How I Built a 480-Episode Business Podcast — Claus Lauter | How The Show Became A Full-time Business, Why Most Podcasts Fade, What Makes Podcast Growth Slow, How The Show Makes Money, How Listeners Can Help The Show Grow, What 2025 Taught Me (#452)

In this episode, Claus Lauter, host of the Ecommerce Coffee Break Podcast, dives into his journey of building the show.

He gives a recap of 2025, shares lessons learned from growing a slow social channel, and explains how the podcast evolved from a side project into a full-time, monetized business.

He also highlights the growing impact of AI on online shopping and ecommerce for both customers and suppliers.

Topics discussed in this episode:  

• Why the 2025 goal of 100 episodes is happening.
• AI's huge impact is on online shopping.
• How the podcast started four and a half years ago.
• What the host learns from all interview guests.
• Why only 10% of global podcasts are active.
• Why most podcasts stop after episode seven.
• What "pod fade" means for new podcasters.
  
  

Links & Resources 

Website: https://ecommercecoffeebreak.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ecommerce-coffee-break-podcast/
X/Twitter: https://x.com/ecomcoffeebreak
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ecommercecoffeebreak/

Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at https://tinyurl.com/5hcc6uv4

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Transcript

00:00:03:17 - 00:00:28:22
Unknown
Hello and welcome to another episode of the E-commerce Coffee Break podcast. Today again, a solo episode. Only me, no guest today. And then I has a reason I wanted to give you a bit of a summary of the year 2025, as we are in December now, and this is episode 97. So my goal of reaching 100 episodes this year is happening, so there will be a few more episodes coming in December.

00:00:29:00 - 00:00:54:19
Unknown
But I want to give you this summary to just give you a background what's happening in my life and what's happening with the podcast. So I said 97 episodes this year, quite a lot. Lots of very interesting guests, lots of very interesting topics. Obviously, a lot of AI going on and this will not change. I'm already scheduling in and talking to interview guests for January and February with some very interesting AI topics coming up.

00:00:54:19 - 00:01:19:20
Unknown
So stay tuned for this. And as we're talking about, I also, was looking at the numbers that we saw from Black Friday and Cyber Monday last week, and we saw that AI in all kinds of forms has a huge impact on online shopping, on shopping behavior and on e-commerce. Either from the customer side and also from the supplier side.

00:01:19:22 - 00:01:40:00
Unknown
So I will be with us as a big topic. As you know, I'm a big fan of AI. Use facilitate AI in my own podcasting business, and that's one of the things that I want to dive in a little bit more. I've never spoke about this on the podcast itself. So how did clouds start the eCommerce coffee Break podcast?

00:01:40:02 - 00:02:00:09
Unknown
The E-commerce Coffee Break podcast started about four and a half years ago, so I can't believe it's that long ago. All the time flies when you're having fun and has now officially is. You see the numbers? More than 450 episodes. Not all of the numbers, specifically the first ones were labeled. So it's actually more than 480 episodes.

00:02:00:11 - 00:02:25:21
Unknown
And if I listen to the early episodes or even under 50 episodes ago, I cringe because it's like I was so bad. Now I'm trying to get better as a interviewer, which is something that's really close to my heart and that I'm really interested in. And obviously me being curious and being a digital marketer and e-commerce expert, maybe, I don't know.

00:02:25:23 - 00:02:51:20
Unknown
I always learn something from my interview guests. There's always something new, there's always something to learn. And I'm a big fan of lifelong learning. And so the podcast is a perfect match for me. So for now, five years ago, in the midst of the pandemic, me sitting on the island of Cyprus, I started the podcast as a side project and, as a way to reach out to maybe find some coaching clients.

00:02:51:20 - 00:03:13:14
Unknown
And then the podcast got its own life and grew from there. So it was never built or never meant to become a business or my full time gig, which is it is now. Now a lot of people are out there and thinking about the idea of running their own podcast, and I would everyone encourage to do so. It's an interesting journey from the

00:03:13:14 - 00:03:14:22
Unknown
technology side of things.

00:03:14:22 - 00:03:43:15
Unknown
It's not too complicated and it's a very blue ocean now. Podcasts. There are about 3.8 million out there globally means every topic, every language, every country, but probably only about 10% are active. Means have published a new episode was in the last 90 days. So compare that to blocks where there is like, I don't know, ten times as many blogs out there.

00:03:43:17 - 00:04:08:15
Unknown
Was a podcast. You still can reach people. Now, that being said, podcasts are also the most difficult and slowest social channel out there to grow on the interwebs. I didn't know that before. If I would have known that before, I might have given it a second thought. So most podcasts start off stop basically or die after episode number seven.

00:04:08:17 - 00:04:17:23
Unknown
There's a word for it which is called pod fade. So basically the fading away and what happens usually is that people basically run out of topics to

00:04:17:23 - 00:04:31:08
Unknown
talk about, or they get bored or they don't see a way to monetize and see it as a time wasting exercise or whatsoever. So plenty of reasons why a podcast does not work and very few make it.

00:04:31:08 - 00:04:56:09
Unknown
I even in my industry niche, were to cool. I saw podcasts coming and going still do popping. New podcasts are popping up all the time for e-commerce, for online retail, for DTC, for Amazon. They stick around for a while and then they sort of vanish. I'm doing this now for a long time, and I have no plans to stop anytime soon because it's fun.

00:04:56:09 - 00:05:21:11
Unknown
And I found a way to monetize. Now, monetizing a podcast is a difficult task. There's not many podcasts out there at all who make money from it, and, it took me a long time to figure it out. But now the e-commerce Coffee Break podcast and with this new newsletter is established. It's well known, has a audience, has traffic, all of that is there.

00:05:21:13 - 00:05:39:23
Unknown
And I have partners, I have advertisers, I have sponsors, and that is only growing. But it takes a very long time. And I'm talking about use here. There might be people out there who are much smarter than me, that's for sure. Who can make it work much faster, but it just took me a very long time.

00:05:40:01 - 00:05:58:11
Unknown
Also, for me, the podcast is a way to basically facilitate my lifestyle. So it's a lifestyle business. Listeners will know that I'm traveling for about eight years around the world. Have a few places which I call home is where I'm more often than in a between. I'm traveling this

00:05:58:11 - 00:05:58:15
Unknown
year,

00:05:58:18 - 00:06:10:01
Unknown
2025, or spend my time in as Irish as I did a lot in the last two years, and I was for a while in my old home, Cape Town, South Africa, working from there.

00:06:10:03 - 00:06:31:19
Unknown
And for the last two months I'm now in Bangkok, which would be my home base probably for a year or so, and I will venture out from here in other parts into Southeast Asia have been to most parts, but there's still some areas that I want to explore, and the podcast gives me the chance to do this from anywhere, so take advantage there.

00:06:31:19 - 00:06:50:13
Unknown
Sometimes time differences are a bit of a pain in the neck, but there's nothing you can do about that now if you're running a business and you want to look into a podcast, I'm doing also coaching was a couple of people and giving my sort of experience that I made in the last four and a half years, and whatever I say is not written in stone.

00:06:50:13 - 00:07:10:04
Unknown
But, I had a steep learning curve, and I'm happy to give this to other people in a coaching. So if you're interested in the chat, reach out. And, then we make a plan. And was e-commerce specifically? I think because it's always changing, it's always new. There will be always enough

00:07:10:04 - 00:07:26:10
Unknown
topics, to bring to you, to my listener, to my viewers, to my reader, and keep you up with the latest and greatest on what's happening in e-commerce with Shopify or with Amazon Mystic Talk Shop and whatever will come in the future.

00:07:26:12 - 00:07:27:04
Unknown
So this is

00:07:27:04 - 00:07:52:22
Unknown
quick summary of what's what's happening with the podcast, how I got into the podcast and we are heading into 2026. I'm busy wisdom, normal marketing, part because I'm running a business, so I'm doing a marketing plan. I'm planning marketing, campaigns. I'm reaching out to guests, to advertisers, to sponsors. So the e-commerce coffee break is not a hobby.

00:07:53:00 - 00:08:14:16
Unknown
My things like this. Some people think it's like a hobby and I'm retired. No I'm not. I still need to make money. And, the the podcast is a growing business. So if you want to contribute to this business, support me by sharing the episodes, sharing the newsletters with people you know you might that might be interested in the content.

00:08:14:18 - 00:08:41:07
Unknown
So the usual saying like share and follow and subscribe and all of this, there is some truth to it. As a solo creator, as a solopreneur, this is something that gives me the growth to be able to provide you with more insights in to e-commerce and digital marketing and sales and, please do so. Also, the I'm the happiest when I get feedback from my listeners and from my readers.

00:08:41:09 - 00:09:01:00
Unknown
So if there's anything you want to share with me, I that can be pretty much anything that has to do with your business or with your business plans or your entrepreneurial journey and whatsoever. Feel free to drop me a message. I'm on pretty much every social channel, or just drop me a message at hello at e-commerce coffee break.com.

00:09:01:02 - 00:09:19:17
Unknown
Go straight to my inbox and I'll read all my emails and I'm happy to listen to you. I'm happy to help you if I can, and also give me some feedback on how I can get better with the show, with the podcast, because that's still the journey. I'm still learning on how to get better and, you can help me with that.

00:09:19:20 - 00:09:39:16
Unknown
So that's it from my side, I don't want to end up in to a ramble cost, which is called, I think ten minutes of my voice and my face on YouTube is more than enough to digest, but I set for 2026. I'm looking really forward to bring the show on the next level and to bring you the best guests out there.

00:09:39:16 - 00:10:02:18
Unknown
Was the best topics that I can find, and I hope that you support me on my journey and, I will support you on your journey as well. That's it for now. Stay tuned for the upcoming December episodes, and I will take also a little bit of a break in between. And then in general, we will start with full steam to get ready for 2026.

00:10:02:19 - 00:10:08:14
Unknown
That's it for now. Have a good one and talk to.

00:10:08:16 - 00:10:09:22
Unknown
Have every.