From starting a new brand to receiving her own Netflix show, “With Love, Meghan,” Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle (Communication ’03) has been making waves in the lifestyle world.
Her brand, As Ever, sold out its collection in under an hour and her Netflix show got renewed three days after its premiere. However, despite this newfound dedication to lifestyle content, Markle’s newest podcast, “Confessions of a Female Founder,” is a step away from the lifestyle world.
The podcast, released Tuesday, shifts the focus to the behind-the-scenes work of female entrepreneurs, like herself, in creating their businesses. In the podcast’s inaugural episode, Markle sits down with Bumble Founder and close friend Whitney Wolfe Herd.
The two discuss a variety of topics including Herd’s exit from working at Tinder, the origins of Bumble and creating a balance between motherhood and their careers. As someone out of tune with the business world, I found the conversation enlightening and important.
While female entrepreneurship has been on the rise, it is not often enough that two women are given the platform to speak candidly about the toll that the business world takes on them.
At one point in the podcast, Herd mentioned the emotional toll of creating Bumble. In dedicating so much of her time to the app, Herd said she realized that she was diverting attention from herself and her loved ones.
Moments like these made Herd more relatable and offered further insight into some of the challenges faced by female entrepreneurs.
Another candid moment the two shared was during their discussion of balancing motherhood with work. Both revealed they suffered from postpartum preeclampsia and discussed the negative impact that had on their reentering the business world. However, both agreed that being role models for children inspired their returns.
Surprisingly, the episode did not focus much on business itself. There was almost no discussion of how to start a business, build a business or market a business. If the episode was marketed as lifestyle content, it would have achieved its goal. It did not offer many helpful tips on how to break into the business.
Markle herself described the podcast as “honest conversations with women who’ve built from the ground up, faced challenges and kept going.” The conversations in the first episode are vulnerable and allow the listener to learn more about Markle and Herd’s struggles with creating their businesses. However, not much general advice is offered by the two.
For example, Herd talks about leaving Tinder following a 2014 lawsuit against the company for sexual harassment and discrimination and her initial idea to make Bumble a social network for just girls and women. The two do not delve deep into the choices that influenced Herd to shift Bumble’s focus to a dating app nor do they discuss much about building the app itself or marketing it.
Seeing how the app’s development from a social network to a dating app is so interesting, Herd and Markle should have shared more about that.
As a fan of Markle, I had been looking forward to the release of this podcast. After listening, it is safe to say that I prefer her lifestyle content.
More episodes of “Confessions of a Female Founder” will be released weekly on platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music for the next seven weeks.
Email: biancadishmon2028@u.northwestern.edu
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