#299: Naomi Shah, Founder and CEO at Meet Cute, a New Entertainment Brand Changing Listening Behavior with Scripted Audio Content

Jul 5, 2021

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Naomi Shah is the Founder and CEO of Meet Cute, a venture-backed media company that has produced over 300 original light-hearted romantic comedies in podcast form. The company celebrates human connection and the full spectrum of love with a core mission -- having every person feel like they are reflected in Meet Cute stories. Since inception (Feb 2020), the podcast already has over 2 million listens across over 150 countries and has been featured in the top 10 of Fiction on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Before starting Meet Cute, Naomi was a member of the investment team at Union Square Ventures, a technology venture capital firm in New York, where she spent most of her time talking to companies in the consumer and well-being space. Prior to that, she was a macro equities trader at Goldman Sachs and studied Mechanical Engineering (with a minor in Human Biology) at Stanford University.

Some of the Topics Covered by Naomi Shah in this Episode

What Meet Cute is
Deciding to start a VC backed startup after working at Union Square Ventures
The early Meet Cute team
Why their concept is unique and pushing past early noes
Getting traction to validate their format
Changing listening behavior with scripted content in audio
Meet Cute's business model
The creation process at Meet Cute
Distribution and discoverability
Strategy around changing formats
Naomi's experience fundraising for Meet Cute and what was helpful during the process
The importance of developing a relationship with your investors
How Naomi built out the team for Meet Cute and COVID's impact
Their unique approach to sourcing talent and maintaining a large pool of creative contributors
Navigating building a startup as a first-time, solo founder during a global pandemic

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