There goes the last great American dynasty
Revisit our episode on "the last great American dynasty" out now!
Who knows if she never showed up what could have been. Since it’s a holiday week, we decided to re-release our deep dive into “the last great American dynasty.” We know we’ve gotten some new listeners since we originally released this episode, so we hope you all enjoy hearing it for the first time or revisiting it along with us. In this episode, we explore what Taylor and Rebekah Harkness have in common (other than having both owned the same house) and answer questions such as how does Taylor pull us into this true story and build empathy for Rebekah? We had a marvelous time recording this episode and hope you do too while listening!
🎥 Sneak Peek
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🏫 This Week’s Extra Credit - Brought to you by Jenn
When trying to decide what to release during the week of July 4th, we quickly landed on this episode. It’s thematically appropriate and one of the earlier episodes we recorded, so it’s a great time to remind you all to check it out! That means we also already wrote a Substack for this episode, so I recommend checking it out here if you want to read that as well. But that also means….we already have a Substack for this. So what can I contribute as a new idea?
Well, I’m going to take this opportunity to completely deviate from this episode and reminisce about how this podcast even came into existence. It was almost exactly one year ago that Maansi, Jodi, and I started meeting to see if we wanted to do this podcast thing, so I’ve been getting nostalgic. Let me take you on the journey that got us from an idea to 40+ episodes in the span of a year.
A Seed of an Idea
So of course I will be sharing this story from my point of view, but for me, this all began technically in January of 2022 when I signed up for the First Round Fast Track mentoring program and was matched with Jodi. We met every other week for three months and then decided to keep meeting regularly just for fun. Fast forward to a year after that in May of 2023 and Jodi asks me if I’d be interested in bringing the English teacher vibes to a Taylor Swift podcast she was considering starting with another mentee she met with, Maansi. I, of course, was absolutely interested! We just needed to actually meet and hash out the details.
Bringing the Masterminds Together
At the end of May, Jodi made the intro and we figured out a time to meet and brainstorm. I want to pause and note that this email below is the first time Maansi and I were ever in any sort of communication with each other, which is WILD to me now.
We met soon after and started trying to figure out what this would look like. I know the phrase “when you know, you know” is usually about romantic partners, but for me at least when the three of us met for the first time, I knew. I knew we had something special, and if nothing else, we would have an insanely good time doing this together. The conversation was easy. Collaboration was going smoothly. And the chemistry was just there right away. We decided we wanted to do it, all that was left was figuring out how in the world to make a podcast.
Making a Podcast
Hey, guess what? Making a podcast is actually a lot of work. Did you know that? We definitely didn’t know what we were saying yes to, but thankfully we were in it together.
We decided the only way to learn was by doing, so we just started recording episodes with the first few topics we wanted to touch on. Then we decided on the name and branding next (yes, we are all three marketers, so this was not an optional step). I won’t bore you all with the details of how we do project management and editing, but those were key things too. Then we put together a launch plan (marketers), and we just went for it!
One Year Later
Fast forward a year, and we are truly having the time of our lives. We hope you all are enjoying listening to the podcast, but since this story is from my point of view, all I can say as I am enjoying making it more than I ever thought possible. Recording with Jodi and Maansi is one of the most energizing things I can possibly do. I am loving being able to flex my research and analysis skills, but also just having so much fun with my two friends.
A year ago from the day I am writing this, Jodi was a former mentor who was already turning into a real-life friend, and Maansi was someone I had spoken to twice. And now we all have a business together? (LLC technically, but it counts). I guess I just wanted to pause and appreciate the randomness of life that led to this and appreciate YOU, dear reader. We absolutely would keep making this podcast if only 10 people were listening, but seeing the comments you all leave, the messages you send us, and your feedback has taken this from a fun thing for ourselves to something that is mind-blowingly cool. So thank you! Sincerely!
Here’s to another like 14 years of this podcast even if Taylor never publishes another song (so more like another 50 years)!!