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This is the first article in a series that will outline how “How I Built This” episodes are put together in such a way that makes listeners want to keep on listening.

 

This article will take a deeper look into the first ten minutes of the episode featuring Joe Gebbia, the founder of Airbnb. Specifically, I’ll delve into how the creators of the episode strategically creates questions and integrates music to grab and hold the attention of their listeners.

 

“How I Built This” has a signature move: starting out the episode at a pinnacle moment for the featured entrepreneur — the most surprising part of the story being told. This moment has to be short, concise, to the point, and yet still provide enough background information that the listener can understand what the storyteller is talking about. A lot of the time, this point of interest is a time the entrepreneur failed miserably, like in this episode. This grabs the listener’s attention because any listener going into this podcast has at least a basic understanding of what they are about to hear: the story of how a big time entrepreneur made it and became so successful. So, when the first thing you hear is a big failure, you immediately wonder, how did they go from what sounds like rock bottom to the very top rung of the ladder?

This episode’s intro was specifically well done, just because the storyteller provided four things naturally:

 

1. “We ended up going from 0 to 800 homes in a matter of four weeks.”

The word “homes” is critical in this sentence. By reading the episode title, you know that it is about the founder of Airbnb, but giving that signal word gently brings listeners into the topic at hand.

 

2.“I thought, this was it.”

 Clearly it wasn’t, based on the way he said this line. This line alone keeps listeners at least another 10 seconds longer, just to find out why that wasn’t “it.”

 

3. “This was our rocket ship to the moon.”

 Any time an interviewee uses any kind of analogy or imagery like this, you want to do anything you can to feature it. You can do this either by using it in the intro like this one is used, or by pulling down and stopping the music to make something like this stand out on its own. In audio storytelling, anything that can help create an image in your listener’s mind is helpful, especially when it is said with as much enthusiasm as this guy uses.

 

4. “We get introduced to 20 investors in Silicon Valley, 10 of them reply to our email, 5 of them meet us for coffee, 0 invested in us.”

 

Joe Gebbia has probably said this line tons of times before, just because he knows it encapsulates his story well — either that, or he naturally speaks in perfectly parallel sentences. But listeners don’t know that he’s used it before, and a line like that is a golden nugget for an audio storyteller. Sentences set up with such amazing parallelism is like turning words into an image for listeners. He starts each part of the sentence off with a number; the numbers decrease as the sentence continues, and he does a slight but effective pause that emphasizes the word zero. 

 

This line also opens up so many questions for listeners right off the bat — clearly Airbnb is successful; how did they get there if no one invested in them? Why didn’t anyone originally invest in them? These questions will remain unanswered for a large portion of the episode — at least until they are able to replace these questions with other big questions to keep the listeners interested.

 

After the intro music comes in, we get a quick introduction of the topic from Guy Raz, the host. This doesn’t have to be long because the episode title tells us everything we need to know. So, Guy doesn’t repeat what doesn’t need to be said again —the episode is called Airbnb: Joe Gebbia, so by calling it “a company that has more rooms than the biggest hotel chain in the world,” he provides more information than we had before while also introducing the topic without being repetitive.

 

Guy Raz also takes it upon himself to tell listeners basic but necessary background information on the business partners of Airbnb, but doesn’t waste any time getting too detailed. In the interview, I’m sure when Joe talked about his relationship with his business partner, he talked about more than just playing pick up basketball with him. But, peppering in little details like that along with information like what college they went to, Joe’s graduation year, and just providing a general time line of Joe’s past experience helps listeners create a more complete story in their heads. Guy tells us all of this background information we need to know in a clear and concise timeline format with just enough detail, and lets Joe speak for the important, key events in his life.

 

I want to point out the jokes about ramen that come in at around 3:27. This is skillful in both the interview and the episode. Making that joke while interviewing someone makes that person more comfortable and thus more likely to continue opening up and giving great answers to questions. Including it in the actual episode makes the conversation feel more real and natural to the listeners, which makes the storyteller as well as Guy people listeners can relate to.

 

How I Built This has an impeccable usage of music. For this episode specifically, I’ll highlight 3:35, when Joe says, “And then, something ominous happened, a letter came in the mail.” This is a turning point mood wise for the episode, and the music fade out makes this mood shift apparent. Up until this point, they have been talking fairly generally and have been joking around a bit while providing background knowledge. Then, Joe signals a shift by saying “and then,” and at this point the music stops, making his storytelling more dramatic, which in turn makes you as the listener pay more attention to what is about to be said.

 

At 4:50, the episode creators bring new music back up to signal Joe’s reflection on a new story. The music always mirrors the mood of the story, and shifts as the story shifts, but not in an obvious, over-the-top manner. It’s done tactfully so listening is as easy and natural as possible.

 

The music also stops entirely when the storyteller’s voice gets the most enthusiastic. For example, at 5:50, when Joe says, “Oh my God, what have I done?”

When the storyteller’s voice is interesting and engaging enough on it’s own, it’s smart to bring the music down entirely — doesn’t just fade out, but stop it more immediately to accentuate and really spotlight the storyteller’s voice and the importance of what they are saying.

 

Guy Raz also has a way with summary questions. He does an incredible job of summarizing the general idea of what the storyteller has just said, and then ending that summary with a question that moves the story along in an interesting direction. There’s an example of him doing this at 6:20 in this episode.

 

Another skillful placement of music is at 7:40, when Joe says, “It was literally called airbedandbreakfast.com.” The music is brought up when the story starts to come together — when a connection starts to be made between the story and the answer to the overarching question, how did Joe end up creating Airbnb. There is also the nice touch of a slight but dramatic pause afterwards that allows for the idea to really sink in.

 

At 8:30, the music fades down into the background again when the story gets deeper and Joe’s voice gets more interesting and engaging on its own again.

 

The last thing I want to point out is at 10:00, when Guy brings the storyteller back to his story. Joe was starting to get wrapped up in a bigger concept, a takeaway from his life story. This takeaway is good to have, but it’s also easy for interviewees to shy away from continuing to talk about themselves for too long. Sometimes they want to get into talking about bigger picture ideas, which are great to touch on but dangerous to focus on. So, it was necessary for Guy to cue Joe with a specific question that brought him back to his own story. Details and specificity is everything in audio storytelling.

 

In the next article of this series, I will explain how Guy Raz uses signposting to keep you listening even after the first ten minutes.