Category: Startup Stories

If you have found yourself doing more walking/jogging during COVID – either because your gym is closed or you are just looking to get out of your home for a bit – perhaps you have started listening to more podcasts.

Here is a list of the top 35 “women in business” podcasts. Each podcast listed includes information on how often new episodes are dropped, the number of followers/subscribers and what year the podcast originated. Definitely worth scrolling through if you are looking for something new to put on your listening list!

In Spring of 2020, Dr. Gabrielle Page-Wilson, Dr. Samira Brown and business executive Alexandra Stanton, launched Little Lives PPE, a Black and woman-led company changing the personal protective equipment (PPE) landscape for American families and communities.

In this webinar, Dr. Page-Wilson and Ms. Stanton discuss the challenges of launching a PPE company during the COVID pandemic and how the business and product lessons they learned can apply to any aspiring entrepreneur who is thinking about launching, managing, or scaling a business during this unprecedented time.

Sending children to school is challenging enough during a pandemic – parents don’t also need to worry about how their younger children will manage masks and hygiene to stay safe.

A startup called Little Lives PPE has created a face shield that can be worn by children as young as two and is designed to sit comfortably on a child’s face throughout the day, ideally on top of a mask. Little Lives has partnered with a manufacturer in Rochester, New York, which has been mass-producing adult face shields throughout the pandemic. Little Lives masks are currently selling for $7 on their website.

Little Lives PPE was co-founded by Samira L. Brown, MD, Gabrielle Page-Wilson, MD and Alexandra Stanton.

In NPR’s How I Built This podcast series, host Guy Raz interviews entrepreneurs to explore their journeys and lessons learned.  In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the series took a slight detour and began to record segments entitled How I Built Resilience where entrepreneurs share past experiences that required grit and discuss how the current coronavirus situation is impacting business.

“How I Built Resilience” episodes include:

• April 2, 2020 – Jeni Britton Bauer, founder of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. Jeni’s company battled a Listeria outbreak in 2015 that almost broke her business, but she bounced back stronger than ever and is confident her company will survive this crisis, too.  
• April 9, 2020 – Susan Griffin-Black, founder of EO Products. Susan’s company has made a full pivot by only producing hand sanitizer and hand soap to support public health needs during the pandemic.
• April 16, 2020 – David Neeleman of JetBlue Airways and Tristan Walker of Walker & Co.
• April 23, 2020 – Author Simon Sinek whose books about business include “Start with Why,” and “The Infinite Game”
• April 30, 2020 – José Andrés, a restaurateur who is now running World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit he founded that brings food to people during humanitarian crises.
• May 7, 2020 – Christina Tosi of MilkBar and Gary Erickson & Kit Crawford of Clif Bars
• May 9, 2020 – Stewart Butterfield of Slack and Steve Holmes of Springfree Trampoline
• May 14, 2020 – Samin Nosrat, author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and Alice Waters & Fanny Singer of Chez Panisse
• May 16, 2020 – Tobias Lütke of Shopify and Jon Stein of Betterment
• May 21, 2020 – Tony Xu of DoorDash and Marcia Kilgore of FitFlop
• May 23, 2020 – Sarah LaFleur of M.M. LaFleur who is rethinking her brand and her marketing to stay relevant in a new work-from-home world
• May 28, 2020 – Restaurateurs Kyle Connaughton and Daniel Humm
• May 30, 2020 – Alli Webb of Drybar and Andy Puddicombe & Rich Pierson of Headspace
• June 4, 2020 – Jenn Hyman of Rent The Runway
• June 6, 2020 – Troy Carter of Atom Factory
• June 11, 2020 – Actor and comedian Kevin Hart
• June 13, 2020 – Y-Vonne Hutchinson, founder of ReadySet, a consulting firm that helps companies make authentic commitments to diversity and inclusion.
• June 18, 2020 – Cathy Hughes, founder of Urban One, the largest African American-owned broadcast network with 54 radio stations around the United States.
• June 20, 2020 – Sadie Lincoln, founder of Barre3 who had to transition from in-person to online fitness programming.
• June 25, 2020 – Former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick who discussed how protests for racial justice have resonated with him personally, and how this moment can spark meaningful change for African Americans — in the world of business and beyond.
• June 27, 2020 – Canva founder, Melanie Perkins and Spindrift founder, Bill Creelman
• July 9, 2020 – Sharon Chuter, founder of UOMA Beauty, a cosmetics company that caters to a wide variety of skin tones.
• July 11, 2020 – Morgan DeBaun who founded Blavity as a media platform for Black millennials to convene and connect online.
• July 16, 2020 – Julia Hartz, founder of Eventbrite
• July 18, 2020 – John Foley of Peleton