Naomi Shah is the founder + CEO of Meet Cute, a venture-backed entertainment brand that has produced over 300 original, scripted 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, she 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.
What is Meet Cute all about?
Meet Cute is a rom-com entertainment company. We make stories that take you from the meet cute moment between two characters to happily ever after in 15 minutes. Meet Cute was founded to create a new format of entertainment that was short-form, audio-only, and uplifting.
We wanted it to be the antidote to the uncertain headlines we are hit with every morning when we pick up our phones. Our mission statement is “to inspire the full spectrum of love” and that’s the biggest gap we wanted to address through storytelling within rom-coms – a whole genre devoted to hope, human connection, and happiness. Short, fits-anywhere-in-your-day, fictional content is still quite underserved in the world of podcasts.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and made my way down to Stanford for school — I went in wanting to be a cardiologist or brain surgeon and ended up with a Mechanical Engineering degree, and a minor in Human Biology. Having spent my entire life on the west coast, I jumped at the opportunity to work in New York after I graduated and started out on the trading floor at Goldman Sachs. I soon craved something more people-oriented and creative, so applied to Union Square Ventures, an early-stage VC in New York. At USV, I developed a deep interest in our “wellbeing” thesis and investing in pockets of wellbeing that were often overlooked but extremely important to people.
For example, the part that people opt into for fun and not because they have to. This category includes movies, podcasts, concerts, and the like. Through spending time with companies in this space, I knew there was something interesting in short-form content, audio as a medium, and feel-good content. I work at the intersection of all three of those now with Meet Cute.
What was the biggest problem you encountered with your business and how did you overcome it?
The biggest challenge has been navigating a young entertainment startup through a global pandemic over the past 16 months. COVID set in just a month after we officially launched. As a small team, we were able to pivot our processes quickly to be able to continue producing stories in a completely remote world. But it takes time to build culture, create meaningful partnerships, and raise funding among other things.
For us, being completely remote was yet another constraint that forced us to get creative. I’m proud of the way we managed each facet of company growth in a completely new market and pushed through the last year. Besides being a tough year for businesses, it was a tough year emotionally and mentally and it took recognizing that and communicating about it openly on our team to be able to work together through it all.
What were the top mistakes you made starting your business and what did you learn from it?
In the early days, we were releasing each chapter as a separate file on our public feeds, so each story had 5 unique links. What we realized is that the podcast platforms were not built for scripted storytelling content. As people were listening to stories, the order of the chapters would sometimes get jumbled up, confusing people who were expecting the classic narrative arc of a rom-com.
While we loved the idea of breaking up our stories into little three-minute chunks, we quickly pivoted to 15-minute stories, with little sounds denoting each chapter instead. The result? Much stickier listening and more people completing stories through to the happily ever after, and even re-listening to parts of the story. The lesson in that is to not be too precious and listen to what users are telling you through their behavior. User experience is everything.
What is one thing that you do daily to grow as an entrepreneur?
Ask questions and for feedback. There is nothing weak or wrong about asking people for help and feedback regularly. In fact, it shows that you are curious and want to grow in a consistent way. I read a lot about the industry, even parts of it that aren’t specifically relevant to audio or fiction because I never know what might spark an idea or a new question.
Sometimes it might seem easier to figure each piece out on your own, but it’s not sustainable and there will be breaking points in that strategy. So I read a lot every day and learn from others both passively and actively. I think that’s a good growth strategy for any entrepreneur.
What are three books or courses you recommend for new entrepreneurs?
Gentleman in Moscow (constraints breeds creativity), No Rules Rules (reinventing culture), and The Boys In The Boat (a story of intense determination).
What is the one thing you wish you knew before starting your business?
One major learning for me has been to acknowledge that there are certain things you can’t control like the end result (the output), but you can control how hard you work and the process behind the ideas you put out in the world (the input).
The process of turning a constraint into something that enables creativity in a new way at startup is really important at the early stages, and also really fun. Chasing that feeling of building process versus “success” (which is ever-changing) is the best way to build, and it took me time to learn that and internalize it.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new startup, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
Testing for idea-market fit to ensure that we have identified a gap in the market and it’s something that people are drawn to, even if they didn’t know they needed it yet. The $1000 dollars would be used to build a V1 prototype, distribute it, and create a feedback loop.
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
Have conviction: Trust your gut and the people around you to back you up. Starting a company is full of decisions that just need to be made, and having conviction is a way to show up consistently for those around you and lead from a place of confidence.
What is your favorite quote?
“When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive, to think, to enjoy, to love…”
I like this quote from Meditations because there are always small things that can stress me out on any given day — small bumps that might seem impassable in a given moment — especially in the founding days of a new company. But thinking about how lucky I am to be working on a new entertainment company centered around hope and happiness, with an incredible early team, investors who care, and a positive mission statement is a feeling that inspires me to bring 110 percent to work every day.
How can readers get in touch with you?
For more Meet Cute, listen here (or anywhere you listen to podcasts), and follow us on Instagram and Tik Tok for more rom-coms and behind-the-scenes content! You can also find me on Twitter. Come hang!
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