The Raymond Thirty podcast is an audio program Raymond Hou and his wife, Song Zhiyou (Yuzu), began recording in March 2020. It was also the earliest content channel for the Raymond Thirty brand. “Raymond” in the title comes from Raymond’s English name; “Thirty” refers to the Confucian Analects phrase “at thirty, I took my stand.” Raymond was 25 when the show began, five years away from turning 30. The age marker became not only the show’s theme but the name of the broader brand, which later grew to include a newsletter, online courses, and the central “Super Individual” theme.
The Name and the Original Intention
In the first-season trailer (EP00), Raymond explained three meanings behind the show’s name. First, it asked, “What can we accomplish before 30?” Each month, the show interviewed one or two people approaching 30, documenting their circumstances and choices at that age. Second, it gave Raymond, still on the road to 30, a place to document his life, work, and family. Third, he intended it as a long-term undertaking. The trailer quoted a core line: “A society progresses when we stop looking down on each person around us.” Raymond used this to express his longstanding dislike of credentialism—the use of age, gender, or identity to limit what a person can do.
Evolution Across Three Seasons
The podcast was released in three seasons, each corresponding to a transition in Raymond’s life. Season one (March–August 2020, 50 episodes) began while Raymond and Yuzu were still employees. Its theme was “As careers face a paradigm shift, what possibilities do we have?” Through “People Approaching Thirty” and “Independent People” segments, the show interviewed people with unconventional careers. At the same time, they created the “Meng Friends” Facebook group and held in-person “Individual Meetups” and reading groups. In season two, beginning in October 2020, both had left their jobs and started a company. The theme shifted to “How do we run ourselves like a company?” The show explored companies of one, digital nomadism, freelance work, lifehacking, and individual entrepreneurship, building a serialized program around the company-of-one idea. Season three relaunched in August 2023 after a two-year hiatus as “investigative interviews.” Instead of asking which successful things guests had done, it asked what tools they used, what habits they had, and what workflows they used to solve life problems. Guests included the manager of the Computer Playthings website and Zhu Qi, author of How to Take Smart Notes. 1
Results and Positioning
At the end of season one, the show had more than 1,500 subscribers, over 100,000 total downloads, and briefly reached number two in its category ranking. 2 But Raymond said in the season-one retrospective that subscriber count was only a “vanity metric.” What mattered to him was whether 10 percent—about 200 people—were devoted listeners who played each episode as soon as it came out. He also used the principle that “paid subscribers reflect a real relationship better than free subscribers” to decide what to do next. This criterion directly led to launching a paid newsletter and membership service alongside season two.
Hiatus and Business Tradeoffs
The last episode was released in late August 2021 and still had nearly 20,000 listeners. The show then went on hiatus for about two years. When relaunching season three, Raymond candidly explained the practical reason: for them, the podcast was more like journaling and leisure-time reflection, without a direct link to business revenue. After leaving their jobs, they had to prioritize products, services, and memberships. During the hiatus, the team focused on the Notion boot camp, Lifehacker Premium membership, smart-home project, YouTube channel, corporate training, and Raymond Weekly. This tradeoff reflected a principle Raymond often states: “If there is something you want to do, try it in the smallest way possible.” If it does not work, cut it decisively to avoid falling into the sunk-cost trap. In January 2024, the team also ended a Facebook group it had run for three years, consolidating the brand’s energy around its newsletter, membership community, and video content. 3
Influence and Legacy
The podcast was the earliest testing ground for Raymond’s content philosophy: “We share what we are doing.” It was also the first place where key ideas such as “company of one,” “lifehacking,” and “individual entrepreneurship” were discussed systematically. The first season’s interviews with people approaching 30, the second season’s serialized company-of-one program, and the third season’s workflow-focused interviews were all later incorporated into Raymond’s courses and the Super Individual (Super Individual) theme. For Raymond personally, the show also testified to a relationship with listeners. One comment—“After listening to the company-of-one series, I feel like I have more coworkers”—became one reason he kept going.
Related concepts: Super Individual, Remote Work, Career Development
Sources
Footnotes
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Raymond Hou, “S3EP01: Relaunching Season Three—What Kind of Podcast Do We Want to Make? / What Have We Done in These 30 Months?” podcast, 2023-08-10. View original ↩
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Raymond Hou, “Weekend Meeting #11: A Five-Month Retrospective on Making and Running a Podcast—What Comes Next Season?” podcast, 2020-08-07. View original ↩
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Raymond Hou, “Raymond Thirty Facebook Group Ends: Three Years Conclude, a New Beginning,” public Facebook post, 2024-01-07. View original ↩