Female Founders: Jessica Cordova Kramer & Stephanie Wittels Wachs of Lemonada Media On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Steph: Have a support system. Again, with two small children at home who have lots of needs, I need to lean on my network of helping hands constantly. From partners to parents to childcare providers. Wouldn’t be able to do this work without tons of help and support
Jess: Health first. If you feel like crap, everything will feel like crap. You have to take care of yourself physically and mentally before anything else.
As a part of our series about “Why We Need More Women Founders”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jessica Cordova Kramer and Stephanie Wittels Wachs.
Jessica Cordova Kramer is co-founder and CEO of the award-winning podcast network Lemonada Media. She began her professional career as a Wall Street lawyer who moonlighted on pro bono domestic violence and refugee cases, then worked for Teach For America and Teach For All for more than a decade. Cordova Kramer lost her younger brother, Stefano, to a long battle with addiction, subsequently co-creating Lemonada with Stephanie Wittels Wachs, who also lost her brother to an overdose.
Stephanie Wittels Wachs is co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Lemonada Media. She co-created and hosts Last Day, Lemonada’s award-winning flagship show confronting massive epidemics with humor, compassion, and a quest for progress. Its first season focused on the opioid crisis, which took the life of her brother, writer-producer-comedian Harris Wittels (Parks & Recreation, Master of None). A well-known voice actor appearing in countless anime series and movies, she founded Lemonada Media with Jessica Cordova Kramer, who also lost her brother to an overdose.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
Jess: Well, our brothers both died, two years apart, from accidental overdoses. They were our best friends. Steph wrote a best-selling book about losing her brother Harris Wittels, a beloved comedian and writer, and I heard her talking about it on a podcast. At the time, I was working for Crooked Media, and my brother had recently passed away. I was rocked by grief, and Steph was the first person who made me feel like I might make it through.
Steph: A few months before meeting Jess, I received an orange envelope in the mail and inside was a three-page letter. I can’t find the strength to mail a letter on my best day, but this woman managed to do all of this while she was in the throes of grief over the loss of her son to an opioid overdose. In her letter, she told me how her world had come crashing down. How her family was broken. How she’s been crying every single day non stop. But she read my book, and for the first time, she felt hope. When Jess reached out to me, another perfect stranger, and said the exact same thing — ”heard you on the podcast, saw myself in your story, felt hope for the first time” — it was as close to a lightning bolt moment that I’d ever experienced. People are struggling and feeling really alone. The mission for Lemonada was born. Our desire to make the hard things easier combined with my background as a theatre director, voiceover actor, educator, and writer all brought me to where I am today.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?
Steph: While we were in the midst of Season 2 of Last Day, I got a tweet from someone that essentially said, “I was considering ending my life and heard your show and made a different choice.” This was a hugely monumental moment. When we started, I would always say, “Our goal is to save lives.” Seeing actual evidence of it was a profound moment. Keeps you going, even when you’re working on difficult material.
Jess: All of that and then what happened after. People heard Last Day, they started to learn about Lemonada, and decided they wanted to be a part of it in their own way. Andy Slavitt emailed us early in the pandemic and asked us to help him make a podcast that would help people through the pandemic. It was up a week later. Kulap Vilaysak and SuChin Pak had a specific idea about a show about what we buy and what we buy into, and they wanted to do it with us. Our staff too: they care about the world and want to make it better. Sponsors want to align with our content and audience. It’s the best part of all of this, building a community of talent, team members, audience, brands, foundations and other partners who want to make the world suck less together.
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?
Steph: One of the funniest moments was literally the day before we officially launched. Jess and I had worked so incredibly hard to nail the roll out. All of our market research, positioning, branding, assets, newsletters, talking points — everything was super strategic. And then, the night before we’d planned to launch, I posted the announcement video at like, 10pm. TOTALLY BLEW IT. This was our first lesson of many in: We are human! We make mistakes! You can plan and plan and plan but sometimes things won’t go according to plan, and that’s okay! Glad Jess didn’t murder me, and we lived to tell a very hilarious tale.
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?
Jess: Wow. We think about how this all sprung out of the worst thing that ever happened to each of us and our families. So, our brothers and our families.
Steph: 100% agree. We owe everything to our brothers and families.
Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this EY report, only about 20 percent of funded companies have women founders. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women to create companies. In your opinion and experience, what is currently holding back women from founding companies?
Jess: Someone sent us a congrats email and shared this article from Pitchbook that said 2% of VC funds went to women-led companies last year. I forwarded it to Steph and was like, “so glad we didn’t know this when we went for it!” It’s discouraging, and the real headline is how few dollars are going to companies led by women of color. I think women have plenty of ideas and solutions and the reorientation is how to ensure that venture funds are able to look at the value women can create for the problems they uniquely experience. From science (better breast pumps!) to tech (apps that help us manage our incredibly busy lives) to media (content that caters to the reality of our lives and makes us feel better, not worse)… there’s such a huge demand for women for products and solutions and women ought to be at the helm of creating more of them.
Steph: When we started Lemonada, I had a baby who was less than a year old and a daughter who was entering Kindergarten. I have an extremely hands-on partner, but regardless, it’s difficult to strike a good balance between caregiving and career. Founding the company with another working mom who also understands the complexities of grief and all that life can throw at you unexpectedly was revolutionary. As the company has grown, we’ve integrated our understanding of all that we’re balancing as humans into our core values. We want to make life suck less for our listeners but also for our staff. We lead with empathy. We have a generous PTO and paternal leave policy along with bereavement leave. We want people to know that they can work really hard here and still have thriving lives outside of the workplace.
Can you help articulate a few things that can be done as individuals, as a society, or by the government, to help overcome those obstacles?
Steph: So much of this is systemic. As we tackle in our show No One Is Coming to Save Us about the childcare crisis, we have failed working parents and caregivers in this country. Childcare is infrastructure, and until we implement institutional support for working parents and caregivers, including paid parental leave and universal early childcare, we will not be able to overcome these obstacles.
This might be intuitive to you as a woman founder, but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become founders?
Steph: If more women became founders, I have to believe that more companies would be motivated to implement policies that support working families. The culture of work could change fundamentally.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a founder? Can you explain what you mean?
Jess: Gosh, that you can do it alone. I am so lucky I have a business partner. And we take care of our working relationships first, before anything else, because it’s the most important part of our success.
Steph: It’s so true. The most important part of our founder titles is the “co” part. We are co-founders and that has made all the difference in the world. I think there’s this myth of the individual founder as visionary. That’s not been the case with us. Our superpowers come from collaboration. First with each other, and as we’ve grown, with our teams. There’s no possible way I could have done any of this on my own. Many hands make light work!
Is everyone cut out to be a founder? In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful founder and what type of person should perhaps seek a “regular job” as an employee? Can you explain what you mean?
Jess: I think I could have founded 100 companies that didn’t thrive. This idea, this moment, this business partner, it worked because all the pieces fit, we worked hard and deliberately to build it. If you are sitting on an idea and it’s the right moment, go for it. Ask for support, ask for advice, and bring people along who share your vision to help along the way. Not everyone is cut out to found something, but anyone can help build the right thing for them.
Steph: Jess and I had an idea that was keeping us awake at night and that was a podcast about the opioid crisis. We wanted to know what we could have done differently to save our brothers and we were highly motivated to do it. It was personal and critical. When we started pitching the concept, we kept getting the feedback that it was too “niche.” But we’d done the research. We knew that millions of people were struggling with issues related to addiction for themselves or their loved ones. So we took a chance on ourselves and went out on our own. Once the podcast became a success, we thought, “Wait a minute, we’re on to something here. What if we created content and community around all the things that are keeping people up at night — not just drugs.” And it worked. We’ve carved out real space in a saturated market because we did the work and knew we had what people needed. If you feel that strongly about your thing, go for it!
Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman Founder” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
Steph: I’ll do three… 1) Have a support system. Again, with two small children at home who have lots of needs, I need to lean on my network of helping hands constantly. From partners to parents to childcare providers. Wouldn’t be able to do this work without tons of help and support. 2) Move your body every day. I am adamant about this one. Every morning, I do 15 minutes on the yoga mat. Even when I’m traveling. Even when I’m slammed. Even when I don’t feel like it. It’s been deeply grounding to be able to establish this as a daily practice in the midst of the start-up chaos! Highly recommend it. 3) Therapy! We talk a lot about mental health at Lemonada. For me, therapy has been critical. This work is hard and kicks up tons of emotional dirt at all times. Put your own oxygen mask on first: therapy.
Jess: I’ll finish this out. 4) Health first. If you feel like crap, everything will feel like crap. You have to take care of yourself physically and mentally before anything else. 5) Have 5–10 people from different sectors with different, diverse backgrounds who you can call for help at any time.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
Steph: We’re in the midst of this right now! The more ears we have on Lemonada, the more lives we hope to save. As a mission-driven company, making the world a better place is literally our biggest priority.
Jess: We have, we’re still midstream.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be?
Steph: We just launched a weekly iteration of our limited run series, No One Is Coming to Save Us, which is all about the childcare crisis. We need federally funded childcare in this country and we are ready to tackle it head on. So this is a big one. We’re also doing Season 3 of Last Day on gun violence in America. We need to treat this like what it is: a public health crisis and we need to find solutions.
Jess: What she said.
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why?
Jess: Mackenzie Scott.
Steph: Oprah Winfrey! She’s the absolute Queen of the interview. Listens attentively, pushes gently, and remains compassionate always. I’ve been watching her my entire life. I used a quote of hers as my senior quote in my high school yearbook. Let’s have breakfast, Oprah!
How can our readers further follow you online?
Jess: @lemonadamedia across platforms! But you can find me @jjcordovak on twitter.
Steph: I’m @wittelstephanie on Twitter and IG.
Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!
Female Founders: Jessica Cordova Kramer & Stephanie Wittels Wachs of Lemonada Media On The Five… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.