How this podcast grew to 292M views & 4.8M subscribers [lessons to learn]

Hey to all the awesome people here 🐱 I was shocked to see that one of my favorite podcasts actually managed to build a growth machine in less than 3 years! I'm talking about Steven Bartlett's "The Diary Of A CEO", a business + leadership podcast that makes 💰💰💰 millions in revenue every year! Let's break down the enormous success of "The Diary Of A CEO" from the marketing perspective (originally posted on my Linkedin): 1️⃣ "The Diary Of A CEO" (DOAC) cracked user behavior: ↳ 🙌 Publishing at 7 am every Monday helped build habits among DOAC listeners by fitting into their routine and doubling down on "Morning optimism". ↳ 🙌 DOAC formed a habit loop with trigger (morning commute/run/routine) → action (listen to episode) → reward (new insights) → investment (time) → habit ✅ 2️⃣ A value prop that resonated with a large market: ↳ DOAC brings the world's most influential people and makes them speak... as if they were your friends, telling their life stories. Founders, writers, and actors became "real" and vulnerable. ↳ 🙌 Valuable content + emotional connections → ❤️ 3️⃣ In a crowded podcast space, DOAC is well-differentiated: Unlike mass-market "inspiring" podcasts, DOAC focuses on personalization, deep conversations, and uncompromised quality. ↳ 🙌 Personalization: Guests share emotional stories that are so personal and spark empathy. This becomes 10x more powerful when this guest is someone you truly admire, like Brian Chesky or Mark Manson. ↳ 🙌 Deep conversations: those come from strong preparation for each episode. Meaningful questions hit the mark, and honest answers keep listeners engaged. ↳ 🙌 Quality: useful content, high speakers' level, and technical setup (like $45k recording equipment). This level of quality over time formed trust and brand loyalty → made "The Diary Of A CEO" top of mind. 4️⃣ DOAC mastered GTM and distribution ↳ 🙌 Influencers' network: Steven Bartlett's podcast built a flywheel of growing via the influencers' network. Guest invites their audience → % of them subscribe → more subscribers attract better speakers → growth loops go on. ↳ 🙌 100x SMM: DOAC created a content reuse machine, adapting podcast clips to different social platforms. Short form content + excellent video production + experiments → 🚀 ↳ 🙌 Branding: Steven Bartlett is investing in the personal brand. Black laconic style, calm voice, grey warm lights in the studio, black notebook — it all plays out so nicely together. ↳ 🙌 Platform optimization: A lot of YouTube optimization: hooks in video intros (clips), "hit this subscribe button" mechanics, catchy video titles, "question from the previous guest" right at the end of the podcast. DOAC is driving it to the max.