StartUp Podcast: Another Side Of The Story (Season 2, #3)

May 8, 2015 9:23 AM

Picking up where the last episode left off, at YC's Demo Day, the women of Dating Ring start trying to raise money. At the post-Demo mixer, Emma gets her first (literal) brush with sexism when an investor gropes her and then offers her $50k. Subsequent meetings go better and they manage to raise $400k in angel funds while "riding the wave." Then the tide turns - the investors' questions start getting tougher, and the rejections pile up. The founders begin to wonder - how much of their struggle is due to quality of their product and pitch, and how much is just plain sexism?
posted by radioamy (4 comments total)

This episode really captivated me, and I'm glad that I've stuck around (I wasn't crazy about the first two episodes of this season). I was sick to my stomach when Emma told the story about the "side boob" grope and her reaction to the situation. Silicon Valley's sexism has been in the news a lot recently, but it was really interesting to hear from this first-person perspective. You really felt the founders' sense of doubt - about what was actually happening, about their power to do anything about it, and about the advantages of speaking out about it.
posted by radioamy at 9:25 AM on May 8, 2015

Something was bothering me about this season in terms of following along and I finally figured it out. For some reason they are going with two different narrators on a relatively short podcast that regularly pingpoing back and forth and I just think it's too many voices: I feel like their narration dominates the podcasts and can be confusing, while the first season felt like someone talking in their own voice. I'd like to hear more recording directly from the subjects of the story and maybe just one narrator.
posted by selfnoise at 10:10 AM on May 8, 2015

Yes, there are definitely too many narrators. You've got the three founders and three reporters/producers. I'd also argue that the founders' voices are fairly similar and hard to distinguish.
posted by radioamy at 10:42 AM on May 8, 2015

Really solid episode - this covered a very important part of the tech industry (sexism) in a direct and personal way. Crucially, it was distinct from anything covered in S1. Huge improvement on the first two episodes, and I hope they continue to pursue these kinds of stories.
posted by adrianhon at 11:46 AM on May 9, 2015