Everyone Said It Was Too Niche. Then Julia Louis-Dreyfus Signed On | Ep. 433 with Stephanie Wittels Wachs CEO & Co-Founder of Lemonada Media

0:00You have to constantly pivot. If you don't like doing that, I don't recommend running a company. Be an employee. Stephanie Wittels Wachs is the CEO of Lemonada Media. Her brother Harris wrote for Parks and Rec and won an Emmy for Master of None. After his death, she wrote a best-selling memoir. Then she built the network behind Apple's best podcast of the year with Julia Louise Dreyfus. This is a founder's story you have never heard. He was my little brother, my best friend, and he died at 30 years old of a heroin overdose. Jess and I would never have found each other if our brothers were still here.

0:39I would never be running this company. If your brother was sitting across from you right now, what do you think he would say about the person that you've had to become because of his death?

0:52I think he would...

1:01You recently said, I would not have this company if my brother were still alive. Can you explain that statement? Yeah, it's a wild statement, right? I'm guessing no other founder has probably had that statement on your show. Never heard that statement before. Yeah, well, I guess let me rewind to tell you the origin of that quote. You know, a lot of founders start companies to make money. I don't know. Be moguls. That wasn't us. So my story is very different. My brother, Harris Whittles, was a comedy writer and comedian and very beloved. Honestly, just a boy wonder. He got his first writing job at 22 with Sarah Silverman on her show and, you know, just catapulted and had the most incredible career.

1:56He was a co-executive producer of Parks and Rec when he died. If you've ever seen the show, he played Harris, the animal control guy. We were so proud of him. But he was amazing. And he wrote on Master of None and ended up winning an Emmy for that show. I mean, he was the best. But beyond his resume and his professional accolades, he was my brother. He was my little brother, my best friend. We were very close. He was my only sibling. And he died at 30 years old of a heroin overdose. And when people hear about a guy who was so successful and so brilliant and charming and funny and incredible, incredibly accomplished, you think that person struggled with addiction.

2:44Yes. We were on that roller coaster as a family for a couple of years before he died. But when he died, I was absolutely destroyed in the way that grief destroys a person and ended up writing a book in the aftermath because my background is as a theater director and writer. And I don't come from the media space, actually. I own a podcast company, but I don't come from the audio world. I come from the art world. And so I did the only thing I knew how to do at the time, which was to write through that grief. and I published an essay and it got the attention of an agent, a literary agent. And she was like, do you want to write a book?

3:25And I'm like, lady, I can't put on pants. I'm like, so sad. I mean, I'm going to keep writing. If you want to publish whatever comes out, great. And she's like, that sounds great. And we ended up selling the book. And when I was touring it a couple years later, a woman heard me on a podcast called Terrible Things for Asking, and she had lost her brother the same way and was a producer for Crooked Media at the time and reached out and was like, hey, do you want to do a podcast about opioids? And I was like, no, I'm done talking about opioids. They destroyed our family, ruined my life, killed my brother.

4:11You seem great. Let's keep in touch. I was going to have a baby in a week, like literally when we talked. It was a wild time. This was in 2018. And I went on mat leave and was nursing a lot and scrolling my phone like you do and kept seeing all these articles about opioids and, you know, the opioid crisis and how it's killing more people than car accidents. And I just felt like, I don't know, we should make this. Because as a family member, when you're going through something like that, you have no idea what to do. You are sort of like, I say it like you have balls coming at you, like curveballs, right?

4:52And you're batting them away and you have no idea what the rules of the game are. You have no idea. And you want to help but don't know where to begin. So our show was really intended to be a resource for families, right? Like, yes, the Sacklers are terrible. They've ruined us. They're terrible, awful. That doesn't help me if my loved one is struggling with an opioid use disorder. Like, what do I do? So we decided to make this show together and it was called Last Day. And this was six months before COVID. So we realized really quickly that the world is hard in a lot of ways, not just drugs. And how could we create content and community about all of those hard things.

5:33We described it as the stuff that when you lay your head down in the pillow at night, you're stressing about sort of by yourself. Like, let's make that kind of content that addresses that. And that became Lemonada. Our brand statement is make life suck less. Seven years later, we have shows with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Meghan the Duchess of Sussex and, you know, all sorts of people who have nothing to do with opioids or addiction, but really resonate with our brand statement. So, you know, Jess and I would never have found each other if our brothers were still here. I would never be running this company.

6:13This would not be my path. So that's why I said that, because it's completely and utterly true. Two strangers, two brothers, nearly identical deaths brought you two together. What was the transition for you when you realized this is going to be a company? This isn't just a podcast. Yeah, I mean, it's so interesting. Because when the worst thing happens to you and you survive that, everything else seems like child's play. So the fear and anxiety, what are we going to do if the company doesn't work? What are we going to do if this isn't something that resonates with people? We didn't care, right?

6:56What's the worst thing that can happen? The podcast doesn't do well. This company doesn't do well. You know, we were sort of fearless, which is something I typically never was. I was very afraid. I had tons of anxiety. But when you survive this terrible thing, it just felt like, yeah, let's do this. the company came about because we started pitching out the podcast and everyone kept telling us oh this is too niche oh it's a great concept but like really niche and um we thought do you know how many people this affects you know this is a huge uh epidemic right the opioid crisis people may not be talking about it at dinner parties or around the water cooler but it doesn't mean it's not impacting people.

7:43And so our thought was, there's so many things like that, right? We have a real mission for this, and we have a real something to offer somebody, right? When you think about starting a company, it's like, is this going to really offer you something that you need? And we believed so strongly that we did. At the time, it was like, there was comedy stuff. It was like, what did Trump eat for breakfast? Like, everything was politics or comedy. There wasn't really anything focused on the hard things in life through a entertaining and comedic lens, which is always how we made our shows. Even when we're talking about the hardest things ever, we do it in a way that is like, we say like the broccoli and the brownies, right?

8:27Like we're always making jokes. We're always making people laugh. But we're talking about the things that really impact people. And so the transition was actually quite easy because it wasn't like we were setting out to be media moguls, we weren't like, we're going to make the biggest podcast company ever. Our mission was like, make life suck less for people. Great. How are we going to do that? Through podcasts and then through books and then through documentaries and then through events and experiences. Like if you start with your why, the how becomes actually quite easy in a way. I think for us, if we hadn't had that big why, the company never would have made sense.

9:10But because we did, everything else felt like, yeah, let's do it. Easy. When life gives you lemons, you get lemonada. Make lemonada. Exactly. Do you have a tune? Do we have a tune? I think when life gives lemons, you get lemonada. That's good. Think on that one. I'm not a good singer. I'm going to copyright that one. I'm going to copyright that one. Copyright it. Please. I will not take it. I promise. You did something that most entrepreneurs would love to do, and that is to attract a well-known household name people to be a part of the company, which is not easy. And I know a lot of podcast networks and many of them, they haven't even reached that level.

9:54They've been in the game for a long time. What do you think that you all did that enabled you to attract top talent? Again, I think it's that it's that mission orientation. You know, people want to be a part of something that has meaning and purpose. So us being like we're just a podcast network is one thing, but a podcast network with a heart and a soul and, you know, a real sort of alignment with with what their values are. When you're a values-based company, I think you attract people who have similar values. And that's true of our talent behind the mic. So all of our team and our staff and the kinds of people we attract to work at Lemonada and the talent that we attract.

10:39They're people who also want to make the world better. They're people who want to protect their own brand. And when they come to Lemonada, they know this is not a volume play here. We are not like other networks that take on a million podcasts. We're incredibly selective about what we take on. And every show really makes sense under the Lemonada umbrella. so people who come here they want to be part of that of that world essentially now i'm now a part of your world now i'm now i'm the singer dan oh but you you have a legit voice well listen i don't want i don't want to brag but i mean i can sing a tune i can sing a tune theater i tried by the way, I went to theater camp and then I tried out for theater and I was never accepted into any plays.

11:34I don't think I was even really good at it, to be honest with you. But it seemed, you know. Now you host a podcast, though, so everyone else can just get right out of town. I'm acting right now. There you go. You're acting like a podcast host. I think about wanting to get sunglasses and I want to become like a character. I feel that'd be more fun. When you think about the journey, though, of going from where you were, the mission that you started, the why, the purpose was incredible, helping all these people, getting all these people to understand what to do in one of the worst or the worst moments of their life to then building this out to being top three in the country.

12:13I've known about you all since you started. Who doesn't know about Lemonada? If you're in the podcast industry, then everyone knows about the company that you've created. What was the scariest moment, though, of that journey? I mean, the scariest moment? I mean, there's so many scary moments. Every founder knows. I mean, building a business is... I don't even know what the adjective is. It's tough, right? It's, you know, are we going to make payroll? Are we going to... I mean, there's like everything from that to, you know, are we going to get this top talent? Are we going to get this deal? Are we going to, everything is sort of, you know, are we going to blink, you know, today?

13:02And there's so many worries as a founder that you have. Are we going to matter to people? Is this show going to work? Is this investment going to work? Is it going to pay off? Are people going to, I mean, the podcast space is so saturated, right? Are people going to care about this show? Is it going to chart? Is it going to, are we going to have to sunset it? I mean, there's so much of that that happens, you know, and when you're making content, I always joke. It's like, I almost sometimes wish I made like hair ties because those like, you can like tell, okay, it's elastic or it's not, right? It's either going to work or it's not.

13:38When you're making content, it's kind of like lightning in a bottle, right? Whether or not it's going to work. I got to fix my mic. It's doing this weird, crooked thing. My husband got me this really fancy, not a mic, a camera, and it like turns with me and it drives me nuts. It moves with me. I don't want it to move with me. I want it to just stay stationary. It's too smart. It's a smart camera. See, it's doing it again. Okay. Anyway, So I think like all of those anxieties are sort of like part of the deal. I think, you know, when you're going through an acquisition, like that's a really scary, daunting process.

14:24It's like the most intense dating you've ever done. And then the diligence process, right? It's like opening your underwear drawer. I mean, it's like everything is, there's so much fear that comes along with running a company that is yours. So it's hard to identify a single moment, I would say. And then the other thing I would say is that in the media industry, everything shifts so rapidly. Every 12 to 18 months, we have to sort of change the way we do things. I mean, we've been navigating over the last 12 to 18 months. I mean, you and I are doing a podcast now that's on video, right? Six years ago, seven years ago, we didn't do podcasts in video.

15:08They were podcasts because they were audio only, right? And so we've had to navigate this huge shift to being a video first company. And every show we're launching this fall, we're launching five new shows this fall. Every single one of them is video first. We have no audio only shows that we're producing this fall. So we've completely had to shift the way that we do things internally, what our systems are, what our processes are, you know, audio people that are having to learn video, hiring specific expertise for this moment. It's tough. Yeah. It's a lot of pivoting. As they say in the Friends episode, pivot.

15:46Do you know that one? No. With the couch? I don't remember that. Okay. I need to look that up. Goes through my head like once every month. Pivot. That's what this job is. You have to be nimble and flexible and you have to constantly pivot. If you don't like doing that, I don't recommend running a company. Stay an employee. I was thinking of the Seinfeld episode where he's like, what do I do with my hands? Every time I take a photo shoot or a video, I'm always thinking, what do I do with my... Yeah. I don't know. Who knows? I know. I know. When you were going through being acquired by PODX, when you signed the papers or whatever the final things, did you and Jessica ever feel something like we're giving away the thing that we created for our brothers or we created for this purpose?

16:41Did you feel like I'm giving this away now or I'm letting go of it and there could be sadness or happiness in that? I honestly don't think that flavor was part of it. I think we were so excited to become a part of something bigger, right, when you're running an independent company. And again, like our peers in this space, the people we're up against are like iHeart and Spotify and Amazon. We're a little, little tiny company. And so the idea that we would be able to plug into this bigger ecosystem and have some institutional support and not be out here fighting for our lives on our own, that was such a thrilling proposition to us.

17:28And we were so excited about the global part of it. Potex is a global company, and we were their first U.S. acquisition. and the idea that we were going to be able to work with companies in the UK and the Nordics and France and Mexico and Argentina and all around the world was so exciting to us that that kind of like, oh, we're sad, we're giving it away. Maybe it's because my roots are in theater, like that's my background. I'm like a team player. I like to make things with people. um so for me i'm like always like the the more the merrier um and and it was it was it felt like a really amazing um close of a chapter and the beginning of a new one that felt really important to us as a company what's your favorite play oh my god my favorite play of all time or one that comes to mind first like when you're like oh i really like that one not like blue andrew but you know.

18:32I mean, I do. I do love Blue Man Group. In fact, I tried to I'm going to New York in October and taking my kids and I wanted to take them to Blue Man Group because it's been around for 30 years and it was right next to my studio in New York on Astor Place. And it closed down in New York after 30 years. Do you know that? I didn't know. I think I saw them 30 years ago. OK, well, Dan, they're closed. You can't go see them. I mean, at least in New York. anyway yeah I mean I love A Streetcar Named Desire it's a Tennessee Williams play it's a beautiful play I love anything by John Patrick Shanley yeah I like the heavy stuff and then I think you know Hamilton's a great musical love Hamilton if you don't like Hamilton you're crazy don't hang out with him if you don't like Hamilton don't hang out or trust that person.

19:26I haven't seen it though. I have not seen it. Okay. I think they made like a movie based on it with him in it but I haven't seen. You need to stop doing this interview right now and go watch Hamilton. There's a Broadway taping of Lin-Manuel's version and it's really, really... In fact, why don't you just go? Go see it on Broadway. Where do you live? California. Oh, yeah. Me too. So you're... Okay. Make a trip to New York. I mean, it's an excuse to go to New York. I'm going to say a statement and I would love for you to tell me what this statement means to you now. Make life suck less. That's my brand statement.

20:06So it means a lot to me. I mean, I think I say that 25 ,000 times every day. But what does it mean? It's like, listen, I don't know if you have read the news lately, but it's not great out there. When we started the company, again, it was six months before COVID. The world shut down. Like, we had experienced this horrible, crippling loss. And so we were so grief-stricken. And then the world became grief-stricken. And then waves hands everywhere. Like, it's not been so good. And so we always say like the harder and harder it gets, the more need there is for Lemonada, you know. And Make Life Suck Less is about so many things.

20:55I mean, we do shows with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation about about caregiving, right, about being like squeezed in the sandwich generation. And then we do shows with Julia Louis-Dreyfus about wisdom of older women, right? And we do, you know, Sarah Silverman program, which is very, very funny, but also like callers are calling empathy. We do Mandy Patinkin show. Make Life Suck Less is so many things, right? But the crux of it is just it's not great and we need to make it a little bit better. It's not, and it's very intentionally not, joy, right? It's not like, let's all be happy. Like our baseline is that our brothers died.

21:43We're living in a world that is problematic, right? There are things that are broken in this world. Like we're not aspiring for like joy and happiness. We're aspiring for like, what can we do to like get through the day? You know what I mean? Like, how can we just make it suck a little bit less every single day in small and large ways? And that's what we that's what we do at Lemonada. I would never take credit for the statement. I just thought I just really enjoyed it because I've heard you use it. It's part of your company. It is. I had a friend who passed away. I think we were in our early 20s from his addiction.

22:20And sometimes I dream about him. Rarely. Like, I'm not really like, like just randomly, I'll just have a dream and he'll just be in my dream. Does that ever happen to you with your brother? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, my brother is so everywhere in my life. He's the reason that I do this. He's all over my office, like his artwork and his little weird toys because he was like a boy man. I mean, his portraits in the house, his furniture is everywhere. I mean, he's everywhere, you know, and he shows up in my dreams and my children, you know, know about him. And I mean, we talk about him all the time.

23:01So he's such a he's such a presence. I prefer that he was here, obviously. But but yeah, he's in he's in he's in the waking and the sleeping life for sure. I know he invented the humblebrag. Sure did. Sure did. I mean, and he did work for some incredible shows. I always think, though, when I watch comedians or anyone that's in the comedic industry, and I've heard stories about some really famous comedians when they're offstage and when they're in private, that times, unfortunately, they're almost tormented souls. That's why we see a lot of comedians die of addictions. And I always wondered that if people that are attracted to comedy, is it because they're escaping maybe something that they have within themselves?

23:51I mean, I could go on and on about this all day. I think I do, actually, in my in my book. But yeah, I think that it's interesting with addiction. People always say, like, what's what's wrong with the addiction? But it's it's really like people use drugs to feel better. Right. They don't use drugs to feel bad. That's a sort of reverse shift you have to make in your mind. So Dr. Gabor Monte, who I've known for a few years now, he's come on my show. He's become a friend and he's taught me a lot about addiction. And he thinks that every addiction, the root of it is trauma, some kind of a trauma. and for him he says it doesn't have to be capital T trauma trauma is a wound that's like the the Greek word that's what it means and and and it can be any kind of wound so he says trauma isn't what happens to us it's not the thing it's what happens inside us it's how we process it so if you're an overly sensitive child if you are you know if you have parents who are absent if you any sort of thing that if you're left out, if you're, you know, that can become a wound.

25:03And drugs are a way that we sort of soothe that and heal that wound. And then eventually, the negative consequences with severe addiction outweigh the benefits of the drug use, right? And that's where we see addiction that catapults people's lives and, you know, that kind of severe, severe dependency. But yeah, Yeah, I think that comedians are brilliant. I think if you're a brilliant thinking person in the world and you're always observing life, that you have an empathy about you and that you're I mean, I think you're absorbing stuff in a way that is much more intensive and and with much more depth than the average person.

25:52You're literally observing the world. and then you have to turn that into something that's funny. But the root of that observation is typically stuff that's problematic, right? Or not working the way that you want it to work or there's pain underneath that. The comedy is like, you know, the flip side of comedy is tragedy. It's like all very, very intertwined. So yeah, I think that's absolutely accurate. I think it's tough, I would imagine, to be a comedian in the sense that everyone always wants you to be funny. And they think like every interaction means you have to be funny. But like you're saying, you're not just trying to be funny to be funny.

26:33You're trying to be funny because you have wounds and trauma and things. I imagine that's a tough part of being a comedian. But if he was sitting across from you, if your brother was sitting across from you right now, what do you think he would say about the person that you've had to become because of his death? I think he would. I think he would be like, you know, wow, this is too much attention on me. You need to stop talking about me, please. Stop shining a spotlight on me, please. He would probably be very modest and humble. Um, but no, I mean, we, we were always like incredibly supportive of each other and our pursuits.

27:20And, um, you know, I think he would hopefully be proud and, and, uh, you know, I, I don't think Harris ever intended to not be here. That was, that was never his goal. It was an accidental overdose as many, most of them are. And, you know, I think he would be glad that his death was able to inspire, you know, all of this change. I mean, my mission has become helping people through this and helping people like busting myths around addiction and, you know, really informing people, because I do think that having knowledge is power. I mean, it's it's if you are armed with. I just wanted a roadmap, right?

28:17Like I'm an incredibly type A efficient, efficient woman, you know, like I'm like I'm like going to get shit done. Like I'm very good at it. If you tell me the plan, I will execute the plan. But I need to know the plan. Right. And so my whole sort of mission has been tell people what they should do. Tell people what this is, right? This isn't that your person is a selfish, lying, conniving, whatever you think they are. They have a disease. And part of the disease is having to do whatever it takes because drugs are like oxygen. And if you're drowning and you can't breathe, you're going to do whatever you can to breathe.

29:02That's what it is. And I just think people, it's hard for people to understand who are not going through it. So, you know, I just think understanding is everything. So that was a really long winded answer to your question. I don't even know if I answered it. No, it was great. I appreciate being an author. I'm an author with my wife. We wrote a book and I know it's painstaking writing a book. It's probably the hardest thing. Not only just writing the book, then after the book, it's like a full-time thing. in itself and ours took like two and a half years to come out and it was I didn't even want it to come out after I was already in it and it was really it was a headache so I appreciate you doing that last day I can't wait till this comes out I believe it's in August if I'm not mistaken yep August 18th hope everybody gets it I've experienced there it is last day I love it I've experienced a lot of things that you're saying with friends, people that I knew, lost a lot of people in this similar path.