Naomi Shah is the founder and CEO of Meet Cute. We discuss Naomi's early passion for STEM, being a Goldman Sachs equity trader, leaving VC to be a founder, why a rom-com podcast network solves a problem in the wellbeing market, raising $6M of capital during COVID, and how a non-Hollywood background makes her a better media entrepreneur.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Chris Erwin:

Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders.

Naomi Shah:

At the early stages, it was exploratory, "Let's make one of these stories, let's figure out how this process works." I was actually on the investment team at USV when I started working on this idea. I had a really close relationship with the partners at USV, two or three months into building this, they said, "Why don't you come in and pitch us more formally." And that was a crazy experience of being in the same room that I'd sat in for the last two years listening to pitches and being on the other side of the table pitching my old colleague.

Chris Erwin:

This week's episode features Naomi Shah, the founder and CEO of Meet Cute. Naomi grew up in Portland, and one of her earliest memories is not just learning to walk, but specifically walking to the local science museum. So from an early age, Naomi had a love for STEM and actually ended up going to Stanford to study mechanical engineering and human biology. But, her early career took her to Wall Street, first as an equities trader at Goldman Sachs, and then as an investor at Union Square, focusing on the intersection of entertainment and wellbeing. But after hearing hundreds of pitches and learning the power of story to convince her partners to invest, Naomi only decided to flip the script.

Chris Erwin:

She felt a large portion of the wellbeing market was under invested, and so wanted to create a product that mirrored the benefit of tech-powered health solutions, but done differently. And so Meet Cute, the rom-com podcast and modern media company was born. Naomi is one of the youngest founders I've interviewed on the show, and it was a lot of fun getting to know her over the past couple of months. Some highlights of our chat include growing up a tomboy, her love for the "Flubber room", how her family inspired her workplace culture, raising $6 million of startup capital during COVID, and how a non Hollywood background makes her a better media entrepreneur. 

All right. Let's get into it.

Chris Erwin:

Naomi. Thanks for being on the podcast.

Naomi Shah:

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Chris Erwin:

As we always do, let's dive back a little bit. I'm curious to know a little bit more about where you grew up and what your household and parents were like, so tell me about that.

Naomi Shah:

I grew up in Portland, Oregon, loved growing up there. I always say it's like a small little big town. It has all the elements of a big city, but just geographically smaller, fewer people. And I grew up with my mom, my dad and my older brother, Preem. My older brother is two and a half years older than me, I always felt like I was chasing him, following in his footsteps in various ways, and we're still very close.

Chris Erwin:

When you say you always felt like you were following in his footsteps, was it because of like different hobbies he had or sports or friend groups or things he was doing in school? What do you mean by that?

Naomi Shah:

I would say when I was younger, I was pretty tomboyish just like in terms of what he did. So if he wore Pokemon shirts, I wore Pokemon shirts, if he was playing Pokemon, I was doing that. If he was like roughhousing with his friends at the playground, I was doing that, I was always kind of chasing him. I would also say that as I grew up, because we both went to the same high school, I was always Preem's little sister in high school, and so all the teachers knew me as Preem's little sister. So it was just always part of my identity growing up.

Chris Erwin:

And was he excited to have you following him around or was it like, "Ugh, my little sister's here. This is annoying."

Naomi Shah:

No, my brother is somehow is super mature and always took care of me and was totally fine bringing me around. Even to this day, if he's hanging out with his friends, he's always like, "Oh yeah, my sister's in town, she'll come hang out with us."

Chris Erwin:

Jumping forward. But describing yourself as a tomboy growing up, and now you run a rom-com podcast network, a little bit of a funny juxtaposition there.

Naomi Shah:

Absolutely. I think it's hilarious. And even as a tomboy growing up, I loved rom-coms and I identified with a lot of the protagonists in rom-coms because one of my favorite ones growing up, Bend It Like Beckham was about a woman who really loved soccer and her parents wanted her to be the like classic good, perfect girl. And she was like, "Why can't I be that and play soccer?" Same thing with She's The Man. And so I always identified with that type of tension where I knew that I could play soccer, be really good at soccer, and still be a woman. I could really care about science and math and still wear makeup if I wanted to.

Naomi Shah:

And kind of taking away the tension between those two things was something that was really important to me growing up and something that I really appreciate that my mom spent a lot of time on with me. She's like, "Just because you do science fairs and you like swimming and soccer, it doesn't mean you can't care about what you wear and want to look nice and all of these other things that people associate with being feminine." And so I really liked being able to do both of those, and I think that that's a big part of my identity today.

Chris Erwin:

Speaking of your parents, you're just talking about your mom, what were your parents like? So we know that you have an early history and interest in STEM, today you're media and entertainment executive. Is that inspired by your parents at all? What did they do?

Naomi Shah:

My parents ran a company together, it was a software consulting company. And so pretty early on in life, my brother and I were exposed to my parents being leaders. And they would bring work home with them, they would talk about it at dinner, they'd talk about it when we were on family vacations. And so I always saw myself in a role where I was impacting a lot of change in an organization, not really knowing what that meant. More tactically, both my parents went to business school and studied business, so I always imagined that past for myself. It turns out I didn't end up going to business school and I just threw myself into founding. And I feel like I've picked up a lot of the things just by practicing it day to day that I would have learned in business school.

Naomi Shah:

So I kind of felt like I'd stepped off of their path there, but it was inspired by seeing how they ran a company together when they were in their early 20s and early 30s.

Chris Erwin:

Co-owners and co-running this company?

Naomi Shah:

Yeah. Yes. My mom was the president, my dad was the vice president.

Chris Erwin:

You think of things of like, okay, the family income is not diversified. It's not like if one person loses their job or the company goes under, the other one's okay. But it's also like, they work together, spend so much time together. I'm sure a lot of it went swimmingly, but there's probably times and it was difficult and challenging. Did that come into the home front as well?

Naomi Shah:

I can't remember that happening. And I think they did a good job of making sure that they protected us from that. To be completely honest, when I was growing up, all I knew is that my parents ran a company together, I didn't really look into what they were doing, what the company did, all of that. So I felt like I was sheltered from that a bit. I'm sure it did. I'm sure that there was a lot of complexities to running a company and they probably had to work through that, and they spent a lot of time together. But I think that they split up the roles and responsibilities both at home and at work in a way that worked really well for them.

Naomi Shah:

And there was also a lot of flexibility that you get from that, like my mom was there to pick us up from school and if we got sick, she would take care of us. When my mom would travel for work trips, my dad would turn into, we joked he was Mr. Mom and he would make all over meals for us and drop us off to play dates. And so they really shared the load. And I think that that has played into not only like how I see running a company and making sure that people feel ownership over different parts of it, but also how we think about relationships and how work and relationships can be a symbiotic relationship and not in tension with each other.

Chris Erwin:

That's well put. I was going to ask you, does entrepreneurship run in the family? Clearly. And, what are the values of your parents as entrepreneurs that i