Forem: Justin Jackson

How to Start a Developer Podcast

Justin Jackson — Wed, 29 Oct 2025 20:33:19 +0000

Podcasts are where listeners go for authentic conversations on topics they care about. It's one of the last places on the web where you don't have to fight with AI content slop.

And software developers love consuming podcasts. On Transistor.fm, the podcast hosting platform I co-founded, programming podcasts are one of the most popular niches.

If you've always wanted to start a podcast, it's simpler than you think. Here's my guide.

1. Choose your topic and format

"I interview Laravel developers who work on SaaS products" is better than starting a general podcast "about tech and startups.”

Examples that work:

Indie Rails – interviews with indie devs and small business owners who use Rails
DevOps and Docker Talk – a podcast focused on Docker and container tools like Kubernetes
Mostly Technical – two programmers talk about starting a business, and their personal lives

Action: Write your one-sentence pitch.

“A 20-minute weekly show where I [format] about [specific topic] for [specific listener].”

2. Get your audio gear

Here's your data in markdown table format:

Item	My Pick	Cost
Mic	Samson Q2U	$56
Headphones	Sony MDR7506	$99 (used $60)
Boom arm	Elgato Wave LP	$100
Pop filter	Foam windscreen	$5
Software	Audacity (free) or Descript	$12
Hosting	Transistor.fm	$19/month

Pro tip: Record in a closet. Being surrounded by clothes = free sound treatment.

3. Recording and editing

These days, I mostly record and edit my episodes in Descript.

Here are a few editing tips:

If you're recording with a co-host/guest, cut the first 5-10 minutes (warm-up chatter)
Listen to the episode and cut any section where it drags
Add intro/outro music (5-15 seconds each)
Export MP3 128 kbps, -16 LUFS for loudness.

4. Hosting & RSS: Don’t overthink it

Use Transistor (yes, I’m biased—but it’s $19/mo and handles everything).

We'll give you:

An easy to use CMS for creating + publishing episodes
An awesome developer API if you want to build a custom publishing workflow
Properly formatted RSS and XML for podcast apps
One-click distribution to: Apple, Spotify, Overcast, YouTube, etc.
Analytics and stats

5. Publishing routine

Choose a publishing frequency, and stick to it. For example:

Publish every Tuesday at 8am UTC.

Develop a routine/calendar for producing episodes:

Wednesday: Outline episode
Thursday: Record episode
Friday: Edit + schedule
Tuesday: Publish episode + promote

Final thoughts

Starting a podcast isn't about having perfect equipment or a huge audience on day one. It's about showing up consistently and having conversations that matter to your niche.

The developers who succeed with podcasting are the ones who:

Pick a topic/format you're excited about
Commit to a schedule (even if it's just once a month)
Don't wait for permission to hit publish

Your first 10 episodes will be rough. That's normal. Every successful podcast you listen to started the same way.

The best time to start was last year. The second best time is today.

Ready to launch? Sign up for Transistor.fm and publish your first episode this week. You can always upgrade your gear later—but you can't upgrade without starting.

I also have a more detailed guide on starting a podcast here.

Took me 2.5 hours how to speed up this page

Justin Jackson — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 23:48:22 +0000

Whelp. I spent 2.5 hours trying to optimize images and improve my PageSpeed Insights score...

Only to find that it was a live chat widget was bringing us down to a 76. 🤦‍♂️

Once I removed it, our PageSpeed score shot up to a 98. 🙄

Video

Google says page speed is important for search rankings. We'll see if this works!

My first time writing Vue.js

Justin Jackson — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 15:52:38 +0000

This was my first time using Vue.js (or really writing any JavaScript!).

The problem we tackled:

I'd created a navigation component with Tailwind CSS. It worked nicely on the desktop but needed some JS for the mobile view.

Solution:

Adam helped me write some Vue.js code that made the hamburger menu collapse and expand when clicked.

Here's the video:

Sidenote: Adam used Tuple to pair with me on this, and it was the best learning experience I've had. Tuple's tools for drawing on the screen and taking over the keyboard were especially helpful.

How we're Shaping Up

Justin Jackson — Tue, 13 Aug 2019 08:00:00 +0000

Justin and Jon have started the process of implementing Shape Up.

Lots of folks feel like it’d be hard to implement in their team
- "This would be hard at my agency."
- “What about feature requests? Is the idea that you also don't write those down?”
- “Hmm no backlogs? Maybe I am not understanding some backstory/context? Where do they put ideas, comments, quick bits that they might look at later on”
Some backlash against the “cult of Basecamp”
But the majority of folks were really interested in Jason’s approach.
See how our first "shaping" experiment went.

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

ProfitWell . Patrick and Hiten have a new podcast!
New sponsor: ActiveCampaign ! Get the world's most advanced marketing & sales automation platform. Use the code activecampaign.com/buildyoursaas and get two months free + 2 free One-on-Ones!

Show notes:

You can reply to this podcast here:

Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for iPhone.
Otherwise, get us on Twitter: @transistorfm or email us: mail@transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Pradyumna Shembekar
Ben from narrowr.com
Noah Prail
David Colgan
Robert Simplicio
Colin Gray alitu.com
Josh Smith
Ivan Curkovic
Brian Rhea (Pronounced “Ray”)
Miguel Piedrafita
Shane Smith
Austin Loveless
Simon Bennett
Corey Haines
Michael Sitver
Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis
Dan Buda danbuda.com
Darby Frey
Samori Augusto
Dave Young
Brad from Canada
Sammy Schuckert
Dan Ericson
Mike Walker
Adam DuVander
Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com
ProfitWell
ActiveCampaign
ProfitWell.com
GetRewardful.com

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

"Backlogs make you feel guilty." – Jason Fried

Justin Jackson — Tue, 06 Aug 2019 08:00:00 +0000

Justin and Jon are joined by Jason Fried to talk about:

The philosophy behind their new book Shape Up.
Does Basecamp's approach to 6-week cycles differ for smaller teams?
"Long projects destroy morale. When things don't ship, you get frustrated." – Jason Fried
Why projects ship late (it's human nature).
Why work is like a hill.
How they make product decisions at Basecamp.
How do you know what you should work on next?
Why they don't believe in backlogs.
"That feeling of 'there's nothing to do, but there's everything to do' shouldn't be happening." – Jason Fried
"You need a system at some point. When you have two people, you can hack your way to anything. But as soon as you grow, you'll need a system." – Jason Fried
"What we have is not a perfect system. And even if it was, we don't execute these things perfectly." – Jason Fried

★ Thanks to our sponsors:

ProfitWell's podcast Protect the Hustle has a new season!
New sponsor: ActiveCampaign ! Get the world's most advanced marketing & sales automation platform. Use the code activecampaign.com/buildyoursaas and get two months free.

Show notes:

Jon's launch announcement tweet (from 2018).
Read Basecamp's new book Shape Up.
Jason Fried commented on this Linkedin post.
Hill charts.
Listen to Rework Podcast's "Shape Up Roundtable."
Derek Sivers' new article: My old clothes don't fit

You can reply to this podcast here:

Leave a comment on Breaker, the podcast app for iPhone.
Otherwise, get us on Twitter: @transistorfm or email us: mail@transistor.fm

Thanks to our monthly supporters:

Ben from narrowr.com
Noah Prail
David Colgan
Robert Simplicio
Colin Gray alitu.com
Josh Smith
Ivan Curkovic
Brian Rhea (Pronounced “Ray”)
Miguel Piedrafita
Shane Smith
Austin Loveless
Simon Bennett
Corey Haines
Michael Sitver
Paul Jarvis and Jack Ellis
Dan Buda danbuda.com
Darby Frey
Samori Augusto
Dave Young
Brad from Canada
Sammy Schuckert
Dan Ericson
Mike Walker
Adam DuVander
Dave Giunta (JOOnta)
Kyle Fox GetRewardful.com
ProfitWell
ActiveCampaign
ProfitWell.com
GetRewardful.com

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

How to autoscale on Heroku

Justin Jackson — Fri, 09 Nov 2018 01:11:24 +0000

Heroku makes it easy to add servers for your app (“dynos” in Heroku lingo). They give you a handy slider on your app dashboard and you simply dial in how many dynos you want.

This is helpful if you notice a spike in activity.

But what if you’re sleeping? (Or you don’t get a notification?)

Autoscaling essentially manages the slider for you. Using a metric such as response time or request queueing time, autoscaling will automatically increase or decrease the number of dynos running for your app.

Heroku offers this in their higher priced tiers ($250+).

If you’re on a lower tier, you’ll need to use an add-on like Rails Autoscale.

When should I add dynos for my Heroku app?

More dynos mean your app can serve more concurrent requests. If you’re seeing increased request queueing times (anything over 50ms), it means you don’t have enough dynos running to serve your current load, and you should add dynos.

This is tedious to do manually, though, and chances are you don’t need those additional dynos 100% of the time. This is why folks choose to autoscale their dynos. It reduces costs while providing peace-of-mind that your app can handle sudden increases in traffic.

For more information, read this article: 4 Ways to Scale on Heroku.

Will adding dynos (scaling up) make my app faster?

Not necessarily. Adding dynos allows your app to serve more concurrent requests. If your app is at capacity (you’re seeing increased request queueing times), then adding dynos will certainly improve response times. If requests are not queueing, though, scaling up will not help your app’s performance.

To truly improve your app performance, you’ll want to use a tool like Scout or New Relic to identify the bottlenecks in your app code. Most often this is caused by excessive or slow database queries.