Success Stories

How Gary Arndt’s History Podcast Gets 1.5 Million Downloads Per Month

October 8, 2024

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Gary Arndt is a pretty unique individual.

He’s a polymath who triple majored in college and then went back to study additional subjects. He started an early internet company and then sold it for 7 figures before he turned 30.

He decided to travel the world and started a blog to document his adventures: Everything Everywhere. He visited all 7 continents, more than 200 countries, and every US state.

He was included on the list of the 100 Most Influential Photographers in the World for several years, and won other prestigious travel photography awards.

But, he decided to pivot in 2020 and turn his attention to podcasting. His show, Everything Everywhere Daily is the #1 history podcast in the United States on the Apple Podcasts Charts and it has been ranked in the top 10 in 63 different countries.

It gets about 1,500,000 downloads each month and has a total of 30,000,000 downloads to date.

Keep reading to hear his incredible journey as an entrepreneur and learn more about how he created and grew his podcast.

Keep reading to find out:

His initial experience as an entrepreneur
Why he created his blog
Why he pivoted to podcasting
How he got started
How much he's earning
How he monetizes his podcast
How much time he spends working on his business
His marketing strategy
His thoughts on SEO
How he creates content
His go-to resources and tools
His main challenge
His greatest accomplishment
His biggest mistake
His advice for other entrepreneurs

Contents

Meet Gary Arndt
Why He Created His Podcast
How Much He’s Earning
Gary’s Main Marketing Strategy
His Thoughts on SEO
His Content Creation Process
His Email List
His Favorite Resources
His Go-To Tools
Gary’s Biggest Challenge
His Greatest Accomplishment
What He Wishes He Knew When He Started
His Main Mistake
His Advice for Other Entrepreneurs

Meet Gary Arndt

I was born and raised in Appleton, WI. I was an Eagle Scout and was also very successful in high school speech and debate.

I was recruited to debate at Macalester College, which had just come off two national championships. I placed in the top 10 in the country in my junior and senior years at the national tournament.

I graduated with a triple major in mathematics, economics, and political science.

After college, I coached high school debate for three years, coaching multiple teams into the top 15 at the national tournament.

After that, I found myself at the right place at the right time and started an early internet company in 1994. We created data-driven websites, which at the time were still novel and difficult to do.

I sold the firm in 1998 to a much larger company.

After that, I purchased a video game website, which we expanded into a network of websites and a LAN gaming center. It was doing well until the dot-com bubble burst, drying up our revenue.

After that, I went back to school for several years to study geology and geophysics.

After realizing I didn’t want a career in academia, I came up with the idea of selling my house and traveling around the world.

I traveled around the world for about 13 years until the pandemic hit.

During that time, I created a very successful travel blog, Everything Everywhere, developed a large following on social media, and was named Travel Photographer of the Year in North America three times.

Before the pandemic hit, I saw the writing on the wall with blogging and social media and the dependence on large companies to deliver my entire audience.

I knew I had to make a change, and the pandemic forced me to take action.

While all of my travel content is on my website, I don’t feature it anymore, other than the photography. My focus is now the podcast and that is the content that I’m putting front and center.

Why He Created His Podcast

I had the idea of doing a podcast that wasn’t travel-related in 2018.

My original idea was to do longer-form episodes. I had artwork created, and I purchased the rights to theme music, but I never launched the show.

When the pandemic hit I knew I had to do something.

The overreliance bloggers had on Google I knew would one day end in disaster when Google changed its algorithm (which happened in 2024).

In March of 2020, I lost 95% of my income which was almost entirely travel-related. I did the math and realized that the best business strategy was to do a daily podcast.

I launched on July 1, 2020, and have been publishing daily episodes ever since.

As of today, the show is the #1 history podcast in the United States on the Apple Podcasts Charts and it has been ranked in the top 10 in 63 different countries.

How Much He’s Earning

I currently make in the mid-5 figures monthly from the show. Currently, the show’s major source of revenue is advertising on the podcast, although there is a small amount that also comes from Patreon.

There are other revenue streams I will be pursuing, but as of right now it has been difficult to do given the daily nature of the show.

Monetization for the podcast is very simple. I have a company that sells ads for me that run on the podcast.

Everything Everywhere Daily currently gets about 1,500,000 downloads each month. In the four years it has existed, it has gotten a total of 30,000,000 downloads.

Growth has increased in fits and spurts. It will go back to slower growth and then take off again.

There has been a baseline amount of growth from word of mouth, but then I’ve also been featured on Apple and Spotify.

As for how much I work on my business, that’s actually hard to count.

I pretty much spend all my time in a quantum state of work/non-work. It takes me about 4 to 6 hours per day to actually write each day’s script, plus another 30 to 45 minutes for recording.

I’m doing a lot in terms of answering emails and other things throughout the day, including research for future episodes.

Gary’s Main Marketing Strategy

My primary marketing strategy is promotion within the podcast ecosystem. I have tried everything on social media, but the reality is social media doesn’t convert well for podcasting.

I’ve done a significant amount of paid promotion on other podcasts and podcasting apps. I know that 100% of the audience there are podcast listeners.

Promotion on podcasts is so much better than anything else that I don’t bother investing time or money on other platforms.

Both strategies are effective; it isn’t either/or. It all depends on the podcast you appear on, the size of the audience, and how receptive they are to your show.

All major podcast studios will do a combination of paid promotion and swaps as well as getting their hosts guest appearances.

A podcast is a small media company. No different than film studios, book publishers, or record labels. All of them have marketing budgets to promote content that, in many cases, everyone is familiar with.

Too many podcasters are unwilling to spend a dime to promote their show, yet they somehow expect success.

His Thoughts on SEO

SEO plays a very minor role in podcasting. There is a search component on Apple and Spotify, but it’s minor.

There isn’t much optimization that you have to do. I have so many episodes on so many topics that I naturally rank well.

As far as Google, I don’t even bother. Most people are not looking for podcasts on Google.

Along those lines, I pick topics that are interesting that my audience will enjoy and might find surprising. I literally do nothing in terms of keyword research.

Also, link building is irrelevant for podcasting. I have totally given up on trying to game Google. I truly do not care about SEO anymore.

His Content Creation Process

I write a script for each episode, which is approximately 2000 words. I then publish each script as a blog post every day.

I have over 1,000 podcast scripts, plus all the content from when the site was primarily a travel blog. There are about 3,500 total pages and posts on the site.

His Email List

I have an email list but I haven’t done much with it since I started the podcast. I built the list when I had the travel blog. I hope to revive it in the near future once I hire some help.

His Favorite Resources

My show literally covers everything from history, science, and mathematics, to geography. I’m using a lifetime of learning and knowledge.

I ignored podcasting gurus who sell advice on how to grow a podcast. None of them have ever actually grown a successful podcast. If they did, they would be doing that instead of selling advice.

I looked to people who have actually grown large podcasts and who make their living from podcasting.

Find people like Jordan Harbinger who do interviews and talk about the business side of things. You will find more value there, and it's free.

Advice from podcast gurus is oftentimes simply wrong.

His Go-To Tools

Believe it or not, Grammarly is probably the most important tool I use. Having an automated copy editor is really helpful.

I use Adobe Express and ChatGPT-4o to create my episode art. AI-produced images are cheap and fast and you don’t have to worry about copyright. I can also get images of historical events that otherwise don’t exist.

I use Google Docs for my script writing so I can move from computer to computer. My audio editing is done with GarageBand.

Gary’s Biggest Challenge

The biggest challenge has been doing everything myself.

So far, save for my ad sales, every aspect of the show including research, writing, recording, editing, and production has been done by me.

You can find lots of people who can help with the technical parts of podcasting; however, the actual recording and editing of a show like mine (scripted monologue) is quite trivial.

The difficulty is finding people who can write and do research. It is probably more a matter of me being fussy than anything else.

His Greatest Accomplishment

I have a pretty good track record of success with all the businesses I’ve started. Not everything has been a home run, but I haven’t had any major disasters.

I started a very early internet consulting firm in the mid-90s. I sold that for seven figures when I was just 28.

I was also an early investor in a business intelligence software company with some of my former employees. That was a disaster. I don’t think I’m cut out to be an angel investor.

What He Wishes He Knew When He Started

I wish I had known the importance of doing podcast promotion within the podcasting ecosystem. Everything else is almost a waste of time given how poorly it performs in comparison.

It isn’t just podcasting. The best way to promote yourself on any platform is within that platform.

The conversion of social media to podcast listeners is abysmal. I am not the only one who has observed this.

I’ve run several campaigns and even hired a company to create short videos based on my episodes, but it simply didn’t convert.

I was able to get TikTok views and followers, but I don’t really care about that.

His Main Mistake

It isn’t with this business, but the biggest mistake I made was investing in a start-up business that I didn’t control. I don’t think I’ll ever do that again.

My best investments have always been in myself.