If you hit record on a podcast and there’s no one there to be recorded, the odds are an entrepreneur will materialise and start sharing their philosophy on life and work. There are a lot of business podcasts out there: some hard news, some entertaining documentaries… but most are just entrepreneurs sharing their worldly wisdom. The trick is to choose the right host with the right smarts, passion and ideas to steer their guests in an interesting direction – and that’s just what we’ve done here. Enjoy, and happy businessing!
1. How I Built This
Hosted by NPR’s ubiquitous Guy Raz, ‘How I Built This’ is probably the best entrepreneur profiling podcast out there, its hourlong episodes featuring business owners telling their stories in a human-interest heavy style. Warmth and great storytelling are the keys to the appeal of ‘How I Built This’, which largely ignores the zeitgeisty bellowing of tech bros or the self-regard of inherited wealth in favour of great yarns about an interesting business you’ve never heard of (and a few giants that you absolutely have).
2. World Business Report
Nobody does serious business news quite like the BBC World Service and its reassuringly dry-titled podcast ‘World Business Report’. Usually put out twice a day, this is the globe’s biggest business and financial news stories from the biggest and best global body of journalists out there. The episodes are short, which is good: most serious business people don’t have the time to take in a long podcast (or two!) a day, but these concentrated doses of hard news tell you exactly what you need to know.
3. The Introvert Entrepreneur
If you know you have business acumen but are worried you lack the dazzling people skills to really implement it, then worry not! Although ‘The Introvert Entrepreneur’ wrapped up back in 2018, the show – presented by Beth Buelow – is a treasure trove (almost 200 episodes) of thoughtful advice on how to succeed in business without the need for complete self-belief and relentless self-promotion.
4. Ask Martin Lewis
Although unquestionably one for the Brits first and foremost, anyone could glean some wisdom via this podcast from the legendary English financial journalist Martin Lewis. His raison d’être is helping ordinary folk save money by better understanding how financial systems works, and while this may potentially not be of much interest if you’re such a high flying businessperson that you have your own personal business advisor, to mere mortals, Lewis is the next best thing.
5. Entrepreneurs on Fire
If you’re so hungry for inspirational business content that a weekly podcast simply won’t do, get your daily dose via John Lee Dumas’s ‘Entrepreneurs on Fire’. And when we say daily, we mean daily – no weekends off for Dumas and his inexhaustible series of interview subjects keen to flag up the secret of their success.
6. Mind Your Business
The clue is in the first word for entrepreneur James Wedmore’s podcast, in which he strongly argues that a winning mindset is more vital to sustained success than meticulously crafted plans. It’s an attitude that’s naturally somewhat American and not for everyone: more sober business types may be horrified by Wedmore’s mantra of ‘mindset over strategy, magic over metrics, and attitude over action’.
7. Youpreneur
The name is horrifying, of course, but who are we to quibble with entrepreneur host Chris Drucker over what works and what doesn’t? ‘Youpreneur’ is a podcast about building up your own personal brand, from reinvigorating inaccessible old content to learning to email better. Shows are weekly and often last under ten minutes: all the better to have time to implement his advice.
8. Desert Island Discs
Okay, okay, hear us out. The BBC’s insanely long-running show (it predates the invention of the podcast by at least 50 years, though is now available in that format) is obviously best known for having famous celebrities share their favourite songs. Nonetheless, enormous screen and music stars make up a relatively small percentage of the actual guests, and successful business-people – usually British – are at least as common. The relaxed, intimate format (not to mention the song choices) is an almost unparalleled opportunity to see these business titans as more human figures.
9. School of Greatness
Running since 2013, Lewis Howes’s ‘School of Greatness’ is a grand old business podcast mainstay. As such, you can probably guess the general vibe: a quintessential mix of entrepreneurs sharing their stories and philosophies plus Howes’s own wisdom. What makes ‘School of Greatness’ stand out is the scale and longevity of its success, which means that you don’t have to dig too deep into its archives to find fascinating chats with bona fide celebrity guests.
