Every major podcast has the same problem: their audience is scattered across seven different apps, arguing in fragments. One startup just cracked the code to unify them all—and the timing couldn't be more perfect.
First, landscape.
- Threads just gave podcasters a dedicated spot in their profiles and rich visual previews for episode links.
- Spotify launched comments on top of Q&A and polls that have already attracted over 9 million unique listeners this year.
- YouTube's comment threads are mature and accessible via API.
The pipes are open. But while everyone else is fighting over who can chop up episodes into the prettiest 30-second clips, the real opportunity is staring us in the face: the conversation layer.
Grand View Research estimates the podcasting market at roughly $30 billion today, on track for $131 billion by 2030 at a 27% annual growth rate. That spells an infrastructure play. The last time we saw platforms scrambling to court creators this aggressively was right before Instagram Stories ate Snapchat's lunch. Except this time, the platforms aren't competing—they're accidentally collaborating. Each one is building their piece of the engagement puzzle, but nobody's in the position to assemble the full picture because big guys don't dabble in wedges.
The Play
Forget everything you know about podcast tools. This isn't about hosting, analytics, or even monetization. It's about building the comment graph—the unified conversation layer that podcasters desperately need but don't know how to ask for.
Here's the setup: Meta explicitly stated they won't become a podcast distribution platform—instead, they're focusing on giving hosts insights and analytics on how conversations around their shows resonate with fans. Translation: They want the engagement data, not the hosting headaches. Meanwhile, Spotify's rebuilt mobile app now works for all podcasters regardless of where their show is hosted. Everyone's opening up because they finally realized closed ecosystems kill creator loyalty.
The business model writes itself. You're not competing with platforms—you're the Switzerland of podcast conversations. Your tool ingests from everywhere, normalizes the chaos, and hands creators a single dashboard that actually makes sense. No more logging into four different apps to see what your audience thinks. No more missing the moment when your show goes viral on Threads while you're staring at Spotify stats.
The Technical Reality Check
Let's cut through the handwaving. Here's what actually exists today:
Threads: Full API with posting, polls, and programmatic management capabilities, plus the ability to track where people encounter your content across Meta properties. The documentation is public, the rate limits are reasonable, and Meta's actively recruiting podcasters as launch partners.
YouTube: The commentThreads.list API costs just 1 unit per request (returning up to 100 comments), with full support for listing, inserting, and managing comments. You can pull entire comment threads, track replies, and even access moderation status if authorized by the channel owner.
Spotify: Comments just went platform-wide with auto-publishing for English, Spanish, German, and Portuguese. Creators manage polls and comments through Spotify for Podcasters' rebuilt app (which now works for all shows regardless of hosting). While the comment API isn't public yet, the engagement data is there—waiting to be unlocked.
Reddit: Still accessible under its new paid API model ($0.24 per 1,000 calls), though you'll need to navigate both rate limits and per-request costs carefully. The juice is worth the squeeze—Reddit threads about popular podcasts often contain more insight than all other platforms combined.
This isn't theoretical. The infrastructure exists. Today. While your competitors are waiting for the "perfect" API or the "right" moment, you could be shipping.
Why This Is a $100M Business (Minimum)
Studies show podcasts lose up to 35% of their listeners during the first five minutes. You know what keeps people listening? Knowing their comment got featured. Seeing their poll response influenced the next episode. Feeling like they're part of something bigger than passive consumption.
But: Current podcast analytics tools track downloads, demographics, and retention, but engagement metrics like comments remain siloed. Creators are flying blind on their most valuable data—which moments spark debate, which topics drive engagement, who their super-fans actually are.
Your unified comment layer doesn't just aggregate—it creates new value:
Moment Intelligence: By matching comments to timestamps across platforms, you identify the exact seconds that trigger reactions. That 12-minute mark where everyone starts arguing? That's gold for sponsors who want placement next to high-engagement content.
Cross-Platform Engagement Patterns: When similar handles and posting patterns suggest the same cohort is discussing your show across platforms, you're building an engagement graph nobody else can see. Creators finally understand their true superfan behaviors across the entire internet—without needing individual identification.
Predictive Topics: After analyzing 10,000 episodes, you know that discussions about "AI ethics" spike engagement 3.4x on tech podcasts but kill comedy shows. That intelligence is worth serious money to podcast networks planning their content calendars.
The Moat That Actually Matters
Anyone can scrape comments. Not everyone can make them useful. Your moat isn't technical—it's the network effect of unified data.
Once you're embedded in 500 podcasts, you have the cross-platform conversation dataset. When PodcastA's audience loves talking about cryptocurrency and PodcastB's audience does too, but they've never cross-promoted, that's a discovery opportunity worth monetizing. When a sponsor wants to reach "people who are active on finance podcasts," you're the only one who can deliver that audience segment across all platforms simultaneously.
The switching costs are brutal once you're in. Creators won't just be losing a tool—they'll be losing their entire understanding of their audience. Imagine trying to convince someone to give up Google Analytics after two years of historical data. That's your lock-in.
The 10-Week Sprint to MVP
Stop overthinking. Here's exactly what you build first:
Week 1-2: Threads Foundation Start where the momentum is. Threads is actively rolling out features to help podcasters, with more planned in the months ahead. Build a simple system that auto-publishes episode announcements with rich previews, then polls the API to catch all replies and quote-posts. This alone is valuable enough to get early adopters.
Vault-only access.
Join founders who spot opportunities ahead of the crowd. Actionable insights. Zero fluff.
“Intelligent, bold, minus the pretense.”
“Like discovering the cheat codes of the startup world.”
“SH is off-Broadway for founders — weird, sharp, and ahead of the curve.”
