I’m currently on month ten (10!) of my ~spontaneous sabbatical~ after moving to Berlin a year ago, and bringing STMT back to life just feels right ⚡️. I’ll share more about these updates and more, I promise!

What is Statement Mondays? It’s a weekly jolt of inspiration to Be Bold, based on the stories and learnings I have from putting this motto into practice myself. I write about my approach to my sabbatical as well as my Coffee Shop Project that’s come out of it. You’ve known STMT as a podcast, but it’s in full metamorphosis!

🍭 What’s going on?

So let’s start again. My name is Natalie and I’m currently on month ten of my sabbatical. After pouring my whole self into my tech career for the past five years, I’m on a mission to rediscover my creativity and the sparkle in my eye both of which I unintentionally allowed to dull.

My Coffee Shop Project is the product of months of tiny steps towards this goal and a reflection of me just following my energy – its physical form is a collection of drawings of the cafes I’ve been to, but to me the process means a lot more than that output. I’ll share more in future notes and sprinkle drawings throughout! In the meantime, you can tag along by following the Instagram account @coffee_shop_project. ☕️

🍬 What’s the plan here?

If you know me, then you know I love to challenge people, energize them, and push them to be their best and brightest selves. So I’m kicking off this STMT collection of notes both for me to document this crazy time and to put a little inspiration out in the world!

Lots of people have approached me with questions about my “time off” or seeking tips as they think about doing something similar. I’ve also frequently noticed friends’ and strangers’ eyes begin to sparkle whenever I’m sharing about what I’ve been up to. If my own eyes are sparkling and I can inspire other sparkling eyes, then I know I’m doing something very right. ✨✨ So here we go, it’s on. So much eye sparkle.

What you can expect in upcoming notes:

• My small “manifesting” steps that made the move to Berlin obvious and easy

• Tactics that gave me direction during unplanned & unconstrained time

• My strategy for “friend dating”

• Living in the present (including reaching a very real and literal “high on life” euphoria)

• Separating a sabbatical or other type of time off into stages

Why restart this STMT newsletter now?

• I have had many months with no real accountability outside of my own internal drive. Writing these notes gives me something to be consistently responsible for.

• I’ve been careful to avoid my pre-sabbatical mindset of “always needing to be productive,” so the tangible things I’ve created have been limited to art for myself. I’m ready to create more kinds of content and create for wider audiences. Leveling up!

• I’ve done a lot of living in the present and internalizing what that means to me. I feel so full of learnings and personal growth, but no longer want to keep it all inside. Actually externalizing them in this way, written and public, forces me to organize these thoughts clearly and concisely. I’ve been baking this cake and it’s ready to come out of the oven to be sliced and shared 🍰.

• I miss you guys! I’ve occasionally wondered if this is real life or a dream, and any contact with you all grounds me. So I’d love responses to any of the upcoming notes that resonate :)

• I don’t exactly have clarity on how I want to spend my time and energy next, so let’s see where Statement Mondays leads me.

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Thank you to Helen S for brainstorming all sorts of ideas on the train with me, during which I realized that my existing Statement Mondays initiative is the perfect home for my sabbatical and Coffee Shop Project musings

• Congratulations to Annie Z and Jay H whose wedding I just attended – Annie, the process of writing my speech for you shot me back to the origin of Statement Mondays and flooded me once again with the inspiration to create and share. So here we are

See you in my next note! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is – today is Statement Monday.

Swinging on a chair in my friend Helen’s garden in rural Germany,

Natalie

(PS: Website & IG & brand revamp to come)

What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview career-minded women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do. 

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• I’ve decided to kick off interviews for season 2 of Statement Mondays! More on that below.

• I’ve been receiving a good handful of unprompted recommendations of women I should interview which is GREAT because it means my podcast is still relevant even when I’m not actively working on it (and now I have season 2 candidates)

• I published all my earliest email updates to my Substack -- hoping they can be helpful to other young podcasters

• I ~finally~ got the Statement Mondays IG account up to date (if you’re wondering why I posted some old stuff in the past weeks)

• …aaand drum roll….. People have been sending me screenshots of Statement Mondays in their 2021 Spotify Wrapped!

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: Spotify Wrapped is my much-needed kick in the butt

After a few months of prioritizing life in NYC and meeting new people (aka nursing my burnout), I am itching to DO something again, be productive and CREATING. I had decided to put that mental energy into hunting for what I want to do next with my career, but feeling lack of inspiration there and seeing Statement Mondays come up in people’s Spotify Wrapped has made me itch for my podcasting days instead. Maybe that’s a sign for what I should be doing right now? 🐒

Then I checked my emails and found Spotify has a Wrapped for podcasters too! A great big ol’ summary of my podcasting journey (at least for the parts on Spotify): Statement Mondays 2021 Wrapped. 🎁 Only 4% of total listens are from Spotify (according to my hosting platform) so the numbers aren’t particularly representative of my overall listener base but it’s still so so cool to see and wanted to share it :). Apple could you please release a similar thing? My todos to actually make moves on this inspiration: 1. Re-evaluate my (& guests’) recording setup, 2. update my questions list, 3. Shoot out some emails to potential guests. LET’S DO THIS!

🌟 Just for fun I’ll give you my own ~behind the scenes~ 2021(ish) wrapped for STMT:

• 2260 listens on my 2 min trailer episode alone

• 20 episodes recorded on 7 different desks, in 5 different closets, and in 1 backyard during my pandemic nomad life

• 101+ (THAT’S ONE HUNDRED AND ONE! 🤯) different countries people are listening from (hello person in Kyrgyzstan!)

• 20 adrenaline hits while asking badass women what their “heels” are

• 1072 tears shed

• 89 friends, family, and more following my biweekly updates

• Countless emails of encouragement received 💜

• 18+ inches of hair chopped

• 2 bottles of champagne popped

🤓 Learnings:

• Two years ago (right around when I switched teams at Fb), I learned that I do my best work and I am most fulfilled and most invincible when I override my very pragmatic brain and I follow my heart. I’m reminded of that self-learning as I’m writing this update now, riding a wave of adrenaline as I remember how exhausting but how much fun it is to run a podcast. Time to listen to my heart again and get season 2 going.

• Content lives forever (for now…). Part of the magic of building something is that you have something permanent to show for your effort at the end. Even though I’m not actively working on the podcast right now, friends and strangers still email me about it and the existing episodes still get a solid number of listens a week. 😳

• Blondes have more fun but short haired blondes have the most fun.

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Thank you to my superfans whose Spotify Wrapped my podcast appeared in! Including Shep & Max & Doris

• Thank you new friend Olivia for reaching out to praise STMT and chat after realizing I’m the random podcaster you’ve been listening to and I work at the same company as you!

• Hello to the newest members of this update list! Glad to have you around :)

🍪 Asks:

• Help build my hype and send me some motivation! Respond to this in your inbox and tell me your favorite part about STMT Season 1 so if I ever look back and wonder if season 2 is a good idea for me right now, the answer will be a resounding YES!

• Job alert! Do you know of anyone (new grad maybe?) who is looking for a job in tech but might not be technical themselves? My mentor Jason Toff’s startup Things.inc needs an assistant to the CEO (himself). Here’s more info and feel free to reach out to me with any questions or recs.

It’s been one absolutely crazy year! Will I be able to sleep tonight? We’ll find out. Anyway thanks for reading, and if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday.

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

Website: Statementmondays.com

IG: @statementmondays

What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview career-minded women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do. 

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• I emailed and got a response from one of my idols and inspiration for starting Statement Mondays: Fidji Simo (prior VP of Product @ Facebook, I emailed her just before she left!)

• A few season 2 - related things ~crossed my mind~ to do but I haven’t put the effort behind these thoughts yet:

  • Start looking for a producer to team up with for season 2

  • Ask previous guests about how I could improve my whole reachout & interview process with them

  • Change up my interview questions and/or pick a specific theme for season 2

  • Start reaching out to new guests from my list of women who have been referred to me to interview

• I’ve read three novels

• I’ve been to 2 figure drawing classes, I’m on my second painting, I’m starting an 8 week abstract painting course tomorrow, and I’ve sketched a bunch

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: Burnout & my own heels

No doubt about it -- I spent June, July, and August truly and completely burnt out. At least in the podcast sense, but it’s also bleeding into the rest of my life. I thought maybe I’d be able to work on Statement Mondays here and there while settling into New York and recovering from the first season’s madness, but my brain just refuses to think constructively at the moment.

On the bright side, that does mean I’ve been able to focus on my new top two priorities -- meeting new people and reinvigorating my creative passions. I’ve found myself most energized (eyes absolutely sparkling!) lately when reading a book that is art- or creative process- related. My favorites have been Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants (a colorful portrayal of Michelangelo designing a bridge for the Ottoman Empire) and Lust For Life (the Vincent Van Gogh biographical narrative). By reviving my love of the creative world and visual arts, I feel like I’m reviving a piece of my soul that hasn’t yet found its role in my day-to-day life. In fact, kindling this element of my individuality fits right in with Statement Mondays -- in order to excel at both my podcast and my real job, I really do think I need this time to go back and strengthen my foundation of what it means to be Natalie Muenster. 

I’ve had a personal realization that a consequence of my burnout is I don’t feel deserving of the pieces of my identity I am proudest of.

“Heels” = a fundamental piece of you (internal, external) that defines you, that others can see and define you with, that you draw strength from, and that you wouldn’t be yourself without.

I’ve never shared what my own “heels” are (my signature question to every Statement Mondays guest!), and now feels like as good a time as any. I have two. If I were being interviewed I would just say the first, but since I make the rules here I get to share both 🙃:

1. My enthusiasm -- my positive and energetic spirit feeds my ambition, attracts similarly-driven and passionate people, and opens doors for me

2. My hobbies -- I call myself a serial hobbyist (I just googled that and turns out the term already exists, meaning ~‘someone who spends their life jumping from hobby to hobby trying to master new things all the time’. My definition is different in that I don’t abandon my hobbies afterward. In fact if I could I would continue to do all my existing hobbies while continuing to add on more.) They may not be directly related to my career at any given time, but they add sparkle and give me unique perspectives. Curious what my top 10 hobbies are? Reach out!

I now see that my two ‘heels’ are definitely related.

Anyway, in nurturing my existing hobbies I hope my resulting enthusiasm pours over into my podcasting and engineering life! This burnout is not a bad thing, it’s exactly the reset that I need.

🤓 Learnings:

• You can’t force creation, at least not if you want anything good to come out of it. I’m learning to sit with my burnout and embrace the opportunities it’s given me to focus on other parts of my life.

• Self-help books don’t land for every early-career & driven person. I get more career progression from reading “Lust For Life” than some of these self-improvement silicon valley-esque books that everybody’s reading (this could also be my rebellious side lashing out)

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Shoutout to all the new people I’m meeting in New York!

• Thank you Kevin Chang and Caroline Jennings for both the commiserating and the inspiring conversations about creative endeavors and the role of personal pursuits in our lives.

• Thank you to my new roommate Doris Hoyos for putting up with all the canvases and art supplies cluttering our apartment and for helping me eat all the things I bake (another hobby).

🍪 Asks:

• Please bear with me. In the past few ~days~ I’ve started to regain my spark for Statement Mondays, so hopefully in the next update I’ll have some real progress and my signature enthusiasm to share!

Thanks for reading! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday.

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

Statementmondays.com

I shared my podcast launch strategy in newsletter #11: Preparing For Launch, and I figured sharing my actual templates here could be helpful to any other podcast creators who might be ~behind the scenes~ with me. Below you’ll find:

1. An example of a personalized email I sent to different friends & family with details to make sharing my podcast super easy.

2. My launch logos (Statement Mondays logos designed specifically to celebrate launch).

3. The list of sample LinkedIn & Instagram & Twitter & Facebook posts that I sent to my friends and family so they wouldn’t have to think about what to write in their endorsement posts.

4. Tips I wish I learned earlier

If you end up borrowing any of these examples or just generally find these useful, I’d love to hear about it! Reply / write me at natalie@statementmondays.com.

Example email to a friend:

FYI further down in this post I copy/pasted the contents of the “shared doc” I mention.

I spent about 5 minutes personalizing each email, which meant picking out 1-2 template posts for them (from my list further down), and telling them how they could

Dear Marina,

Thank you so so much for agreeing to help me publicize my shiny new podcast :)

Here's a link to a doc with [lots of different post examples] (hyperlinked to a shared doc) you can copy/paste -- you're totally welcome to write your own too (maybe even add a bit about how you were part of the original Statement Mondays crew @Facebook)! Anyway there are some really fun examples in the doc ^ that you can post on FB/ Twitter/ LinkedIn! Here's one of the examples of something you could post as a super short and sweet Twitter post:

-------------

What started as a way for a couple of my Facebook teammates to have fun bringing their full selves to work is now an epic podcast by my friend and previous coworker Natalie Muenster -- check out Statement Mondays here, and don’t forget to BE BOLD today, because it’s Statement Monday.

#StatementMondays

-------------

For a group with a bunch of younger people in it (like APMs & interns), a post like this one that is more personal and emphasizes mentorship could be good:

Early in my career I didn’t have many examples of bold women to learn from and look up to. My friend @Natalie fixes this problem with her new podcast, Statement Mondays! Tune in every Monday to hear from badass women with all kinds of experience and opinions. Follow the links on their website statementmondays.com to listen to the first three episodes, and check out their Instagram account here! #StatementMondays

--------------

You can also like or reshare my post on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Thank you so much for helping me spreading the word! I'm so excited for people to listen to it :)

And let me know if there's anything else I can provide to make posting on my behalf easier!

All the best,

Natalie

Launch logos:

I included these in the email/doc so friends could have something eye-catching to post with.

Template social media posts:

Twitter & Instagram & Facebook & LinkedIn

1. New podcast alert! 🚨 My friend @Natalie just launched a podcast TODAY called Statement Mondays about how bold women harness their identities in their careers. Listen to Fischer Yan talk about clothing as armor, Nicole Mueller talk about the paradox of being a smart woman, and Karla Magaña Figueroa talk about drawing strength from her roots. 💪 Follow the links on their website statementmondays.com to listen, and check out their Instagram here! And of course, don’t forget to be bold, because today is Statement Monday! #StatementMondays

2. Early in my career I didn’t have many examples of bold women to learn from and look up to. @Natalie fixes this problem with her new podcast, Statement Mondays! 🙌💪 Tune in every Monday to hear from badass women with all kinds of experience and opinions. Follow the links on their website statementmondays.com to listen to the first three episodes, and check out their Instagram account here! #StatementMondays

3. Statement Mondays (noun): a movement in which one day a week you have an excuse to be your boldest and brightest self. Listen to @Natalie’s new podcast here! How have you been bold lately? 💃  #StatementMondays

4. What started as a way for a couple of Facebook teammates to have fun bringing their full selves to work turned into an epic podcast by Natalie Muenster -- check out Statement Mondays here, and don’t forget to BE BOLD today, because it’s Statement Monday. #StatementMondays

5. Finally! A podcast for badass women by badass women. 🤩 Listen to Statement Mondays: Interview With Women Who Wear “Heels” to Work every Monday by following the links on the Statement Mondays website here. #StatementMondays

6. The world needs more bold women. 

   Listen to Statement Mondays here. #StatementMondays

7. Who is a person you know who’s in need of mentorship? My friend @Natalie started a podcast called Statement Mondays in which she interviews bold women on how they harness their individuality in their careers. Her interviews are almost like weekly coffee chats -- an amazing resource for young women in search of mentorship! Follow the links on the Statement Monday website here to listen to her first three episodes! #StatementMondays

8. Stuck in traffic on your morning commute? 

   Nope. 🙅‍♀️

   Snoozing your alarm too often before rolling out of bed, putting on your ~daytime pajamas~, and relocating to the couch to work or study from home again? 

   Yep. 🤷‍♀️

   Listen to the new podcast Statement Mondays by @Natalie to start your morning feeling inspired and energized 🙌 by her interviews with badass women talking about how they bring themselves to work. Following the links on their website here to listen to the first three episodes! #StatementMondays

LinkedIn & Internal work groups:

1. New podcast alert 🚨!

   My friend @Natalie just launched a podcast TODAY called Statement Mondays: Interviews With Women Who Wear “Heels” to Work about how bold women harness their identities in their careers! In each episode she interviews a badass woman who, by talking about who they are and how they use their individuality to their advantage at work, gives listeners examples, advice, and tools to bring more of who they are into what they do. 

   I highly recommend listening to at least one of her first three episodes, she digs really deep with her guests and discusses quite salient topics while managing to keep the conversation both refreshing and lighthearted. Get ready to be inspired and be bold! Follow the links on their website statementmondays.com to listen, and also check out their Instagram account here!

   #StatementMondays

2. For anyone who’s trying to figure out how to ~thrive~ or ~survive~ while navigating their career, you should listen to this new podcast called Statement Mondays that @Natalie just launched TODAY! 🤩

   In her words, “Statement Mondays is a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in their careers. I interview bold women with strong individuality who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do.” I cannot emphasize enough how much I wish I’d heard stories like the ones she features on her podcast earlier in my career. 

   Follow the links on their website statementmondays.com to listen to her first three episodes, and also check out the Instagram account here. And of course, don’t forget to be bold, because today is Statement Monday!

   #StatementMondays

Tips:

1. Don’t post external links directly in a LinkedIn post (maybe other platforms too) — the LinkedIn feed algorithm downranks posts that would take viewers off-platform. Instead, post all your links as the first comment.

2. Emojis make posts more eye-catching!

3. Concise and bite-sized text is less intimidating, so try not to post block paragraphs if you’re blasting to the public (put things on multiple lines and vary the line length!).

What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview career-minded women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do. 

🍪 Asks:

1. How do you think I should change Statement Mondays brand, interviews, or episode content to make the podcast even better for season 2? Got any wild pivot ideas? I’d love to hear!

2. Do you know any podcast producers? Put me in touch! I’m looking for a partner to help build season 2.

🦒 Personal Update:

I’ve officially moved to New York City! I get the keys to my new apartment this week, so please send any fan mail to: 202 Mott St, Apt 19, New York, NY 10012. 👀 If you’re in the area, let me know and I’d love to meet up (even if we’ve never met before!). If you’re interested in what I’m doing instead of publishing on Statement Mondays, check out @natalie_and_her_paints on IG.

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• Published three new episodes:

• Monetization: started a partnership with the superfood supplement Athletic Greens (they also advertise with big names like The Tim Ferris Show!). Want to support Statement Mondays while also improving your vitamin & mineral intake in your diet? Try it out at athleticgreens.com/statementmondays (I actually do really enjoy the product). And our contract is a revenue share model, so when someone purchases through my link STMT will get a piece of the revenue! 🙀

• Did a retrospective as a way to emotionally close out the launch + season 1 chapter of the STMT adventure. I shared it at the bottom of this post!

• Realized I am totally burned out (burnt out?)

• Found by another podcaster — Maddy from the Tech Gals podcast interviewed me and will release my episode in her season 2 (also shoutout to all the other podcasters who are supporting me and who I support in turn: @dishedpodcast, @artispodcast, @publichealthunprofessionals, …)

• After interviewing Caroline Cuffe, I was euphoric and filled with energy and inspiration — so much so that I felt like I could quit my job and do STMT full time right then and there (despite the burnout). Dynamic & colorful conversations like hers give me such a high which I’m now constantly in search of!

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: When and how do I start again?

Now that Statement Mondays has been on pause for 3-ish weeks, I am absolutely loving my newfound free time. I’ve been reading, going to figure drawing studio sessions, working out, inviting randos for coffee or drinks, and just exploring the city. I feel like a new person in New York, and it would be a mistake to jump right back into a heavy-time commitment and sacrifice part of this exploratory mode I’m in here. I don’t want to put STMT on hold forever, but I can’t bring myself to think about the podcast right now because there’s so much else I want to do! What I need is to come up with a game plan comprised of three things: 

1. A list of more awesome women to interview (in progress)

2. A reasonably-priced producer who will help me with the time-consuming parts (finally scaling myself!)

3. A social media revamp

I’ll also need to reflect on what changes to make to the existing Statement Mondays brand and content to build an even better next season. Should I cap each episode at 30 minutes? Should I focus on only interviewing sub-35 year old professionals to more easily relate to an early-career audience? So many questions to think about which I am putting off a bit longer until I settle in to NYC. Have any thoughts on? Reach out! I’m all ears. All in all, season 2 launch date TBD.

🤓 Learnings:

• Routine: consistency with workload was the biggest thing I lacked while launching Statement Mondays and keeping it going through season 1. To anybody who is serious about starting a side project, a routine or schedule is the first thing you should nail down.

• Unfinished work + burnout: I get so passionate about hobbies and side projects that I can go from all in to all out pretty abruptly and sometimes leave things unfinished. I was 100% invested in Statement Mondays through the final episode of season 1, however once it was published I stopped working on STMT altogether. Next time I take a break from something, I need to do a better job tying up loose ends (ex: this update coming out weeks late).

• Marketing struggles: It is HARD to get any bites for an ad in a podcast. I’m sure lots of it is just a matter of reaching more people and increasing number of touches, but it’s tough to know how much better I myself could do while advertising in the mid-roll (mid-episode slot). With a revenue-share model, Statement Mondays doesn’t see any upside unless people purchase the product, so I definitely have an incentive to do well! 💸💸 Even though this partnership has (spoiler alert) proved totally unprofitable so far, it’s been very cool to even have the opportunity to try out promotional content.

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Thank you Julie for leading me in a retrospective on the past year of building this podcast; you are so generous with your time and I appreciate you

• Thank you Mark for continuing to send me thoughtful messages about episodes as you listen to them <3

• Thank you Katharine and Tina for being patient since your interviews didn’t make it into season 1. Potential content for season 2, though!

• Hello to new Statement Mondays listeners and readers who have found me since I ended the season! Thanks for reaching out to tell me how STMT resonates with you :)

Thanks for reading! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday.

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

Statementmondays.com

What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview career-minded women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do.

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• I launched three new episodes:

• I experimented with a new episode type in my 2nd ever Statement Extra (episode #16) which was a collaboration between Statement Mondays and a platform of women uplifting each other called YaYa :) Unfortunately, I don’t have any way of measuring what works for these “Extras”, but it’s fun for me to play with!

• I’ve recorded 1-2 interviews a week for the past three weeks so I have tons of new content again! 🤩 The best part is I can curate the episode order now instead of just publishing whatever I have.

• I sent one interview to a professional editing company I was referred to called Podcast Engineers — I’m hoping to get ahead, outsource the nit-picky work, and commit to a routine.

• Mallory, my intern, accepted an amazing internship offer at iHeartMedia for the summer! They essentially created the role for her because of her great work at school and on STMT — I’m so proud of her and also feel personal accomplishment as a mentor and manager! Even if this podcast doesn’t go anywhere, I know I’ve still had a substantial impact in another person’s life 🙌

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: Growth and retention...

I am no longer on New & Noteworthy (which is sad yes because I don’t have the crazy ridiculous numbers every day of the week like before...) but I am excited to see what remains now that the whirlwind has calmed down. Mainly, I can distinguish between explosive growth from N&N and actual retention. After a few weeks of seven hundred listens *per day* on average, I now see spikes on Monday of 500-900 listens when I release a new episode, and then a steep decline the rest of the week. I’m guessing most of the Monday listens come from subscribers (and since Apple Podcasts won’t even give me my subscriber count this is the best way for me to guess). So several hundred subscribers?? YES PLEASE!!! That means people are liking this content 😻.

Other things I notice are that I still get a handful of listens of my trailer episode every day, which means people are finding the podcast in other ways: either by my own promotions, guests promoting their episodes, or even better — word of mouth by listeners. Trailer listens to me is a great proxy for growth, now I need to decide whether to optimize for better growth or retention. I still haven’t found a great way to get feedback from listeners so I’ll have to continue to experiment in order to figure out what to change to make sure people come back to listen every week. Especially since I see a slight downward trajectory of overall listens week to week. Not worrisome right now but I’d still prefer that be upward… Stay tuned!

🤓 Learnings:

• Editing up-leveling. For episode 16 (Statement Extra), I interviewed two women at once and cut 50 mins of content down to 12 for a collaboration supporting the founders of YaYa. The episode was a challenge to myself (since I set the rules for my own podcast)! I’m learning to be ruthless about content.

• Collaboration best practices. Jackie from YaYa told me I did a perfect job spreading what they’re doing: from sharing the company URL to spelling “yaya” and even opening the app mid-recording and reading from the feed… this was my first time promoting another company and sounds like my instincts were right!

• Routine woes. I’m behind a week in my biweekly updates 😨 -- since I made them public I’ve felt less pressure to deliver on-time but I need to be more diligent. I’ve also started leaving the script -writing and -recording to the last minute which is both a bad-habit-in-the-making and a sign that I’m more efficient at and/or less anxious about finishing each week’s episode.

• Extra effort wins. I’ve started recording a personalized video of myself asking potential guests to interview with me. It works. The personal touch shows guests they are not just a random reach-out and that I am excited for them specifically to be on my show. I landed politician Lindsey Boylan as a guest with this method + a warm contact! 🏆 (episode coming soon!)

  

🍪 Asks:

1. Do you know of someone who is talented at designing a brand? We are struggling with brand image in our Instagram feed and would love either some pointers or even someone to redesign it!

2. Any ideas about how to measure whether my experimental Statement Extra episodes are hitting home?

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Thank you Julie for offering to do a retrospective with me after my season 1 (if it ever ends… might take you up on that now). I hope to distill what’s been working and what I need to change, both process-wise and content-wise.

• Thank you Jamie for putting me in touch with our ~guest for next week~

• Wendy I cannot thank you enough for the amazing guests you send my way 💜

• Thank you Brad for intros to two fantastic upcoming guests as well!

Thanks for reading! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday.

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

Statementmondays.com

👠 What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview career-minded women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do. 

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• I launched two new episodes:

• Met some amazing women through my On Deck fellowship:

  • Chatted with another podcaster (just as adventurous and driven) who will be my accountability buddy

  • I’ll be recording a ~special interview~ with two founders who are building a social and mentorship network just for women!

• Lining up a potential partner/advertiser who is sending us their product to try before we commit to promoting it on the show!

• Bought a pop filter for my mic, no clue whether it’s been helping but it sure makes me look legit

• Went HAM on Thursday scheduling more interviews 🕺🕺

• *Sneak peak*... 👀 On Sunday I got fried chicken in Nashville with Emma Kalaysian, my guest for next week’s episode! This is the first time I’ve met her in person, how cool to be making new friends through this podcast

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: Reaching sustainability… do I just keep going?

The most important milestone for me yet has been reaching my own ~escape velocity~ this past week. A few weeks ago I think I said I was planning on ending season 1 around episode 18. But WOW it feels good not to be stressed constantly anymore! I barely remember the time pre-podcast when I didn’t have to work a few hours every evening just to get the next episode out… And if you remember my Update #14, I was so overwhelmed I couldn’t even prepare the following episode to outsource editing to an audio production company… I was in a vicious cycle!

What’s changed? Mallory is helping me edit the interviews which frees up my time to curate interview content, write the scripts, schedule more interviews, and work on more macro things. We’re able to prepare more than one episode in one week now, which means we should be able to start using this audio production company which will in turn free up more time for us to interact with listeners and produce other types of content, and even just THINK about how to reach more listeners! Instead of constant crisis mode, I could continue Statement Mondays like this (let alone with even more process improvements!) for months as long as I continue to schedule interviews! That means I might as well continue until I really need a break. And if I run out of interviews, I think I have a strong enough episode track record and listener base that I could put out a few short easy episodes to span the weeks I need to reset, just to retain listeners. 

For those of you who like metaphors, if Statement Mondays were a rocket ship taking off from Earth, we’ve finally escaped the gravitational field and we’re now in open space, cruising!

🧠 #2 thing on my mind: Podcast data is 💩

If you don’t have a podcast of your own, you probably didn’t know that the data available to podcasters about their own show is awful. Which is crazy to imagine in today’s world where data seems to be so readily available for most things, and especially since podcasting has skyrocketed in popularity over the past years! To give you an idea, I can’t even see my overall subscriber/follower count. Luckily Spotify does let me see some amount of data, Spotify apparently only comprises 1.7% of my downloads so it’s not as useful. In the graph below showing download sources (from my host platform Podbean), the purple color is 34% “others,” which almost entirely is something other than known platforms like iHeartRadio / Overcast / Google Chrome in general…

This platform unknown + other lack of data means it’s extremely hard to figure out some key learnings like whether my target audience is even the audience who currently listens to Statement Mondays, whether people only listen to the intro and then never finish the episode, if people skip the analysis at the end -- all super important pieces of information I need to make the podcast better! The only way I can find out this information now is just by asking listeners individually. And because I have no way to reach out to listeners until they contact me first, it’s SO HARD to actually get feedback on the podcast. This is why in my episodes I’m always encouraging people to reach out and also one reason I have this Behind The Scenes substack, so people can leave comments and share their emails. Thanks for letting me rant... and if you have any suggestions for how to engage listeners more and effectively solicit feedback, I’m all ears!

🤓 Learnings:

• Organic network effects: I’m starting to actually see organic word-of-mouth network effects! A friend from high school who I hadn’t personally told about Statement Mondays shared my podcast on LinkedIn, and Vicki Chang (my guest on episode 10) also told me people she knew were finding her episode before she even told them! I’m keeping my eyes peeled for signs of me doing things right (or wrong!)

• Focus on the content. After getting on New & Noteworthy, my focus was pulled in so many directions -- monetization offers, building engagement with a newsletter, reach-outs from listeners, etc. which overwhelmed me more than I already was. Now the novelty has worn off and I’m back to my original goal of reaching, inspiring, and connecting with women through my episodes. I feel much more grounded and productive now prioritizing interviews + editing + interacting with listeners who reach out.

• Follow-up with people you meet! I got to meet in-person with next week’s episode guest (sneak preview: her name is Emma Kalaysian, a UI/UX designer at NASA!) and loved just chatting about anything and everything -- refreshing after the confines of this pandemic!

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Thanks Susie, Brad, Thomas, and Wendy for the great guest suggestions -- scheduling those now!

• Mark & Annie, I love your frequent texts sharing what you think of new episodes

• *Hi Kamrin!* Can’t wait to keep each other on track and ~accountable~ for our podcasts :)

• Shout out to Arianna whom I haven’t seen since high school, but who shared my podcast on LinkedIn unprompted :)

🍪 Asks:

1. Do you have any suggestions for how to better solicit feedback and gather listener contact info so I can incorporate what people are excited about into the show?

Thanks for reading! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Friday. (😅)

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

Statementmondays.com

[To my existing readers, I’m now sending my updates through substack and you may see the emails show up in your “Promotions” folder in gmail — just drag the email over to your “Primary” tab so you don’t miss any updates!]

👠 What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview career-minded women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do. 

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• This week, Statement Mondays surpassed all-time 10,000 downloads! Crazy milestone to happen 9 weeks after launching!

• I launched two new episodes:

  • Turn Nothing Down: Michelle Greenfield

  • Little Spark of Madness: Paulina Ramos

• I sent out a bunch more interview requests and got a few more interviews scheduled -- enough to get me through episode 18 at least (= original 10 + the 8 weeks I’m thinking I’ll be on New & Noteworthy)

• I researched advertising strategies and received interest from a handful of companies who want to partner with me. I may be too early. (more below)

• I’ve received several emails through my website - most are through marketing firms paid to schedule their clients on podcasts, but some have been truly out-of-the-blue reach-outs which is exciting! (more below)

• I met a handful of people through the On Deck Podcasters fellowship (which is now over!) and look forward to keeping in touch (I’m looking at you Isotta, Chi, Vaishali, Nancy!)

• Website revamp! It looks ~so polished~

🧠 #1 thing in my mind:Understanding brand cohesiveness

While I was working on Paulina’s episode (#12) I had to really dig into the question of “what is my brand?” since her interview is so different than my others. It is extremely charged, more of a story structure, and also about self-discovery rather than a career-centric interview. But ultimately Paulina epitomizes Statement Mondays values so I was itching to share her story. The problem was just that her boldness is a double-edged sword -- I was also concerned about her strong opinions ostracizing listeners and assigning my budding podcast an extremist identity. Wait, what? How can I espouse being bold but then not demonstrate boldness in how I run my podcast? 

No room for hypocrisy on Statement Mondays! So I sent a draft of the episode to two select friends for advice -- here’s what they said: 1. Paulina’s interview is so different from my other episodes that I need to add more of my career-oriented structure to show listeners how it’s relevant to my broader messages, and 2. The opposite… the interview is so strong that I need to get out of its way and let it speak for itself, don’t force it into a box by wrapping it in my podcast brand. And with both these inputs I believe I found the perfect balance. I revised my debrief to highlight both career- and general life-related learnings and share its impact on my way of thinking. Genuine, not forced around career. I also struck a balance between removing her strongest political statements themselves, while still conveying the strength of those statements. Statement Mondays is all about being bold and making a statement, regardless of what that statement is -- so these edits feel entirely on-brand. After my many revisions, Paulina’s interview is a standalone bombshell as well as a cohesive chapter in the Statement Mondays adventure. Write me back if you disagree!

Small but mighty comment. Why, thank you!

🧠 #2 thing on my mind: I’m getting the hang of this!

Sometimes it just takes being thrown into the ocean to learn how to swim. The Natalie who would spend 2 extra hours getting from 95% to 99% perfect is gone, and in her spot is Natalie who is instead spending those two hours building out a public newsletter or scheduling more interviews! Total overwhelm of the past few weeks forced me to prioritizing longer-term high-value goals over short-term small-value ones (as long as I stay on my episode schedule, at least!). Stress and last-minute has become the new norm which is now counterintuitively comfortable and less stressful. I hope this means I’m getting the hang of it and not that I’m spiraling out of control… please keep me honest!

Instagram content coming soon… ^ closets make the best recording studios, especially messy ones 😂

🤓 Learnings:

• Too early for monetization? I hadn’t planned on even exploring monetization strategies any time soon, if at all. But my placement on New & Noteworthy sped up that timeline since I already hit more downloads than I even let myself dream of! Some of the advertisers I’m in contact with decided to wait until I’ve hit my stride and can offer a long-term (1+ year!) contract. The rest? TBD...

• Guest referral pickiness. I jumped on a call with a reach out and a related PR person and they pitched me to interview their boss/client -- and that’s when I determined I’m not interested in interviewing people who pay others to find them podcast interviews. “This is what she normally talks about on podcasts” is exactly what I DON’T want on Statement Mondays. Listeners have praised my show for the diversity of my guests and the fact that they’re regular people and not all successful big names. I’d like to keep it that way!

• Social media magic: It’s crazy how tagging Tesla in a post (episode #9 with Kate Park) skyrockets the number of people who see the post…

Some international rankings as of March 29th aggregated by podstatus.com.

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Endless thanks to Laney and Max for sharing your honest feedback on my episode #12 drafts. It was a tough one and I was able to clarify my goals for the interview and execute on them because of your advice!

• Martin continues to come to my rescue as usual -- Sunday nights are when I crawl to him begging for last-minute audio mixing & mastering 👻

• Thank you Wendy, Natalia, Ashley, and Max for putting me in touch with amazing guests for upcoming episodes.

🍪 Asks:

• If you have any friends who are thinking of starting a podcast, tell them about this newsletter -- they might find it both entertaining and useful!

• Do you know of someone who would be a great guest on the show who is an artist? Looking for diverse careers!

Thanks for reading! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday.

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

Statementmondays.com

You can expect an update every other week from me about the things I’m thinking about, things I’ve learned, and things I need help with! I’m figuring out this whole podcasting thing as I go and it’s been a whirlwind of an adventure so far, from hideous artwork to fumbling with ads to a surprise boost in listenership totally rerouting my plans. Loads of fun plus learning, I guarantee it.

(I’ll also add the remaining earlier updates 2-13 soon so check back later!)

Sign up now so you don’t miss the next issue. :)

👠 What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview career-minded women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do.

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• Statement Mondays is now ranked on Apple Podcast’s New & Noteworthy category -- this means it’s one of the first suggested podcasts to pop up when anybody goes to the browse tab to look for something new. It also means my listen numbers have skyrocketed!! I had over 1000 listens just yesterday!

• I was planning to end season 1 after episode 10 (this week’s) but I’m totally scrapping that plan with these new N&N developments… I have to capitalize on this huge listenership while I can!

• I launched two new episodes:

  • #9: Earn Your Respect: Kate Park

  • #10: One Big Experiment: Vicki Chang

Check it out for yourself! Open the Apple Podcasts app (only on iPhone) and hit “browse” :)

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: Totally scrapping my season plan because of N&N

Let me paint you a picture:

After seeing Statement Mondays on N&N I couldn’t function. I was shaking with adrenaline, I zigzagged across the house and jumped on the couch, I couldn’t work, I couldn’t breath, I could barely comprehend what was happening as I watched the listener numbers go up!

Getting on the New & Noteworthy list was a pie-in-the-sky goal I had for Statement Mondays from the start, but I truly didn’t expect to actually get it! I was looking forward to a few weeks of break from publishing (I’ve been working week-of deadlines to get each episode out on time and need to replenish my interview stash) but now I need a new game plan. With hundreds to THOUSANDS of new listeners coming to Statement Mondays this week, I need to capitalize on this momentum and continue to publish content to make sure I turn those listeners into subscribers. If I break now, I’ll likely lose most of the listeners I gained this week because they’ll forget about “that one-off podcast I listened to once.”

I have a handful of interviews done but not turned into episodes (as I said before it takes ~10 hrs for this) -- so do I do whatever it takes (days off work?) to get a few more of my regular interview episodes out? Or do I get creative and do more of my “Statement Extra” style shows which take less time but aren’t as value-add? Or something else? At least this N&N explosion has given me fresh energy so I’m less concerned about the path to burnout I was heading down. Feel free to respond with your thoughts on what I should do! But first, please enjoy this bonafide hockey-stick chart:

Statement Mondays listen numbers as of yesterday afternoon… and they continued to go up!

🤓 Learnings:

• It’s not over ‘till it’s over. Because I wasn’t fixated on getting on N&N, I had stopped even considering it as a possibility which meant in episode 10 I said in the beginning and end that this would be the last episode of season 1, I’m taking a break. Yesterday I quickly changed episode 10’s description at least to basically say “JUST KIDDING!” I can’t change the episode audio at this point but I don’t think listeners will mind if a few surprise episodes come out!

• Focus on producing the best content possible, and people will notice. I poured so much heart into this podcast and frontloaded so much work to ensure each episode meets my high bar, and it’s really paid off -- many people have told me it’s one of the best produced podcasts they’ve heard, which to me is a major compliment! Had my primary goal been to get on N&N, I would have lost momentum already and wouldn’t have pushed myself to quite this quality.

• It’s never too soon to make your product better. I could have waited for season 2 to “revamp the brand” with a new logo, but I instead decided to update the logo right away to the photo with me sitting in front of red doors. This was critical to getting on N&N -- they’re more inclined to promote podcasts with catchy artwork. I’m so glad I didn’t wait!

New logo! Recent feedback I've gotten is "you should put your name on it!" Agreed, if I have time I'll add!

New & Noteworthy mentions in previous Statement Mondays updates:

From update # 8:

“I want to reach as many people in this demographic as possible in the first four-ish weeks. Four is arbitrary, I just want to build momentum right away (and the first 8 or so weeks are important in Apple Podcasts and Spotify land because that’s when podcasts have the chance to make it into the New & Noteworthy category!).”

From Update # 13:

“fretting about whether I should or shouldn’t be trying to make the New & Noteworthy category which is only possible in the first 8 weeks after launch. This last part is especially stressful because I told myself that just launching was my goal, but I’m not used to settling for anything but the best and the highest achievements. I don’t have time to pitch episodes to Apple or whatever else I’d have to do to make it on those charts, but I keep leaving emotional space for it. I think I have to do a little more research before deciding whether I should optimize for getting on that list (which would mean lots more exposure and more listeners!). Gaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!”

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Mallory, thank you for supporting my decision to end season 1and take a break, and then after finding out about N&N freaking out and celebrating with me and being ready to push onward!

• Shoutouts to everyone who hugged me, called me, messaged me to congratulate us on this HUGE achievement. Some of you even posted on social media about it too: Mark, Max, Annie, Millie, Emma

🍪 Asks:

• How do you think I should proceed with new content after this reverted “season end”?

Thanks for reading! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday.

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

Statementmondays.com

👠 What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview career-minded women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do. 

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• I launched episode two new episodes:

• I ran an ad campaign on Instagram this past Friday-Sunday and spent ~$220 of Fb ad credit (a monthly perk of working at Facebook!)... see learnings for results

• I submitted a formal “Promotion Request” to Apple Podcasts to ask them to promote Statement Mondays in honor of Women’s History Month. Shouldn’t get my hopes up…

• I participated in a “Radio Race” aka 24hr podcast hackathon with a team of 3 as part of the On Deck fellowship -- we created a 5 min podcast for the theme “Looking Forward”

• I’m considering a new logo that uses a pic of me! Apparently a more interesting & engaging logo improves chances of getting featured, among other things. Curious what you think of these? 

Logo options: Striped arrow with host name, solid arrow with "be bold" border, or existing logo

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: Sticking to my goals and experimenting

Stress and time constraints these past two weeks were a great forcing function for me to rethink my episode style and experiment & get creative with the content I push out. I sought a lot of advice from both peers and experts about whether I should 1. Move to launching biweekly, 2. Take a break and call the current episodes “season 1,” or 3. Try out a less work-intensive episode format. Ultimately I chose option 3 for two reasons: a main goal with this podcast is to stay consistent, and I could also use this episode instead as an opportunity to engage more with listeners.

My other primary goal is to actually succeed in reaching and inspiring other young women -- so how can I do that if I am not publishing anything? For context, in episode 8 I pose a challenge for listeners (start an adrenaline journal!), read a few comments about Statement Mondays from listeners, and generally try to kick off listeners’ mornings with a bang. Even if this episode flunks I will learn a lot about what content and formats do or don’t work -- and at least I will have tried it out! If I’m in this podcasting business for the long run, I can’t be afraid to try things out.

Don’t ask your brother to edit an episode and then publish without double-checking what it sounds like… which I almost did... here’s what he sent back instead of episode 8:

Episode 8 -- nice try Martin.mp3

Recognize my voice and the jingle? Honestly I wouldn't even have been mad if I published this one haha...

🤓 Learnings:

• Fake it ‘till you make it is a necessity. I was hoping more listeners would “organically” come to me with stories of how the podcast or specific episodes resonated with them… wishful thinking. For experimental ep. 8 I reached out on LinkedIn to two women who had attended FB recruitment panels I spoke on and they were thrilled to tell me how Statement Mondays inspires them! Amazing quotes I wouldn’t have gotten had I not proactively engaged with individual listeners. 

• Paid advertising: $220 with 5 different ad creatives got me 57k impressions (WOW) of which 227 converted to link clicks from the CTA to Spotify. Actual conversions are hard to calculate since it’s impossible to track where listeners come from, but from peering at my download charts it looks like that turned into ~20 new listens! $10 per new listener? Pretty expensive especially if they’re not guaranteed to come back weekly, plus the metrics show the ads performed below average... time to learn ad optimization!

Facebook Ads manager! I still have PTSD from working on this product my first year at Fb...

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Shoutout to Martin for doing a quick audio edit pass of episode 8!

• Thank you Karen for coming up with the title for my experimental segment: “Statement Extra”

• Thank you to Nina for sharing Statement Mondays word-of-mouth and sharing reactions from more women excited about the podcast!

🍪 Asks:

• What do you think of the new logo options above? Do you prefer the current simple circle or do you like the new photo version?

• Listen to episode 8 “Statement Extra” and share your honest thoughts with me. It’s very different from the rest!

• If you know anyone who’d like to receive this biweekly updates, send me their emails! We’re 52 and growing.

Thanks for reading! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday.

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

Statementmondays.com

What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview bold women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do. 

🍪 Asks:

• TODO: subscribe to Statement Mondays and also write a review here (I think only on mobile). Every review helps to boost the visibility of the podcast.

• Do you know what it means to pitch Apple or Spotify to get them to surface your podcast or episode? I’ll do more research but would prefer hearing from someone with direct experience.

• Do you have any tips on storytelling or editing patterns/techniques? I’m just trying things out as I go but would love more guidance.

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• Launched two more episodes, #5 and #6. You can find all of these on any audio platform, here are links to Spotify:

• We’ve gotten over 500 total downloads in the first three weeks! And when I checked the metrics Monday afternoons, already 15-20 people have listened to the latest episode which I’m hoping means that these are dedicated subscribers!

• Starting to think about real advertising. I have > $1k in Facebook ad credit (nice perk), and Mallory is talking to a UW Madison newsletter for ad placement there.

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: I’m already finding my voice and my niche

The most common feedback I’ve gotten so far is that people love my debrief. After each interview, I summarize my key takeaways and add my own perspective and stories. Apparently, listeners lean on me and this debrief for takeaways from the interview and they are the differentiator among all the podcasts out there. I’m SO excited to hear this because that’s the easiest piece for me to experiment with. And since my flywheel for episode editing to launch is so short, I was able to incorporate this feedback into episode 6 -- I added some debrief into my “pause” (which apparently people also love). Now I just have to make sure I get this content in front of the right people, and keep iterating.

🧠 #2 thing on my mind: I’m completely overwhelmed

It may look like I have it together but let me tell you… I’ve already devolved into completing the next episode the week before it airs. I have only a single completed episode in reserve, (and I’m holding on to it for strategic timing), which means if I don’t put in enough hours each week there won’t be an episode next Monday. That’s terrifying. I’ll be super disappointed in myself if I break my streak of publishing every Monday. But I guess I have to keep remembering that the biggest hurdle was publishing anything at all, which I’ve accomplished. On top of just staying consistent, I’m also juggling promoting, paid advertising, scheduling more interviews, meeting other podcasters in the On Deck fellowship, watching fireside chats & workshops by podcasting professionals with On Deck, and fretting about whether I should or shouldn’t be trying to make the New & Noteworthy category which is only possible in the first 8 weeks after launch.

This last part is especially stressful because I told myself that just launching was my goal, but I’m not used to settling for anything but the best and the highest achievements. I don’t have time to pitch episodes to Apple or whatever else I’d have to do to make it on those charts, but I keep leaving emotional space for it. I think I have to do a little more research before deciding whether I should optimize for getting on that list (which would mean lots more exposure and more listeners!). Gaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!

🤓 Learnings:

• Editing is everything: great storytelling can make or break your episode; you can manipulate and improve the flow / energy just by shifting pieces around (still maintaining integrity of the content of course). Also, don’t cut out things and leave only the key sentences -- that just leaves platitudes and on their own they are boring.

• Pitching: Apparently podcasters literally pitch their podcasts or certain episodes to be promoted by streaming services. No clue what these pitches entail or how to set them up but I should probably get on that.

• Iterating: With my fast episode turnaround (no backlog) I can incorporate feedback immediately! Perk of moving [uncomfortably] quickly…

• Themes: Strong episodes are ones that have a central theme. Good editors will cut out anything that isn’t directly relevant to the theme. I need to practice this to both shorten my episodes and focus them more.

• Community building: At some point I’ll want to have a place where listeners can engage further, and one On Deck podcaster said he’d heard of Slack groups where the guest would join the chat for one day or hour and the members could interface with them directly. Cool idea!

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Annie and Karen for sharing great feedback about the value of my debriefs, and suggestions for focusing on a single central theme for each episode

• Cissy, Kate, Petra, Maddie, Andrew, and Millie for leaving me reviews on Apple Podcasts (and for anyone who also did and I didn't know -- THANK YOU)

Thanks for reading! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday.

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

Statementmondays.com

Now that we're live, please subscribe to the show, and rate & review Statement Mondays here!

What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women in which I interview the boldest and brightest women across all different career paths and personality types, learn how they harness who they are in their careers, and share that mentorship and inspiration with other young female professionals. 

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• Statement Mondays launched!!

• We launched three episodes on Feb 1 and one on Feb 8 (Lauren Jonas). You can find all of these on any audio platform (or always on statementmondays.com), here are links to Spotify:

• I started the 8-week long inaugural On Deck Podcaster Fellowship and am looking forward to meeting more podcasters and learning best practices!

• We’ve gotten over 270 total downloads on the first three episodes! I’m thrilled at how successful this first week was but am nervous what week 2 will look like without launch marketing

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: Retention

Okay now that I’ve had tons of listens in the first week, how do I get listeners to come back the next week? The obvious answer is get them to follow the podcast, but while that’s easy to say it’s much more difficult to do. Believe it or not, I never actually followed/subscribed to any podcasts until I started making one of my own (I listened to lots though). While launch week was a total success in my eyes, the prospect of week two with ⅓ as many new episodes and significantly less marketing scares me -- will people who heard my first ones come back for more? Retention and growth are the main things I’m hoping to learn from this new podcasters fellowship that started today -- On Deck Podcasters will be a community of 99 other podcasters or aspiring podcasters plus weekly workshops, discussions, and smaller working sessions that I’m excited to dive into!

🤓 Learnings:

• First time I’ve truly asked for forgiveness and not permission (and high risk!) -- I didn’t run my podcast by my company’s communications to get their approval before launching it (didn’t want to give them an opportunity to shut it down before I launched!), and today my team’s comms director reached out to me asking about it. Seems fine (she agreed) since I don’t mention in the episodes who I work for, but still made me sweat for a good hour today... She has my back, but I could have been playing with fire… I’ve been planning to run the episodes with other employees by her, but my learning here was that asking forgiveness was the right way to go 😬. Sometimes you have to take a little risk!

• Confirm with the guest in advance that they’ll help promote the episode. More communication is always better, so I’ll start informing the guest about her launch date a few days in advance and provide the materials then, and send a reminder day-of. I had planned to launchd a different guests episode today, but she just launched her new VC firm so timing was not great. Glad I checked!

• Invest in a newsletter like this one! I was able to get so much support from friends who posted about Statement Mondays launch to their networks in part because they (you!) had been following my journey this whole time.

• I’ve started following lots of other podcast accounts on Instagram -- it’s a great channel for discovering potential promotion partners and also great exposure because sometimes they listen back!

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Oh my gosh ALL OF YOU get a huge thank you for all your help in spreading the word about the launch. You guys have posted on social media on my behalf, liked & commented on & re-shared my posts, posted in your relevant internal work groups, sent to individual friends who should listen, blasted it everywhere and of course, a lot of you have actually listened to the episodes :)

• Thank you for the messages of encouragement and praise and feedback -- I’ve been so heartened by your support.

• And of course a huge thank you to my first three episode guests: Fischer, Nicole, and Karla. You guys did great and people are loving your interviews!

🍪 Asks:

• Please rate & review Statement Mondays here! It helps surface the podcast to more listeners.

• Keep liking and sharing my episode launch posts every Monday (Twitter, LinkedIn, FB, IG) -- you helped me get over the launch hump, but now the tough part will be growing a consistent user base. Here’s a doc with some launch posts you can copy/paste.

• Please reply with any tips on retention from the first spike of listeners! I'm so eager to figure this piece out.

Thanks for reading! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday.

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

Statementmondays.com

What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview career-minded women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do. 

🍪 Asks:

• If you have any groups or social outlets with a large following of college & post-college women, would you share about my podcast once it launches (next week!)? Just respond to this email, and I can give you a template post!

  📣 For future readers, you can see a sample email with my template posts here: https://statementmondays.substack.com/p/sample-launch-posts

• Do you have any sneaky launch tactics to reach the right audience or to convert a first-time listener into one who comes back every week? I’d love to hear them!

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• Had one more AWESOME interview with a UX designer at NASA JPL, Emma Kalayjian

• Finished first passes of editing a few interviews and finalized edits of two more

• By the time I launch I should have 5 full episodes complete, so that’s a runway of 3 weeks (releasing 3 in the first week)

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: Launch plan

IT’S ALMOST TIME! Shooting for a Feb 1 launch, pending some details setting up RSS feed & editing one of the episodes which could delay to Feb 8. Now that I have the content ready, I need to focus on strategies to reach listeners. Right now, I’m:

1. Locating relevant Facebook groups I’m part of and reaching out to friends in wider-reaching relevant groups (like a previous intern, Lauren, who writes for one of her university’s newspapers!).

2. Posting on my Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and asking all you guys to go like my posts hehe.

3. Asking episode guests to share to their networks too (I send them extra info day-of)

4. Asking everyone I know to follow/subscribe and also to review the podcast on Apple Podcasts

5. Facebook ads will have to wait a few weeks -- too much already going on so I’ll focus on that after launch

My dilemma: I’d prefer to have more episodes out before I blast to different places and people who have never heard of Statement Mondays, just to have more evidence of the type and variety of content (hopefully so that a rando who stumbles upon it doesn’t get deterred because it’s so sparse). I also would prefer to optimize for a smaller group of really dedicated listeners than a large group of people who, in average, think it’s a mediocre podcast. Is this logical? Should I just blast far and wide right away regardless?

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Karen Plunkett and Brad Greenwald you both sent me a suggestion for another guest -- thank you for continuing to send great recommendations my way!

• Thank you Julie Penner for putting me in touch with a pro podcast producer Samuel. Can’t wait to talk to him next week.

• Thanks Max Greenwald for putting me in touch with my latest interviewee!
  

Thanks for reading! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday.

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

Website: Statementmondays.com

IG: @statementmondays

What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview career-minded women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do. 

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• Reached out to Descript support and got a partial resolution for the audio export issue blocking me from finishing the final audio for launch (fellow podcasters —see below for resolution).

• 1st episode is finally polished by an audio engineer on Fiverr and is ready for launch! (which will be once I get the next two also finished)

• Cleaned and edited one more interview (that makes 6 total). 

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: Lengthy editing process

I’m worried that I don’t have enough finished episodes ready so that when I launch with the first three the first week, I won’t be constantly stressed about editing the next one. Worst case I end up scrambling to edit an episode the week before it should launch. I can’t tell whether this is a valid fear or if I’m making up an excuse because launching is scary! My newest goal is I’d like to have 6 episodes fully ready when I launch -- that’s 4 total weeks of runway.

I also realized that I haven’t shared exactly what my editing process looks like and why it takes me so long to turn an interview into an episode. Here are my steps:

1. Upload interview audio to Descript and run auto-transcription (5 mins)

2. Clean up interview for weird audio blips, ums/uhs, mistakes (4x to 5x interview duration, usually ~4 hrs depending on how many filler words and how good/bad the audio quality is)

3. Read through transcription and cross out audio to remove (to tighten it up, remove slower parts), also note discussion topics for script (1 hr)

4. Make corresponding edits to the audio (30 mins)

5. Write script for intro, outro, pause, and ending discussion** (1.5 hrs)

6. Record script ^ (30 mins)

7. Place my recorded pieces ^ into episode and add music / sound effects (1 hr)

8. Export the project and place an order with my audio engineer on Fiverr, then listen to it and maybe suggest revisions (1 hr)

This means each episode can take upwards of 9 hours to create, not including the actual interview prep and recording! I’m hoping once I do the process over and over it’ll get faster, especially since I’ve improved my recording setup so the audio quality is better and will take less work to edit.

**why do I write a discussion script? I think establishing myself as a character in this podcast and voicing my own perspective on these conversations and themes will be a huge value add to the overall episode. Maybe also create a personal brand?

🤓 Learnings:

• Customer support that is responsive and actually cares about you makes such a difference. Even though I’m frustrated at Descript, I won’t leave because they’ve proven we’re in this together.

• I am slow. I will need to let go of more of my perfectionist tendencies or find other ways to speed up the 8 step editing process above. Better recordings will help, and I’ve started to lean on Mallory more for non-Descript tasks.

• How do I rate an audio engineer. Even if I get my audio professionally edited for final polish, I realized I have no clue whether they did a good job because I don’t know what good or bad sounds like. I’ll need to run the final versions by some audio-savvy friends I guess?

• Post-interview: I need to establish a better post-interview process for my guests. I'll ask the first three how to improve our communication about episode timing and edit suggestions so I’m not blocked entirely waiting for their one-line email “okay”.

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Thank you Martin Muenster for continually testing out all the audio samples I send you that may or may not work, and for getting me a podcasting microphone for Christmas! 💜

🍪 Asks:

• Follow our Instagram account @statementmondays!

Thanks for reading! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday.

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

Statementmondays.com

What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview career-minded women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do. 

🍪 Asks:

• Do you know an audio engineer or someone who has experience mixing & mastering audio who you’d recommend? I’m looking for someone to hire as a freelancer ASAP to finalize my episodes.Follow @statementmondays on Instagram! We’ll be adding content this week :)

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• Launch date was intended to be Jan 4th but I’ll have to push that back due to issues getting the episode audio polished 🙁.

• Fully completed 2 more episodes, for a total of 3 launch-ready episodes plus 2 more almost ready.

• Cleaned up 2 interviews (removing “ums” + background sounds).

• Prepared several initial posts for the Instagram account and content templates for each episode.

• Updated the logo! See the image below for one version.

• Took a nice few totally work-free days for Christmas time with my boyfriend Max and my family :)

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: Audio editing struggles

The final step in my episode creation process is polishing the audio -- I’ve already edited the content itself and added intro/outro and music, and all I need now is the different tracks normalized & equalized & background noise removed (I frankly don’t know very well what all this is, just that it needs to be done and that I don’t have bandwidth to learn and do it myself). I’ve worked with two people on Fiverr (platform to outsource work to freelancers) -- one returned a completed episode that sounded worse than what I gave her, and the other couldn’t get the project file types to open in her editing software (Pro Tools)… it seems to work in Logic but no one on Fiverr seems to have that program. I am so frustrated with this one final step and am tempted to publish without it! 😨 Probably anything is better than nothing though, so I’m hoping my brother Martin can work at least a little magic on the audio. I’ll also try contacting Descript support about their export process.

🤓 Learnings:

• Hiring freelancers: try out several different ones to have a sample size to pick the best from. I wish I tried out more of them sooner even if it meant paying for the same project with multiple people.

• Support from strangers: In her message telling me she couldn’t work on my project, the second Fiverr person said, though, that “[I] loved the idea for your podcast and will be tuning in once it is released.” This is the first totally random person who has expressed excitement in listening to the podcast!

• Descript incorrectly converts certain .mp3 files as .wav files to Pro Tools making the project export incompatible with the software. Logic seems to work though. Maybe this info will help other podcasters facing similar problems...

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Thank you Addison Leong for taking a look at the file type mismatch issue and finding a solution that works with Logic

• Thank you Martin Muenster who also tried to get the audio to open in Pro Tools, and who offered to try editing the full .mp3

Thanks for reading! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday.   

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

statementmondays.com

What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview career-minded women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do. 

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• Fully completed 1 episode (with intro, debrief, outro, music, etc.) and sent to an audio engineer to polish.

• Finished editing another interview (that makes almost 5 edited, 4 of which need to be put together).

• Mallory created a social media aesthetic and is starting to make content.

• Finalize episode structure: includes a 30 sec pause halfway through the interview just as a break, quick summary, and to set any additional context. Then I have a several-minute debrief after the interview reiterating the most salient points and offering my own perspective.

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: Launch strategy

My target audience is college- and recently graduated- women, and I want to reach as many people in this demographic as possible in the first four-ish weeks. Four is arbitrary, I just want to build momentum right away (and the first 8 or so weeks are important in Apple Podcasts and Spotify land because that’s when podcasts have the chance to make it into the New & Noteworthy category!). My planned tactics include: preparing posts that the interviewees can share to their network when their episode launches (lowers the barrier), posting in my old college groups, asking everyone I know to review it (that’ll be you guys in a few weeks!), eventually running ads (thank you FB ad credit)... hunting for more tactics. Drop a reply and let me know of any ideas or successes you’ve had!

🤓 Learnings:

• Don’t batch-process: It’s much more productive for me to work on one episode all the way through and finish it than to work on several at once (like write all the intros at the same time) and only partially finish them. Context-switching is especially bad between episodes.

• Simpler is better: Words for speaking vs. writing are almost different languages… my writing style can be fairly contorted (great for literature analysis essays, not so great for podcast interview debriefs) and so I’ve had to really focus on simplifying the scripts for each episode so that I’ll actually sound like a human!

• Legal consent: I wrote and sent out a photo release form to collect written consent from my coworkers who are in the pictures I’m using for marketing (the original Statement Mondays crew). The learning is that this was a good precautionary measure, I feel secure with the content I’m publishing and also feel respected for my thoroughness.

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Thank you to everyone who responds to these updates with excitement and encouragement! It keeps me going strong and also makes me feel like I'm actually working on something significant :)

🍪 Asks:

• Do you have a suggestion for a launch/marketing strategy I could use? Hit reply and I would love to hear.

I’m aiming for a launch date of January 4th, 2021! Thanks for reading. And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday.

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

statementmondays.com

What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview career-minded women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do. 

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time

• Launched our website! www.statementmondays.com (Spotify & Apple links don’t work yet)

• My intern Mallory Pelon is going to own our social media! Very excited to see what she’ll whip up, and relieved to have some help in an area in which I have zero expertise.

• Recorded 2 more interviews: Paulina Ramos & Salma Mahmoud

• Completed drafts of 2 more episodes

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: Outsourcing editing

I embarked on this podcast journey several months ago excited to learn how to launch a podcast all by myself (I’ve had a lot of help along the way, and I’m feeling satisfied with how much I’m personally getting done!). I am also aware, however, that my own time is currently the main blocker in having Statement Mondays launch-ready, and I think the smart move would be to pay someone to speed up the process. Editing episodes is extremely time intensive -- I remove ums/ahs, trim the content, write & record an intro & analysis section, stitch it all together, and then add music. I’ve already decided to have someone else do the audio quality editing (normalization, equalization, noise removal, etc.) and I should be able to just as easily find a person on Fiverr to take over the work I’m doing on editing.

But here we are back to the Natalie-doesn’t-trust-other-people-in-a-black-box-process dilemma. Maybe I’ll do the editing for the whole first season myself and work on streamlining processes afterward…? I feel less inclined to experiment at the moment since all I can think about now is getting episodes ready for launching. Stay tuned in my next update to see what I end up doing...

🤓 Learnings:

• Feedback incorporation: from the surveys we ran a few weeks ago with 2 example episodes... The updates feel really good, and the biggest changes were:

  • Keeping the interviews casual, more natural back-and-forth rather than structured question and answer

  • Changing up some questions (sneak peak: I’ve added “what is the biggest risk you’ve taken recently?”)

  • Adding a break in the middle of the episode with quick recap, introduction of the quicker Q&A sequence, and explanation of “heels” question so it’s not so out-of-the-blue

• Wordpress can be super tedious. Mallory has patiently worked with every back and forth on our website design, and it turns out Wordpress Themes are actually quite limiting. It was very easy to be nitpicky about header layout and banner style but after so many tries we just picked a theme -- it felt like the sky cleared and the sun came out! The website (of all things 😱) doesn’t have to be perfect.

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Thank you Carina Boo for connecting me with Paulina for an incredible interview about her experience with and views on activism

• Thank you Elizabeth Weil and Max Greenwald for sending me long lists of potential interviewees (I’ll get back to you both soon) :)

• I feel like I'm missing people... let me know if there's something you wish I recognized you for and I will do a better job! I really appreciate you all

🍪 Asks:

• When is the right time to streamline processes and start to hand off work to other people for the sake of efficiency? And how do you do it in a way that you can trust the work will be done correctly? Write me back, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday.

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview career-minded women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do. 

🍪 Asks:

• Looking for more guests! If you know anyone who could make a great interviewee on Statement Mondays, just reply here and I’ll send you a fwd’able email to get in touch with them. Criteria: female, in any industry, any age/experience level (particularly looking for more awesome women in their 20s & 30s), and someone you'd want to listen to an interview about who they are & their career 😊.

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• I’ve set up hosting for my podcast! You can listen to my trailer episode at statementmondays.podbean.com (first public content WOOHOO!!!!!)

• I think I have my audio editing process figured out, attempted to hire a guy on Fiverr but talked with audio expert friends instead.

• I’ve gone through the feedback that some of you lovely people have given on two draft episodes and come up with some action items (more below).

• Timeline for launch -- I’m now shooting for mid-December or beginning of January since my target audience of college girls will be busy taking exams in the upcoming weeks!

• Website construction in progress.

• The CEO of Descript (the interview editing software I’m using) emailed me asking for feedback and I can’t wait to pour out my hopes, dreams, and frustrations to make it better.

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: Episode creation and more interviews

With the bigger logistical items out of the way (logo, audio hosting, episode structure, etc.) I am on an open road with destination Launch! All my energy should now be directed toward editing and producing the first few episodes (I want to have at least 5 ready), which means editing each interview for content (and removing some “ums”), recording an intro for the episode, writing and recording analysis & outro, and stitching it all together. I also got some advice that I should have at least 15 episodes in the first “season,” to gain some momentum -- I have 10 interviews done which means I need at least 5 more before I’ll even think about relaxing… I have a fear of rushing to find more guests the week before I need to publish a new episode!

🤓 Learnings:

• I should have figured out the full editing process first. I am only now considering the audio quality part, after having done initial content editing on most of the interviews and putting together some episodes. Doing that in the very beginning would have saved me a lot of worry, contorted workstreams, and possible duplication of work.

• Constructive feedback from my first two draft episodes:

  • Stories are much more engaging to the listener than discussion of abstract ideas. Sounds obvious now… for future interviews I’ll focus more on drawing out stories.

  • 25 min episodes seems to be a sweet spot for this content (small sample size, but good to have a base).

  • My own analysis of the conversation to wrap up the episode is super valuable to the listener!

  • Back and forth banter is much more fun & engaging than questions and answers which can get boring quickly. I’ll work on making future ones feel less interview-y and more like a coffee chat.

  • Use music in the episodes more strategically -- it can really help smooth out transitions and make intro portions sound less awkward.

• Some of my favorite comments about my first two draft episodes:

  

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Thank you Addison Leong for giving me advice on my audio editing process. Your patience in loading a sample episode and talking me through how I can improve the audio quality myself makes the task so much less intimidating. You are my resident audio expert!

• One more round of thank you's to those of you who gave me feedback on my two draft episodes :)
  

Thanks for reading! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday. 

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays

What is Statement Mondays? It’s a podcast for college and early-career women about being bold and authentic in the workplace. I interview career-minded women with strong identities who give examples, advice, and tools that inspire listeners to bring more of who they are into what they do. 

👩🏼‍🎨 Since last time:

• I designed the Statement Mondays logo v1 in Canva and can’t wait to work on everything it unblocks.

• I tried Penji (design), and I got rid of Penji. See “learnings” section for more horrendous results…

• A few generous people have given feedback on the first two episodes as part of my pre-launch “experiment.” The feedback is extremely helpful and I’m already making lots of changes in response. 

🧠 #1 thing on my mind: Podcast artwork dependency

I designed the Statement Mondays artwork this weekend on my own! I’d lost faith in any design services for this need, so I downloaded Canva (design software that everyone raves about since it has a great free tier) and had so much fun iterating on my latest idea. I’m sticking with just lettering for now since imagery of any kind has gone so astray… I played around with a few fonts and colors, sought my Airbnb host’s opinion, and eventually decided to add a high heel in there after all. Let me know what you think!

The best part about having a design is that it unblocks several key tasks. I can finally finish and launch the website! I can set up the podcast hosting service and set up the podcast in places like Spotify & Apple podcasts (and publish the trailer). After that, I’ll only need to work on the episodes themselves -- launch finally feels tangible!

🤓 Learnings:

• High expectations: I have an “it’ll only be done right if I do it myself” mindset which ensures my expectations are met but which sacrifices time and jumbles my priorities. I think branding makes sense to meet a certain bar right away, but in future and lower-stakes tasks I want to work on delegating, trusting, and being okay with imperfection to optimize for speed.

• My kind of mind: My mind is very visual and spatial, so it’s no wonder I feel freed now that I’ve figured out podcast artwork. This branding was a bigger blocker for me than I think it’d be for other people. Cool to realize that. (Fun fact: one of my superpowers is navigation / orientation -- I can navigate a new city just by looking at a map once!)

• Artwork failures: several people told me that in order to commission a good logo I’d need to have a clear vision of what I was looking for. I hoped that investing in a professional (expensive) service like Penji would mean the designer would also help design my vision and not just draw exactly what I say. Nope. B- ideas mean B- designs. This latest revision is absolutely atrocious and I couldn’t stop laughing after seeing it. I’m a bit embarrassed to share it but it’s too hilarious not to:

And another idea I had the designer work on which just didn't work out:

🍪 Asks:

• What do you think of the new logo I designed on my own? Praise, critique, and suggestions are all welcome :)

• Seeking tips on getting my natalie@statementmondays.com email verified. Emails go to spam and the profile image I added doesn’t show up. I’ve scoured Google but no success yet.

🙌 Shoutouts:

• Thank you Togara for being my cheerleader flatmate / Airbnb host in Berlin! Your positivity and encouragement raises my confidence.

• Thank you to my boyfriend Max, my mom Karen, and Mallory’s two friends for listening to the rough first two episodes and giving me feedback! It’s been incredibly valuable so far.

Thanks for reading! And if you need a reason to be bold today, here it is -- today is Statement Monday.

Natalie Muenster

Founder | Statement Mondays