How to Grow a Podcast Using Experiments w/ Whitney Archibald

Meet Whitney

Whitney is the host of The Family Lab, a podcast where she tries different experiments with her own family to discover what actually works in parenting and home life. She brings that same curious, low-stakes mindset to everything she does — including podcasting — which makes her one of the most refreshing voices in the space. She’s a mom, a creative, and someone who genuinely thrives on variety and change. When it comes to podcast tips for women who want to grow without burning out, Whitney gets it in a way that feels real and doable.

Links & Resources

• Whitney’s podcast, The Family Lab
• Pinterest VIP Setup offer
• Friendly Podcast Guide on Threads
• The Family Lab on Instagram

Unedited transcript of the episode:

I guess the biggest experiment behind that is like, I have to make this continue to be fun for me. And that’s part of that experimental mindset for me is that I. Need change. I’m like one of those people that thrive on change.

Hey, I’m Andy Smiley and I’m obsessed with helping you grow your podcast without letting it rule your life. I share strategies that actually work, the stuff I wish someone had told me earlier, and conversations with the smartest podcasters. I know Whitney is kind of the queen of experiments.

One of her podcasts is literally called the Family Lab, where she does experiments with her family to see what works. And I know for a fact that she does this with her podcast too.

Whitney and I have been friends for quite some time now, and her outlook on experimenting with your podcast is one of the reasons that I am such a strong proponent of having an experimenting mindset with podcasts.

Whitney, we have had you on friendly podcast guide so many times and I love it so much.

too.

These episodes are so much fun. I feel like it’s more of a conversation rather than an interview, which was one experiment that we’ve tried before and it worked so well. So I’m so glad that we get to do it again.

Yes.

we are gonna talk all about experiments. So what is your favorite experiment that you’ve tried with podcasting recently?

Okay, so I mean, the biggest experiment that I’ve been doing is more administrative. Do you, is that good? Okay.

counts in my opinion. Like it’s all podcasting in some, like if it relates to the podcast, it’s podcasting in my

Great. Me too. I don’t divide them. Um, yeah. So, um, you know, I’ve been a one man show for a really long time, and last year when I decided to go to video, I hired a, my first contractor and um, it was a high school student.

Um, but she’s just a fantastic video editor and I needed help with that. And so there’s no way I would’ve been able to go to video without her, first of all. ’cause I was scared. And she just like, she was so nonchalant about the whole thing. Like, yeah, of course we can do that. No big deal. Um, so she helped me set up my sound, my studio, everything to be able to make it a video podcast.

Um, and then she helped me learn how to edit and it’s evolved a ton since then, just with the software I use and the AI and all that stuff, so , she helped me get that off the ground and then after that she just helped me keep it going.

So, so that was my first revelation, like, oh, I can offload some of this so that, that experiment of like finding somebody who was affordable but awesome was a huge success.

Now she went off to college, so now I’ve hired two more contractors actually. They’re both college student ’cause one is doing a.

Like, um, an online school to get her degree. Um, and she actually has muscular dystrophy and is, confined to her home. So she was looking for something where she could work from home without, you know, like it’s hard to find a job when you’re limited in the ways she is. And, and so, um. I just racked my brain, what could she help me with?

How could we make this work? And oh my gosh, it has been so fantastic. So, so now she does all my administrative stuff and helps me with my website and posts all my episodes. So she does a lot of like the podcast management stuff. And then, um, the college student that I hired, um, does a lot of the, um, social media stuff at this point and some.

Management stuff too. So I kind of, basically their job sharing the podcast manager role, they’re each doing part of what a typical podcast manager would do. And we’re just always experimenting on what works best on what person’s plate and how the timing works. It’s just constant experimenting on how the communication and how the roles play out. But it’s been really fun and so liberating to not do it all myself.

Seriously though, like that sounds amazing. Um, one of my, one of the offers that I have right now is my Pinterest VIP setups and.

Yes.

And it’s been really fun. It’s also been a little bit overwhelming, so I feel like I’m getting to the point where I’m like, I need to find someone that can help me like the, the actual pin creation.

Like I’ll teach them how to do it and then they will like take it because it’s getting a little overwhelming. So it’s nice to know that it works, right? Like you’re like, hey, I hired someone and I like them and they’re doing what I need them to do, so,

Well, and it’s not fixed. That’s, that’s the other thing, like in the spirit of experiments, like there are some things that I, that I gave to somebody else that I realized it really just is more efficient if I do that. And there are some things that I didn’t think I would be giving to somebody else that I was like, oh, that’s actually great.

You know, if you, if you offload too much, then sometimes you might get rid of your competitive advantages or, you know, like yeah. It’s just, it’s just finding that balance and continuing to find that as their skills improve and how to incorporate teaching into that and training and, and, it’s more fun than I thought it would be to figure that out and to make it a win-win.

Totally I love that you’re calling it an experiment because then it takes the pressure off of, off of that part of podcasting, right? Delegating feels really overwhelming. And so I love the fact that it’s an experiment. It’s like, oh no, this isn’t a one and done.

This is a, we’re revisiting, we’re checking to see how this feels for you, how this feels for me, how this is working for the podcast. Like it’s not a one and done thing.

Yeah.

One experiment that I did recently, I guess this isn’t, isn’t exactly podcasting either. That’s so funny. But it’s emailing, so I used to email once a week talking about the podcast, and then I was like, you know what? I think I wanna bump it to two emails a week because I want to have one email that talks about the episode and then another email that talks about whatever, offer that I’m.

Promoting at the time because trying to smush two in it was overwhelming for me to write, and I feel like it, it was not working for my readers either listeners, whatever, the people that were receiving the emails. And so splitting that into two was such. It was really, really nice for me in a way that like, I was so nervous.

I was so nervous that people were gonna just be like, two emails from Andy a week. I can’t handle this much Andy. And they would just like unsubscribe. But honestly, I’m, uh, I guess I haven’t checked. I’m assuming some people did that probably, but for the most part, like my numbers haven’t tanked, so. It seems to be working and I, and it’s been so nice for me.

I feel like even though I guess I’m writing two emails instead of one, it’s really nice to have a little more separation between the two and just be able to focus on one thing in each email.

Do they both go out to the same list? Okay.

list. I know that there are so many different ways to like segment out your audience, but for me. Honestly, that’s a little overwhelming. Maybe that can be an experiment that I tried on the way, but I’m like, you know what? If you’re on my email list, you’re just gonna get all of my emails unless you specifically opt out. Like if you’re like, hey, I don’t want your Pinterest set up emails, get me outta here, then you can do that.

But like for the most part, everyone just gets all the emails.

Okay. I’m just new to this. So this is, this is, I, I wanna hear more about your experiment on this, but I just sent out my first newsletter in like four years. ’cause

Look at you.

yeah, I just, uh, yeah.

That’s

doing it for a while.

I mean, I feel like email is one of those things that feels really overwhelming when you start. Truly. I just interviewed, um, Allie, she is an email marketing specialist. She also has a podcast, so I feel like she kind of gets it. Um. So I’ll put that episode. I don’t know if the episode comes before or after this episode, so if it’s already happened, I’ll put it in the show notes.

If not, keep an eye out for it.

Okay. ’cause I need this podcast. ’cause I, yeah, so it, I lost my email list and that’s when I, like, I did a transition to on the website and then I lost my list. So that’s when I stopped. I’m just like, Nope, I’m done. Then I’m not gonna start from scratch. But now I’ve started from scratch with like. I sent out my first one and I had seven people, but I was like, I’m sending this out.

Oh heavens. I think the first email I sent out, I think it was to three people, like literally it was like, oh, which was kind of nice, if I’m gonna be completely honest. I was like, this is my first email. I have no idea what I’m doing.

But like, it’s only three people. Because now I think, I am at three, 300 and some email listener, uh, oh my gosh. About 300 subscribers. Thank you. And that works for me. It, it’s, I’ve been able to sell my offers on there and make money that way. Like that’s the main way that I sell my offers at the moment.

Um. So your email list doesn’t have to be gigantic to help you grow your show and make money, and that’s something that I didn’t think would be possible until I started doing it. So.

Awesome. Well, that’s inspiring to me that’s, that’s one of my new emerging experiments as well.

I love it. Well, and truly just as like a bonus experiment that goes along with email threads is where I get the most. New subscribers right now is, I’ll just talk about, usually I talk about something with Pinterest, ’cause that’s my big thing at the moment and probably forever. I love Pinterest, but, um, and then people will be like, oh, ’cause my freebie that gets them on my list is, is Pinterest right for you? Checklist. And so people will be like, oh, Pinterest or podcasters, they’ll go to my page, see my post, and then click and subscribe. And threads has been such a surprise. I was not expecting to enjoy threads as much as I do, but it’s, it’s a really fun way to connect with people and.

Just words, no pictures. And it’s so much easier for me and it just feels a little more authentic for, for whatever reason, for me. So there’s like my bonus, my bonus experiment that I’ve been doing recently.

And to tie that in to the Pinterest thing, that’s another experiment I’m trying is I’ve outsourced Pinterest to you, and so I don’t even know how that’s going. You’re the one who knows how that’s going.

I’m enjoying it. And here’s your like. Pinterest fact of the episode. Um, with Pinterest, you don’t usually start seeing a lot of results until like month two or three, just because it’s a snowball effect, like it starts slow and builds. That’s why I really like doing Pinterest VIP setup because then you have no idea when it’s like so small, it’s slowly growing because you don’t need to know.

You don’t need to know yet. We just know it’s building right now, so yeah.

and that, and that is a cool thing. Like the cool thing about delegating and outsourcing is that like I totally gave that over to you. I’m not, I haven’t given it. A single thought, and I’m just waiting for the debrief once you’re finished and then I’ll watch it happen. So it’s, I mean, I, I’m seeing that just more and more it’s like magic because then I look at my Instagram feed and I’m like, oh, I posted today. and it, she just schedules it all out and, and they just appear and it feels like the most magical voodoo ever. I love it.

Totally. And then you’re like, oh, hey, I have new followers because of that post that I didn’t post,

Now I wanna go a little more broad about experimenting in general. So what benefits have you noticed when you like, have an experimental mindset with your podcast and everything that goes into it?

I mean, most of it is that nothing is permanent, so like the mistakes aren’t permanent. The method you’re using isn’t permanent. We’ve talked a lot before about experimenting with the frequency and the pace so I’ve been a total yo-yo this season because I was like, every, I don’t know if you do this too, but every, December going into January, I get like super ambitious and I’m like, I’m gonna increase the number of interviews and podcasts that I do and I’m gonna go weekly again, and I, I have, this ambitious editorial calendar and then. I’m in the middle of Christmas break and I’m like, I don’t know how I’m ever gonna podcast again. I’ve been on break. I, uh, you know, so, so my first month in January I did two episodes. I had been planning on four ’cause I had all these great ideas, but you can’t interview people in December. Like

really, no.

It just doesn’t happen.

So anyway, so I had two episodes for January and I was like, okay, I’m gonna do two episodes a month. I’m gonna. Get real again. But then I did my interviews for February and they were so great and so long that I had to cut the first one into two episodes. So then suddenly I have three episodes recorded.

And so basically you just get a bonus this month, and I have an idea for a fourth that I may or may not do. So I’m like. I know we’re supposed to be consistent. My listeners will always get at least two a month, but sometimes they’ll get some bonuses if I just get enthusiastic. So that’s where I’m stand right now.

I feel like I love that because truly I feel like, I don’t know if there’s a listener that’s like, I don’t want more episodes from you. Right? Like I feel like if you have at least like a baseline of like you can plan on two episodes, but you might get some extra. I feel like everyone’s like, great.

Yes, please. Right. I feel like that’s, that’s a solid way to go about podcasting and releasing episodes.

So, you know, it’s not super predictable, I guess the biggest experiment behind that is like, I have to make this continue to be fun for me. And that’s part of that experimental mindset for me is that I. Need change. I’m like one of those people that thrive on change. I’m not, I’m never gonna be like, who moved my cheese person?

Like, like I want things to be the same all the time. I thrive on variety and change and so that’s part of my personality. That’s part of what you’re signing up for. When you listen to my podcast and I’m gonna try different formats, I’m gonna try different pacing.

Yeah.

One of my favorite parts about experimenting with your podcast and kind of having like an experimenting mindset. I love that it, hijacks my, recovering perfectionist inside of me, right.

To be like, it’s an experiment. It’s not supposed to go perfect the first time. You’re just trying something. Also when it’s an experiment all of the analytics is just data to help me know about the experiment. It has nothing to do with me. I feel like it kind of takes, it makes it less personal.

It’s like, oh, this is an experiment. This doesn’t mean people don’t like my podcast. This means that they don’t like the style that I tried this week. So let’s not do that again. Let’s try something else.

It puts failures into perspective as failures or information rather than a reason to quit.

Exactly. When you look at it that way, it makes it so much easier not only to keep podcasting, but also.

To enjoy it, like to actually like enjoy the process.

Yeah, for sure. I guess to segue into another experiment, like. One of my consistent failures in the last, it’s been almost a year that I’ve been trying to do this, is I decided to have, like I said, I just want more community. I wanna know who’s listening. ’cause that’s such a weird part about podcasting is that

a weird part about podcasting.

and.

I.

I was like, I, I’m just gonna have an open lab where I let people just come in. Um, for I, I’ll just, I’ll just appear on my, on my, in my studio once a week at the same time. And anybody who wants to pop in can pop in and ask me what they wanna ask me. Um, brainstorm experiments that they can try in their home, talk about the episodes and I understood at the beginning that I was leaving this wide open, so people might not know what to expect, so they might be afraid to come, but I didn’t have the energy to make it more specific. So I was like, I’m just going to start and see if people come at a really low, low effort level for me, and I can’t say it’s a complete failure because I’ve had one person come.

In the last year, which is kind of crazy, but that one person has become a really good friend and she’s come several times and um, I mean quite a few times. And we’ve developed this friendship and we talk about what she can try at home and we talk about what she’s struggling with and it’s been this great thing and I’ve, and.

She actually like kept me going when I was like, who am, why am I even doing this? Who am I doing this for? And that now I know who I’m doing it for. If nobody else, I have a fan that like shows up and who loves my podcast and who shares it and who like, keeps me grounded in what like real life moms are struggling with besides myself, you know, like,

Yeah, totally.

so it hasn’t been a total fa failure, but I haven’t been good at promoting it. Letting people know it happens. I don’t know if I’m gonna continue it. Or do it in a different form. Or just maybe my listeners are just such busy moms that they don’t want anything but somebody in their ear and that’s okay too.

Sure. Yeah.

they don’t wanna have to show up for an appointment at a specific time, which I think is, one of the real stumbling blocks,

Yeah, that makes sense. I love that, like you said, ’cause it’s an experiment. Sure it didn’t go the way that you wanted it to, but that doesn’t mean that you’re an awful person. That doesn’t mean you failed, like as a podcaster, it just means this experiment didn’t work, so we should try something else or tweak it.

right. And it wasn’t a loss for me because when nobody shows up. I just get a whole lot of work done. I’m just still on my computer. I keep the window open in case somebody pops in, but I’m like, this is my dedicated, I have to stay in here, in front of here in case somebody works. So it wasn’t, there wasn’t a real downside, so I just kept it going.

But I, I, what I’m considering doing is now that I have a newsletter, and those are people who have opted in and who have something, some stake, you know, like they.

Totally. Yeah.

in, in at a higher level, um, I’m just gonna be like, this is an exclusive newsletter offer, but here’s a link to schedule a specific time with me.

So then it’s on their timetable. They can use just book on my calendar, like a half an hour. Session like, hey, if you would like to meet me, or you know, like, here’s a link and you can schedule a time with me and, or if you’d like to contribute to the podcast, you can also schedule a time. And so that, that’s just something I’m gonna offer for the newsletter people.

So that’s where I’m gonna, that’s where I’m gonna move that

I would love for that to be a place where they can share tips that I’m like, I have this episode, this episode, this episode coming up. What’s worked for you?

Totally.

what are you struggling with in this area?

And then we can use those clips in the, in the episodes. So that’s more

Then they’ll be excited to listen and they’ll tell their friends about it. Love it. Yes. Oh my gosh. I love that so much. Okay. As we’re wrapping up, what is one experiment that you are planning on trying soon? Or you’re already starting? It’s like beginning phases.

Yeah, so the big one is, um, utilizing my archive. ’cause now I have an archive, you

You have, you have an amazing archive. I love it. Yes.

Yeah. And, and so I’m trying to like. Systematize that, and that’s why that’s what this season is, so, so this season I am just dedicating to teaching kids self-reliance be, and that is one of the workbooks I’m working on.

So I’m basically using this SE season to write the workbook that I’ve been trying to write for a long time. So I’m systematically going through each topic so that I can fill in any gaps that I have in my archive. But when I do have episodes, I’m updating those. Episodes. So like to just give you the example of this season, I started with hygiene, which I have never covered any hygiene topics.

Oh, really?

yeah. Which I was kind of surprised, like I had no episodes at all. So I did one on, body hygiene, oral hygiene, and a potty training episode, all for the hygiene month, um, which is February, which, at the time we’re speaking is just beginning. Next month in March, I’m doing one on finance and I’ve done like four episodes on teaching kids to manage money.

And so I did do a fresh interview for it, but then I’m also repurposing those. So I was just. Downloading those transcripts, and I’m gonna use some clips from those episodes.

I love that.

those just happen to be, episodes that do require some updating, but some of them will be like, I’ll just rerun the episode with a new intro and maybe even pop in once in a while with like.

Okay. I used to think that, but now this is what I think. So there’ll be kind of like, rather than just an encore, there’ll be an update,

Totally. Yeah.

kind of interrupting and giving commentary along the way. That’s, that’s my plan. So, but then by the end of that, it, there’s 15 topics in this self-reliance series.

Okay.

So it’s going to cut into next year. But the plan is to just, just really focus each month and then use that month to write that section of my workbook, give away part of that workbook in my newsletter. You know, like what, what I’m working on, give that as freebies to, to my newsletter people. So I’ve just kind of like systematized everything so that I’m making sure that I’m covering all the topics that I think parents need to know in this.

Larger topic of teaching kids self-reliance.

Which is. I guess as a mom of littles, that sounds so nice because I feel like sometimes I’m like, I dunno what to do. Like, I dunno how to handle this situation. My 8-year-old needs to probably learn how to like load a dishwasher. It was like, I guess we’ll just like figure it out and like we’re just making it work.

But I feel like it would be nice to be like, oh, these are the things that my 8-year-old should probably know how to do and this is how to teach them how to do those things.

Totally. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s, that’s what I’m working on. Before that, I was bouncing around between, parenting. And then home management and then also like. Personal development as a mother.

And so now I’m just gonna focus on those in turn. So I’m gonna save the home management thing for the season after this and fill in my gaps there using old episodes, you know, systematizing that one, but, but I just wanted to be really focused for a year, and that’s a big experiment for me because will I get bored of.

Only focusing on the parenting, teaching self-reliance. Um, but there’s enough variety within that that

I was gonna say, yeah, you have some flexibility in in it, but yeah,

Yeah. And in the way I present the episode, you know, I can still play around with my formats and guests and stuff like that. So

totally.

yeah. So that’s my big shift this year

I love it. I love it. Um, okay, my experiment, I feel like yours is like gigantic and mine is like really small, but it’s fine. I feel like that’s the beauty of experiments. So for the last, so I’ve been doing seasonal for where, uh, this is season five, which is crazy to me.

Usually I’ll have at least a couple of bonus episodes in between seasons for like people to download and like still know that I exist. But what I’m doing right now, like the experiment is no bonus episodes.

’cause I do not have the bandwidth to do any bonus episodes. So it’s gonna be interesting to see. When I start season five, if that really affects my downloads and like my people interacting with me because I’m still relatively active on social media. Mostly threads ’cause it’s my favorite. So I guess this isn’t what I’m like starting, but it’s when I’m in the middle of, and I wanna see what the end results are gonna be.

And I feel like I’m a little nervous, but also it just needed to happen. I was really overwhelmed with all of my, like my Pinterest VIP setup and all of the just. Family stuff, just like life stuff was like, this is too much. So, so it was kind of one of those experiments that I like fell into, but I’m really glad that I’m doing it because then I know, then I know, oh, nope, I’m gonna have to have some bonus episodes like ready before I end the season, so that if life stuff happens, then I can still have those bonus episodes or I didn’t need ’em.

Downloads are still doing great, so I’m, it’s gonna be an interesting one to see. What happens there?

Yeah, you’ll have to keep us updated.

I know, I will. Maybe this needs to be a normal episode. Maybe this can itself be an experiment of like, we just like update every season. That would be so fun that we can like, hear about your experiments, hear about mine, see what’s working, what’s not. It’s like it’s, I’m just stealing one of your episodes of like experimenting, but it’s just,

flattering to me.

I’m so glad.

yeah.

Because it’s like podcasting experiments and then family experiments. The mindset behind it is similar, but it’s on two very different things.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, I am. I’m totally game for that.

Oh, man. Kay. That might need to be a thing because when I was able to switch my mindset to experimenting. My world opened up and it felt so, I had so much less pressure to like do things a certain way in my podcast and it was like, oh, this can be fun. But also I feel like I’ve grown more as a podcaster and my podcast has grown, and my business has grown because of this mindset of experimenting instead of being so stuck in, this is the only way to do things.

Well, and you hear this so much, this is why there’s such a parallel between parenting and podcasting. Who knew? But like, that was the thing for me with, parenting too, because both parenting and podcasting, you hear just drilled through you. Consistency, consistency, consistency. That is the most important thing.

And I actually. Very much disagree, especially in parenting because the biggest thing I’ve learned just from experience is that if I were consistent with all my children, especially in my, in my parenting techniques and my approaches, it would be a huge disaster because they’re all individuals and they’re all different people, and that is the same thing. With our listeners and our listeners evolve and they want different things, and we want to be able to respond to what they’re responding to and make it this dynamic thing. I mean, it’s good to be reliable, I guess. I guess reliability is more important than consistency and good communication,

Totally.

I, I just think it’s, it’s a disservice.

To make consistency, this huge value. Because that’s how you can continue to repeat the same mistakes, you know, like,

Yeah. Oh, totally. A thousand percent. Yeah. I agree. And I like the idea of reliability versus consistency because. Having a seasonal show, I’m reliable. You know, I’m coming back, but I also need a break so that I don’t burn out, and I feel like,

in quality. Even if the format changes, you’re reliable in what you’re coming to the table with.

Yes. Oh, I love it. Okay. Maybe we need to start that as like a new revolution in podcasting and parenting, reliability rather than consistency. Because yeah, not only does that feel better in my soul, but I feel like that’s what our listeners really want. They want. Rely on us coming back when we take breaks and also rely on the quality being good and not just having another episode to listen to.

’cause if you’re putting in a out an episode every week, but it’s not good, then why would they keep listening?

yeah, yeah, for sure.

Totally. Okay. Whitney, you are an absolute delight. I adore talking to you and I am so excited that this. Is going to be an experiment where we talk every season because you have so many good podcasting insights that I feel like aren’t the mainstream of most podcasting experts say consistency, right?

Well, we’re like, nah, there’s, there are other ways to do it, and we’re trying them and it’s working.

Isn’t Whitney just the best? I am definitely going to be following up with Whitney about the experiments that we talked about in this episode along with any more experiments that she has tried.

So keep an eye out for that episode next season. If you were convinced to do some experimenting with your own podcast, will you share this with one of your podcasting friends who could also use a push to try experimenting? Next week we’ll be talking about how to get your podcast set up for the summer, because podcasting in the summer is no joke, especially if you have small children.

Thanks for being here, and I’ll see you next week.