A few years ago, a famous creator asked me if I’d ever learned anything from my audience, as he hadn’t. My response?
“Oh, God, yes! More than I can possibly begin to explain.”
That’s the whole reason I have comments on this blog, plus clear rules. If you cultivate the right community, the learnings are endless. Hard-to-find experts, rare books, cutting-edge science, hidden gems in foreign cities… you name it. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
If it weren’t for you, I also wouldn’t have discovered some of my best investments and favorite people, including Shopify (CEO and co-founder Tobi Lütke; President Harley Finkelstein), Duolingo (CEO and co-founder Luis von Ahn), and many more.
When I’ve asked you for the best board games, backpacks, pens, 3D artists, and more over the last 15+ years, you’ve always delivered.
Last but not least, you’ve showed up like champions for many important causes, raising tens of millions of dollars for mental health therapeutics, protection of indigenous land rights, clinical trials of MDMA-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD, funding of public classrooms in the US, and more.
From the bottom of my heart — thank you, thank you, thank you.
In this post, I’ll share a recent audience survey, which was sent to subscribers of my newsletter, 5-Bullet Friday. Nearly 8,000 people replied. I promised I would share the results, and here they are.
Below are a few summaries, and some charts follow. You are an amazing group:
- On average, you are very well-educated. Approximately 45{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760} have a Master’s degree or higher degree.
- Nearly 50{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760} of the audience has a combined household income of $150,000 or more. 33.5{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760} earn more than $200K/year. 14.3{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760} earn $150K–$199K per year.
- You trust recommendations on the show. 77{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760} of you have bought at least one product or service recommended on the podcast. 55.6{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760} have bought more than once. If curious, a full list of recent sponsors can be found here.
- You have been listening for many years. ~76{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760} identify as listeners for at least 4–9 years.
- You tune in to the show frequently. Close to half (42.2{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760}) listen to the podcast on a weekly basis.
- The gender split appears to be roughly 80/20 for male/female, but it’s platform-dependent. (74/23 on Spotify for Podcasters with additional 2{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760} as unspecified and 1{c87e2df4b343d0515d304e127afe4653a549475791ab451641a18e09bd64e760} as non-binary; roughly 70/30 on YouTube, based on watch time; roughly 65/35 on Facebook.)
- The most common age bracket is 35–44 (~1/3 of the audience, according to Spotify for Podcasters; the audience skews younger on YouTube.)
- Based on my podcast host ART19, the top 10 countries in descending order are:
- United States
- Canada
- Australia
- United Kingdom
- Germany
- China
- India
- New Zealand
- Netherlands
- France
- The top 10 cities/areas in the US in descending order are:
- New York, NY
- Los Angeles, CA
- San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA
- Chicago, IL
- Denver, CO
- Washington, DC
- Seattle-Tacoma, WA
- Boston, MA-Manchester, NH
- Philadelphia, PA
- Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX
1. Education level.
2. Household income.
3. Have you ever bought a product or service after hearing about it on the podcast?
4. How long have you been listening to the podcast?
5. How often do you listen to the podcast?
6. Demographics from Spotify listeners (nearly 1M followers):
7. Demographics from my YouTube channel (~1.44M followers, data based on last 365 days of views and watch time):
8. Demographics from my Facebook page:
My sincerest thanks to everyone who answered the survey! I’ll have some exciting announcements soon.
You can subscribe to The Tim Ferriss Show podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your audio fun.
To join 1.5M+ people who enjoy my 5-Bullet Friday newsletter every Friday, click here. Each week, you’ll get a short and sweet email linking to the most fascinating five things that I’ve found. Since my 700+ podcast guests often send me things, it’s a great way to get a sneak preview of edgy things that will be mainstream in a few years.
All the best,
Tim
P.S. Need a bite of dessert before you leave? I shan’t deny you. Here you go: Leekspin.
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The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for “Best of Apple Podcasts” three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it’s been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.