How to Find Guests for a New or Small Podcast

You decide this is the week you finally book a guest. You open a blank note, put your cursor at the top, and get ready to write down hundreds of names. But then nothing happens.

Maybe you draw a total blank, as if your brain has never met another human being. Or the opposite happens, and the only names that show up are people so far out of your league that you already know the answer is going to be no. You've got twelve downloads an episode, and you're mentally drafting an email to someone with a bestselling book and a TED talk. That doesn't feel like sourcing a guest; it feels like setting yourself up to get ignored.

So you close the note and tell yourself you'll figure it out later. We've all had that "later" quietly turn into never.

Finding guests is sourcing, not charisma

Here's the reframe that changes everything: finding guests isn't a talent you either have or don't. It's not about being well-connected or magnetic or knowing all the right people. It's a sourcing problem, and sourcing problems get solved with a system.

The creators who always seem to have guests lined up aren't more charming than you. They just have a repeatable list of places to look and a quick way to decide who's worth reaching out to. Once you stop treating this like a popularity contest and start treating it like a process, the freeze goes away because you always know your next move even if it results in your 5th rejection for the month.

You don't need a big audience to book good guests. You only need to know where to look.

Where to actually find guests for a small show

The biggest mistake new podcasters make is aiming exclusively at "celebrities" in their niche. Big names have a lot of followers, but they get pitched constantly, they don't know you, and a show with a small audience isn't an obvious yes for them. Instead, you should focus on peers. People roughly at your level are flattered to be asked, easier to reach, and often better guests because they're closer to the problems your listeners are actually living. Guests with a million followers don't need to worry about attracting your listeners because they're most likely already following them, but someone with a thousand would benefit from them.

So where do these people hang out? A few reliable sources:

Your own audience

The people already listening, commenting, and replying to your content are pre-qualified. They like your content enough to engage, and some of them have stories worth an episode. I've asked people who have said, " Oh, I love your podcast. I would love to be on", and it always makes me feel amazing.

Your network and their networks

Start with people you already know, then ask each of them one question: "Who else should I be talking to?" Referrals are the single warmest way to book a guest because someone has already vouched for you.

Guests from similar-size shows

Find three or four podcasts at roughly your level (and a little bit higher) in your niche and look at who they've had on. Those people already say yes to small shows and already know how to be a guest, so them being on is a no-brainer.

Niche communities

Slack groups, Discord servers, subreddits, Facebook groups, and old-school forums are full of people who are deeply in your topic and rarely get asked to talk about it, and they'll jump at the chance.

People already creating in your niche

Newsletter writers, small YouTubers, self-published authors, and indie founders are used to putting their ideas out there and usually love a new platform to do it on.

Guest-matching services and local meetups

PodMatch and similar services exist specifically to connect hosts and guests, and a local meetup in your industry can hand you a guest and a friend in the same afternoon.

Getting Started

Pick two or three of these and work them for a while. You don't need all six, but you do need enough so that you're never staring at a blank note again.

Qualify fast so you don't waste outreach

Once names start showing up, you need a quick filter so you're not pouring energy into people who were never a fit. Before you draft a single message, run each potential guest through four questions:

Do they fit your topic?

Would your listeners care what this person has to say? If you have to squint to make the connection, skip them.

Do they have a point of view or a story?

The best guests aren't the most credentialed; they're the ones who can tell a story and take a position. A great title with nothing to say makes for a rough episode.

Can you actually reach them?

A perfect guest with no findable email, no social presence, and no mutual connection is a fantasy, not a booking.

Are they at your level?

Not so big they'll never notice you, not so small that they'll add nothing. Aim for people a step or two along from where you are so you can both pull each up.

This whole check should take about thirty seconds per person. A fast filter means you spend your outreach energy on the people most likely to say yes and be a good interview candidate.

Keep a running list so you're never sourcing from zero

The freeze at the top of this post happens because you only think about guests when you need one. The system we want to cultivate is to capture ideas as you spot them. Read a post and the writer makes a sharp point? A listener leaves a great comment? Someone kills it as a guest on another show? Add them to your list.

You're building the front end of a guest pipeline, which is a whole system worth its own post. For now, the habit is simple: keep one list, add to it constantly, and never let it hit empty. When it's time to book, you're choosing from a menu instead of starting from a blank page. Once you're reaching out, you'll also want a way to track who you've asked and where things stand, which we covered in our guide to a simple guest tracking system and can easily be done using the bookings module in UnleashedPodcasts.

Why a steady source of guests protects your show

A reliable way to find guests does more than fill this week's episode. It's insurance against the scramble that kills interview shows.

Picture the alternative. You book one guest at a time, they cancel two days before recording, and suddenly you have no episode and no backup. That gap is exactly where podfade sneaks in, because the easiest thing to do when you have nobody to interview is nothing. Skip one week, then two, and the show goes quiet.

When you've got a running list and a repeatable way to grow it, one cancellation is a minor annoyance instead of a crisis. You reach into the list, send another message, and keep going. That's the whole game with consistency: you don't need more motivation, you need a system that makes the next step obvious even on the weeks you don't feel like it. Sourcing guests is one of those systems, and it's the first piece of a bigger guest booking system.

Keep the pipeline full

If you want more systems like this for staying consistent without relying on willpower, join The Steady Pack newsletter and subscribe to the podcast. We send the practical stuff and skip the fluff.

And when you're ready to stop juggling guest ideas across sticky notes and half-finished spreadsheets, Unleashed Podcasts keeps your list, your outreach, and your bookings in one place. Daisy, our accountability mascot, will even nudge you when the pipeline is getting thin so you spot the gap before it becomes a missed week.

Your next great guest is already out there and now you know where to look.