Metacast: Behind the scenes

Hosted by Metacast

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Dec 2025

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About the show

Metacast is a podcast app for podcast lovers. We are building a powerful tool that helps you get the most out of podcasts. Auto-generated transcripts and chapters allow you to quickly skim episodes, search for content, and bookmark segments. Chapters, automated playlists, listening history & stats, and much more is coming. On this podcast, co-founders of Metacast talk about building the company and the product.

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60 recent

December 25, 202523 min

73. Holiday update

In this holiday episode, we celebrate reaching over 300 paying subscribers and 1,500 monthly active users. We also discuss recent backend infrastructure optimizations, critical bug fixes, and future plans, including a new pro plan with expanded features like higher private podcast limits and custom audio uploads. Chapters 00:00 - Introduction 00:47 - Business updates 04:55 - Recent projects: cost optimizations, bug fixes, CVEs 12:36 - Future plans 15:59 - Recommendations Download the Metacast podcast app for free iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/metacast/id6462012536 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.metacast.podcast.player Get in touch Contact us: hello@metacastpodcast.com Ilya's LinkedIn Arnab's LinkedIn

November 7, 202547 min

72. New features & LLM-induced drama inside the team

New app features: listening history, continue listening, and transcript exports + navigating LLM-induced team drama. Chapters 00:00 - Welcome and business update 02:13 - Metacast v1.25 Overview 02:50 - New Feature: Listening History 08:08 - New Feature: Continue Listening 12:41 - New Feature: Exporting Transcripts 20:24 - Website outage 22:21 - The Pro Tier in v1.26 23:06 - Team conflict: LLM miscommunication 31:21 - LLM Etiquette in Teams 35:50 - Podcast & book recommendations 45:34 - P.S. We're YouTube stars (FWIW) Links Metacast v1.25 blog post Podcasts: Tech Brew Ride Home Oct 16 Scott & Mark: The AI productivity trap American Gods The Sandman Download the Metacast podcast app for free iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/metacast/id6462012536 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.metacast.podcast.player Get in touch Contact us: hello@metacastpodcast.com Ilya's LinkedIn Arnab's LinkedIn

October 13, 202526 min

71. Survaviversary: We survived 1 year in production + limited time sale for new users

We celebrate Metacast's one-year "survivalversary" with a special $10/year sale and share what we're working on. Chapters 00:28 - - State of the business 05:20 - - The Survaviversary 09:16 - - New creator transcript feature 16:04 - - Upcoming playlist and history features 21:25 - - Podcast recommendations Links Survaviversary blog post Creator transcripts blog post Tip Jar for supporters: Buy Me A Coffee Podcasts: The Panel Big Think Endless: A Sandman Podcast Download the Metacast podcast app for free iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/metacast/id6462012536 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.metacast.podcast.player Get in touch Contact us: hello@metacastpodcast.com Ilya's LinkedIn Arnab's LinkedIn

September 11, 202541 min

70. Summer update & Metacast v1.24

What we've been up to in the second half of the summer + update on the just released Metacast v1.24. Chapters 00:00 - Summer hiatus and personal reflections 02:16 - User growth and trials 03:44 - Website traffic and SEO success 08:14 - Managing website costs and bots 12:38 - Metacast v1.24: New features 16:14 - Web app development & podcaster tools 22:50 - Data analytics and privacy 25:16 - Anniversary sale 27:44 - Upcoming app features and goals 31:50 - Recommendations: The Sandman 36:25 - Recommendations: The Birkin Bag Story Show notes Birkin: The Handbag That Costs More Than Your House on The Best Idea Yet The Sandman: Netflix, Comics, Audio Download the Metacast podcast app for free iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/metacast/id6462012536 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.metacast.podcast.player Get in touch Contact us: hello@metacastpodcast.com Ilya's LinkedIn Arnab's LinkedIn

July 26, 202514 min

Weekly-ish Update (July 26, 2025): Private podcasts are now generally available!

We've GA-ed private podcasts! In this episode, we talk about the feature, the extra perks for Premium users and celebrate completion of the table stakes features. We end the episode with a banter about Claude Code and a few German phrases. Chapters 00:00 - Private Podcasts Are Now Live 02:03 - Explaining Private Podcast Limits 06:26 - Next Steps and Metacast's Vision 10:54 - Personal Recommendations and Banter Show notes Michelin Guide: The Tire Company That Accidentally Conquered Food on The Best Idea Yet Falling In Reverse - "Watch The World Burn" (live) Download the Metacast podcast app for free iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/metacast/id6462012536 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.metacast.podcast.player Get in touch Contact us: hello@metacastpodcast.com Ilya's LinkedIn Arnab's LinkedIn

July 15, 20258 min

Weekly-ish Update (July 15, 2025): On the finishing line to launch v1.22, ops-heavy week, web app updates

We're on the finishing line to launch private podcasts in GA, but it takes a while because we've wasted a lot of time dealing with ops post-Google billing incident. Chapters 00:00 - Ops Challenges and Private Podcast Quotas 02:37 - Web App Enhancements and Scalability 04:49 - Growth Milestones and Upcoming Features Show notes Back To The Future... And Back - 40 Years of Marty, Doc, & Mayor Goldie Wilson on Talk Is Jericho Download the Metacast podcast app for free iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/metacast/id6462012536 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.metacast.podcast.player Get in touch Contact us: hello@metacastpodcast.com Ilya's LinkedIn Arnab's LinkedIn

July 3, 202512 min

Weekly-ish Update (June 30, 2025): Preparing to launch private podcasts, marketing stuff, huge bill from Google

Preparing to launch private podcasts, marketing projects, ops stuff, and a huge (with a capital "H") bill from Google Chapters 00:00 - Weekly-ish Update and Big Incident 00:50 - Addressing Major Google Cloud Bill 03:00 - App and Web Development Progress 05:11 - Marketing, Communication, and Roadmap 10:52 - Weekly Podcast Recommendations Show notes The Side Hustle King: “I’m making $8K/DAY from easy businesses” on My First Million The Art of Learning: An Inner Journey to Optimal Performance by Josh Waitzkin Flybot by Dennis E. Taylor Dennis E. Taylor, author of best-selling sci-fi series Bobiverse on Builders Gonna Build Download the Metacast podcast app for free iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/metacast/id6462012536 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.metacast.podcast.player Get in touch Contact us: hello@metacastpodcast.com Ilya's LinkedIn Arnab's LinkedIn

June 13, 202511 min

Weekly-ish Update (June 12, 2025): Private podcasts, podcast search on web app, making money

Every week, we meet for a standup. We summarize our progress in short weekly updates that we record right after our meetings. In this update, we discuss launching private feeds, the new podcast search feature on the web app, and making money. Chapters 00:00 - Introduction and Funding Metacast 03:31 - Launching Private Feeds Beta 06:19 - Web App Search and Website Updates 08:13 - Upcoming Work and Recommendations Show notes Bobbi Althof's The Really Good Podcast Andre Agassi on Served News in Slow Spanish The Game with Alex Hormozi Download the Metacast podcast app for free iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/metacast/id6462012536 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.metacast.podcast.player Get in touch Contact us: hello@metacastpodcast.com Ilya's LinkedIn Arnab's LinkedIn

May 24, 20259 min

Weekly Update (May 24, 2025): Podcast summaries, private feeds, in-person meetup!

Every week, we meet for a standup. We summarize our progress in short weekly updates that we record right after our meetings. In this update, we discuss episode summaries, chapters, and performance improvements. We also cover ongoing backend work, in-person meeting experience (!), planning for upcoming features like private feeds, and share podcast recommendations. Chapters 00:00 - Welcome and In-Person Update 00:28 - App Feature Releases and Updates 03:25 - Travel, Planning, and Backend Work 06:21 - Upcoming Releases and Recommendations Show notes Asterix and Obelix on Netflix Everything Everywhere Daily Download the Metacast podcast app for free iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/metacast/id6462012536 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.metacast.podcast.player Get in touch Contact us: hello@metacastpodcast.com Ilya's LinkedIn Arnab's LinkedIn

May 14, 202544 min

69. New podcast sharing experience (QR codes FTW!)

In this episode we discuss why and how we built the new sharing experience (see blog post for v1.19). Chapters 00:20 - Opening 00:57 - New weekly update episodes 05:22 - New podcast sharing experience in Metacast 06:52 - Why we are working on sharing? 09:32 - The new sharing experience 14:35 - QR codes 16:51 - Optimized image loading 17:53 - Problems with the old URL sharing 23:04 - The technical solution for consistently working app links 24:43 - The complexity of the change 28:45 - Preview of the next episode about rebranding 33:26 - Recommendations Show notes New sharing experience announcement blog Latest weekly update episode: Weekly Update (May 6, 2025): New sharing experience, new logo & branding 67. Attack of LLM bots (podcast) + blog Episode with Jennie: 42. Equity compensation at a pre-revenue bootstrapped startup with Jennie Buechner Voices in my head by Falling in Reverse Download the Metacast podcast app for free iOS: https://apps.apple.com/app/metacast/id6462012536 Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.metacast.podcast.player Get in touch Contact us: hello@metacastpodcast.com Ilya's LinkedIn Arnab's LinkedIn