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#21 | How to Start a Podcast the Lazy Way

June 21, 2026

#21 | How to Start a Podcast the Lazy Way

Hi there. This is 服部陽良, founder of coiai Inc., one year into running my own company.

As the founder of an IT company centered on making things — doing system development and product development — I share the reality of running a startup on this show every Monday.

Today's main topic is "anyone can easily make a podcast." I do everything myself for this podcast — gear, recording, editing, distribution, script writing, all of it — so I wanted to share exactly how I put it together. If you're a sole proprietor or work at a company and have been wondering "how would I even go about making a podcast?", I hope this is useful.

But first, this week's AI-related news.

This Week's News

#1 on Zenn: Where Is Contract System Development Headed After AI?

https://zenn.dev/terurou/articles/eb9e7a4ca7b364

The article gaining the most traction on Zenn this week was "Where Is Contract System Development Headed After AI?"

What we value at coiai, when we say we care about making things properly, is really listening to what the client has to say — figuring out what's actually needed, and what we'd have to build to get closer to "what they secretly wanted all along."

When we actually take on a project, we don't just handle everything remotely online. Even for a client based in a rural area, we'll go visit in person, do proper interviews, nail down the requirements, confirm them, and then build things out in an agile style — weekly meetings every one to two weeks — checking along the way that nothing has drifted off course. That's our style.

Philosophically too, I felt that this kind of upstream-focused style is finally becoming the mainstream approach.

Hacker News: Loupe — an App That Visualizes What an iOS App Is Looking At

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48608645

The other one comes from Hacker News. An iOS app called "Loupe" made a big splash this week because it lets you visualize what an iOS app can see from your device — essentially, its permissions.

The key takeaway is that the moment you grant a permission, a lot more information gets passed to the app than users tend to imagine.

Definitely worth checking out the article.

That's it for the tech news. Now, on to the main topic.

Main Topic: How to Start a Super-Easy Podcast

1. Gear: RODE at First, Now Just the MacBook's Voice Memos

Let's start with recording gear.

When I first started this podcast, I was using a pretty nice microphone. Specifically, an Australian-made RODE mic, the kind that captures L/R (stereo) separately. For recording, I used a Zoom recorder capable of 32-bit float recording — gear that literally never clips.

But after doing this for half a year, I realized something: you don't actually need that level of quality, because you can boost the audio afterward. So now, I just record with the MacBook's Voice Memos app.

Why I Switched to Voice Memos

The biggest reason is that if you record with Voice Memos, you get transcription built right in, for free, with the standard feature.

Here's my current workflow.

  1. Record with the MacBook's Voice Memos app
  2. Voice Memos transcribes it automatically
  3. Save that transcript in Markdown format
  4. Feed it into Claude Code (I keep a "podcast" directory in the project, and drop each week's transcript into it)
  5. Have Claude Code format it into something that looks clean on WordPress
  6. Upload it as a blog post straight into the podcast section of coiai.net

In other words, this very article was made by transcribing what I said, having Claude Code format it, and uploading it to WordPress — that's the whole pipeline.

2. Writing the Script: Starting from Checking the News

I almost forgot about the script. Here's how I put it together.

I check this week's news pretty thoroughly. I look at Hacker News, Zenn, Hatena Bookmark, and so on, and if there's something interesting, I bring it up on the show.

I've automated this part with a Python script, but if you're worried about scraping, there's nothing wrong with just browsing manually yourself either.

3. Audio Editing: From Adobe Audition to Auphonic

I don't publish the raw audio as-is — I always master it (edit the sound) before releasing it.

I originally used Adobe Audition. Since I'm already paying the "Adobe tax" (the monthly subscription), I used it as one of the tools included. What I was doing:

I do almost no cutting. I don't do cut editing — that's my stance.

But lately, the amount of Adobe work at the company has been shrinking. We still use Illustrator, but Premiere Pro has been replaced by DaVinci Resolve, and even Illustrator gets swapped for Canva for anything quick. Continuing to rely on such expensive Adobe products didn't feel great to me anymore.

So starting last week, I began using a service called Auphonic.

Auphonic Is Incredibly Convenient

Auphonic is a service where you just upload an MP3 file and it masters it automatically.

I'm currently on the free tier, but even if I paid for it, it would still be way cheaper than Adobe, so I'm considering upgrading.

4. Distribution: Spotify for Creators → Auto-Distributed to Other Platforms via RSS

The audio also needs to go out on a podcast platform. I use Spotify for Creators.

You need to put a title and a detailed description here, but I have Claude Code come up with these as part of writing the script, and just use them as-is.

Auto-Distribution via RSS Feed

Once you upload to Spotify for Creators, it automatically goes up on other platforms too. All you need to set up is an RSS feed. This gets it automatically distributed to YouTube and Apple Music as well. Very convenient.

5. The Real Numbers After Half a Year

So, "how much is it actually growing?"

Bottom line: not much (laughs).

The Mystery of 4 Followers but 20 Plays

It's genuinely puzzling how you get up to 20 plays with only 4 followers. Maybe there's traffic coming in from search.

And 2 hours 43 minutes of listening over the past 30 days feels pretty impressive to me.

A Medium People "Listen to for Longer" Than YouTube, by a Wide Margin

I've tried YouTube in the past, and also posted short-form videos (for the apparel business side), but I've come to really appreciate that podcasts are the medium people "listen to for the longest."

It's a medium where someone who starts listening tends to stick around all the way to the end. I get to spend this slow, relaxed time talking with all of you, and I think that makes it a genuinely great format.

6. Nearly Free, and All You Need Is One Computer

So, my conclusion right now is that you can do this almost for free, with just one computer.

Smartphone mic quality has also gotten quite good lately, so recording on your phone and publishing it directly (with just a light mastering pass) is a totally valid option too.

There's definitely a difference in mic quality, but honestly, mastering makes a much bigger difference to how easy something is to listen to than the mic itself does.

Wrap-up — Give Podcasting a Try

No point rambling on forever, so that's it for today.

Please, give podcasting a try yourselves too — that was today's message. Minimal gear, leave the editing to Auphonic, script and formatting via Claude Code, distribution automated from Spotify for Creators. Anyone can get started this way.

A note on what's coming next week: I'll still be in Tokyo next week, but starting in July I'll be working out in the countryside, so I've been getting things ready for that.

If you'd like to help out locally, or want to get involved, please do reach out.

About coiai Inc.

coiai Inc. works in the following areas:

We work with a strong commitment to delivering the right UX. We always deliver something genuinely easy to use that improves operational efficiency, so if you're interested, please reach out. Quotes are always free.

New episodes every Monday. I'd be happy if you'd subscribe and come back to listen again next week. Thank you.