Stop Saving Your Best Content for Last—It's Killing Your Retention

Gimbal Podcast

24 Dec 2025 — 2 min read

Most creators tease their best insights to keep people watching. Rich Cardona, producer for Chris Do, says that's exactly backwards—and he has the data to prove it.

The Framework: "Make #1 the Banger"

Time to Value is a common metric in the creator economy—the time from when someone hits play to when they get the first real payoff you promised.

The conventional wisdom is wrong. "Stay for #5" tricks, dramatic buildups, dangling cliffhangers—they tank your content. Rich's approach flips this:

Deliver your deepest value first.

Here's why it works: when you fulfill fast, people trust you. That trust translates to longer watch time, not shorter. They stay because you delivered, not because you're holding something hostage.

Rich puts it simply: "Make #1 the banger. Fulfill fast—you'll increase watch time by delivering value, not dangling it."

This applies everywhere:

Short form: If it's "Top 5 things to start a podcast," make #1 the best tip
Long form: Hit the deepest insight early, circle back to background later
Interviews: Never open with "tell us about yourself"—you can't control what they'll say

How to Use This

Audit your current content. Find your best piece. How long until the first real insight? If it's past the 2-minute mark, you're losing people.
Restructure your next piece. Take whatever you'd normally save for the end and move it to the first 60 seconds.
Kill "tell us about yourself." For interviews, open with your most specific, researched question instead.
Test the counterintuitive. Rich says giving everything away early increases total watch time. Track your own retention curves before and after.
Apply to episode length. If you're a new show, earn trust with 20-minute episodes before asking for 75 minutes. "People trust you with 20 minutes before they trust you with 75."

What Else Rich Revealed

His 4-week pre-launch strategy using personal texts and voice notes (not email blasts) that turned a local Cincinnati podcast into a client acquisition machine
How a guest closed 3 dream clients in 5 weeks—and the specific guest experience that made it happen
The research trick that books guests "above your weight class"—and why Hot Ones' Sean Evans is the model to study

Watch the Full Episode

Connect with Rich

Website: unfltr.io
Instagram: @podcastrich

How the Spurs Cracked the Top 3 in NBA Social Media

Most teams obsess over perfecting every video before posting. Kent Heckel took the opposite approach with the San Antonio Spurs. It worked. The Framework: Output First, Quality Second When Kent joined the Spurs during the offseason, they sat at 27th out of the 30 teams on TikTok, and 12th on

The Research Method MrBeast's Team Used to Find What Actually Works

Most creators guess. MrBeast's team didn't. Here's the system one of their researchers used to turn YouTube's trending page into a pattern-finding machine, and how you can use a lighter version of it. The Weekly Outlier Audit Max Haller spent his days

The One-Page Format Zach King's Team Uses to Pitch Every Idea

Your best ideas are getting killed by how you present them. The fix takes five minutes and one sheet of paper. The T-Sheet Format Emile Rappaport, Senior Creative Director for Zach King, revealed the pitch format their team uses for every single video—borrowed directly from Pixar. It's

Drew Binsky Decides the Title Before He Buys the Plane Ticket. Here's Why.

AJ Vitiello has been Drew Binsky's Production Manager for five years, helping produce content across 197 countries. Their secret? They don't film videos—they film pre-validated ideas. Here's the method. The Title-First Method Most travel creators film first, then figure out what the video