Introducing the Perseverance Podcast.

Including episode #001 with Vlad Tetelbaum.

Brian Lamb
Sep 4, 2018 · 3 min read

I am pleased to announce the launch of the Perseverance podcast.

It will be focused on interviewing people that have persevered through challenges to build or accomplish noteworthy things. People whose stories deserve to be told in a way that helps you truly understand what they went through and how they made it happen.

It’ll be first-of-its-kind podcast on our platform, Synth. Synth is a bite-sized podcasting tool for teams, classes and your passions. Our aim is to redesign how we listen to each other, and introduce a whole range of new applications for podcasting.

Synth also just happens to be ideal for conducting interviews remotely, asynchronously between peoples busy schedules.

Who will I interview?

Entrepreneurs that have built companies in non-traditional ways, overcoming the doubters to succeed. Designers that have made amazing products, but whose story of creation hasn’t been told. Teachers who have withstood the test of time, and created innovative teaching methods with lasting impact. Professional athletes that have lasted years in their sport and made an impact beyond just victories. And many more.

I’ll be starting with interesting people I know and expanding from there. Know someone who might be interesting to interview? Introduce them to me at blamb@gosynth.com.

The stories that interest me.

I am interested in getting past stories that use hindsight as perspective. Everything seems inevitable once its created. Most stories don’t properly recognize this. I want to know the how it happened, from the perspective of no perspective.

Some areas I’ll explore include, why did they get started down this path? How did they overcome early doubts or naysayers? What did they do that was unconventional or counter to trends? How did it feel to be doubted? What was an early break that revealed the path forward? What was the biggest hurdle and how did they overcome it? What do they believe that has helped them persevere to this day?

The goal.

When most people say “I am launching a podcast”, it’s with the ambition of building a large audience or a personal brand. My aspiration is a bit different.

My goal is to tell stories that are valuable to people I interview and their co-workers, friends, students, parents, etc. I want to tell a story that develops deeper respect and appreciation of who the person is and what they have accomplished.

If that story or a Synth sound bite is valuable more broadly than this? That’s great too.

I didn’t have to search far to find my first guest — Vladimir Tetelbaum. He’s my founding partner at Swivl, Synth’s parent company.

He has a long career as a stellar engineer and manager in Silicon Valley startups. We first met working together at a design consulting firm called D2M, and hit it off immediately. We hit it off so well that we decided to start a company together. Over the last 8 years, we’ve built Swivl into a global education technology brand with a range of hardware and software products. He and I have persevered through countless, seemingly impossible challenges together. And I knew that giving him the chance to finally tell some of those stories would be fun, build respect for him as a leader and bring our entire team closer together.

Watch this intro:

Check out whole episode #001!

We’ll have many more interviews like Vlad’s coming soon. And once I get the formula down, I’ll share instructions for how I construct the podcast so that anyone can emulate it themselves.

Do you know someone that you think we should interview for this podcast? Send me suggestions to blamb@gosynth.com.

Synth

A podcast app for people that listen with purpose.

Brian Lamb

Written by

Co-founder @gosynth and @goswivl. Stanford design alum & past lecturer.

Synth

Synth

A podcast app for people that listen with purpose.

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