Someday List

We sat down with Jennifer Liao, cofounder and CEO of MìLà, a direct-to-consumer, modern Chinese food company based in Washington. In 2018, Jen left her career in healthtech behind to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant serving street foods she grew up loving that couldn’t easily be found in the Seattle area. A pivot to local deliveries during the pandemic opened up a new perspective on what the business could be and has since grown into a viral sensation, shipping more than 10 million dumplings nationwide and is setting their sights on grocery store aisles next.

With a successful round of fundraising in the books, a recent rebrand, and endorsement/investment from Marvel star Simu Liu, Jennifer shares her vision for what MìLà can do and represent.

Learn more about MìLà at eatmila.com.

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This month, we got to chat with Aishwarya Iyer, founder and CEO of Brightland, a company known for its beautifully bottled olive oils, vinegars, and other pantry essentials. Launched in 2018, Brightland turned the olive oil category on its head by eschewing its trademark green for bold, bright colors and putting quality, trust, and traceability at the forefront of their company.

They've graced the kitchens of celebrities like Oprah, Florence Pugh, and Gwyneth Paltrow, and we had the chance to catch up with Aishwarya about what her founder journey's been like.

Learn more about Brightland at brightland.co and @wearebrightland 

Follow Aishwarya at @helloaishwarya and check out her new podcast, Recent Eats.

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Today we’re sitting down with Karen Chee, a comedian and writer who's worked at Late Night with Seth Meyers since 2019, more written for season two of Apple TV’s Pachinko, and was included in Vulture’s Comedians to Know, Variety’s Young Hollywood list, and Forbes 30 under 30. We talk about starting her comedy career on such a big stage, dealing with impostor syndrome, and what’s at stake in the Writers' Strike.

Follow @karencheee on Instagram or check out her site.

Learn more about the WGA strike at wgacontract2023.org

Save 20% on TeuxDeux with code SOMEDAYLIST.

This month, we sat down with Kyle Smitley, a leader who built her first startup while finishing law school, and for the past ten years has dedicated her career to education as the founder and executive director of Detroit Achievement Academy and Detroit Prep, free public charter schools that have garnered national attention for their holistic approach to student development.

The schools' commitment to closing opportunity gaps has shown up in different ways, like diverting school resources to supporting families with groceries and utilities during the pandemic, investing in teachers' health and wellness, and open-sourcing their operations for others interested in starting schools.

Not one to idle, Smitley has spent her downtime over the last three years building Louis Kitchenware, a community-driven, investor-free cookware company celebrating the everyday, home cook.

Learn more about Kyle's work at the links below:

https://www.detroitachievement.org/

https://www.detroitprep.org/

https://www.louiskitchenware.com/

Or follow along ⁠@kylesmitley⁠ on Instagram.

Save 20% on TeuxDeux with code SOMEDAYLIST.

This month, we're sitting down with Alice Katter, the founder of Out of Office Network, a community-driven research and design lab focused on the interplay between work and life. Alice has led efforts at companies like Dropbox and WorkingNotWorking to build community programs and connection, particularly in the face of remote work.

Follow Out of Office Network on Instagram @outofoffice.network or visit the site at getoutofoffice.network.

Save 20% on TeuxDeux with code SOMEDAYLIST.

This month, we had the chance to interview Mark Zheng, co-founder of Sene, a sizeless clothing company. Together with his cofounder, Ray, he’s built a company that creates pieces one-to-one for each of its customers. They carry zero inventory. We dig in to how they manage to pull that off, what exactly "sizeless" means and why it’s top of mind for big retailers right now. We also talk about what he’s learned as a founder, and how Mark’s relationship to work has changed in the midst of it.

Follow Sene on Instagram @senestudio or make your own custom fit at senestudio.com

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We kick off season 2 of Someday List with Kinsey Grant, co-founder & editor at Smooth Media. Kinsey cut her teeth breaking news on Wall Street before joining Morning Brew and launching their flagship podcast, Business Casual, a show that quickly ascended to 1M downloads during the pandemic. Now she’s building a media company of her own to help other digital creators scale into their own sustainable businesses. Kinsey gets candid about what it's like to build and leave an immensely popular podcast, what she's learned from going independent, and how that informs the company she's building now.

Follow Kinsey on Twitter @kinseygrant


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For our final interview of the year, we have something pretty special: a conversation between two co-creators of TeuxDeux. In our season one closer of Someday List, Cameron Koczon (Fictive Kin) sits down to interview Tina Roth Eisenberg, perhaps better known as SwissMiss, the creative force behind CreativeMornings, founder of Tattly, and of course, the co-creator of TeuxDeux. Together, they talk about building heart-open companies, learning to let go as a founder, and creating a sustainable work-life balance while running multiple businesses and parenting, on top of a global pandemic.

Follow Tina on Twitter @swissmiss or on her blog. 

Join the world's largest face-to-face creative community, CreativeMornings.

This month, we sat down with Kim Pham, Co-founder of Omsom, a proud, loud, Asian food brand partnering with chefs to make Asian cuisine and flavors more accessible at home. The company launched in 2020 and has seen incredible success online with their line of direct-to-consumer recipe starters and pantry staples. Now, you can get Omsom in stores nationwide at Whole Foods. Kim tells us about starting the business with her sister, how Omsom’s values have guided its growth and how they show up in her own life.

Learn more about Omsom on their website and follow Kim @kimofinternet!

This month, we sat down with Fatimah Loren Dreier, Executive Director of the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention (HAVI), an organization that fosters hospital and community collaborations to advance equitable care. Fatimah has dedicated her career to addressing the epidemic of violence in America, today we’re sitting down to talk about violence through a public health lens, her work advising the White House on this crisis, and how to think about and tackle big problems.

Learn more about HAVI's work at www.thehavi.org or on Twitter.

Read about the $5.36B Plan to Fund Peace.

This episode, we sit down with Dan Toomey, a comedian, writer and video producer at Morning Brew, a media company with over 4 million subscribers across their lineup of business newsletters. Dan has been integral in building out their video content and accumulated millions of views with his short satirical takes on business headlines. Today, we’re sitting down to talk about starting his career amidst the pandemic, marrying journalism with comedy, and preserving your creative well-being.

Follow Dan @dhtoomey on Twitter and TikTok.

On this episode, we talk to television writer and former software engineer, Irving Ruan. After spending his early career as a software engineer, consultant and even startup founder, Irving began pursuing comedy and writing in his spare time. We talk about changing career paths, telling stories that engage the head and heart, and his experience working in his first writer’s room on the upcoming NBC/Peacock series, Twisted Metal.

Follow Irving on instagram and twitter, or check out his website, irvingruan.com.

This month, we sit down with Kevin Wong, co-founder of Lunar, the first Asian-American hard seltzer company. We talk about launching a startup in a crowded category in the middle of a pandemic, building a brand that’s an extension of yourself and your community, and testing the waters of entrepreneurship while you’re at your day job. Kevin shares what he's learned working in finance, startups, and his previous business venture, and how he's applying all those lessons to Lunar.


Follow Lunar online:

www.drinklunar.com

@drinklunar

This month, we talk to Sam Ogborn, founder & CEO of once+more, and the host of The Next Big Thing, a podcast highlighting female founders. We dig into her years of experience shaping digital strategy at agencies, startups, and big name companies like Walgreens and Red Bull. We talk about the unique thrills and challenges of working within a legacy brand, how that's led her to building a company that eschews the traditional agency model, and how she's weathered the shifting tides of social media by always staying curious.

Follow Sam's work:

@marketingwithsam

@onceandmoreco

onceandmore.co

@gabbypalko

https://www.gabriellapalko.com/  

Sarah Kempa is a cartoonist for The New Yorker, and UX designer based in Brooklyn. She's been contributing to the publication since 2019, and you've probably seen her work on their website or via her wildly popular, incredibly charming comics on Instagram, @auntsarahdraws. We sat down earlier in the year to talk about her creative process, the power of routine, and her upcoming book, Where Did My Roommate Put My Charger? A Kind of Activity Book for Kind of Adults.

Follow Sarah's work:

Instagram

Patreon

Etsy

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