FanFare

Young entrepreneurs aspiring to launch virtual dreams into reality compete for success and love in the cutthroat world of Korea's high-tech industry. (Netflix, tvN) [more inside]
posted by oh yeah! on Dec 7, 2020 - 2 comments

Five years ago, StartUp began chronicling the life of a fledgling Brooklyn-based podcasting company called Gimlet Media. This year, the streaming giant Spotify bought that company. In the final season of StartUp, what it's really like to sell a business. [more inside]
posted by General Malaise on Oct 20, 2019 - 2 comments

Gimlet co-founders Alex Blumberg and Matt Lieber are pretty much on the same page...right? This week, we put their relationship to the test. Producer Luke Malone got Matt and Alex into separate studios and asked them the same set of questions. Then, Matt and Alex listened back to each other's answers and find out if they're really as in sync as they thought. Do the same things keep them up at night? Do they want the same things for the company? And what were their first impressions of one another? [more inside]
posted by radioamy on Apr 6, 2018 - 1 comment

Jason from Bento started a business that prepared and delivered pan-Asian meals on demand. Lauren and Emma from Dating Ring wanted to reinvent online dating. Mary from Saint Harridan made sharp suits for masculine women and trans men. And Mike moved food across international borders, evading employees of a large grocery store chain. This episode, we return to some of the companies we followed in previous seasons and find out how their founders are doing—and what the label "entrepreneur" means to them now.
posted by bq on Jul 12, 2017 - 0 comments

Mokhtar Alkhanshali is trying to produce the perfect cup of coffee. And he's trying to do it with beans grown in the midst of an active war zone in Yemen. Despite those challenges, his company's first batch earned rave reviews, and sold for $16 a cup at one of the fanciest coffee chains around. But can he turn that early success into a profitable business, or will the challenges of trying to achieve perfection using a supply chain that starts halfway around the world do his young company in? [more inside]
posted by radioamy on Jul 8, 2017 - 2 comments

You called with your questions. Alex Blumberg has your answers—about growth, diversity at Gimlet and, oh yeah, that ABC sitcom that's currently being made about the first season of StartUp. [more inside]
posted by bq on Jul 4, 2017 - 7 comments

In 1983 a guy named Stuart Anders invented a toy that would become a huge hit -- one of the biggest fad toys of a generation. But the toy world can be treacherous, and Stuart's big idea left him broke. Now he's back with a new toy and a surprising ally.
posted by bq on Jul 1, 2017 - 0 comments

In 2003, Jonathan Abrams was sitting atop one of the hottest new companies in Silicon Valley. He and his website were at the forefront of an industry that would eventually be worth more than $400 billion. So, what went wrong? Let's discuss episode 2, the second part of this episode, as well.
posted by bq on Jul 1, 2017 - 2 comments

Season Finale. Following his ousting from American Apparel, Dov Charney has been eager to restart and launch his new venture. He has assembled the fabric, the equipment, and the people to help make his new clothing line. Now he needs to find his customer base. [more inside]
posted by sparklemotion on Dec 28, 2016 - 18 comments

This week, Alex receives feedback about his job performance from his co-workers, friends, and family. Some of it is good, some less so. But there is something else that comes up during the review process that shocks him. We explore what happens when you unpack your emotional baggage—or someone unpacks it for you—and you realize the unexpected effect that it has been having on your team. In this final Gimlet-focused episode of season four, we take a raw and intimate look at a defining moment in the trajectory of a CEO.
posted by radioamy on Oct 21, 2016 - 17 comments

Growth. It can be exciting, it can be motivating, and it can be really stressful. In this week's episode, we take a look at the tensions that Gimlet's growth spurt is creating. We speak with the team producing one of our upcoming shows to see what it's really like to build a podcast from the ground up. Each of them is being asked to step up to the plate in a way that they never have before, and some are realizing that the support they expected, it just isn't there. People are pushed to their limits, emotions run high, and things that have remained hitherto unsaid are finally aired. [more inside]
posted by radioamy on Oct 15, 2016 - 4 comments

A story of asylum, ashes, and acidophilus. [more inside]
posted by radioamy on Jun 24, 2016 - 5 comments

The two-part story of ConBody kicks off just as one of the co-founders is about to make his pitch, flashes back to the company's unusual backstory, and then concludes post-pitch. [more inside]
posted by CMcG on Jun 18, 2016 - 6 comments

Two men decide to start a company. Everything is going well… until it’s not. That’s the moment they decide to start recording their conversations—painful, awkward, emotional conversations. [more inside]
posted by noneuclidean on May 27, 2016 - 13 comments

When a group of college kids in Florida set out to change the music industry, they did not anticipate quite how disruptive they would be. Their mission was a noble one: bring an end to online piracy by offering cheap, convenient, and legal access to music. Their execution, however, was less than thorough. And when you’re dealing with protective music labels, forgetting to dot an “i” or cross a “t” can mean being one lawsuit away from the swift and unceremonious death of your company. [more inside]
posted by noneuclidean on May 13, 2016 - 10 comments

A backpack, a camera, and a big idea
posted by Tevin on Apr 15, 2016 - 10 comments

Lisa Chow comes back from maternity leave and notices some big changes at Gimlet. And these changes... they aren't all for the better. Lisa talks to Gimlet employees about concerns over power, accountability, and control - things that crop up when you go from startup, to regular company. And she takes those concerns to the bosses.
posted by radioamy on Jan 8, 2016 - 9 comments

Gimlet is starting a new line of business, and it's a complicated one: Branded content. As we see in this episode, there are some very real anxieties about how to do this right.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle on Nov 21, 2015 - 13 comments

Gimlet is making a big, expensive bet. The kind of bet that could make or break the company. And it's a bet that comes down to one factor: What is Gimlet's competitive advantage? As the company launches its fourth new show, "Surprisingly Awesome," we take a deep dive in to how the show was made.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle on Nov 12, 2015 - 11 comments

Under pressure, the Dating Ring founders make a big decision. [more inside]
posted by radioamy on Jun 26, 2015 - 15 comments

In online dating, love is not blind. How do deal with customers who make their dating choices based on race, and why the blind date business model didn't work. [more inside]
posted by skewed on Jun 5, 2015 - 10 comments

With funding running low, customers growing irate, and themselves at odds, Dating Ring's founders find themselves in the trough of sorrow and undertake a radical rethink of the company's focus.
posted by psoas on May 19, 2015 - 8 comments

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 on May 8, 2015 - 4 comments

First comes love...then comes equity StartUp is a podcast series about what it's really like to get a business off the ground. In Season 1, Alex Blumberg told the story of launching this business, Gimlet Media, a podcast network. In Season 2, Alex is joined by co-Host Lisa Chow, to follow an entirely new company. The business is Dating Ring, a dating company that combines technology with old-fashioned matchmaking. The founders are women in their 20s, outsiders in the male-dominated world of Silicon Valley. And over the 10 episodes, we'll take you inside that world. Some of the challenges they face are different from Alex's: founder disagreements, hellish fundraising, and sexism. But just like Gimlet's story, theirs is also a transparent account of something that happens everyday in America, but we rarely get to see firsthand: starting a business.
posted by Tevin on Apr 23, 2015 - 7 comments

The final episode of Season 1. Alex reviews where he started and where the company is now. He talks to his insightful wife, Nazanin, and investor Chris Sacca. In the second half, Alex and Lisa introduce the company that will be featured in Season 2.
posted by radioamy on Feb 17, 2015 - 14 comments

This installment addresses an a question that was brought up in earlier episodes, back before Gimlet was an actual business: are they a technology company or a content company? [more inside]
posted by radioamy on Feb 3, 2015 - 9 comments

Alex Blumberg is a former producer for This American Life and Planet Money. Last year he founded Gimlet Media, a podcast network, and hosts its first show, StartUp. “When someone starts talking about something difficult, when they get unexpectedly emotional, your normal human reaction is to sort of comfort and steer away. To say, ‘Oh I’m sorry, let’s move on.’ What you need to do, if you want good tape, is to say, ‘Talk more about how you’re feeling right now.’ It feels like a horrible question to ask. It feels like you're going against your every instinct as a decent human being to go toward the pain that this person is experiencing.” Thanks to TinyLetter, Lynda and Alarm Grid for sponsoring this week's episode. [more inside]
posted by bq on Jan 30, 2015 - 1 comment

Gimlet Media addresses a company mistake. [more inside]
posted by sparklemotion on Dec 10, 2014 - 7 comments