Businesswoman Special 2: Podcast Millionaires
3/8/19 - Aminatou, Ann, and Gina discuss the business of Call Your Girlfriend, LLC, in this hyper-transparent check-in. We still make most of our money from the ads you hear on the podcast, but we've branched out into live touring, more merch, and adding team members! (Welcome Sophie Carter-Kahn of She's All Fat fame, who is doing our social media!!) How CYG fits into all of our individual work lives (and LLCs). Then, we hear from Claire Mazur and Erica Cerulo about the bestie-preneurship secrets they uncover in their new book, Work Wife.
Transcript below.
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CREDITS
Producer: Gina Delvac
Hosts: Aminatou Sow & Ann Friedman
Theme song: Call Your Girlfriend by Robyn
Composer: Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs.
Associate Producer: Destry Maria Sibley
Visual Creative Director: Kenesha Sneed
Merch Director: Caroline Knowles
Editorial Assistant: Laura Bertocci
Ad sales: Midroll
TRANSCRIPT: Businesswoman Special II: Podcast Millionaires
[Ads]
(0:50)
Aminatou: Welcome to Call Your Girlfriend.
Ann: A podcast for long-distance besties everywhere.
Aminatou: I'm Aminatou Sow.
Ann: And I'm Ann Friedman. And joining us today is Gina Delvac!
Gina: Hey! On this week's agenda we're revisiting our businesswoman special with updates on how we make the pod and what goes into the business of Call Your Girlfriend, LLC.
Ann: A main reason why we wanted to revisit our businesswoman special this week is because of some other business women we live, our pals Claire Mazur and Erica Cerulo of Of a Kind who have a brand new book out called Work Wife.
[Theme Song]
(1:54)
Aminatou: How do we make the pod?
Ann: That's a great question.
Aminatou: Existential question.
Gina: It's true, how? And why? [Laughs]
Ann: I mean not just how do we make it. I do feel like how do we make the money is at times less transparent, like recently I had a conversation with someone who was genuinely shocked by the fact that we are not podcast millionaires.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Gina: What are we doing wrong?
Aminatou: I mean I'm going to tell you everything we're doing wrong in five seconds.
Ann: Go for it. You want to hit the critique of our budget right now?
Aminatou: I mean the critique is mostly that we're not interesting white dudes. I think that that's true.
Ann: Wow.
Aminatou: But that's a very easy -- that's like an easy critique so I won't even go there.
Ann: Are you talking about any men in particular?
Aminatou: Yeah, do you want me to name all of them? Ten million of them right now. First of all I think that people just don't understand money in general so whenever somebody's like "What? You're not making millions from a podcast?" I'm like nobody's making millions from a podcast. Relax.
Ann: Like three people are.
Aminatou: Yeah, like three people. But that's generally not how money works in the world. That's one thing. But I also think that it is true that within the money that is distributed in our industry it's not distributed equally. That's my hot take. [Laughs]
Ann: Well I'm going to do a little bit of on the last episode, the last time we had a conversation about our business for the podcast.
Gina: Previously on Businesswoman Special.
Ann: We had successfully gotten ad representation. We were selling ads on the show. I think we had been on tour, right? We'd done a few live shows.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Ann: And we were perhaps selling some merch? We were kind of at the beginning of a lot of revenue streams and parts of our business. And I think mostly we talked about the fact that it took a long time from when we first started making this podcast to when we started making any money from it. And part of that journey was accepting that what we had done was in fact start a business together. So that's like the headline summary.
Aminatou: Accidental business. [Laughs]
Ann: Accidental business owners is like the subtitle. So right, so then the question is we three who are now openly acknowledging that we are in fact in a business partnership, what's been going on?
Aminatou: I would say that structurally very few things have changed. So if you're somebody who listens every week you get a show every week, it gets done the same way. Like that part is pretty rote.
Ann: There are ads on it.
Aminatou: You know, like there are ads on it. The thing is the thing. [Laughs]
Gina: Well the podcast is still the center of the business.
(4:25)
Aminatou: Right. I think that a couple of things have changed. We've introduced some sponsored episodes that we've done on a not-Friday basis, like Friday is the day that the show drops. They're very well-branded. The whole thing is -- you know, it's like one big ad for a thing. We've gone on tour again. We have done more merchandise. We have -- you know, we've learned more about being business ladies. It's both been infuriating and very rewarding and fun.
Ann: Also the team has grown. Shout-out to Destry, our associate producer.
Aminatou: Hey!
Gina: Yeah, and Carly Knowles has been expanding our range and lines of merch. So I think we'd done some merch last time we talked but she's really been at the forefront of figuring out all the cool products that you see stocked in the shop.
Ann: Yeah, and Sophie Carter-Kahn is coming onboard to do some social stuff, so . . .
Aminatou: Right, and Laura Bertacci (?) is also helping with some admin things too. So we have this . . .
Aminatou: There's a team. [Laughs]
Ann: There's a team. We actually just realized there's a team. Oh my god. This is why we do these episodes.
Aminatou: There's a team. We have a touring agent, shout-out to Doug.
Ann: Wow.
Aminatou: There's totally a team. CYG is not just the three of us in our underwear texting each other anymore.
Ann: Well let's talk about, because you stopped on tour there, maybe we can talk a little bit about touring and whether it is the mega money-maker that it is made out to be. For example like in the music business is that our experience?
Aminatou: [Laughs] Like is that true? Is that true?
Ann: Loaded question.
(5:55)
Aminatou: Well as you know podcasting is just like rapping. So you don't get rich off of the music; you get rich off of touring and merchandise. At least that's what I've been told by the rappers I know, and by rappers I mean the Internet. So, you know, the thing about touring that's interesting is we . . . I will be very honest in that in my hierarchy of things that we do it is not my favorite thing.
Ann: It's hard.
Aminatou: It's very hard. It's hard on the schedule in that you actually have to leave your house and go places. It's hard on the anxiety in that you have to be around people. I have so much respect for people who are on the road now. I was always like oh, this seems interesting and fun. And I'm like oh, this is actually like hero status, like you're doing something that is actually very hard. I would say that most podcasts are pushed to do live . . . everybody's getting into the space of live performance all the time.
Ann: Who's pushing?
Aminatou: The networks and the agents are all telling you that it's worth doing. And also from a purely selfish standpoint we are pushing ourselves because we want to meet our audience. It's the only -- you know, we make a show at home. [Laughs] So in terms of getting any kind of interaction and feedback, you know, outside of like the Internet, this is the one way to do it. But the financial piece of it is it is true that at least we run a tour that is profitable. We're a very bare-bones tour. We're not taking -- you know, we're not taking equipment with us. We're not . . . there's not like the Amina and Ann couch. [Laughs] One day insha'allah. But you know what I mean? In terms of props there's nothing.
Gina: I leave my drum kit at home, yeah.
Aminatou: Right. Gina does the most. [Laughs] And we do the least. But you know what I mean? I think that in terms of what -- it's a pretty lean operation, you know? And that's not true for a lot of performing acts, like even podcasts. We do travel to a standard that we're happy at. Nobody's sleeping on a floor but nobody's sleeping in a five star hotel.
(8:08)
Ann: Yeah, what do we spend money on on tour?
Aminatou: We spend a ton of money flying. We spend a lot of money on accommodations because we have some things that are deal-breakers for us, i.e. everybody has to have a door that shuts. That's not true when I talk to a lot of my musician friends who are on the road all the time. When I hear how they're traveling I'm just like you're living like this? This is wild.
Gina: Yeah, your girls are not stacked three high on someone's couch.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Ann: Right.
Gina: Well in the interest of transparency if there are other podcasters or people thinking about touring who don't have the traditional musician model I think the other big cost aside from our accommodations, travel, and food was the fees that you pay. There are so many people involved in being in a venue. If you are lucky enough to have a touring agent who helped set everything up like we did that's a percentage. There are promoters who have fees. There are facility fees. Are you going to have to pay to sell your merch in this place? And that's like a really complicated business that was interesting to see the inside of. And I really learned why a touring manager is a job even for an operation of our size where it's not like we're moving masses of equipment. It's not like we're unruly talent who has to be dragged by the hair hungover from one city to the next. But even so there are just so many little logistical things, so shout-out to all the tour managers out there. I really see what the job is that you do and it's a real one.
Ann: What else has changed since our last businesswoman special episode?
Aminatou: I mean we're millionaires now so . . . [Laughs]
(9:45)
Ann: Oh my god, stop perpetuating the myth of podcast millionaires. Maybe that's what this episode is called.
Gina: What did Amina learn in Silicon Valley? Inflate your net worth.
Aminatou: I mean now that I'm a millionaire I feel . . .
Ann: Overvalued.
Aminatou: Definitely overvalued. [Laughter] No, now that I'm a millionaire I just -- I understand what the rich people complain about. What have you learned since last time we went on tour, Ann? Tell me.
Ann: Well I think that some of it . . . it's not since tour so much as since the last time we talked about this, the fact that there are now more people involved, none of whom are employees. Like the three of us are the only, you know, people who are invested in this thing at a level that I would say is employee-like. We've learned a lot about managing our 1099 team, working internally like the three of us to figure out how and when we bring on other people to support us. How does that management work? And how much do we pay them?
I mean I think that is something that could potentially be very difficult in our situation which is we are not all coming into an office to work together every day. It is not like a traditional job where there's an HR department and we write up a job description and someone comes in for an interview and then we see them every day at work. It just is way more small-scale than that. And so given that I don't have any experience, or hadn't before this, that has been interesting. And setting expectations and trying to be essentially a fair freelance boss.
Aminatou: Right. Do we have some fair freelance rules? Do we have practices that we do that is codified?
Ann: Anyone who does labor for us makes 25 dollars an hour or more. That's a practice we have.
Aminatou: Love it.
Ann: The CYG minimum wage is 25 dollars an hour.
Aminatou: This is why we're not millionaires, PS. [Laughs]
Ann: It goes up from there.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Ann: That's one. I mean we are slow, I will say that, when it comes to making any decision related to especially I think people who are part of our team. We are slow.
Gina: Yeah. But partly because we do generally joint consensus decision-making. Given our schedules and multiple activities that frequently means 48-hour turnaround on communications at minimum.
(12:05)
Aminatou: I mean it's more than other activities though. I think that the thing that is true is this business is still none of our core business.
Gina: Certainly none of our sole enterprise.
Aminatou: Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean? Everybody here has two LLCs. [Laughs] At least. At least.
Ann: This is everyone's side piece LLC, yeah.
Aminatou: Exactly. This is the LLC I cheat on my LLC with. [Laughs] I'm like this is what's going on. But I do think that that's part of it, right? That a thing that we generally do well, or at least for me as an owner of this LLC, like let's ask the contractors, is I like our company culture. I like it because I get to set the tone of it. But generally also as somebody who has been ill in this company and as somebody who has had a lot of health challenges, you know, this has been a good place for me to work. [Laughs]
Ann: Our company culture is ask for what you need.
Aminatou: Yeah, you know what I mean? Like I must say like this company has treated me better than my own company. [Laughs] So that's a thing that's not lost on me, but yeah.
Gina: Aww.
Aminatou: Well I have another question. I have a question for you guys, why are we so dedicated to doing these transparency episodes? I can't think of other podcasts that are telling me what's going on inside of them. And so I find it interesting that this is another value that we have.
Ann: Reporting back to the people that we are in fact all three still friends.
Aminatou: Yes. [Laughs]
Ann: That is true.
Aminatou: We are all still friends. That makes me happy.
Ann: I know!
Aminatou: Some might even say better friends.
Ann: Ugh.
Aminatou: But you know what I mean? I'm like why -- why is it something that is so important?
Ann: I mean I always want more info as a consumer. It always drives me crazy that on every app I use or everything I give my dollars to I can't see exactly the breakdown and the policies and everything, you know? I like being open with our listeners of this is why we make some of the choices we make. I'm just someone who always wants more info. That's why I like to do it.
(14:12)
Aminatou: That's fair.
Gina: I think there's really a dearth of information too. Like this is -- podcasting is such a closed system. It's hard to Google. Like what is the going rate for things? How much are people really getting paid? For example we are often asked for negotiation advice. I think all three of us in our personal lives and publicly, right? And so one of those things you always say, let's say you're in a corporate job, is you're asking for a raise. Go armed with this is the going rate and rage for this job category and here's why I'm qualified to exist on this part of the spectrum. And when there's so little information out there it's so hard to make that case to people. And I think that there have been lots of examples -- we won't name names -- of exploitation in this industry on the basis that this industry being radio and podcasting that there aren't clear senses of who's making how much, how they spend it, and where it goes. And so I think that's part of our . . . one of our values of busting up some of those occluded spaces that allow people with more power and more privilege to thrive.
Ann: Okay, so how much do we make per episode?
Aminatou: It's a range. I would say that the floor probably right now for us is around $5,000, right?
Gina: Yeah.
Aminatou: I think that's a fair thing to say.
Ann: Pre-split.
Aminatou: Yes. So we also split this money with our advertising partner.
Ann: The people selling the ads for us.
Aminatou: Yes, the people who sell the ads. Which I will say I was talking to some baby podcasters recently and they were telling me that their split with the person who is selling the ads was 80/20. So no, 80 percent for the ad network.
Ann: Whoa.
Aminatou: 20 percent for them. And that . . . [Laughs] I'm sorry to laugh but very few things have shocked me in this era of exploitation of work that we do. That split should be the reverse.
Gina: Yeah.
(16:15)
Aminatou: I didn't realize that a lot of people didn't know that either. It's like if you make the product you should take the bulk of the money home, hello? So anyway, yes, the floor for us is somewhere around 5K and depending on the CPM or the whatever it has also been much higher than that, yeah.
Ann: What's a CPM?
Gina: Yeah, so CPM is the cost per thousand impressions. So it's just to say that one of the reasons that you hear so many podcasters say "Rate, like, subscribe, tell your friends," like the extreme evangelism is because if you sell ads the number of listeners is the metric by which the sales teams are kind of guaranteeing how much play a certain advertiser is going to have. It's also one of the reasons that you hear so many like "Enter code X." It's not only to give you a discount but is what's called direct response in this ad industry. Basically they're tracking how many people are really buying shit based on hearing this particular ad.
Aminatou: It's also true though that all of the metrics are pretty much snake oil, you know?
Gina: They're a little better than they used to be.
Aminatou: They're better than they used to be but they also mean absolutely nothing if you're somebody like me who used to work in marketing. If I was still working the job that I was working and somebody came to me and was like "Hi, I want to buy an ad on a podcast," that would be a really hard sell for me. [Laughs]
Ann: I do think that it's helpful to remember that an ad model is a choice and its' a choice that we reconsider all the time and think about. And it's not lost on us that there are a few big things within podcasting that are kind of changing or maybe some faster than others including the fact that you may have noticed there are lots and lots and lots more podcasts than when we started doing this five years ago. There's a lot more people competing for listener ears. There are more listeners than in the past but the ratio has not kind of kept pace.
(18:15)
Gina: Right. Right, there are more listeners but there are many, many, many, many more podcasts.
Ann: Thank you my forever editor. [Laughter] That's exactly it. And so as we start to think about that it's like the easiest way to put it is in 2014 there were not that many shows where two women with a generally feminist outlook on the world were talking about politics and culture. Like there were not many. Now there are many. And so we have to start thinking about okay, as more and more people produce podcasts which I think is continuing to happen because like you say Gina there's this perception of more access to advertising money as advertisers and agencies get hip to the fact that podcasts exist, we have to start thinking about hey, is it a better idea to make a product that appeals to our core listeners -- a smaller group -- that maybe they pay for directly in addition to the podcast that everyone listens to that's funded by advertising. Or thinking about our potential for forever growing the number of listeners in different terms given changes in the industry. Is that a fair way to put it?
Gina: Are you hinting at a membership program or fan support model we might see in the future Ann?
Aminatou: This is news to me! [Laughs]
Gina: We already broke the Sophie news on the show this week.
Ann: I feel like, yeah, well I mean this is something that we have historically not been into, the idea of somehow offering something that is available to people who have paid us. We've kind of kept it all everyone can hear the same podcast for free.99. But we're thinking about it.
Aminatou: Fair enough.
Ann: That's really the most transparent way to put that right?
Gina: Yeah.
Aminatou: Yeah, I think that's really . . . I love this transparency on here. [Laughter]
Ann: Do you?
(20:05)
Aminatou: I love it. I love it. You know, like the other thing -- a misconception I think a lot of people have when they approach us about advice is that we're kind of just fucking around and we're doing . . . it's just like three girls, just like three gals doing what they love. And my god, can you believe they know how to like -- they can talk into a microphone and sound comes out and . . .
Gina: Can you believe?
Aminatou: Can you believe it, and they sell ads? It's like no, this shit is hard work. It's hard work and we're literally -- we run a small media company. That's true. And five years ago the space was just not a professional space. So when you were thinking about I want to break into the space it is a completely different calculus than we had to make. We're actually not the go-to people for I want to make a show and I want it to be big. I was like actually we . . .
Ann: We don't have experience in that.
Aminatou: Yeah, we don't have experience with that at all.
Ann: We grew with the industry, sorry.
Aminatou: And also, yeah, we like grew alongside an industry that just professionalized in a way that we did not. But also we . . . we are. We're a weird anomaly in this water. And so a lot of times I'm just like you know, your best bet actually is to ask somebody else and a lot of times those somebody elses are the people who are actually not very transparent. So that's the actual problem.
Ann: Right.
Aminatou: So everything we're telling you is great, like take it with a ginormous grain of salt, but if you're trying to be a podcast millionaire the people who will give you that advice are the people that are not transparent about how their businesses work.
Ann: I think it's a problem when all companies are not transparent frankly, and just because you are a bigger -- maybe there are many podcasts under your umbrella -- I think it would be amazing if you talked about where you got your money in order to expand and how you make hiring decisions and how you make decisions about which podcasts to add to your stable and things like that that are not part of our business model. So we don't take investment. We are but one podcast. You know, all of these things we're not talking about because we don't do them. But more talking about all of this. That's what I have to say.
(22:12)
Gina: When Amina's talking about professionalization or what people who haven't yet watched a show are coming to the pre-launch with, we're talking about trailer, slide decks, clear treatments, long descriptions of episodes, perhaps already have sponsorship lined up, perhaps already have any talent attached to project. Like the launching a new podcast industry looks much more like film or a startup than it does a few friends making a creative project. And that's not to say you can't make creative projects but the model that we're talking about of advertising against a podcast with a sizable enough audience to do that, there is such a cottage industry of how you do that now that really is much more like the season one of startup version than what we did and what you hear us talk about on these episodes.
Ann: Right, great example of early transparency. Yeah. On that front. Yeah, we're basically relics now. I think that's the theme. Our model is no longer operable, the model of how we took what was a kind of fun side project and made it a business. It's really not a path any of us would ethically recommend to someone today.
Gina: It's really hard to iterate in public the way that we did. Yeah. [Laughter]
Ann: That is such a kind way of putting it.
Aminatou: I love it.
Ann: Ugh, public iteration. Charge me, I'm guilty.
Aminatou: Tell me. You'll be happy to know Gina that we had a conundrum where we almost had to start another LLC because of the book. [Laughs] And that's where I put my foot down. I was like no. No more.
Gina: I know. When you were talking about how many LLCs I'm like your LLC list is the new how many domains are you squatting? How many social accounts are you squatting?
(24:05)
Ann: So how do we balance the work we do with CYG, each of us, with the other work that we're doing? And I think this is part of our annual retreat every year. How does CYG further our three sets of distinct professional goals?
Gina: Yeah, and since the last time we talked I think CYG has been like my steady, it's my rock, and then other podcasts come in and out of my life that I produce independently and usually more as a service provider. So it's been a really cool launching point for me to have this both as a regular gig and just something that I have that sense of ownership in. And then other things can be a huge range of things. Also I've started doing more consulting since the last time we talked. There's just so many quirks about podcasting from the technical to the editorial to all of this how do you market, how do you land, how do you make money? I really enjoy oh, yeah, you can pay me to get some advice. That's cool. We'll just hang out and talk about your show. And the people who come to me seeking advice now like Amina was saying are super professionalized, really do come with here's a full treatment. Here's a full season. So that's kind of where my work has landed.
Ann: I mean and also since the last time we've done this you have incorporated. I don't think -- were you incorporated last time? No, I think you've . . .
Gina: No. No I wasn't, yeah.
Aminatou: Yes! Welcome to the fold.
Gina: I added an LLC to my name.
Ann: And speaking of professionalizing, and also the gorgeous ginadelvac.com was not yet launched.
Aminatou: [Laughs]
Gina: Oh thank you. Thank you. I feel like it's gotten enough shine at this point.
Aminatou: Ginadelvac.com is my best contribution to this entire podcast enterprise.
Ann: There is never enough shine. Yeah. Honestly, you know, it just felt like something was out of alignment before it existed and now everything is right in the world except for the fact . . .
(25:55)
Aminatou: Aminatousow.com, coming to you Q3 2019.
Ann: Every morning I wake up, I take that first sip of coffee, and I type in www.aminatousow.com and I use the second sip to steel myself for the day when I don't find anything.
Aminatou: [Laughs] Listen, it's on my road map for 2019. The reason that I have not had a website for so long is like it's not an accident. It's really because I didn't want . . . there are decisions that I don't want to make, and having a website is like having your resume in public. And I don't have a LinkedIn for a reason. That's also the same reason I don't have a website.
Gina: Cultivate the mystery.
Aminatou: But I'm working on it. I'm working on it. I'm working on it.
Ann: Not audio friendly. I'm just shaking my head over here. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Listen, I'm emotionally working on it. Also I'm really mad that ginadelvac.com is . . .
Ann: Beat you?
Aminatou: No, I'm not mad that it beat me. I wanted it to have taken longer. [Laughs] I was like this is where I'm hiding.
Gina: How much longer could it have taken?
Aminatou: Well until Q3 2019 Gina when I get my shit together.
Ann: This is where the family falls apart.
Aminatou: Yeah. I don't know, it's interesting. I had a very weird 2019 -- 2018 -- in the sense that I . . . work was weird because I had cancer. I love saying that, I had cancer. It's always weird. Like from a work perspective everything was weird, like I just . . . I don't actually know how I would have done last year if I was not a self-employed person. I truly -- like I think about it sometimes, I'm like whoa. I guess they have medical leave policies and stuff at places but you know I don't trust those.
Anyway as my own boss and also as a colleague to the two of you I was able to have enough leeway that it wasn't a complete disaster that I did not work for the first six months of the year. I contributed a little bit to the show, not as much as I do. But also I had a lot of money saved and I had a lot of flexibility. And so from a financial perspective I think that by the end of the year it evened out in the sense where I did not make the bulk of my money doing CYG stuff which has been true all five years but it was a bigger piece of the pie than it had been before. Yeah, so 2018 is something that I'm like that's . . . it was just a weird year and I can't draw a lot of learnings from it except for if you're going to get sick make sure that your coworkers love you. That really helps. It really helps. But other than that, you know, I think . . . I'm still in a place where I . . . like every day I wake up and I'm just like what do I do? What do I actually do? And the thing that is true . . .
(28:40)
Ann: You mean like your to-do list?
Aminatou: Not my to-do list, like my . . . I don't know. I'm just like . . .
Gina: Who am I?
Aminatou: I'm at this very weird intersection of, you know, the new kind of worker. Like what do I do is not an anxiety about like not having work. I'm like I actually have a ton of work. I have a ton of work that pays me. I'm really lucky to have that. I just think that what is going on is that it doesn't all fit under a neat umbrella. One of the things that I'm doing is I'm writing a book with Ann and that is very much a lot of real work, you know? And it's also a very kind of -- it's a very kind of rewarding work. The paycheck was lit, like thank you. That's one thing I'm doing.
I moderate a lot of public conversations and that is one income stream that I have. I do -- like last year did some spon-con. That is a weird thing also. And I do this podcast and I did like a tiny amount of consulting, not as much as I used to. All of this to say that there's a lot of nebulous work forces at play.
Ann: On my god, I see a clear through line in all of your work.
Aminatou: What's the clear through line Ann?
Ann: You create and facilitate conversations about the most important things happening in the world right now.
Aminatou: Right, that's going on the website. Thank you. [Laughs]
(30:00)
Ann: I mean it's what you do. I mean you . . .
Aminatou: I'm so glad you put that -- you said it on the show so that I can rewind and listen to it.
Gina: Blurbed by Ann Friedman.
Aminatou: Right, coined by Ann Friedman.
Ann: Yeah, you have to quote me directly in the tagline of your website.
Aminatou: You get 5%. [Laughs]
Ann: Ooh, we'll take it. Yes.
Gina: Careful, this is being recorded.
Ann: I mean for real.
Aminatou: This is not a legally binding contract.
Ann: Show up in court someday.
Aminatou: Also I would happily give you 5%. You're the love of my life. So anyway all of this to say that when I think about, you know, CYG is something that I'm super excited to show up for every day. It is also a huge part of my work. But I think that more than anything it's become less work and more of a platform, you know? In the sense where the stuff that we work on behind the scenes and the distribution of labor on our team, some of the stuff is pretty set. Conversations with advertisers and partners, that happens all of the time, like figuring out these new partnerships and the spon that we're doing. That happens all the time. Like Gina editing the show, that happens. That stuff we know how to do; it's more of a matter of volume and consistency than scrambling for making opportunities happen.
So I think mostly about where the show fits in my work life I'm like oh, it's an opportunity -- it's more an opportunity to talk about the things I care about, right? And as Gina says iterate in public. [Laughs] So it, you know, is still a delight, still here. Let's keep doing it.
Ann: [Laughs] Well I think CYG is still an important piece of what is a very distributed income pie for me which is to say there's nothing that's more than 30% of my income, like no one thing that I do. So CYG is an important piece of that. It is still business for me definitely. More than anything I think it has been an important place to experiment, kind of like you were saying, the fact that it's a platform. Experiment with things that I want to write more about on my own or skills I want to learn, projects that I want to do that don't fit within what we do at CYG. It's been so great for all of that stuff.
(32:20)
That's one reason why I would say to the hypothetical person who is maybe starting a just creative project podcast, not a full business presentation deck, why it's still perhaps worth it. Because even if our listener numbers significantly shrank, which I hope that doesn't happen, but even if it did I still think that there would be a value just on a personal career development -- yeah, on that level. And the level where we all have ownership in a thing that we get to experiment with. Like that is something that I think really sets the three of us apart from people who are freelancers who aren't self-employed but are just like having to sell their ideas to other people.
Gina: And having to pour their ideas into the mold of what someone else is willing to take, right?
Ann: Yeah.
Gina: We get to set our own molds.
Ann: Yeah, I love that we make the molds and I love that if one of us really wants to do something we don't really have to sell it. The other two will be like fine, if you really want to do it go for it. You're the best and I love you so much. That's the baseline.
Aminatou: I want 5%, thank you. [Laughter]
[Music and Ads]
(36:08)
Ann: A main reason why we wanted to revisit our businesswoman special this week is because of some other business women we love, our pals Claire Mazur and Erica Cerulo of Of a Kind who have a brand new book out called Work Wife.
Aminatou: I talked to Claire and Erica a while back about their book and about their partnership really and what they have learned talking to other women who are in partnership with other women.
Ann: Like us.
Aminatou: Like us. It made me feel very good about a lot of choices that we've made. It's such a reminder that it's so powerful when women find a way to work together and that there's really a path forward for a better kind of leadership and a better kind of business when we figure that out.
Gina: Here's Claire and Erica.
[Interview Starts]
Aminatou: Hi Claire and Erica.
Erica: Hi Amina.
Claire: Hi Amina.
Aminatou: You're a model for how to be bestiepreneurs so we always look to you . . .
Erica: Ditto, back at you. You guys are.
Claire: Two way street.
Erica: Yeah.
Aminatou: [Laughs] Well I'm excited that your book is out in the world.
Erica: It feels like it's been a long time coming. At least eight years coming at this point.
Claire: The thing we got really excited about was telling all these other women's stories like yours and Ann's and Gina's.
Erica: And the other thing I think when we started is we realized that there was kind of this confluence of cultural events coming together where suddenly the idea that women had to be catty and bitchy and hate each other, that had kind of jumped the shark. We were a little bit past that and it's very jumping off your Shine Theory stuff. And also the fact that finally there's room for more than one woman at the top. Women aren't competing in a company for the single role that is designated or allotted for women so finally there's room for women to bring each other up and build each other up and actually work together to start businesses, to run businesses, to make change in the middle of a company. To be assistants together like you see on The Bold Type or something.
Aminatou: Yeah. And I mean the thing about this also that is so comforting is that 1) we didn't event that. Women of our generation didn't invent like . . .
Erica: No.
(38:05)
Aminatou: I like my coworker who's a woman. I want to be her friend. She has cool pants. I would like to dress like her. No, women have actually been doing this for a long time and you both made really good choices I think about showcasing a range of women in the book. It's not just, you know, cool New York ladies who run cool New York businesses. There's like a range of ages and causes and the kinds of businesses, like some people are non-profit. Some people, you know, are entrepreneurs. So I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit more about the choices that you made around that.
Erica: There's just a straight-up business case. If you're going to try to make a case for something being a phenomenon you can't all be women in your 20s in New York, right? That doesn't prove anything. But it was just exciting to us to explore different industries and different age ranges and different demographics. One of our favorite duos is the women behind Higher Standard Packaging which is . . .
Claire: Oh my god, we're obsessed with them.
Erica: They're incredible. They're a cannabis packaging company in Colorado. They've been friends for 40 years.
Claire: They met on a Saint Patrick's Day parade float.
Aminatou: I mean amateur drinking holidays. Where you meet all your best friends.
Erica: But it's like these women are wise. They have something to teach us. And they were the ones who said when we started our business we made a promise to ourselves the minute the friendship starts to go south the business goes out the window.
Aminatou: Wow.
Erica: And that's a promise we've kept and we've never had to, you know, explore it but the friendship always comes first. And those were some of the most potent examples of what it means to be a work wife.
(39:40)
Claire: Well and that might not be the right answer for everybody either.
Erica: Right.
Claire: Which is also interesting. That made sense for them. But they have been friends for 40 years and they both had careers prior to starting this company. They came out of retirement literally to do this. Barbara Diner and Deb Baker, Deb had been a teacher and Barbara had been a marketing executive and they sort of realized this opportunity living in Denver and decided to explore it and had never done anything in this space before and had never worked together before.
Aminatou: I would say that my work friendship with Ann and Gina kind of fell naturally in the sense that we like all the same stuff. We like hanging out together. We really liked each other. And also we didn't realize that what we were doing is work. [Laughs] I think that that's the secret of the Call Your Girlfriend recipe.
Erica: Yeah.
Aminatou: Because it was that way it felt a little more natural and a little easier to fall into. I don't know that I've been in a partnership where we both looked at each other and we're like okay, we're setting out to do -- like this is the venture that we're going on. Or certainly people that I wasn't specifically very close to first.
Claire: Right.
Erica: Well we had the same experience I think that you and Ann and Gina had where we started exploring this and it felt more like an extracurricular activity, like something we were doing and kind of feeling out and it was fun and it was an interesting thing to work on together. And it wasn't until we'd been doing it for seven months -- six months -- that we had the conversation that okay, if we're going to actually pursue this we have to quit our jobs and do this.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Erica: And I remember that conversation that we had. It was a Sunday night, I was flying back from a photo shoot and I was at LAX. I remember walking around the airport pacing and kind of shaking being like oh my god, is this really something we're going to do?
Aminatou: Was it like an immediate yes, like you knew you were going to do that? Or did you have to think about it a lot in a larger context?
Erica: I think the only thing I personally had to think about in a larger context was whether I was up for giving up the career that I thought I had wanted because I had moved to New York to work in magazines and that was my sort of like dream route. But the idea of working with Claire was always a big yes. It was more of just like can I say bye to this thing that I thought was the thing?
Aminatou: Yeah. What about you Claire?
Claire: I think for me I had less attachment to my career at that point and I think more naivety too. So I was very much like I'm ready to do this, let's go. I just sort of need someone to give me not the permission but the sort of belief that this is the right thing. Like I need the endorsement. But it's funny because people do say like "How did you know that Erica was the right person? How did you guys make that decision?" And that was never a question. It was like the idea came up. There was only one person to whom I wanted to talk to.
Erica: To even have this conversation with, yeah.
Claire: And it just felt very natural. It was just like oh, this is the nature of our friendship. We both get excited about these same types of ideas and these same types of projects so of course this conversation would happen and this project would go in this direction.
Aminatou: I mean some of it is also your work ethic, like we watch you guys work. Your work ethic is legendary.
Claire: Honestly there's no bigger compliment than you saying that.
Erica: Truly.
Claire: I repeat it in my head sometimes, like Amina thinks your work ethic is legendary.
Aminatou: It is true, you run a ginormous profitable business. [Laughs]
Claire: Nothing makes me feel better. I think -- I think I'm done now that you've said that.
Aminatou: Right. But I think the reason that I say that is because . . . it's fascinating, right? Because you say this person's my friend. We have the same ideas. We like the same things. But I think that another thing that is going on here that we don't really discuss a lot in female friendship narratives is that women are in love with how other women work, you know?
Claire: Yeah, 100%.
Aminatou: When Ann says to me "I love your brain" my entire body melts. I was like this is as close to friend orgasm as you can get is another woman who validates your professionalism. And Gina when we were on tour last time said -- you know, it's like the tour is always fascinating because it's just like go, go, go at all times and so many things go wrong and you watch everybody juggle things at the same time. And Gina said -- she was like "You know, the reason that we're friends that work together is because we're all the girls that in high school we would do the group project for everyone. So it's good to work with those people."
Erica: I think those are good people to start a business with.
Aminatou: Right.
(44:00)
Erica: I think those are great people to start a business with.
Claire: Absolutely. I also just think what happens -- this is something we talk about in the book -- is when you put more than one of those women together in a room then you're also adding accountability into the mix. And so then everybody levels up and it's like you're all holding each other to each other's standards. And I think that's part of what delights me so much about you calling my work ethic legendary is I don't actually think it is but I just think it's gotten that way because I'm accountable to Erica and she has a legendary work ethic.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Claire: Or we both have different expectations, you know? It's like Erica is a really hard worker and I'm more of maybe like a perfectionist or something. So then it's like you put those two things together and it's like you have something really special. It's partially -- I do think it's something a little bit being women. I think it's also just the friendship layer to it. But it's like I feel really responsible to her and I feel like I'm representing her so I want to represent her standards too and meet those.
Erica: Another group of women we interviewed for the book, the three women behind the law firm KMR in Chicago, there's a line in one of the interviews that is "I just live not to embarrass them."
Aminatou: Yes! Oh my god, I think that all the time.
Erica: That just felt so like totally -- and that will put you on such a high playing field if you're in the room with the right women.
Aminatou: Right. And like these are always things that they say like this is how you're supposed to pick a partner, a romantic partner or whatever. And I was like this is how you pick friends too, you know? You care about how they work and you care about their standards and you care about not embarrassing them at all times.
Erica: Yes, exactly.
Claire: I also think around the time we started the business we were maybe a little bit subconsciously looking for relationships like those in the world. And there was this business we were obsessed with on the lower east side called Cerella.
Aminatou: Yes.
Claire: And they were work wives. There was this idea like oh, that's so cool that they did this thing together. I remember just thinking about that.
Erica: You get to work with your friends.
Claire: Yeah. And I think that there are more and more examples of women like that in the world and one of the things we want to do with the book is surface it and just make it more obvious. Because I think women's business stories don't get told as much, especially women who maybe came to power like 20 years ago or something. There's just so many stories that don't get told.
(46:05)
Aminatou: You know, and I love that you ask so much of the origins of so many of these businesses and how they think about it because -- and this is a little different I would say for us, but for a lot of women who are older it was also that they didn't have opportunities. Men wouldn't give them money.
Claire: Yes.
Aminatou: Or the power differential was so much where it's like working with a man in the business who is the one that holds the money or the power or the connections, because those women went through that we had a larger imagination for the fact that we could do this with other women.
Erica: Absolutely.
Aminatou: And that's not to say we don't face the challenges of venture capital or whatever but this is a lane that is very carved.
Claire: Yes.
Aminatou: Just finding another woman. This path exists. I don't have to reinvent the wheel and I can just keep doing that. And I'm wondering if there were things that surprised you when you were talking specifically to older women about how they chose to do their business partnerships.
Erica: The founders of Hanky Panky, the underpants company.
Aminatou: Love. [Laughs]
Erica: Which I had no idea before we started working on the book that they are work wives. It's a women-founded business. They produce all in the United States. Like these are all . . . how good do you feel about this business? How much more do you want to wear those things than before?
Aminatou: Hanky Panky. [Laughs]
Erica: They have found this path for themselves that has been outside of the funding structure, that has been outside of what has traditionally been the model. They haven't shipped their business overseas or done production in China. Also neither of them have kids and they are figuring out how to basically give the business back to their employees and thinking about what their legacy means. And I think we just found that a lot of women take alt paths. Not that men don't necessarily but I think because women haven't necessarily had the same opportunities or just have to think about things differently because they're outside of a patriarchal system they come up with different answers to the questions.
(47:55)
Claire: They do. I think one of the things that most of the businesses we talked about had in common but especially the ones run by older women is that they had mostly taken very independent paths and very much stuck to their guns when it came to how they were going to grow their business. So Killer Films is another example. They're this sort of legendary, smaller independent film country. They made Still Alice. They made Carol. They're tough bitches. And they have obviously had to deal with the Hollywood machine.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Claire: And to hear them talk about the ways in which they've just elbowed off all of the bullshit that comes to women and especially women in Hollywood was really inspiring. That was one of those ones where you walk out and you're like "I want to be them when I grow up."
Aminatou: You also talked to women who run non-profits.
Claire: Mm-hmm.
Aminatou: Which that's an area for me that I'm always like the accountability that you need to work with somebody to do good and not necessarily get rich . . . because I get out of bed because I'm like Ann and Gina make me money every day. [Laughter] Like thank god, you know? So when I think about that -- and it's also such an industry that's ripe for exploiting women frankly and the do-gooder heart that you have. So I'm wondering if you can talk a little about some of the stories that you heard about in non-profits and how they navigate being work wives?
Claire: I mean I think one of the real sort of work wife moments that came out of a conversation with Radical Monarchs which is actually an organization that you introduced us to . . .
Aminatou: Ugh, love Radical Monarchs.
Claire: They do incredible work with young girls and have sort of an alternative take on scouting based on the Girl Scouts model. They have been close friends since graduate school and they talked a lot about their attitudes towards money and how they have never had a lot as a non-profit. Then at one point they got this huge very big deal grant, like related to Warren Buffett kind of grant which always feels . . . like [0:49:48] was involved so great to know.
Aminatou: Ugh, Daddy Warbucks. Love him.
(49:50)
Claire: And they talked about the struggle to figure out what do we do with this money? Especially when you come from sort of a . . . when you come from a mindset of want, right? Not having a lot. Those conversations are sometimes even harder because . . .
Erica: Well you get really comfortable pinching pennies.
Claire: Right.
Erica: It feels crazy to spend money on things.
Claire: Yeah. But they both knew and they both talked about the fact that I knew where the other one was coming from because I knew her family history and I knew how that shaped her attitude towards money. And that was again one of these moments of like friendship in the workplace means so much because that conversation can happen in a more compassionate and on a deeper level because it's not just about looking at the numbers. It's like I understand where your point-of-view is coming from because I know that when you were growing up your parents worked multiple jobs and that has shaped your attitude towards finances. And that to me just like -- that sort of thing gives me goosebumps. That fundamentally changes what it means to be in the workplace when you're having that conversation with someone who understands your background and your emotions on a totally different level than just being a colleague.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Claire: The founders of Radical Monarchs at least prioritize self-care maybe more than any of the other founders that we talked with and just really check in on each other on a like "How are you doing? Are you eating? Are you sleeping?" level. Because I think when you work in a realm like this you are putting so much of yourself into it and not necessarily getting it out in terms of like just money flowing into the bank. So I think they make sure to really take care of each other and take care of themselves.
Aminatou: I love that. What would you say across talking to all of these women did you find was a good recipe for being a good work wife?
Claire: I mean I think for me one of the things is just acknowledging friendship. A lot of people talk about times where the friendship gets buried, right, because work is so intense and you think we see each other all the time, why would we need to focus on the friendship? Hearing the various points at which women realize they had to make a distinction and just be friends in one moment versus being colleagues, those are really powerful moments. And obviously I think it's the ones where you can be both where you get the most exciting and sort of like novel outcomes. But I think that was a theme that kept coming up is, you know, we have to be friends too.
(52:05)
Erica: And it's not that different from a romantic relationship in that way where people carve out date night or whatever, right?
Claire: Yeah.
Erica: Because yeah, you might be sitting across from someone every morning having coffee or you might be putting the kids together or whatever but is that real time? Just because you're working across from someone or just because you're in meetings with them doesn't mean that you're actually getting face time and so carving out time to maybe get a coffee or a manicure or go on a walk is healthy.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Claire: The flip side is true too that I think sometimes it can be easy to forget to do the really common just workplace practices. And it still stuns me between me and Erica how recently we started having regular check-ins with a recurring agenda which is something we would have been doing with the people we managed for years, like we would never think of not having that sort of a thing.
Aminatou: Yeah.
Claire: Because we see each other so much, because we talk so much and we're such close friends we forget to implement all these things.
Erica: We figure there's always going to be time. You're like oh, we're always talking. We're just like out Slacking, we're always texting, we're always on email. We're always doing all of these things. Why would we need to set aside an hour to do it?
Aminatou: Right, that's like creating the structure. It's like you have to acknowledge you are colleagues but you're also friends.
Erica: Yeah.
Aminatou: And both of those things need boundaries and structures around them.
Erica: And they take work. I mean, you know, we go to a management coach who is basically a couple's counselor. [Laughs]
Aminatou: Love it. I mean it's like you have to make that work. Did you talk to any women who had like very formal arrangements? You know, like we . . . you know, I feel that in our business we did a handshake at the bank and we hugged. [Laughs] You know, and we were like see you on the couch when we get stoned later. There was not a thing.
Erica: [Laughs]
Aminatou: But I imagine that like the lawyer ladies, they probably have some sort of prenup.
Erica: I trust that the lawyers have a prenup. I also think Food 52 at this point is a very big business and has a ton of employees. It's raised a lot of venture capital. And I think that was a very much we are going to set out, we're going to do this, we're going to raise money, and we're going to get this off the ground kind of relationship.
(54:00)
Claire: And interestingly one of the ones that we do know that's the most detailed is the Fortunato twins who have Lizzie Fortunato, the handbag and accessory line.
Aminatou: Ugh, love those accessories.
Claire: And their partnership agreement is so detailed and it was of course their mother who was like "You have to do it this way." [Laughs]
Aminatou: Because they're sisters!
Claire: "I will not have a twin breakup over this. You will figure this out. You will talk to a lawyer. You will have this on paper because I will not be dealing with this."
Aminatou: Mama Fortunato, the real mogul . . .
Claire: Yeah, so she came in so they have it way more detailed than exists between me and Erica or any of the other ones we know where it's like if it's a design decision that they are disagreeing over then Lizzie gets to call and if it's a business decision then Kathryn gets to call. And they pick three mediators if there's a total issue they can't solve. And I think in part because they're twins and because . . .
Erica: Well the stakes were so high.
Claire: Exactly, the stakes are so . . .
Aminatou: Yeah, can't break up. Can you imagine ghosting your twin? [Laughs]
Claire: It'd be tough, yeah.
Aminatou: That is just your mom's going to have to have two Thanksgivings. I do not think so. Man, this makes me . . . it just makes me so happy on so many levels that this book exists. Like on the level of, you know, business school case studies, like thank god. No one will ever say women don't know how to work together or women don't have profitable business. It's like hi, there's an entire book of that. Read Work Wives. And also just on the personal level of again a book that I wish was in the world when I was a teen or even when I was in college or fresh out of college, trying to model this work of what does my life look like if I want to work with people that I love and figure out a path for us? And it turns out that women have been doing this forever, you know?
(55:45)
Claire: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean I think the flip side of it is it's written so much -- with so much in mind hoping to inspire other women to do this. But the other side of it too is we hope that in the big corporations where you're not getting to choose who you want to work with that the sort of habits and practices that women like us have developed start to seep in and you see people valuing emotional intimacy in the workplace and you see people adapting things like at Food 52 Amanda Hesser, while Merrill Stubbs was on maternity leave, would send her a weekly update every week just to keep her in the loop so that when she came back to work life wasn't all of a sudden like oh my god, I have to catch up on three months of things I didn't know happened. And that's the sort of thing that Amanda did because she's a friend and because she understood what Merrill needed in that situation but these are the sorts of things that you could adapt in big, more sort of traditional corporate environments that are based on just caring about people and wanting to help them.
Aminatou: Right. And also women in corporate environments, some of them do it already. But this idea of banding together is how all your voices get heard.
Claire: Exactly.
Aminatou: You know, that famous example of in the Obama White House how all the women would amplify each other in meetings when the president was there, right?
Claire: Yes, exactly.
Aminatou: And we have talked about this so much and I'm so happy when I hear other people co-opt it. It's like no, you're always strong when there's more of you.
Claire: Yes, exactly.
Aminatou: So whether you're work wives and you earn your business together if you work with another woman that you . . .
Claire: That you like, that you jive with. Yeah.
Aminatou: You can have friendly feelings towards her, you know? And there's just more place to be friends at work and to look at people . . . I don't know. I find when I work with people that I'm friends with I have so much more compassion for everything.
Claire: Yes.
Aminatou: Because of what you were talking about. The emotional intelligence of you see them as a full person.
Claire: Yes, and you know their life. Yeah.
Aminatou: Yep.
Claire: I mean and there are also multiple duos and trios in the book who started off working together then became friends and then chose to work together. I also think coming back to the point you were saying about the way women can start making these changes in an environment, what we started to think about a lot as we were writing this, especially as all of the Me Too things started surfacing right as we were finishing our first draft, was just that we don't actually as a society know what a matriarchal workplace looks like at large. And what shape might that take? And I think these, that women being in charge and women starting to band together and groups of women creating those cultures will allow us to actualize that.
(58:25)
Aminatou: I'm so excited for both of you. I'm going to be buying multiple copies for all my ladies!
Erica: Do it.
[Interview Ends]
Gina: Check out Work Life: The Power of Female Friendship to Drive Successful Businesses wherever you buy your books. And I'll see you on the Internet.
Ann: See you on the Internet Gina.
Aminatou: See you on the Internet. You can find us many places on the Internet, on our website callyourgirlfriend.com, you can download the show anywhere you listen to your favs, or on Apple Podcasts where we would love it if you left us a review. You can email us at callyrgf@gmail.com. We're on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at @callyrgf. You can even leave us a short and sweet voicemail at 714-681-2943. That's 714-681-CYGF. Our theme song is by Robyn, original music is composed by Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs, our logos are by Kenesha Sneed, our associate producer is Destry Maria Sibley. This podcast is produced by Gina Delvac.