Top 5 podcasts for small business owners to listen to in 2022

In the more than twenty years we’ve been running, we’ve spoken to countless small business founders about their experiences starting a company.

Nearly all of them have said that startup is a lonely process, stressing the importance of having a mentor or proper guidance to help you along the journey.

Podcasts are a practical and often free resource that can address both of these issues and help you to connect with the huge entrepreneurial community in the UK – all while your hands are busy.

But there’s also a lot of different shows to choose from. Data from Podcast Insights estimates there to be over 2 million podcasts currently in circulation – a 360% increase since 2018.

To make things easier, we’ve picked out 5 brilliant podcasts for entrepreneurs to listen to today.

All of our top five are based on recommendations from the hundreds of successful entrepreneurs we’ve spoken to over more than twenty years:

The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett

Steven Bartlett is the co-founder of social media marketing agency Social Chain, and is famous for being the youngest-ever dragon on Dragon’s Den. But he’s also the host of the hugely popular podcast, The Diary of a CEO – currently top of the UK Apple Podcasts store.

The concept is simple. Bartlett sits down with a different business owner or leader every week and asks them to share insights about their experiences and learnings.

It’s a celebration of the many different shapes and sizes that entrepreneurs can come in, and the hugely different routes that they take into the business world.

We like it because it’s a genuinely fascinating insight into the lives of today’s most exciting entrepreneurs, with tons of tips on everything from managing employees to getting funding.

Snacks Daily with Jack Kramer and Nick Martell

If there’s one area where entrepreneurs are poor, it’s time. You can have so many responsibilities to manage and take care of that you can miss out on breaking news and top stories from around the world.

Not only can this be frustrating, it can also be detrimental to your business as almost all of the world’s biggest events will have an impact on the business landscape.

Snacks Daily is the solution to this problem. Its hosts, Jack Kramer and Nick Martell, condense the biggest news stories in an entertaining and easy-listening way – all timed to fit perfectly into your morning routine, workout, or coffee run.

Searching for Mana with Lloyd Wahed

Searching for Mana’s focus is on tech innovation in finance – FinTech.

Fintech is a rapidly growing industry. Its applications span mobile banking and insurance, to cryptocurrency and investment apps. And, as with anything related to finance and investment, it offers hugely important advice and information for entrepreneurs.

Wahed meets with some of the influencers, leaders and founders in the fintech space to gain insight into current market trends, as well as learn more about his guests, their company goals and objectives, and how they got started in the sector.

Wahed’s winning formula is that he does all of this in an engaging and accessible way – lightening the usually heavy topic of finance.

Without Fail with Alex Blumberg

Guests on business podcasts don’t just have advice to share with listeners – they also have experiences, and not all of them good.

The mistakes and misfires made when starting a business is exactly what Without Fail aims to celebrate. In it, host Alex Blumberg seeks advice from business-savvy subjects about “what worked, what didn’t, and why” in their own careers.

Across ten episodes, Blumberg hears from a rich tapestry of experts discussing their biggest flops. Some of the stories will make you feel confused, laugh, and maybe even outwardly cringe.

But, at its heart, Without Fail is a celebration of the challenges many start uppers face in business, and a chance to learn from the blunders of others.

Dare to Lead with Brené Brown

Brené Brown is a professor of business management who went viral in 2010 for the TEDX Talk, ‘The Power of Vulnerability’.

Since then, Brown has become recognised as a rising star in social psychology. Her work is published across a wide range of mediums – one of the most famous of which has been the Dare to Lead podcast.

The podcast is not strictly business-related. However, Brown sits down with a range of leaders and changemakers to hold fascinating discussions about a huge range of topics connected to management and performance challenges.

These include getting feedback, the power of regret, and creating meaningful connections at work.

Brown’s podcasts were exclusive to Spotify however, she recently pulled them from the platform in protest at the company’s allegiance with popular podcaster Joe Rogan. They are now available for free through Google Podcast.