Top 14 Podcasts to Help You Be a Better Entrepreneur

By Milo Cruz | Last Updated: December 19, 2017
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Podcasts have become one of the most popular ways for us to learn new, meaningful information. For aspiring online entrepreneurs, an episode or two can be the perfect way to stay productive even while you tick off the low-level tasks on your to-do list. Personally, podcasts have turned dishwashing and laundry into surprising periods of self-improvement for me!

The key is picking great shows that fit your interests and tastes. I listen to tons of podcasts, but here are my favorites for finding tips and inspiration about starting a business, succeeding online, and becoming a better entrepreneur every day:

The Tim Ferriss Show

Updates: every 4-5 days

If you don’t already follow author and all-around self-improvement guru Tim Ferriss, you’re in for a treat. His podcast consistently ranks #1 on the iTunes charts for its category, and for good reason. Tim interviews world-class performers from the arts, tech, sports, business, and so on. Ferriss keeps the conversation light and friendly, without forgetting to ask insightful questions that bring out positive tactics, tricks, and habits that listeners can use to improve their own lives.

Here are some great episodes to start with:

  • Personal finance blogger Ramit Sethi on persuasion, finance, and blogging, with tons of actionable tools and content that will have you reaching for your notebook.
  • Wired founder Kevin Kelly on technology and exploration, covering a wide range of topics that will leave you inspired about the future of tech.
  • Tradesy founder Tracy DiNunzio on rapid growth and rapid learning, giving listeners a fantastic place to start when it comes to founding start-ups and growing them rapidly.

This Week in Startups

Updates: every week

Successful enterpreneurs have to know what’s going on in their industry. This Week in Startups gives you the top stories in entrepreneurship and online business. A rotating group of experts led by podcasting pioneer Jason Calacanis take on the stories from an insider’s perspective, acting as your seasoned guides for navigating the ever-developing tech industry. Episodes come in both video and audio form, so if you’re more of a visual learner, this could be a great ‘cast for you.

The team has also launched a series called “Angel,” which brings in top angel investors like Cyan Banister and Gil Penchina to discuss the nitty-gritty of angel investors’ business decisions, workflow, and how they work with startup founders and teams. Even if you’re not looking to be an angel investor yourself anytime soon, it’s a great look at how startup funding and growth work.

Here are some recent episodes to get you started:

  • “Angel” episode 1: Cyan Banister on portfolio hits/misses, deal flow strategies, founder-product fit, and backing startups that change human behavior
  • Episode 781: Matrix Partners’ David Skok on getting inside buyers’ heads to boost funnel conversion rates; and Maren Kate Donovan on building an $11M/year company and losing it overnight
  • The latest news roundtable on Tesla’s Roadster and Semi; Apple’s AR boom/VR bust; Stitchfix and IPO cautions; auto warfare, and more.

Entrepreneur on Fire

Updates: every day

Many interviews with successful entrepreneurs fixate on their successes. That’s understandable, but it can airbrush over the challenges and downturns that come at many points throughout the journey. Entrepreneur on Fire focuses on that journey, with host John Lee Dumas helping his guests lay out their zigzagging routes to success. With over a thousand interviews in its archive, this long-running podcast is a treasure trove of inspiration, tips, and insights from leaders like Tony Robbins, Barbara Corcoran, Seth Godin, and more.

Here are some episodes to get you started:

Tropical MBA

Updates: every Thursday

Do you dream of being a digital nomad? If you want an insider’s perspective on what it’s like to have the world as your office, check out Tropical MBA. Run by friends Dan Andrews and Ian Schoen, Tropical MBA focuses on how you can achieve personal and financial freedom through successful, “location-independent” small business. You’ll find a lot of information here on post-corporate life, an artisanal approach to entrepreneurship, the permanent travel lifestyle, globalizing sub-$10M businesses, and more. What makes Tropical MBA stand out the most, though, is its community’s dedication to “creating more value than you capture.” Wherever you are, that’s a great entrepreneurial mindset to have.

Here are some recent episodes you can check out:

StartUp by Gimlet Media

Updates: every week

Risk is a big part of entrepreneurship, and StartUp is a chronicle of risk. StartUp began as a podcast about running and starting a company, documenting host Alex Blumberg’s attempts to do just that in real-time. Since then, Blumberg’s company Gimlet Media has become a podcasting leader, and StartUp has moved on to in-depth profiles of people taking big chances as Blumberg once did. It’s a great show to help you be more comfortable with risk, and to see what others are doing to reach greater heights than they ever thought possible.

With StartUp, it’s best to start at the beginning:

Mixergy

Updates: every 2-3 days

If you don’t live in a startup hotbed like the Bay Area, finding great mentors can be difficult. Enter Mixergy, where host Andrew Warner gets successful entrepreneurs onboard to discuss their successes and failures. What sets Mixergy apart from other podcasts? You’ll find interviews and related resources sorted into useful collections and courses on the website, so you don’t have to sift through the episode archive to find the best information about your topic of choice.

Here are some great collections to get you started:

Powderkeg

Updates: every Thursday

Powderkeg is another interview-driven show that delves into the strategies of tech industry thought leaders and startup successes. This podcast focuses on business strategy, especially for Service as a Software (SaaS) businesses, and you’ll get tons of actionable tips and tools about bootstrapping, building great remote teams, designing stellar products, scaling up your business, and more.

Here are some great episodes to start with:

The Twenty Minute VC

Updates: every 2-3 days

For a short, insightful hit of business know-how, check out The Twenty Minute VC. This podcast interviews venture capitalists and other career investors to examine the thinking that goes into their business decisions. If your business relies on investor funding to kick off, or if you’d just like to take a fascinating dive into the reasons and philosophies that guide some of the most successful people in tech, business, and finance, then you don’t want to miss this podcast.

Here are some of the podcast’s top episodes:

Breaking Into Startups

Updates: every week

Think you need to be a programmer or math whiz to make it in tech? Think again. The Breaking Into Startups podcast zeroes in on the people who’ve broken into the tech industry from non-traditional backgrounds. This is where you’ll see that some of the biggest companies in tech are run by sales directors, co-founders, vice presidents, and more who started out in meat packing, military bomb tech, political fundraising, music, and other fields.

Here are some episodes to get you started:

  • Everette Taylor: How a homeless 17-year-old became Skurt’s Chief Marketing Officer
  • Kristin Parke: How a music & biology major became a security hacker
  • Gabe Moncayo: How a political fundraiser became the founder and CEO of AlwaysHired

Marketing School

Updates: every day

Neil Patel and Eric Siu bring you quick tips and tricks to up your marketing game in this 10-minute-per-episode podcast. Marketing School is a great show to slip into those idle minutes between tasks. Each episode gives you a concrete step or action that you can take to boost your business’ visibility and traffic, whether through social media, better copywriting, link-building, and more. There are now almost 500 episodes in its archive, making this another great resource for entrepreneurs who are just starting out.

Here are some recent episodes to get you started:

  • Episode 489: How to Get Your First 1,000 Instagram Followers
  • Episode 482: How to Drive Traffic to Your Website Using YouTube
  • Episode 480: Link-Building Techniques that Will Become More Risky in 2018

Social Pros

Updates: every week

Do you want to be better at social media? Social Pros gives you valuable takeaways from people who have built their expertise on successful social media campaigns. This podcast gives you insights from the minds behind the social media programs and strategies of big companies like Ford, Dell, ESPN, and more, with emphasis on the lessons and steps you can apply to your own business.

Here are some of the show’s best episodes:

Ask Gary Vee

Speaking of Gary Vaynerchuk, he runs his own podcast where he answers questions sent in by readers on everything from business and career advice to pop culture and craft beers. Gary himself can be over-the-top and intense, but he does drop some brutal truth bombs that will have you looking at familiar topics like business experience and entrepreneurship with fresh eyes.

There’s tons of content, and thanks to the show’s question-based gimmick, each episode can be a bit of a mix. Fortunately, there’s a great database that leads you directly to the episode bits related to your topic of interest.

The Growth Show

Updates: every week

Already have a business, but confused about where to go next? HubSpot’s The Growth Show helps show you the way with fantastic content from people who have achieved remarkable growth in their chosen fields. The show really drills down into the strategies and steps that each interviewee has taken–what succeeded, what failed, and why. Business podcasts usually focus on the beginning (launch) or the end (success), with little focus on navigating the winding middle. This is your look into how people have engineered their leaps up and forward, and how you can do the same.

Here are some recent episodes to get you started:

Bonus: How to Start a Startup

If you don’t have the time or inclination to keep up with new content every week, maybe you’d like to just go with the fundamentals. There’s no better show to do that than How to Start a Startup. Originally presented as a series of video lectures at Stanford, this show pools the brains and expertise of industry leaders like Y Combinator’s Sam Altman, Facebook’s Dustin Moskovitz, Peter Thiel, Marissa Mayer, and more.

There are only 20 “episodes” or lectures in this series, and here’s the first one: