication, a standardized system for the distribution of content from an online publisher to Internet users.) As a web developer who believes in the idea of an open internet, I love to see open standards being used as affectively as this.
Alright, with all that background out of the way lets get to my current list of favorite podcasts.
Finally, My Current List of Top 10 Podcasts
A couple of caveats before diving into these. Although this is a “list” of podcasts, they are in no particular order. I tried putting them in order of favorites but found that to be difficult.
What does it take to be in my top 10 list? The stipulations are fairly simple. When an episode comes out I will almost always listen to it. That’s it. Of course that means that I enjoy the way the podcast is structured, I enjoy listening to the hosts, and the content is interesting to me.
One Final Thing – I feel like I shouldn’t have to say this, but there are podcasts on this list that are hosted by people, or talk about topics, or stand for things that I don’t 100% agree with. I find that listening to people who think differently than I do has been helpful in extending my ability to appreciate people who have opinions that are different than I do. So, just keep that in mind if you decide to listen to any of these podcasts.
With no further ado, here we go.
- No Dumb Questions – Destin and Matt talk about all kinds of things, from time to time they even delve into “deeper” topics. I’ve come to really appreciate the point of view that both of these guys bring to the conversation.
- No Plans to Merge – I wasn’t aware of this podcast till recently, but have quickly found Daniel and Caleb’s discussions about web development interesting. Even when they branch out into really random topics that aren’t remotely “development” related.
- Life Stocks Podcast – This is probably one of the strangest podcasts I listen to… and enjoy. Bryan and Tyler talk about literally anything and although there seems to be little rhyme or reason to a lot of what they talk about I find that I listen to every new episode.
- The Art of Product Podcast – Derrick, one of the cofounders of Drip, and Ben, formerly of Thoughtbot talk through the ins and outs of building products, work life balance, pricing, etc. The candor that they talk about topics with is refreshing.
- Build Your SASS – bootstrapping in 2019 – Justin and Jon talk about all kinds of things as they build a business and product called Transistor, a podcast hosting and analytics SASS. As someone who is fascinated by the bootstrapping scene, as well as being interested in the field of podcasting, this is a great podcast to listen to.
- The Entrepreneurial Coder Podcast – Another fairly recent addition to my podcast feed. I’ve quickly found Ryan’s interviews with developers who are in business for themselves to be both interesting and informative.
- Syntax – Tasty Web Development Treats – Wes and Scott talk development in a way that is interesting and informative. This is a great podcast to keep your finger on the pulse of the constantly changing landscape around web development.
- The Call with Willie & Cody – After following Cody Wanner’s rise on YouTube I was immediately intrigued when I head that he was starting a podcast. He is joined daily by Willie, a fellow self employed YouTuber and start up guy. Although the daily episodes can almost get overwhelming to keep up with, it’s a good way to start the day with a bit of inspiration.
- Kraig Adams Podcast – Kraig is a YouTuber who I’ve been following for some time. I enjoy the “life update” style of most of his podcast episodes. He talks about everything from minimalism, to film making, to traveling, to hiking, and a ton of other things.
- The Way I Heard It – Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame tells stories that are fascinating. I’d say this podcast takes a ton of inspiration from Paul Harvey’s “The Rest of the Story” segments.
Some Bonus Podcasts
I’m subscribed to a bunch of podcasts that aren’t in my top 10 (current count is somewhere around 75). Just by the nature of things that means that new episodes are showing up every single day. I literally can’t listen to every episode of every podcast, so I’m very quick to archive episodes to keep my list of “to listen to” episodes at least somewhat short.
The following podcasts are ones that I listen to fairly frequently, but I definitely don’t listen to every single episode. In fact I’d probably say I listen to about one in 4 or 5 episodes from a lot of these.
- The Tim Ferris Show – This podcast has long been at the top of the “interviewing interesting people about interesting subjects” list of podcasts. Tim has a great way of pulling all kinds of information and stories from his guests.
- Somebody Stop Me – Aaron Weber – I’ve been fascinated by comedians for some time. Aaron Webers podcast offers an inside look at the world of an up and coming comedian.
- The Stalman Podcast – Camera gear. Video. Photography. Interviews. Tyler does a great job of talking through all kinds of topics related to the creative side of things.
- That Sounds Fun with Annie F. Downs – One of the few “Christian” podcasts that I can listen to and enjoy. (Even writing that felt a bit heretical.) Annie interviews a lot of fascinating people. Although I’m not sure what exactly I think about the whole world of the Enneagram I’m finding the recent dive into personality types to be interesting.
- Full Stack Radio – Another development podcast from Adam Wathan author of numerous courses and currently working on Tailwind. This podcast tends to be a complex in nature, but usually the topics are fairly interesting and Adam has a great way of communicating about complicated things.
- Trail Cam Radio – A very recent addition to my podcast app. This podcast is put out by the guys at Exodus trail cameras. So far I’ve really been enjoying the discussions around hunting, running trail cameras, etc.
- Wired to Hunt – Another hunting podcast, Mark Kenyon covers a ton of things related to hunting, particularly bow hunting and particularly whitetail. Lots of great interviews and information.
- Golden Hour – Dave Maze, one of my favorite “internet people” interviews creatives about their stories and businesses and tons of things around photography and videography.
- The Laravel Snippet – Taylor, the founder of Laravel, talks about what is up in the world of Laravel. If you’re a Laravel developer or even interested in the Laravel framework/ecosystem this is definitely a podcast you should be listening to.
- The Hunting Public – Another hunting podcast, this one from the guys behind the popular The Hunting Public YouTube channel. Lots of great hunting information here.
- North Meets South Web Podcast – Another web development podcast that I really enjoy. Jacob and Michael talk about their experiences building large scale Laravel apps and other things around web development.
- Choose FI – One of the few finance podcasts that I listen to even semi regularly. Although I skip a fair number of episodes here, there are lots of super helpful topics discussed in this podcast, all around the concept of financial independence.
Wrapping Up
If you aren’t listening to podcasts I’d highly recommend dipping your toes into the water and exploring it some. The best way I’ve found to keep up with podcasts is to subscribe to them on my phone, allow new episodes to download to your device and then keeping up with either listening to the new episodes or archiving/marking them as played.
My favorite two podcast apps are Overcast on iOS and Pocket Casts on Android.
A lot of these podcasts ask for a rating/review after each of their shows. Not only does this provide helpful feedback for the podcast hosts, but having positive ratings and reviews (in iTunes in particular) can really help a podcast show up in searches. Not only that but it can also help potential listeners understand the value that a particular podcast can provide. As I was making this list this morning I realized that I hadn’t done a good job of rating/reviewing most of these podcasts… so I went ahead and did that.
If you’re still reading, thanks for following along! This was a fun post to put together. If you have any feedback feel free to continue the conversation over on Twitter or on Instagram.
Have a great weekend!