In 2022, Lenny Rachitsky decided to try a new project: Lenny’s Podcast.
The 42-year-old founded a successful product management newsletter, Lenny’s Newsletter, in 2019. Rachitsky had been making a living by writing one post a week and working 10 to 20 hours on each one, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Take on another project. But another podcast host convinced him to try it.
Lenny’s Podcast quickly found an audience. He now publishes two episodes a week interviewing experts in the field of product management and earns over $500,000 a year. This is in addition to the more than $500,000 he already earned from the newsletter.
For anyone looking to launch their own similar ventures, “the main thing I’ve learned about succeeding on this path is that all that really matters is quality and consistency,” he says.
this is the reason.
When it comes to quality, “the way I think about it is[what]problem are you solving for people,” Rachitsky says.
People face all kinds of problems: They want to excel at their jobs. They want to make more money. They want to improve their cooking or learn how to be better parents. “And if you can solve these problems for people better than what’s out there, people will listen, read, subscribe, participate, and all that stuff.”
Some of Rachitsky’s most popular posts of all time include How to Influence People, What Product Managers Should Do in Their Jobs, How to Get Better at Product Strategy, How to Strengthen Your Communication Skills, and How to Structure Your Pitch to Leaders.
“If you don’t solve people’s problems well enough, you won’t succeed,” he says.
Then there is consistency. Rachitsky plans to stick with his once-a-week newsletter and twice-weekly podcast episodes. He finds that there is no dearth of content for him to keep up with this pace.
Having worked as a product manager and engineer for more than a decade and gained a great deal of knowledge about how to do the job, he says, “I find that I have endless things I could write about.” He has an ongoing list of topics that is usually about 15 items long.
The same goes for his podcast. “There are countless interesting people to talk to and learn from,” he says. “And I have a long list of people I want to add to the podcast that continues to grow.”
This is what has helped keep his projects going and what he believes is keeping people coming back. “Most success in this world, in my opinion, is a combination of high quality over and over again,” he says.
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