671 Barbara Harrison:

For any female founder, one of the biggest challenges is knowing – and accepting – your own value. We create so much value for so many people in all areas of our lives yet when it comes down to asking for the sale, pursuing investment, pricing our goods and services – we often shortchange ourselves, even value is obvious to everyone else. My guest today – Barbara Harrison – has won 19 Emmys for her work as a TV anchor, journalist and trailblazing creator of more highly-acclaimed series and segments than you can count, including Wednesday’s Child – and now that she opens a new chapter in her life as an entrepreneur, we dig deep today into knowing your own value.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur who has lived and breathed the ups and downs of starting and growing businesses, currently the game changing social podcast app Podopolo. Wherever you are listening to this, take a moment and join the Wings community over on Podopolo, where we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet Barbara Harrison who you may, like me, have seen for years on television for NBC in San Francisco, Dallas and Washington, DC – and her celebrated Wednesday’s Child, the program she created to help foster children seen on stations across the country. Barbara has won countless local and national awards for her work over the past 38 years, including 19 Emmy Awards. She’s also the creator and host of the acclaimed podcast Behind The Lines: The Greatest War Letters Ever Written and the Stories Behind Them – and has many new projects in process as she takes the leap into entrepreneurship with her company Barbara Harrison Media.   

We’re going to talk about why women in their 50s, 60s and even 70s are perfectly placed to make great strides in entrepreneurship, how to know your true value, and what opportunitities are opening up from massive changes in media.

Barbara will be here in a minute – first…

If you love podcasts, and wish you had a podcast concierge who knows what you love, serving you with the exact right new listens for your interests and tastes, then check out Podopolo. It’s the new app that makes listening personalized and social – with 4.5 million audio and video podcasts at your fingertips with an easy way to share and discuss with friends. Listen to Wings on Podopolo, connect with me there, and if you have a podcast, claim it for free to grow your reach and your revenue. That’s Podopolo – free to download in either app store.

BARBARA HARRISON is an award-winning journalist and television anchor who has been celebrated over many years for her gift of creative storytelling, grabbing the viewers interest with stirring words and compelling video, in the many features she has written, produced and hosted. She has garnered Emmy after Emmy – 19 in all – for programs she created as televised specials. Among the memorable is Living Legends, featuring interviews with Black history-makers including Aretha Franklin, Hank Aaron, Jessye Norman and Bobby Mitchell. While her interviews are a legend, there is no doubt that Barbara Harrison’s most enduring legacy is a program she created to help children in foster care. The franchise, known as Wednesday’s Child, is credited with finding permanent homes for hundreds of children in the Washington area. It has been the model for similar programs in major cities across the nation. Her storytelling session at Yale University’s annual THREAD conference garnered high praise from a room full of writers and journalists from around the country. Washington Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences honored her with the Ted Yates Award for outstanding community service. She is the recipient of the prestigious Tufty Award for outstanding journalism from Washington.

Now, Barbara is launching into business by helping you tell your stories – of people, places, causes, and events – in a way that will grab the audience – and customers for your business. She’s got a lot of incredible projects on the boil, and new to entrepreneurship, we discuss what it takes to make the transition – and today we do something a little different, because Barbara and I share a very similar background – the only difference is I made the leap from my awardwinning journalism and broadcast career into entrepreneurship some 20 years before her. So we discuss how our media backgrounds as creators assist in entrepreneurship, and much much more.

Be sure to join Barbara and me after the episode on Podopolo where you can share your perspectives on knowing your value, becoming an entrepreneur, and much more and ask Barbara for her advice. So let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Barbara Harrison.

Melinda Wittstock:

Barbara, welcome to Wings.

Barbara Harrison:

Well, thank you very much for having me. I’m excited to meet you and look forward to talking to you. I’ve heard some of your podcasts, and so, so interesting. I feel I’ve learned a lot about you but a lot about a lot of other people, too.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, that’s the beauty of podcasting; it’s such an intimate medium. And you and I have so much in common. Starting out in the news business, the broadcasting business on television hosting all these things before becoming entrepreneurs so I’m curious; what made you make the leap from NBC, from all the things that you’ve done in media to decide to be an entrepreneur?

Barbara Harrison:

Well, I kept trying to figure out what did I want to do next? We were all in a… in my age group, I should say, in a place where we were expected to look around and see. I don’t think anybody was wanting to fire me, but I knew that there were people chomping at the bit to move into my chair, and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do next. NBC was actually very, very good about helping me come up with some ideas. I met with people who were terrific about exploring opportunities with me, and I decided, yes, entrepreneurism was a thing I really wanted to do. I wanted to see what I could make happen. And that’s what I’ve been doing.

But I’ve come up with so many ideas and all of them are still out there and not quite where I want them to be, but other people say, “Oh no, no, you’re doing a great job.” It’s just that I’m still spending my own money to make everything happen, and they can run short after a while.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, that’s the way of entrepreneurship that I think a lot of people don’t talk about in all the headlines around it, that it does take a considerable amount of time, your own money, all that kind of stuff to hone the right idea that’s going to take off. I think that’s so interesting, though, that media has changed so quickly, so, so fast, and is changing even more, just the disruption in it, that allows someone with that background in media to think of and conceive of media in new ways. What do you think is the biggest change that you want to capitalize on?

Barbara Harrison:

Well, a lot of things have happened since the pandemic began. When I left NBC and they were planning to call me… And they do still. I go in and do interviews and talk about things that they know that I have an expertise in. But I was trying to figure out how to use what I knew how to do and make it happen during the pandemic. And I had spent many years working with children. I started a program called Wednesday’s Child. Which I knew you lived in Washington for a while. Do you remember that show?

Melinda Wittstock:

I do remember it, yes, yes. Yeah, very much so.

Barbara Harrison:

It was very popular. I now hear from kids who are now grown up and jobs and who are thanking me for having helped them find a family that has made all of their future endeavors, now endeavors that they’re involved in, possible. But because I had spent so much time with children, and in addition to the anchoring, I thought maybe I should try to do something that had to do with kids so I began this show I called Kids Speak Out which involved children talking about, at that time – it’s been two years almost now – the pandemic and what it was like. Then I had friends who lived in other countries. As you were living in London, I had friends in London, friends in Italy and Florence, knew a lot of people in Brazil. I got kids involved in places around the world to talk about what was going on in their cities. I had kids from six to 18 years old, and some of them on shows all together. And it was really very interesting inviting people to talk to them about what the virus was, what it meant to them, what it was like going to school, what it was like not being able to see their friends. And it really got to be quite a popular show.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s fascinating because I’m drawing the parallels between, say, creating something like Wednesday’s Child is in itself entrepreneurial. And I think back in my career just the act of coming up with a show idea and bring that to life, or even, as an investigative reporter, for instance, finding a story and bringing somebody… It requires entrepreneurial skills.

Barbara Harrison:

I never thought of it that way but you’re absolutely right. When I think back on the things that I created at NBC and Washington like Meet the Mayor where I came up with this idea that I was going to have the mayor on every week, have people call in with a problem, have him the following week not only hear other problems but to say how he had solved the one that somebody had called about the week before. It really was a very popular show.

I also created something called Fitness On the Fast Track. This is all including my anchoring responsibilities. But I started getting people who were well-known in the area and beyond to workout with me on television. They only gave you two minutes, two or three minutes, but they increased the amount of time that I could have these projects on the air to maybe four minutes and maybe expand to running three days or four days. And I had everybody. I had the president, first lady. The most incredible guest, I guess I would call it, on Fitness On the Fast Track was Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, because she seemed like such a… oh, very conservative about her dress and her… Well, she may have been here when you were here. But I had her in tights doing all of these heavy weight lifting in the basement of the state department. And I’m telling you, it made every television and newspaper station across the world; pictures of her from television. We had a lot of fun with a lot of the things that I was creating, and I had fun doing it. Yeah, I was an entrepreneur then. I’m glad you told me.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. Well, here’s the thing: I think entrepreneurs are inherently creative. You have to be to be able to see something or see an opportunity that other people don’t see, and then to be able to execute on it to the point where it delivers value to other people. And you’ve just rattled off two big examples where you’re actually changing behavior and changing people’s lives. And I think that’s at the root of the most innovative entrepreneurship as distinct from just starting a business. Anybody could start a restaurant or start a store or something like that, but that’s not actually at the root of changing behavior. And the most disruptive entrepreneurial endeavors, really, innovative ones, are really around that. This is something that is inherent to you, I think.

Barbara Harrison:

Well, and I’m so glad you put a name to it because I hadn’t thought of it. I just feel like I’m always coming up with things that, “Hey, this would be interesting to people.” I have a friend, and I think you know this person, who has been a producer of live events here in Washington for many years, and she was very interested in doing something new as an entrepreneur, and she was very good friends with a person who had… she’d used on some of the mall events because he wrote three New York Times bestsellers, maybe even more by now. But he had collected 250,000 war letters from every war the US has ever been involved in all the way back to the American Revolution to the present. And he had written a book about some of the letters that he had collected, and she used him talking about it at things on the mall like fourth of July celebrations.

She came to me with the idea that he wanted to do something with me because he had been adopted, and he liked my show. And she said, “Maybe the two of you can get together.” We came up with this idea of doing a podcast that would involve my interviewing him about the letters, but also having people… And we were able to get well-known people to read some of the letters. It’s a wonderful, wonderful show. But how to get people involved and listen is not easy, as you must know.

Melinda Wittstock:

[crosstalk 00:09:44] Oh gosh, yep.

Barbara Harrison:

Six million people listening to you. How do you do it?

Melinda Wittstock:

This is a big thing, especially in the podcasting space, but I do want to give you a shout out for Behind the Lines. That is a wonderful podcast. And of course a little shout out for Podopolo. It’s on Podopolo as are four and a half million podcasts. But the root of my current business with Podopolo is to solve those problems because I think there’s a lot of great content out there, but it’s like if no one doesn’t know about it, it doesn’t really exist, right?

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah, exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

Without that big, promotional media machine of the networks or all the different things that used to be traditional where if it was made it would be seen, that’s not true anymore, that’s really shifted. Creators really have to go find their own audiences. And that’s not easy, much less engaging people and figuring out how to make money from that content. That’s what Podopolo is all about, to really help the creator in that sense as we also help the listener find more interesting or relevant podcasts for themselves and be able to connect with other people around those podcasts in really meaningful conversations.

It’s so interesting talking to you, Barbara, because I see a lot of myself in you. That moment where it’s like, wait a minute; I’m creating all these things internally for the BBC or for NBC or ABC or whatever I was doing. And I’m creating all of this but I’m not participating in the growth or the profit of those things. I can innovate up to a point where there’s a glass ceiling on innovation within a major corporation. And there was a certain point where I was like, “I’m just going to have to do it. I’m just going to have to go out on my own and do it.”

Barbara Harrison:

Well, and you made it, and that’s what I’d like to learn from you. But I have invested with setting up a podcast studio in my basement. I’ve got a person who helped me who worked for one of the other networks who came and told me what kind of equipment to buy. But he said, “You’ve got to put cameras in because everybody’s going to want to see you guys, and so you need cameras.” Well, that was another big expense, and I haven’t gone there yet. But do you think that people care? I just don’t know because I’m coming from the television background. I assume people want to see.

Melinda Wittstock:

That you assume. Right, exactly. And so I think so many podcasts are different. The reason I do this podcast audio-only is specifically to get a more intimate conversation. I found because I only interview women, if you put the added pressure of, oh, you’ve got to look good and that kind of self-consciousness, I’m not going to have as authentic or in-depth or intimate a conversation.

Barbara Harrison:

Well, I found that I was so interested as I started listening I didn’t want to stop listening to your podcast. It was so interesting, and you really focus when you’re not looking at what the person looks like.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, and I think that’s me too, because I know I’m different when I’m on camera. I’m just more conscious, more aware. Maybe that’s from my old anchoring days.

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah, I feel the same way.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so this is liberating. And for a long time now, I’ve had on my list to do a version of this podcast for video and just among all the other things that I’m doing. And my focus on really building Podopolo, I haven’t had the chance. Although video podcasts, or vid-casts, or whatever we want to call them, are gaining more and more in popularity, and we’ve started offering video podcasts on Podopolo. But they’re a different animal. I think if I was doing Wings as a video, I would have a different format than I have as an audio podcast. That it’s not enough just to take audio and make it video, it requires some thought about how to make it compelling as a video podcast as opposed to audio.

Barbara Harrison:

With Kids Speak Out, I’m doing that as a Zoom, and the big question for me with that is how am I going to get kids from around the world all at the same time with the time differences between China and San Francisco. Well, maybe that’s not so bad, but there was a real thing of trying to find a time when we could get all those kids on. And we did. Some were yawning and some were barely awake. Some were wanting to put their heads down on the desk to sleep. But it’s trying to figure out how to make all of these things work with what we have to work with. And the Zoom, of course, does give you video. And I’ve been working on a bunch of things right now that are with Zoom.

Oh, I want to tell you about a show that we’re thinking about doing with women. We don’t have a title yet because I think this was already taken, Women of a Certain Age. But that’s the idea where we just get together and talk about things that maybe most people don’t want to talk about for women of a certain age. What is that certain age? I don’t know what it is.

Barbara Harrison:

I don’t feel any older than I was 25 years ago.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, likewise. And there was a really funny TikTok not so long ago, but this older woman had just said she’d run out of proverbial Fs, you know?

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah, right.

Melinda Wittstock:

Past 50. Which I thought was hilarious because I think that’s true. You get to the point where you’re just, oh, gosh, I’m just going to be myself. And I think that’s where magic happens, and I think women coming into their 50s and beyond finally get to that point where they’re not self-conscious, not trying to please everybody else ahead of themselves, that they can finally be themselves and live into that. And I think there’s a freedom of it while you still have a lot of energy. And I think women are high energy in their 50s, 60s, 70s. I think we leave men in the dust in terms of energy at these ages.

Barbara Harrison:

Absolutely. No question.

Melinda Wittstock:

I see women doing amazing entrepreneurial things in their 50s, 60s, 70s even, and yet the investor model for funding particularly technology startups, they actually call it pattern recognition. They specifically look for young guys in their 20s in hoodies in their garages, this sort of thing. And that’s probably the optimum time for a man to launch a startup, but for a woman the optimum time is in her 40s and 50s because that’s when all the confidence, everything comes together, and so I find that women generally jump into entrepreneurship a little bit later in life.

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah, I see that happening too. I guess, really, the big question for me continues to be how do you get sponsors for this? I know lots of people who have lots of money, but I don’t feel comfortable asking people to invest in something I’m doing.

Melinda Wittstock:

This is the biggest single thing that women in business need to overcome. We talk about this all the time on the podcast, is getting out of our own way and being able to… because men have no problem asking for what they want. They just do it and they talk about it and there’s no issues around it, whereas women, for whatever reason, we have a harder time doing that, whether it’s asking for the sale or whether it’s just pricing our goods and services at their true value and not under-cutting ourselves or non-negotiating against ourselves or actually asking people to invest in our ideas. It’s one of the biggest things that all women at some point in the entrepreneurial journey learn to overcome because you have to.

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah. I see that I’m going to have to learn to overcome that.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know what? I’m going to give you a tip. One of my mentors way back, a man, one of my earlier startups, which was really deep technology, algorithmic technology applied to the social media space. Really understand people from their conversations so you could connect the right customers to the right company. It was a really high tech, AI-driven basically lead generation engine, in fact. And it was enterprise sales. I’d have to go to big companies and ask for these sales. And he liberated me by saying, “Hey, you know what, Melinda? I’m just going to let you off the hook here. What I want you to do is go out and get as many no’s as possible. Your objective this week is to get 100 nos.” Now, why this was liberating for me is it took all the pressure off. But here’s the trick in his little method here was that to get a no, I had to ask.

Barbara Harrison:

Yes, what a great idea.

Melinda Wittstock:

It forced me to ask. And the no’s started turning into yeses actually quite effortlessly and I got over my mindset issue there.

Barbara Harrison:

That is a great idea. And you’re right, it’s getting over yourself because I agree with you. I get in my own way because I start thinking, oh my god, I don’t want to offend this person. If they have to say no to me, I don’t want them to not be my friend anymore because I know them. Wow, okay, I’m going for the no’s.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s the thing that men are liberated from and that women, because we inherently, we’ve been brought up to want to be liked and to please everybody. And so that then gets in the way of our ability to just be like, hey, Barbara, you’ve created amazing things. When you think of all the value that you’ve created for other people, if you were to put a price tag on that, that’s huge. You couldn’t even add it up. When I look at your bio and all the things you’ve done, all the lives that you’ve changed through your journalism, through all the things that we’ve been discussing so far on this podcast, there’s a real value to that, right?

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah. I’m happy to hear you say it because it makes me look at it and say yes, there is a value. And with the things I’m thinking of doing now, I see the value but it’s trying to figure out how to sell it. And I think I’m going to go for the no’s, as you suggested.

Melinda Wittstock:

[crosstalk 00:20:52]Yeah, absolutely. But this is funny, this just came up on the podcast the last couple of episodes because women, technology entrepreneurs… And this is a particularly sore point for me, women just in the past two decades, we still only get 2% of the venture capital money.

Barbara Harrison:

I know. Oh, I know, I know.

Melinda Wittstock:

It hasn’t moved. And there are a lot of reasons for it. It’s complicated to unpack, but this is something that is a really big issue, so is it are we asking for our true worth? Do we understand the language? How do we fit into that way that men talk? It’s relationship so are we even in their circle? Are there enough of us? I don’t know. What is it? And-

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah. That’s a really good question because I haven’t figured it out either. I know my approach is not the way a man would approach when I’m asking for money, and I don’t even think I even like to start off by saying, “Hey, I need some money for this project. Are you interested?” Are you supposed to offer them something in return? “This is an investment. If I find out a way to make money on it, you’re going to get this back.” Is that what men do when they’re-

Melinda Wittstock:

[crosstalk 00:22:21] Completely. It’s about money as just a marker of the exchange of value between things. That’s all it is. I’ve found that over the years, as I’ve raised money for successive startups, that I think in the early days it was like that. I was approaching it like, “I need this. Will you do me a favor,” you know?

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

I wasn’t saying that, but that was the kind of energy behind it, that if they invested in me, oh, I’d be so grateful. It’s like the equivalent of showing up with a begging bowl. That does not work, that does not inspire their confidence. What they want to know is what return are they going to get? They’re looking at it in that cold thing. “If I put $1 million, will you turn my $1 million into $10 million or $100 million? And how are you going to do that?” It’s specifically on that level. You raise money for Podopolo, we’ve been able to articulate how this is highly scalable and what kind of return they can expect by when. But it’s very transactional.

Barbara Harrison:

And what do you do to calculate that? How can you decide what you’re going to tell a person? “I think I can bring you this,” and they can expect it within a certain amount of time.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh gosh, great, great question because it depends on the business model and how inherently scalable that business model is. They’re going to want to know that you’ve really done your research, you know exactly who your customers are, exactly how you’re going to find those customers, how you’re going to convert your customers, that you have a really good plan, that you’ve proven what’s known in venture circles as product market fit. In other words, you have a product that you know that you’ve tested in some very small scale way you’ve proven that people will use it, pay you for it, or whatever, and then now you need their money because you’re going to go and expand what you’ve already proven in effect. And there are different stages of funding there, but that early stage is so hard because you know what? Even if you think you know everything, there’s more that you don’t know than you actually do.

And so then you get into the realm of contingencies. Well, okay, so we’re going to deploy this strategy, we think it’s going to get us this. Here’s the high end of it, here’s the low end of it. But this is what we’ll do if that’s not working. But it’s odd because they’re looking for a lot of things. They want you to be very sure, so you have to have this outsize confidence beyond-

Barbara Harrison:

[crosstalk 00:25:11] Yes, yes, yes. With Behind the Lines, everybody says, “Oh, everyone wants to reach the military community.” We know that we are telling stories that people who have served and people who are just American citizens or any citizen who wants to hear about the history of our country vis-a-vis the wars that we have been involved in, but who do we go to to say, “Give us…” I guess I have to get an advertiser who wants to reach that community.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, that’s a better way to do it.

Barbara Harrison:

It’s a greater community than just military people, but that would be a place to start.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s a great way to do it, I think, Barbara, as well because then that is evidence to an actual investor that would take equity in your company that people are willing to pay you, and meanwhile you haven’t diluted your own ownership in your own company too early. Because you’re playing this game of the valuation growth of the company. Say a company is a company worth $10 million, $20 million, $30 million, if you take… Say at the early stages, best case scenario the company’s worth maybe… because you’re looking at its potential value and not just its current value, right?

Barbara Harrison:

Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

You say, okay, we’re going to say we’re worth $5 million. Well, if you take in $1 million, you’ve just given away… you’ve sold 20% of your company right out of the gate. And so it’s a bit of a game where you want to drive the valuation up as much as possible so when you do take that capital, you’re still retaining as the founder and your team. As you grow your team, you’re still retaining the controlling ownership of your company as much as you can, so it’s a bit of a battle. I like your idea of bringing sponsors and advertisers because that’s, as they say in the language, it’s non-dilutive. It’s not going to dilute your ownership, and at the same time it’s going to prove that people are paying you. You have a business model. Advertisers are paying you to-

Barbara Harrison:

[crosstalk 00:27:19] Well, right now we feel that we just need to get people to know about the things. This Kids Speak Out program, the US Department of Education has asked, and we have agreed, to allow those shows that we’ve done so far – I think we have about 11 or 12 episodes – to be captioned and described for children in the US school system who are blind or deaf. They will be able to hear or watch or whatever, whatever their needs are, these programs. But we aren’t getting paid for it; we’re giving it to them. But I did remember to ask, “Can you please leave holes for a commercial? should we find somebody that would be willing to sponsor, somebody who wants to reach children.” There’s toy companies, children’s cereals or whatever. But they did that, and so I had someone who I’d worked with NBC put together some little commercials for the show itself, so we are holding a sponsor spot hoping that we’ll be able to sell time on these for those kids.

But I had to give up 25% of… Well, if this goes any further to them finding somebody to sponsor it. She wants 25% of whatever we get for sponsors. That’s a lot of money, don’t you think? Are you following me?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes and no because It depends on how you look at it because I remember very early on in my very early days of raising money for a company or getting ads placed on all our content at Capital News Connection, for instance, one of my earlier companies. The bigger the pie, it doesn’t really matter so much. You want to reward and incentivize anybody who’s bringing money into your company.

Barbara Harrison:

Smart.

Melinda Wittstock:

Say, for instance, when Podopolo works with ad networks, right off the bat 30% goes to the ad network for placing all the ads, right?

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah, right.

Melinda Wittstock:

But on the other hand, the fact that we’re getting more ads or selling 100% of our inventory that way, it means that we’re making a lot more money.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, so way, way back We had a segment called Power Breakfast that was running on the local public radio station in Washington, WAMU, and it was a one minute or two minute little thing in the morning that was inserted into Morning Edition on NPR.

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah, right.

Melinda Wittstock:

And we created a TV version of it that we did in the NBC local in Washington, and I remember negotiating with them, okay, what’s going to be the deal on ads? We could either split all the revenue or they could sell the adjacencies, right?

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah, yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

Meaning the ad spot before our little thing ran and after, and then we could sell something embedded within it and each take 100%. We could do it that way or we could split it. There’s lots of different ways to do those deals.

Barbara Harrison:

You are amazing. You have learned an awful lot since you’ve been doing the entrepreneur side of your talents.

Melinda Wittstock:

And this is where I think there’s such a correlation with journalism. To be a great journalist or whatever, you have to be really curious. I think to be a great entrepreneur, you have to be curious. I think to be a great journalist, anchor or entrepreneur, you have to be a life-long learner. In entrepreneurship, you’re constantly learning because you’re constantly testing hypotheses. I like to say you’re failing forward. It’s like a scientist in a lab where you have a hypothesis and you test it, doesn’t work so you try something else, try something else, try something else until it works. It’s just how it is.

Barbara Harrison:

I see what you’re saying because yes, as a journalist I’m always playing around with ideas and seeing if I think it will work. And when it does, it’s so amazing. And you sell it to the people, the producers who will have to decide whether they’re going to run it on TV or not. Yeah, okay, I’m ready to-

Melinda Wittstock:

[crosstalk 00:32:00] You see, because you’ve already done this, in fact, you’re just switching the paradigm but all the skills are there. And it took me awhile to actually understand that; where my background was really hyper-relevant to entrepreneurship. But I didn’t see it because no one else had connected the dots for me. It wasn’t obvious. I remember I got a lot of pushback like, “What does a journalist know about being a tech entrepreneur,” kind of thing, you know what I mean?

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah, that’s what I hear. “Do you really want to do that?” But yes, I want to do it because I see how it can expand what I already know how to do. I’m so glad to get your… to know that you’ve been through this already and you-

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, have I ever, have I ever. I think it’s interesting too, especially if you’ve worked in television.

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know that the show is really about the team. I’ve worked on shows that had great teams that were really everybody had each other’s back and everybody was lifting each other up and it was fun and the show was great; always hit in the ratings if you had a team like that. If you had a team where there was a lot of backbiting and nastiness and the sort of bitchiness.

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah, but I’ve been there, I’ve been there.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right? Yeah, and you had egos and you had all that stuff.

Barbara Harrison:

Yes, yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh my god. I think it translated on air and it wasn’t as good. Entrepreneurship is the same; it’s about the team. And I mean more and more we went this year, Podopolo, from starting… No, this year. Last year, 2021 we started with two people, we now have 22. And so a really big part of my role as the CEO of it is making sure that I’m always getting the best talent. That, in effect, I’m the dumbest in the room at whatever expertise that I need, I want to get the very best. I want to bring people in who know more than I know at their particular area, get them aligned on mission and make sure that they have the resources that they need and get out of their way and create this amazing culture. That’s been such a big focus. And the most that I double down on that, the more that other things take care of themselves, so I don’t have to be micromanaging or anything like that, which I don’t enjoy anyway.

Barbara Harrison:

The support system that you can trust and know, has the enthusiasm for what you’re creating as you do. I think that’s important. And you can’t feel like somebody’s trying to steal your idea because this is somebody’s who you’re working with and you’re doing it together and moving forward.

Melinda Wittstock:

[crosstalk 00:34:48] Exactly. That’s a really interesting thing. I want to pick up on this whole idea of stealing ideas because I think a lot of entrepreneurs can be really paranoid about that. But at the end of the day, it’s your execution. We get asked by investors, “Well, what would stop Google building what you’re building, Melinda?” Or, “What would stop Apple,” or, “How come they’re not doing it?” Well, because either they’re not interested or they don’t know how. And usually my response is, “Well, you can build it or you can buy it.” And most of these companies acquire companies like mine, you know?

Barbara Harrison:

Yes, yes, right.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so it’s very rare. It really comes down to the execution because you’re going to have your own secret sauce of how you do something nobody else can replicate. It’s so important to be doing the thing that only you can do. You, Barbara, it’s your thing and nobody else can replicate it because they’re not you.

Barbara Harrison:

Well, that’s nice to hear. It’ll give me more confidence as I move forward. And yes, I see what you’re saying. I am so impressed with what you’ve done. And the fact that we have come from the same background and moved in the same direction, you a few miles ahead of me, though. I’m going to have to catch up, or at least tag along behind you and keep following what you’re doing.

Melinda Wittstock:

Okay, I cannot say that I have 19 Emmys, all right?

Barbara Harrison:

But you would if you had stayed in this. You’re winning all kinds of awards when you have the number of people listening to you for your show, it is just amazing. Listen, I was worried that I wasn’t even going to be able to talk to you today because I had problems with my internet. And finally, I thought it’s tomorrow. I had people outside my house in trucks with those big lifts that go all the way up to the telephone poles to try to get my internet so that I hope we’re still… You can hear me perfectly today, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s so good. [crosstalk 00:36:54] Because we did try and do this a couple days ago and it was a little tricky-

Barbara Harrison:

Yes, we did.

Melinda Wittstock:

… but here we are.

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah. Anyway, I found that if I use my voice, we can get things done.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh gosh, it’s [crosstalk 00:37:06] so true. It comes down to… And I say this to every woman of every age: Ask for what you want, you know?

Barbara Harrison:

Yes, yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

There’s a great quote, and I can use this, and I do because I’m Canadian, and I think of Wayne Gretzky the hockey player who said, “You miss 100% of the shots that you don’t take.”

Barbara Harrison:

Oh, great advice. That’s something to remember.

Melinda Wittstock:

There’s absolutely nothing to lose at any time because the only thing that stops us-

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah, you’re absolutely right.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, the only thing that stops us is really in our own head. Barbara, in all the things you’re doing and all these amazing ideas you have and this incredible track record of yours, you’re making this transition into entrepreneurship, what are some of the things that you’ve learned along the way that you would share with another woman who’s thinking of taking a leap into entrepreneurship? A sizeable portion of our audience is in that place. They’re working for a major company or they’ve been an expert in something, and it’s like, okay, that’s it, now I’m doing it for me. What are some of the lessons that you’ve learned or some advice that you would give them?

Barbara Harrison:

Well, I think the most important lesson I’ve learned is to believe in myself and to believe that my ideas are as good as they were when they were turning into shows and programs on television network. That I know I can do it, I know I… My brain still works, and it’s probably working overtime these days trying to come up with different things that might catch on.

And then, as you said, having a team that you really can trust and you feel like that these are people whose ideas match yours or at least it’s somebody to sound things off on. And I think moving forward and not giving up. Even sometimes I lie in bed at night and think maybe I ought to go back and work for a television station. But I like being on my own. I’m not exactly on my own because I do have people I’m working with, but at least I’m moving forward on something that I think is great. And I don’t have to go get approval to have this thought in my head, I can try to make it work.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, that’s the wonderful part of entrepreneurship is that it is like your own game. And there are pluses and minuses with that. There are moments where you’re like, “What am I doing?” Or when things are going wrong, or you’re like, “Oh my god, I don’t know if I’m going to make payroll,” those heart palpitating moments where you’re having cashflow projects, all those things. Things come out of left field that you don’t expect and you got to deal with them. But each time you have something like that and you find your way through, those are the things that really grow your confidence.

Melinda Wittstock:

And, of course, you have interviewed so many inspiring women along the way in your journalism career. Gosh, let’s rattle some of them off. And I think of-

Barbara Harrison:

Oh, there’ve been many, many women.

Melinda Wittstock:

Aretha Franklin. You interviewed Aretha Franklin.

Barbara Harrison:

Aretha Franklin.

Melinda Wittstock:

She’s one of my heroes. What did you learn from Aretha Franklin?

Barbara Harrison:

Well, you learn a lot when you’re sitting with someone and they’re talking to you about really, really personal things. You can feel when they feel uncomfortable with a question, you can feel when they really are ready to open up. But it’s finding a way to move around so that the uncomfortability disappears and they’re willing to share with you. I could see when I asked her… And I happened to watch the… I don’t know if you saw the most recent film – I guess it was made for television – about her life.

Melinda Wittstock:

Was the Jennifer Hudson one?

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

That was amazing.

Barbara Harrison:

Right, yes, yes. And I thought, well, they really captured in that movie a lot of what she said to me. But I saw the uncomfortability when I said to her, “It must’ve been hard to be the daughter of a minister because you’re expected to be goody two-shoes all the time.” Well, she got so uncomfortable. She said, “We were a goody two-shoes, we were. My sisters and I, we were goody two…” But it was almost with anger and defending her history and maybe stories that people had talked about before. They didn’t put any of that in the movie about the question of her… Oh wait, they did. Didn’t they cover her having had a baby early in her teenage years?

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes. Yes. Well, she was abused. She was an abused child.

Barbara Harrison:

Yes, she was. And I don’t think we ever knew exactly who the abuser were. Or were you able to figure that out?

Melinda Wittstock:

I don’t know, but it was an acquaintance of some kind of her father’s.

Barbara Harrison:

Yes, yes, exactly, exactly. Well, that was really, really uncomfortable for her. And I don’t think she ever… In fact, at the time, she was saying that there were a lot of people coming to her wanting to make a biopic, and she said… Interestingly, she had an idea of who she wanted to play her, but I think they chose the best possible actress. Jennifer Hudson was terrific in that role, didn’t you think?

Melinda Wittstock:

I think so, too. Gosh, she can sing.

Barbara Harrison:

Amazing. But anyway, but there were things in her life that I could tell were… she would like to have made them… to have created the story herself for how it happened. But once I was with her for long enough – and I interviewed her a couple of times – a lot of the things that she was, I think, I shouldn’t even say ashamed of, but maybe wanted to keep as secrets, came out. And I felt I really knew her by the end. And yes, she was a great interview. I’ve interviewed a lot of people, as I’ve said. They usually start off wanting to control the narrative, but one-

Melinda Wittstock:

Of course they do. I used to do a show called Hard Talk for the BBC and it was a half hour one-on-one done live, and the objective of the show was incredibly ambitious because you had to get someone’s whole bio in basically a television half an hour, which is-

Barbara Harrison:

[crosstalk 00:44:11] Yeah, right, exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

… commercials are done, whatever. You had to bring out the their whole bio, but you had to get to the root of what was motivating them, what were they thinking at the time? What were they feeling at the time? What was really the undercurrent? What was really the hidden thing? My go-to question was, “How did that make you feel?”

Barbara Harrison:

Yes, I think that’s a great question.

Melinda Wittstock:

And each time I just asked this really basic, short question. Or the other one was, “Why?” Nothing more.

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s great. I have to remember that.

Melinda Wittstock:

And let there be silence for a little bit. But I could get things from people, or just through elicitation, even, just these different things. And I look back now and I wonder, getting good as an interviewer in that context where you’re interviewing to make news. On this podcast, we’re having a conversation, it’s very different, but in that harder edged news journalism where you’re really trying to get new information, how helpful that is, actually, as an entrepreneur. And I think I must use that all the time without even being conscious of it.

Barbara Harrison:

Well, and the thing is that you don’t want to upset somebody by asking a question that they don’t want to answer so you’ve got to find a way to move around and gain their trust so that they don’t feel like you’re trying to trick them into saying something.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, or get something over on them or something like that. There is a lot of gotcha journalism like that, you know?

Barbara Harrison:

Right, right.

Melinda Wittstock:

Which is unfortunate.

Barbara Harrison:

Well, I’ve found that with my sharing stories with people as I’ve gotten ready for the interview helped to get them to feel more comfortable about their own personal stories. And I really am always happy when I’ve ended something feeling like I learned something and I’m giving the audience something that they didn’t know about the person that I’m interviewing.

Melinda Wittstock:

How do you see media changing? Because you’ve just been right at the forefront of this as the whole media world is changing around you quicker and quicker and quicker and quicker from, say, 20 years ago and now.

Barbara Harrison:

This is what my observation is: They’re not spending as much money on many of the shows because there are so many other ways people can get their news. People are not sitting down necessarily in front of a television at 4:00, 5:00, and 6:00 to watch news if they’ve seen what’s going on on their phones. And so there’s not as much money being spent on advertising. I think that they’re limiting the number of people who are involved in gathering news and in the whole news production. Yeah, I think what we’re seeing is less interest in I hate to say television because I think we’ll always have TV of some sort, but I do think that there are too many other ways that people can gather information at the moment; they’re not having to wait until the afternoon or evening or the next morning to know something. They’re getting it when it happens.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s so true, and it’s tricky, though, because the less you invest in a show, the less good it’s going to be, the more reason why you’re going to rely on your phone, right?

Barbara Harrison:

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

It becomes almost self-fulfilling. I saw that trend. And same thing happened with local newspapers across the country. It’s interesting. Now, though, we’ve arrived at this place where people make up their own facts.

Barbara Harrison:

It’s incredible. You don’t know what to believe because… especially in the last few months, it seems like… I feel like I don’t even want to bother; I’d rather try to figure out some other source to find out the truth because everything is so politicized and you’re not sure whether you’re hearing what is the real truth news story.

Melinda Wittstock:

I remember really understanding this as a journalist very, very early on as a business correspondent and a media correspondent on the Times of London. I started to really get the idea that I was being used sometimes because people would want to… I don’t know, a government source or a business would want to float something, you know?

Barbara Harrison:

Yes.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so you had to be really conscientious of understanding people’s agendas. And I don’t know whether all journalists really do that work. I think some do, but not all do.

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah, I think some do.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. But for the regular person trying to assess, okay, so which one, which journalist can I trust and how do I know? And how many other cooks have been part of that story? What got left out? What question was never asked that should’ve been? I don’t know. It gets very complicated.

Barbara Harrison:

I think you, from all that I know of you and your career, and I have always felt that I had to be honest no matter what, whether it was the agenda of the news program to go find out this, this is the answer we want. I will get to that question, but I want the person to trust me. And getting them to understand that, “Listen, I’m going to ask you this and I hope that you will give me your true answer. But you should know that this is what I’m here to get.” And once they know that you’re not trying to be sneaky about getting an answer, I think that people really trust you. I see people all the time when I go out, even in restaurants, who are very well-known people who remember their interviews with me. I see Dr. Fauci.

Barbara Harrison:

I love Dr. Fauci. He was doing stories and answering questions for me for years, so I trust what he has to say. And I know he is not a political animal, at least that he certainly wasn’t in the past, so I… It really bothers me to hear him being attacked by people who… And maybe-

Melinda Wittstock:

[crosstalk 00:51:17] Have agendas.

Barbara Harrison:

I shouldn’t talk about on your show.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, no, but have agendas, though. And it’s really interesting. It’s very hard for regular news consumers, American citizens, to try and figure out what’s going on. I think this explains to large measure the rise of podcasting as well because podcasting, whether it’s done by a major company or a independent, it’s in-depth. You can really get to know the hosts over time. I don’t know, it’s interesting, it’s part of the phenomena of taking matters into our own hands because we’re not being served by media as it’s evolved. But it also puts added responsibility on the actual consumer of the information. Not everybody has time to go do that.

Barbara Harrison:

The fact that we’ve been home, so many of us working from home. And in the middle of this pandemic I think people have become more political in their thoughts and their leanings rather than looking at a whole picture and making decisions for themselves. They listen to certain people who speak one way or the other, and that becomes their tribe. And I’d like to see people making more cautious decisions about what to believe and what not to believe.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, I think there’s an opportunity there to fix that problem in media, but it’s such a difficult problem to fix.

Barbara Harrison:

Yes, you’re right, you’re right.

Melinda Wittstock:

Really, really difficult. I know this one firsthand because way back in the day, one of my bleeding edge startups, it was way ahead it of its time, we were actually solving the fake news problem algorithmically before anyone realized there was a fake news problem, and only because I’d seen with the rise of social media the danger of the filter bubble. I’m this geek who creates algorithms and that kind of thing, right?

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

And I was doing an app called Newsit that was crowdsourcing information. I had this idea that, wow, wouldn’t it be great if we could involve citizens? I think back then it was called citizen journalism where you could extend the reach of the newsroom by involving regular people with iPhones being able to document parts of the story. What the algorithms did was assess all those different crowdsourced contributions to figure out what was relevant and what was reliable, looking at pattern…

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah, but a great idea. Wow.

Melinda Wittstock:

We had figured it out, though. We were doing it but we couldn’t get the funding because people didn’t see. Now I think if I was doing Newsit now, yeah, it would make sense. Sometimes you can, with an idea, you can be way ahead of the market. It’s too, too early. But yeah, we were really able to ascertain a lot. And the algorithms would work up to the point where it was like a sifting kind of thing where you’d say, “Okay, 99% of people who saw the same traffic accident agree on these facts, but here are the outlying facts so let’s look at the outliers in more depth and put some humans on those.” But algorithmically, it was very complex. And some of that technology we utilize in Podopolo now, so it wasn’t all a waste, but it was really, it was impossible to get that funded. But I would love to see somebody be able to run with something like that now and make a difference.

Barbara Harrison:

It’s a great, great idea. I-

Melinda Wittstock:

So good to see that actually happen where there was some sort of way of being able to get past this distrust and ascertain, okay, what is a fact? And how do we know it’s a fact?

Barbara Harrison:

Well, maybe we should start another company together. You can keep, absolutely, this one going that you have, but one that would figure out how to do a better newscast, how to bring people the real, honest news and let them make decisions about how they feel about it rather than having people who become their mentors just because they happen to be on a channel that they are used to watching. It’s crazy.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. I think what’s happened in our society is that it’s become a tribalistic thing where people are deriving their own self-worth and their own sense of belonging from what tribe they’re in, not much beyond that. And it’s worrying for many reasons.

Barbara Harrison:

It is depressing, but I’m a news junky even now with everything else I’ve doing. I find that I wake up and I want to read through several different newspapers on my phone before I even get out of bed just to see what’s happening.

Melinda Wittstock:

For my own sanity, I have to take breaks from news, you know?

Barbara Harrison:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

I really have to focus on the positive, keeping my energy in a higher vibration than the news will sometimes take me. It’s a delicate balance for sure. Barbara, I’m so excited about all the things you’re going to do. I know that you and I are going to talk offline about lots of different opportunities. I am thrilled for you. And please, my door is always open.

Barbara Harrison:

Thank you.

Melinda Wittstock:

I’m excited about your journey. Any woman jumping from media into to entrepreneur, it’s so personal to me that I’m delighted to give back in any way I can.

Barbara Harrison:

Melinda, can I quickly mention this one project that’s just on our doorstep right now? It’s called Wednesday’s Children that we’re hoping to be able to make a national show where I would go out and find these kids who need homes who are in foster care across the country, and maybe once a week featuring a child so that everybody can hear their story as a podcast or see it on a Zoom show or something like that. And that’s yet another thing on the doorstep.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think that’s an amazing idea, Barbara. It would make a wonderful national show, and I think you have so much opportunity for sponsorship there. And moreover, Podopolo also partners with charities where a social impact company, so I’d love to be able to talk to you about how Podopolo could support that as well.

Barbara Harrison:

That would be wonderful, Melinda. Thank you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes. Well, look, I want to thank you so much for putting your wings on and flying with us. And I want to invite you too, Barbara, to be on Podopolo and on hand for any follow on conversation our listeners want to have or any questions they want to ask you because the comments section on Wings of Inspired Business on Podopolo, we can add you as the guest and all your details and whatnot and have a great follow on conversation there after people listen to the episode.

Barbara Harrison:

Fabulous. That sounds terrific.

Melinda Wittstock:

I’ll make sure you have all the details.

Barbara Harrison:

Great. This has been so much fun. I learned a lot from you today. I’m so glad we did this.

Melinda Wittstock:

And I you, so thank you so much.

Barbara Harrison:

Well, my pleasure. Look forward to talking to you again and hope to meet you in person sometimes. I’ve been an admirer for some time, and very, very happy to have this chance to talk.

Melinda Wittstock:

100%.