Naomi Shah, CEO and founder of Meet Cute, joins Cheddar News to talk about her podcast company striking a TV and film deal. 

Between Bells

'Meet Cute' Brings Rom-Coms to Podcast Form

Howdy Friends, Welcome back to Between Battles. I'm baker machado in new york. One company merging. People's Love for love now into podcast form. Meet cute features, 15 minute original scripted episodes of romantic comedies. Their network of creators is in the one thousand's and they've released more than 450 romantic comedies just since launching in 2020. And now the company taking their content to tv and film that. Thanks to a new partnership they have with range Media partners. So joining us now is Naomi Shah founder and Ceo over at meat cute. Naomi, thank you so much for joining us. So congrats on this new partnership. So what's this mean for you guys? And what's the plan for this deal? Yes, thank you. It's so nice to be here. Um really excited about the partnership because for the last two years we've been creating romantic comedies all in audio and we released new series every month all in audio as well across a bunch of different platforms that people can access every single day. What we're excited about is moving a lot of those series that we've been working on and the romantic comedies that we think are important for the world to experience into a more traditional format like tv and film. And part of our model is creating so many stories which increases the amount of representation in this genre. So we're really excited for that to translate to screens as well. Alright, so tell us the backstory on how you came up with the company name. Meet cute because I think it's cute for a better word here. So the great thing about this term, meet cute is some people know it and some people don't, so there's a little bit of insider baseball in just describing what a meet cute is. So for those who don't know what it means. Um first of all, the Holiday, one of my favorite rom coms actually describes the definition in the movie itself And it's the serendipitous coming together of two people and what I love about that definition is yes, a lot of times that serendipitous coming together looks romantic, but you also have these collisions of people every single day and different aspects of life, whether it's your barista that you make a connection with or the bus driver on your way to work. And so I'm obsessed with this idea that meat cuts are truly all around us and it just takes a little bit of attention and um and focusing on kind of those positive moments of human connection and I think if the world did that, we would be a much happier place. Oh my gosh, yes, the holiday I'm having kate winslet and Jack Black vibes already from that movie. I love the connection. I totally forgot that that was in there. Um of course let's talk about you making this company during the pandemic. I mean not a lot of people were able to sort of create a company and they're doing well and it does well after the pandemic, What sort of motivated you to want to sort of create this company? Great question, I always love from into comedies growing up, it was a genre they I felt like I could keep coming back to and know exactly the emotions that I was going to feel at the end of rom com. And so after a hard day, whether I was in school or just started working, I always came back to this genre and something that I was really excited about was creating a brand where representation was part of the business model. So in creating an incubator of stories, we've allowed for more representation in our stories than traditional entertainment allows for. So it's by design and it's baked into the process that we use to create stories. So you mentioned that we work with hundreds of creators and now it's up into thousands when you add up the writers, producers, directors, voice actors, sound engineers, that bring these stories to life and all of these people touching these stories allows for the stories to sound different. So in the pandemic, what we noticed is that even though people didn't have their commutes and their routines um in the same way that they were used to before there was this Gravitation towards stories and content that made them feel good and that made them feel seen and really represented in media. And so that was a big, big part of founding the company, the second part of founding the company that Um I really was, was curious about, and keen to explore was can you create an entertainment company based on consistency? And so every one of our stories is exactly 15 minutes long, and we release our content across audio platforms, social platforms, written text based platforms, but we really want to pull entertainment into people's lives in a more consistent and Kind of like everyday way. So instead of thinking about entertainment is something you do just in the evenings or on weekends, what does it look like to get a 15 minute video served to you while you're taking a break from work or making lunch and have that be the happiest moment of your day. So bringing entertainment into people's lives in a more serious way, integrating it into their day to day And making it really consistent. So trust is built between a brand and the audience and that was what we were trying to explore in creating unique you. Alright, so let's talk about the content in particular, the 15 minute content, because clearly there's a ton of it, it ranges sort of from the adventurous to the passionate, we were just playing a clip of what looked like an older couple sitting down to have a sort of a date here. What what are some of the stories here? And how do you sort of vet the different stories here? So in the library that we've created a 450 rom coms. There's so much diversity and diversity, not just in like the the ways that we normally talk about, but even things like differently abled, different ages, different geography, socioeconomic statuses. And I think that one of the biggest differences in how we vet these stories is that we ask the question, why not? Why can't this story exist? I'm sure that there are people out there that can relate to this story because it's not just about relating to that specific character in the specific context of that character, It's relating to the emotions of that character. And that's really where human connection is formed. And so um part of the process that we use internally is asking why not? And also we have a creative meeting like a brain trust internally, where we talk about all the inbound ideas that we that we are able to source from, our community of creators and we look for what fits into our library in a way that actually increases diversity in the library. So if someone comes in with an idea where they say, hey, what would it look like for two drag queens to play the main characters of rom com. We're like, let's go explore that. Something else that we're really excited about is genre smashing. And that's that's like a knot formal term for it, but something that we use internally, which is rom coms while it kind of has this defined lane that people can imagine what rom com looks like in their head if we can break down some of those barriers. That's really interesting to be the brand that pushes the boundary of what rom com looks like. So we have fantasy rom coms, we have sci fi, rom coms, we even did like a superhero rom com mashup for superheroes and supervillains fall in love. We've done historical fiction. I think there are so many things that we can explore and part of this model allows for us to take creative risks and really surprise people and delight them by saying, here's what we, what you thought you were getting. Let's try something a little different and see how it lands. Naomi Naomi only have about 40 seconds left here with you, but I really want to get to this. You've got some pride and juneteenth content that you're working on to. What do you guys got going on? Yes, so our pride series is called Green Mountain. It starts on june 7th, that will come out on all audio platforms. Um it explores a sibling relationship. They it's a black queer sibling relationship. They are in rural Vermont so there are a lot of really great undertones for the story that explore identity and understanding your own identity as well as the sibling relationship and we have an incredible actor Owen Teale who was cast by range, He's one of the arranged client. Um he was in dollface. He's so powerful as an actor and we're really excited to bring this series to audiences and see how people engage and interact with the series. I love this whole, entire idea around all of this Naomi Shah, it's such a pleasure to have you here, founder and Ceo of meet cute. You can listen to all the episodes wherever you get your podcasts.