Copyright Inc. Magazine
As first-time founders in their early 20s, Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni know they have a lot to learn. So, like plenty of other newly minted entrepreneurs, the recent Stanford University graduates carve out time each week to ask more experienced operators for advice. They record all of their conversations, not just for posterity, but for their podcast. In April, Gates and Kianni launched Phia, an AI-powered shopping app that helps users compare prices and find second-hand alternatives, as well as their podcast, The Burnouts, a weekly show that is part of Alex Cooper’s Unwell network. Both ventures have grown rapidly over the past six months. Their New York City-based startup, which they call “the Google Flights for fashion,” has amassed more than 500,000 users and partnered with more than 5,000 brands, including Revolve, Reformation, Zara, Madewell, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, and Nike. Last month, Phia closed an $8 million seed round that was led by Kleiner Perkins and also included Hailey Bieber, Kris Jenner, Sheryl Sandberg, Sara Blakely, Fanatics founder Michael Rubin, and former Project Runway executive producer Desiree Gruber. At the same time, their podcast—which has featured interviews with high-profile entrepreneurs such as Whitney Wolfe Herd, Bobbi Brown, and Gary Vaynerchuk, as well as other young up-and-coming founders managing fast-growth startups, such as Danielle Guizio—has developed a major following. On YouTube, the show has racked up 142,000 subscribers and more than 24 million views. Its combined Instagram and TikTok presence is even bigger, with more than half a million followers and 45 million views. According to its co-founders, the audio show has been downloaded more than 600,000 times. Featured Video An Inc.com Featured Presentation Gates and Kianni see this as a process of “un-gatekeeping.” The goal of their double-sided venture is to open source everything they are learning about building a tech company in real time and in a way that is digestible for young people who do not have technical backgrounds. Think of it as a social-first MasterClass for Gen-Z, who are embracing entrepreneurship earlier and earlier. The show has covered topics including sales, marketing, mentorship, hiring, building a company culture, developing a personal brand as a founder, pitching investors, and navigating exits. “We wanted to be honest with our audience,” Kianni tells Inc. “The questions that we’re asking them are genuinely real questions that we have as first-time business owners.” Kianni and Gates, the daughter of Bill Gates and Melinda French, are part of a new generation of founders who have embraced the mantra of building in public by melding together the roles of entrepreneur and content creator. That strategy has been especially fruitful when it comes to marketing, they say. Growing an audience translates to growing a user base. After all, it’s the same group of people they are trying to reach: young women living in cities, scrolling through their social-media feeds and fall fashion trends on their phones. Every week, the team—which has grown to 12 employees, half of whom are past founders themselves—reviews metrics for both Phia and The Burnouts. The level of engagement—users, installations, and recommendations for the app and organic views, comments, likes, and shares for the podcast—informs what future guests they book and what questions they will ask. “With every single podcast episode, we’re testing many, many clips to learn, OK, what provides value? What does our audience engage with? Did that lead to real users and installs?” says Gates. And it has. Through their podcast and social-media presence, Gates and Kianni say they have driven more than 150 million organic views to Phia over the past few months. If their audience and other first-time founders can get comfortable with the idea of being open online, it can become a trove of data and a powerful growth engine. “If you are a founder, you need to not be afraid to fail and learn really quickly. There is no chance that you are going to be a successful founder without having one feature or one idea that’s absolutely going to fall on its face,” says Gates. “If you’re afraid to do that in public, then that’s honestly a concern.”
