The Origins of I Can’t Sleep – A Surprisingly Sleepy Success Story

I Can’t Sleep

Benjamin Boster & Glassbox Media

Mental Health, Health & Fitness, Alternative Health

4.6 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 March 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Ever wondered how a soothing voice, an old app, and a Parks and Rec joke turned into a full-time sleep podcast? Neither did I—but here we are. From a homemade recording booth to nearly 350 episodes, this is the story of how I Can’t Sleep became the bedtime staple you never knew you needed. Want More? Request a topic: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/request-a-topic Listen ad-free & support: https://icantsleep.supportingcast.fm/ Shop sleep-friendly products: https://www.icantsleeppodcast.com/sponsors Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to a Glassbox media podcast.
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0:33.4	like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.
0:39.9	Welcome to a bonus episode of the I Can't Sleep Podcast, where I bore you to sleep with my
0:45.2	soothing voice, one fact at a time. I'm your host, Benjamin Boster. And tonight's episode is
0:52.6	going to be a little different.
1:03.1	Instead of using the typical Wikipedia article readings, I thought I'd take a moment to share the fairly unexpected journey that led to the I Can't Sleep podcast.
1:13.9	It all started with an old app, a frustratingly soothing voice, and an unexpected source of inspiration from the delightful TV show Parks and Recreation. So back in 2016, I remember discovering an app called anchor.fm, which initially
1:22.4	made it easy to record and share audio with other people. I felt like it was trying to be something along
1:29.0	the lines of an audio version of Twitter. I love the idea of the app and what it was trying to
1:34.8	accomplish. I remember playing around with the app quite a bit, but it never felt like it was really
1:40.0	going somewhere. And then months later, I learned that they were pivoting their direction and focusing
1:45.5	more on helping new podcasters get started. They made it super easy. They had some music you could
1:52.3	include. You just had to upload your content and publish it, and they would send it out to all the
1:58.1	different podcasting platforms. That was intriguing to me because I love the idea of starting a podcast, but it'd
2:04.7	struggled to find any sort of topic that made sense to me.
2:08.3	And so just kind of ruminated in the back of my mind for a while.
2:12.0	As time went on, I remember multiple occasions where people would share a very common thing, which was,
	...

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