Hi. I’m JJ. The co-founder of Goodpods. I spent the last 13 years hosting a program about entrepreneurship for NBC News. I reported on a lot of company origin stories, so it’s pretty fun for me to now get to share mine.
Ken (my co-founder and brother) listens to podcasts every time he goes for a hike (he lives in Colorado). I listen to them during my subway commute (I live in NYC), when I run, and when I’m on a road trip with my kids.
I have my favorites (Revisionist History, Nerve, and a few others), but it was frustrating to know that with 30 million episodes out there, there were a ton of great stories and interviews I was missing. We found ourselves calling or texting each other, our spouses and friends at least a few times a week asking for a podcast suggestion.
All of this was the inspiration for Goodpods. We wanted to be able to find out what our smartest, funniest, most curious podcast junkie friends (and podcasters we like) were listening to — even when we couldn’t get in touch with them.
As a podcaster myself, I also had another perspective for Goodpods. When I was working at NBC News, I hosted a podcast called Been There. Built That. It was a great show to host as I was able to interview the founders of some of the biggest companies like Peloton, It Cosmetics, Away Travel and Zillow. But even with the whole network machine behind me (and my own tv show!), I found that it was hard to get the word out about particular episodes.
Goodpods is so simple. Our whole goal is to make it easier for listeners to find great content and to help podcasters find new listeners. This already exists with books. And music. We just wanted it for podcasts too.
So, we called everyone we knew to see what they thought of the idea, hired a team to build the app and here we are…(well, “here we are” makes it sound a little easier than it was….we did redesign the whole thing after our first prototype!).
We hope you like it! Happy Listening!
JJ Ramberg
P.S. You can download the Goodpods’ app here.
