Inspirational Women In Hollywood: How Naomi Shah of Meet Cute Is Helping To Shake Up The Entertainment Industry

An Interview With Ming Zhao

Don’t rush to some arbitrary finish line. Brands that last take repetition and consistency. While we move quickly and produce a lot of stories, we are also mindful of the time that it takes to build trust with our fans.

As a part of our series about Inspirational Women In Hollywood, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Naomi Shah.

Naomi Shah is the founder and CEO of Meet Cute, a modern entertainment company that produces and distributes original, scripted romantic comedies. In making over 400 feel-good stories, and working with a diverse community of over 1000 creators, Meet Cute expands on the traditional rom-com, enabling writers, actors, and directors to explore the tried and true genre through bold and unique lenses. Before starting Meet Cute, Naomi was a member of the investment team at Union Square Ventures, a venture capital firm in New York, where she spent most of her time talking to early-stage companies in the well-being space with a particular focus on media and entertainment. Prior to that, she worked at Goldman Sachs and studied Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Human Biology (and many creative writing classes) at Stanford University.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. Both of my parents owned a company together, my mom was the president, my dad was the vice president. I always understood what it meant to be committed to your work in a way that was bigger than just a nine to five job. They showed me from an early age that there was something special about running your own business, and feeling ownership over the way your work impacted other people. Watching them build a business together influenced my path in life and inspired my future decisions and choices both professionally and personally.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

Well, I went to Stanford thinking I was going to be a cardiologist or neurosurgeon, but ended up with a Mechanical Engineering degree and a minor in Human Biology. After having spent my entire life on the west coast, I wanted to experience something different so I took a job working on the trading floor at Goldman Sachs. It was great for a while, but I was ready for a new challenge, and applied to Union Square Ventures, an early-stage VC in New York.

During my time there, I started thinking about broadening access to wellbeing and community engagement. People are always looking to engage in experiences and connect with others through various forms of entertainment like movies, concerts, books, and podcasts. Stories about human connection are a way to feel connected and less alone in today’s world. I noticed a market gap for a story incubator of sorts — a company that provided feel-good stories to audiences at scale, in an accessible and short-form format. That became the inspiration for Meet Cute.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

I’ve met a lot of really cool people across media and entertainment since founding Meet Cute. The story coming to mind is once I was wearing a Meet Cute baseball cap at SFO and the security agent checking my boarding pass asked about what it was. It launched me into my little spiel about “meet cutes” and the company. A few minutes later, she ended up pulling out her phone and subscribing and then she had to deal with the line of disgruntled people behind me. But at least she found Meet Cute.

It has been said that our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Looking back, maybe it’s not the funniest but it’s one that I learned from the most, I didn’t lean into our niche hard enough, and using more general words to describe our library like “feel-good” or “happy” or “hopeful” in an effort to cater to more people, especially people who were not in our core demographic. I learned that while those more general words might sound nice, they dilute the true brand vision which is to make hilarious, bold and relatable romantic comedies for Gen Z and millennial audiences. That alone is a massive market cap that deserves a company spending all their time and energy on. As a brand, we lean into that much more intentionally now.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My older brother, Priyam, is great at reminding me that there’s only so much I can control and to let go of the things that are outside of my control. That constant reminder has helped me become a better founder, because I try to focus all my energy on things I can actually impact. It’s a simple re-frame that’s hard to do. For example, I know we can’t control what an audience thinks of our most recent series, but we can control making stories with brilliant writers, top-notch sound effects, never-seen-before characters, and put all of our energy into those inputs and the process we’ve built. That simple mindfulness trick has made me a lot more efficient and better at tackling a lot all at once.

You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?

I’ve always trusted my instincts and I’ve always made it a point to surround myself with people who I trust and who I know are committed to the same things I am. Starting out on your own and building your own company means you need people to trust you and I think it means always starting from a place of authenticity and confidence in yourself and your mission. I’ve also learned you can’t and won’t know everything all the time, and it’s important to ask for help, advice and support when you need it. You have to risk big to win big, and failure is an opportunity to push yourself and to learn.

What drives you to get up every day and work in TV and Film? What change do you want to see in the industry going forward?

Every person deserves to be reflected back in the content they see and consume. As an industry, we’ve only recently started to think differently about representation and telling stories of diverse experiences. My mission with Meet Cute is to be a leader in the entertainment industry paving the way for new voices so we can move closer to connection. I would like to see others, decision makers, writers, agents, producers, directors, all hold hands and really commit to understanding how important it is to represent more authentically human stories through all entertainment mediums.

You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?

We have some really exciting projects coming up. We just finished recording our September series, A Mid-Semester Night’s Dream, a modern retelling of the Shakespeare classic with Charithra Chandran from Bridgerton. We have so many other great stories in the pipeline that I can’t wait to share with our audiences. And we’ll only try to grow and build a larger community of rom-com lovers from here

Meet Cute began with the concept of short-form audio storytelling, and I’m excited for our projects to move into the television and films space. We’ve recently inked a deal with wiip, the production company behind boundary-pushing shows like Dickinson, to adapt the podcast into a television series.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

1. Have real conviction in your idea. E.g. When we first launched, people had many ideas for the scope of the company, how we branded ourselves, how long our stories were, etc. At first it felt like pushing a rock up a hill to stay disciplined on what we wanted to test and build, because what we were doing was so novel in the industry. It turns out that when you have real conviction in something and chase it, people will follow.
2. Surround yourself with people who support you. Team is everything. Our team, including our investors and advisors, believes in the vision of Meet Cute. It results in a no-task-too-small mentality that is mission-critical to build something that hasn’t existed before.
3. Don’t be afraid to fail. We first tested 15-minute stories, and quickly pivoted to 45-min series and now 90-minute series. It took us a while to figure out what the perfect length of stories was for our audience, but we now know what works and why.
4. Don’t be afraid to try something new. We like pushing the boundaries on rom-coms. One example is genre-bending, like fantasy rom-coms, sci-fi rom-coms, or historical fiction rom-coms.
5. Don’t rush to some arbitrary finish line. Brands that last take repetition and consistency. While we move quickly and produce a lot of stories, we are also mindful of the time that it takes to build trust with our fans.

Can you share with our readers any selfcare routines, practices or treatments that you do to help your body, mind or heart to thrive? Please share a story for each one if you can.

Every morning, I wake up quite early (on east coast hours, even though I’m based in SF). I make myself an oat cappuccino and journal for 5 minutes. My phone is on DND. It’s been so helpful to stay grounded and not feel like I’m being reactive to notifications as they start coming in early in the morning.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My mom always said to my brother and I growing up, “We’re all put on this planet for a reason, it’s our job to play our role to the best of our ability”. It seems simple, but it makes me want to keep pushing to grow and always be in positions that are a little bit outside my comfort zone. It also reminds me that even small changes, that impact a small group of people for the better, are important.

You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I would love to see a movement that was committed to trying to tell the stories of as many lived experiences as possible so that everyone has a place to turn to and no one would feel underrepresented or undervalued.

Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!

At Hello Sunshine, Reese Witherspoon has built an incredible brand based around telling stories that cater towards women and enabling new business models in the entertainment space. Given all her experience in the genre, it would be fun to talk to her about a rom-com incubator.

Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?

I am. You can follow me on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!