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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