This Ex-Googler Sells Her Half-Million Dollar Home to Build a Podcast Mega-Platform

The more she did it, the more she found she was good at programming and enjoyed it. During her junior and senior years in college, she started a company that built CRMs and ERPs for clients.

After college, she saw how introverted she was. So she challenged herself by joining a company with a poor reputation as a salesperson. Most of her friends joined technology companies. She sold educational consulting services that helped students prepare for significant exams like the SAT and GMAT. She earned $200/month.

She didn't speak a word of English, a requirement for all Google employees. She quit a second job at a mobile ANALYTICS startup to prepare for the interview. She applied for three jobs at a time, turning down offers from Baidu, Tencent, and other top tech companies in China. When she finally got through Google(after several misses) she accepted and departed her job at Oracle in less than 24 hours.

At the Google Japan office, her commute was an hour each way. As a person who is “obsessive about productivity”, she used the time to listen to spoken audio and practice her English and Japanese.

“It took me just as long to find good audio content as it did to listen to it,” she said. “It took hours.”

Itching to get back to coding, she quit her job in 2015 to fix this problem; to build a platform that made audio content easier to search.

Renee pointed out two differentiating factors she and her San Francisco startup are betting on: 

• Castbox works on any web, mobile, or voice platform, including Amazon’s Echo, Google Home, Android auto, and iOS Carplay.
• Castbox is the only platform with In-Audio search. The company launched in October 2017.

With advancements in natural language processing, voice tech is surging. Some of Renee’s predictions surprised me. 

• Get ready to have Alexa, or a cousin from another company, in your car. 
• By 2020, we’ll be consuming 10x more data compared to 2017. 
• Soon, we’ll be talking to the internet just as much as we type into it. 
• In-audio search won’t rely on Podcast Subscriptions, just search.

A lot remains to be seen with the young audio startup, but as one of the most ambitious female founders I’ve met, Renee’s stoic tenacity may be the ticket needed to capitalize on the current podcasting wave sweeping the digisphere.

• What can you do that will give you a sense of achievement and self-esteem? For Renee, it was coding. Find something you’re good at and become even better. Use it to help people (e.g., friends stuck on a project) and you may find a happier version of yourself.
• Attention equals money. Renee knew she had found product-market fit when users were spending a half-hour a day in her app. 
• Think outside the normal stuff: owning a house is not as important as becoming who you are meant to be.