It’s not often you meet individuals with the tenacity to dream big and the intention to execute relentlessly to turn that dream into reality. When you first hear Naomi’s story, the first thing you notice is how exacting and intentional she is about the way she views the world, and the future she envisions. Her world view is indisputably shaped by her upbringing and her values define how she started her company and plans to lead it.
In this iteration of the Neythri FoundHer & FundHer spotlight, we’re excited to sit down with Naomi Shah, the Founder & CEO of MeetCute. After graduating from Stanford University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering, Naomi’s path before she started MeetCute shifted from tech to finance before leading her back to tech when she started the company. She worked on the IoT Markets & Ecosystem team before going over to Goldman Sachs to do equities trading. After a stint at Goldman, she found her way to the world of venture capital where she worked for the famed venture fund Union Square Ventures on the investment team before leaving to eventually start MeetCute.
MeetCute is a modern rom-com entertainment company. We produce and distribute feel-good content that inspires the full spectrum of love, leading with our 15-minute audio rom-coms and expanding into multi-season rom-com series. Our stories are filled to the brim with hope and human connection in a world that needs them. We are redefining what the rom-com is, one story at a time, by working with a diverse and global network of creators. You can find MeetCute on all audio platforms including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Read below to find out more about her story:
What does being a South Asian founder mean to you?
This is a really important question for me. Growing up being someone of South Asian descent, I knew that my practices and traditions were different from most of my friends: the food I ate, the clothes I’d wear, the way my parents raised me, and the list goes on. My family culture was a balance between West and East, growing up in Portland, Oregon. Fast forward to today, I think being a South Asian founder has been crucial in why I started Meet Cute and the mission that we are on: to inspire the full spectrum of love.
Our library of about 350 stories span many different communities including Black, Latinx, Native American, Asian, LGBTQ+, as well as geographic diversity (in ~20 states and outside the U.S.). We work with hundreds of creators (writers, producers, sound designers, and voice actors), and over half of our creative network is female and/or non-binary.
Meet Cute is rebuilding the genre to fit the social and cultural moment of today, and bringing in characters and settings that are more inclusive. Some of the themes and tags in our library of stories include: Queer, BIPOC-centered, Differently-Abled, Coming of Age, Nerd Culture, Second Chances, Relatable (“IRL”), First Loves, Tech/Dating App, Parents & Family, Nature, Seasonal, Self-Improvement, Pets, Sports & Athletics, Travel, Workplace, Weddings, Activism.
What’s great about audio storytelling is that listeners can imagine themselves, their friends, and their community as characters in the story so the experience becomes more real, and more intimate instead of just being served exactly what the characters and settings should look like.
Growing up, what influences helped set your course as a founder?
I was born to two immigrant parents from India. I watched them work hard to build a life together in a new country. Just before I was born, they started a company together, with my mom Sonal Shah, at the helm. Seeing my mother in positions of leadership at a young age made me realize early on that women could do anything. Now that I look back at it, my mom was playing two full-time roles as a mother and as a business woman. Without realizing it, she was showing both my brother and I that women could have an outsized impact not only on their immediate family, but also ripple into concentric circles out into their community, and out into the world.
Before she was a CEO, she wore pantsuits to dress like a man, because her first job was in sales at Merck and she was going head-to-head with other sales people who were 6’1 and very masculine. She taught me that being a leader is not about portraying power, it’s about portraying empathy. It’s about empathy towards people as a way to understand what your consumers want, empathy towards your team to be a team-player. My goal is for young women to hear “think like a woman”, and for it to mean leadership and empathy.
What is one thing you wish you would have known when starting out?
I wish I would have known how to have strong conviction in one’s ideas from the start. As a founder, it’s so important to 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. And don’t be afraid to ask for help. I’m fortunate to have an amazing team and so many mentors supporting me through this journey. There is nothing wrong or “weak” about asking for help, but it in fact shows that you are curious, want to learn, and deeply trust those supporting you.
What would you like to be known for?
I want to be an example of fearlessness in decision making and going down paths others haven’t before. One of our core values at Meet Cute is “Show don’t tell,” which I think says a lot about what it means to be a leader. Much of what we do at Meet Cute goes against the grain of traditional Hollywood and bridges the gap between technology and entertainment. We know that people want more consistent content, and we know that we are appealing to our listeners’ feelings. In taking a different approach to storytelling, we are also pushing the boundary of the scripted stories that get told in pop culture – ones that are undeniably fresh and diverse – by building a platform and a community around the feelings of hope and optimism.
In building this brand, I hope to be remembered as someone who stepped off the beaten path and whose work made people pause and think and feel a little differently. Above all, I hope to be remembered as an empathetic leader and a friend, and as someone who worked and cared for the community around her.
Who are the people you admire and believe are accomplishing great things right now?
I’ve been really catching notice of young female artists, like Billie Eilish and Olivia Rodrigo. It’s so important to realize the impact you have on society as a whole when you are in the spotlight like they are. These two individuals have been fearless in breaking the status quo and using different mediums and platforms to reach audiences. Even with a more edgy style like Billie has, she is showing everyone that it is okay to be how you are and to feel the way you feel in a very real and relatable way. On top of that, they are portraying these messages through their art form and through a creative lens that proves to touch more people than if they were just to preach their message rather than live it and show it.
What value do you think Neythri provides, and what do you hope to see more of?
Growing up in a predominantly Caucasian city, I grew up with a skewed image of power. Many individuals that I saw in powerful roles of leadership looked very similar. I was fortunate enough to grow up with two parents who worked tirelessly to make sure that my brother and I knew that we could accomplish anything we wanted to and how to work hard towards our goals. As a child of two immigrant parents, it was clear to me growing up that my parents had to work harder for what they wanted.
Neythri provides that example of resilience and success to South Asian women who are looking for a community to belong to. It’s amazing to see the rise of women, and specifically women of color, in today’s day, but it doesn’t hide the fact that we experience life and our career paths very differently. Having a community where you feel a sense of belonging and support is essential and I love to see the impact Neythri is having on these women.
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Author Bio:
Pranavi is an investor at Acceleprise where she manages our investing activities across our accelerator and seed fund. Prior to Acceleprise, she did early stage investing at a venture fund in the Bay Area where she focused on enterprise software and healthcare and spent some time on the trading floor at RBC Capital Markets. She also blogs at publicbeta.substack.com and her work has been published on platforms such as TechCrunch, Crunchbase and Hackernoon. She’s passionate about emerging economies and the public sector, diversity in tech, and most importantly, people.
