Zero to 1,000,000 Downloads
A Million Downloads Was Never the Goal
(Consistency Was.)
When I first heard Dave and Ashley speak, I wasn’t thinking about downloads or audience growth. I just knew they had something that connected. They were just honest. Their stories were real, and people leaned in because they saw themselves in those stories.
Two years later, when we launched their podcast, that same connection was at the core of everything.
They already had the message. I helped build the format.
They came with clarity, they new who they were and who their audience was. This was reflected in the title and their one-liner. Their message was honest and naked so naturally, The Naked Marriage Podcast was born.
And that’s when the work really began.
Year One: Holding It All Together
Honestly, when we launched the show we didn't really know what we were doing but we made a commitment to publish an episode every week. We didn’t miss. Not once.
But that didn't mean it was easy.
I was leading a team that was learning as we went. The systems were being built on the fly. There were late nights. There were moments I wasn’t sure we’d hit the deadline. But I had done this before, in a world where you couldn’t miss.
Back in broadcast, I had to deliver weekly TV shows to 14 stations—on time, on tape. If you missed that drop, you were out. So I pulled from that experience and applied it to podcasting. We didn’t just hit “record and upload.” I started building out workflows—for editing, reviewing, scheduling, ads.
Every bottleneck we found, we fixed.
Every missed step(and there were a few), we solved.
We fought for consistency because we believed that’s what would make the difference.
Year Two: Real Momentum
That slow crawl in the beginning from 0 to 300 to 1,000 downloads started to pick up. By year two, we were seeing 3,500… then 5,000… then more.
We kept watching the data and dialing in the content. Dave and Ashley were game to try new things. We stayed away from too many guests because we wanted to position them to be the experts. And we kept asking: what’s working? What’s not?
Then came the next challenge: video.
Suddenly, what had worked for audio didn’t work for video. Our timelines shifted. Our process broke.
So we built new ones.
We added cameras. I designed new studio setups as the show grew, increasing the level of production each time. It wasn’t just about getting it done anymore, it was about building a show that looked and sounded like it had the same impact as the content.
It was a full rebuild—but we figured it out.
Summer Break…(wait! a break?)
One summer, Dave and Ashley needed a real break. They were running hard, and it showed.
I panicked. Not because I didn’t support their need for rest but because I knew consistency was the foundation we’d built everything on.
We needed a way to give them space without going dark.
So we created a plan: they’d come in for one day and record twelve mini-episodes. A short summer series. We called them Summer Quickies.
Turns out, those episodes outperformed the long-form ones. It became one of the most-loved series we ever did. We ended up doing it every summer.
Another Pivot…
We noticed that the Q&A segments at the end of the show were getting skipped. The audience loved them, but they weren’t making it that far into the episode.
So we pulled them out and gave them their own slot: Hump Day Q&A, midweek.
It was a simple change but it led to a big jump in downloads and interaction.
Sometimes the smallest pivot makes the biggest difference.
The Push That Broke a Record
Five years in, we were hitting 30,000+ downloads per episode. Then our producer, Eric Randall pitched an idea:
“Let’s kick off the new year with a challenge—release 14 episodes in 14 days.”
It sounded intense. It was intense. But we pulled it off.
And that month, we hit 1,000,000 downloads.
But that was never the goal.
The Real Goal
One day we got a message from a listener in the UK.
His marriage was really struggling. He was on the verge of losing everything. The podcast title caught his attention it was bold. It made him curious.
He listened. Then he listened again.
He wasn’t a Christian, but the conversations stirred something in him. He started going to church with his family. Eventually, he gave his life to Christ and his whole family got baptized.
The goal wasn't a number. It was about that family. Their marriage. Their legacy. That listener's eternity.
This was our why. That wasn't our only story. We heard countless other stories of marriages saved. Families healed.
What I Learned
God gave me the privilege of building something that mattered. I got to lead the team, solve the problems, and apply everything I had learned over a decade in media.
I didn’t just learn how to grow a podcast.
I learned how to build a process that could carry a message.
I learned how to lead through chaos.
How to fix what breaks.
How to fight for consistency—because impact compounds over time.
Now I help others do the same.
If you're building a message that matters,
I’ll leave you with this:
Start.
Then don’t stop.
The miracle is in the middle.