Design the show
Create a format, promise, and production scope you can sustain.
How to Start a Podcast
From Riverside. Watch here or open it on YouTube .
Use Riverside's show-planning overview to compare format choices, then select the simplest format that still delivers your specific listener promise.What this lesson is really solving.
Write the listener promise, format, host role, episode engine, exclusions, and season constraint. Test whether the concept naturally produces several distinct episodes. Check the name across podcast apps, web search, domains, and trademarks before investing in identity.
Understand the idea before touching the steps.
A show is a repeatable container: the topic can change while the listener promise stays recognizable.
Follow these steps in order.
Take the action in each step; then use the deliverable below to prove the lesson is finished.
- 1
Define the specific listener, listening moment, desired value, and competing alternatives.
- 2
Choose interview, solo, co-hosted, narrative, or hybrid format based on the promise and resources.
- 3
Set episode length, sections, release cadence, season model, and editorial boundaries.
- 4
Draft a title and description, then test whether five target listeners understand the show without explanation.
See the standard in context.
Rae designs 'The Last Good Shift,' a 25-minute interview show where experienced tradespeople unpack one job that changed how they work. Season one has eight guests across trades, a consistent story arc, and no unsafe procedural instruction.
Inspect before you move on.
- The show sentence names listener, format, and recurring value.
- At least eight distinct episodes fit without stretching the premise.
- Name research and content boundaries are documented.
Your deliverable
A show bible with listener promise, format, segments, cadence, tone, and 12 episode ideas.
Watch for this
Committing to an ambitious weekly format that requires more research and editing than the team can sustain.
Prove it—don’t just recognize it.
You can explain why the format is the best vehicle for the listener promise and production reality.
Quick knowledge check
Answer from the lesson—not from confidence alone. Score at least 2 of 3 to unlock completion.
This curriculum-aligned check is scored automatically and stored with your account when signed in. It is an objective learning signal, but it has not yet been independently validated as a standardized assessment.
Tools, templates, and references
Pass the knowledge check above first.
Completion unlocks after a score of 2 out of 3. Then confirm that you produced the lesson deliverable.
Go to the knowledge check