We were lucky to catch up with Anna Ratala recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Anna thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

The year was 2019. I’d never had an American dream. As a girl from Finland, I never looked at America as the land of opportunities. Opportunities are everywhere! Besides, I’d built a comfortable life in the heart of Asia, in Singapore, where I was running a big tech startup event. Who needs America anyway?

Turns out, my dreams did.

When I started my latest startup in podcast advertising I realized immediately that the biggest market for that was in America. My home was in Singapore.

So I changed that. Two weeks after we got our first $100K investor check I packed my bags, bought a one-way ticket to New York and never looked back. Just like that, my American dream was born.

I was in my mid-thirties, knew nobody in New York, had never done business in America, and had no significant savings. But I knew I had to be where my customers were.

My glamorous life in Singapore with champagne and weekend getaways turned into a startup hustle with home cooked noodles and cheap beer in a tiny apartment with two room mates. I had no friends and no money to go out and make new ones, so I spent weekends in my little room working.

It was scary but exciting. Lonely but liberating. It was utter insanity but every day I woke up feeling happy. Because it was my decision, something I had chosen to do.

Nine months after moving to New York we were hit with the global pandemic. For many, it meant the death of their dreams. For me, it meant the beginning.

I hired two first employees – remotely. We were still fundraising so I couldn’t pay them a salary but I promised an unforgettable startup journey if they’d trust me. They did. Shortly after, we raised our first meaningful VC funding.

Exactly one year after moving to New York I had a team, an investment, a product on the market and I was calling New York home. While there were many more challenges ahead, the risk that I took leaving my comfortable life in Singapore had paid off.

I was finally living my dream.

Anna, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to tell us about the business and how it got started.

Me and my three girlfriends had decided to start a podcast. We were going to talk about business, startups, leadership – and drink wine. We booked a weekend getaway to record the first episode and I volunteered to find us a sponsor. Who wouldn’t want to sponsor such phenomenal content!

I went online trying to find a platform matching me with the most relevant brands, the same way you had dozens of platforms doing this for social media influencers. Turns out, there were none doing this for podcasts.

My startup Zvook was born.

I discovered that podcasts were the world’s fastest growing advertising channel but still the only digital medium brads could not buy online with a click. Instead they had to go through an outdated, manual ad buying process with spreadsheets, PDFs and back-and-forth emails.

It was a hot mess.

I thought, Facebook’s Ad Manager is the ugliest thing the ad world has seen. But it’s better than spreadsheets. Which is why Facebook makes $80B in ad revenue. With just a few clicks.

What if podcasters had access to the same ad spend? If finding, vetting and booking host-read podcast ads was a matter of just a few clicks?

With Zvook it was.

Our smart platform helped brands find the most relevant podcasts and book host-read podcast ads with just a few clicks. We worked with thousands of independent podcasters helping them be discoverable by the brands, as well as with huge audio giants such as iHeart Media, Acast and Audioboom helping them grow their podcast advertising revenue. Our clients such as Panasonic, MRM McCann, University of Virginia, Rocket Money, Yon-Ka Paris, Four Sigmatic, and many others loved the platform for its user-friendly interface and quick booking process.

We got to build the future of podcast advertising together with some of the most accomplished players in the market. In 2022 I was on stage at the world’s biggest podcasting event, Podcast Movement, and in 2023 U.S. Venture News featured us as the “marketing mavericks redefining the industry”.

2023 was also the last full year we were operational.

Running a startup is so much more than just doing what you love. Funding plays a pivotal role in making or breaking the early company. Unfortunately, the economic slowdown and the bursting of the crypto bubble in 2023 made VCs tighten their purse strings. Fundraising became a mission impossible, especially for an early startup like ours that was still figuring out the product-market-fit.

Not being able to raise further funding, I had to make a tough decision last year to close the business down.

I am beyond grateful for the opportunity and the learnings, and humbled by the success we saw over the years. Closing the company was bitter-sweet but it also meant I could finally take a break. A real, mental break which I had not had in almost 10 years being an entrepreneur. I spent time with family, traveled and thought about what’s next.

One thing is for certain. I am a founder at heart. And while it is not the time yet, one day a new company will be built upon the successes and the failures of the previous one.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

It was January 2023. My co-founder had asked me to hop on a call with him. In this call, he told me he was leaving the startup we had built.

It was a surprise, to say the least, though not one I hadn’t thought about before. People have different aspirations, pain tolerance, and ability to deal with continuous uncertainty. I completely understood his decision.

And just like often in life, changes bring about more changes. It was his departure that prompted me to think about the business more critically. Were we making the kind of progress we needed to make? Were we closer to product-market-fit? Was there something we were not seeing that could completely change the game for us?

I realized that there was.

After ripping open our whole approach, I realized we were selling to the wrong audience. Instead of selling our podcast advertising platform to the brands, we should offer it directly to podcast networks. Their teams were still using spreadsheets and PDFs to send proposals to advertisers. It was not only slow and inconvenient but also lacked the transparency on whether the advertiser had opened it, liked it, hated it or simply ignored it. Our platform could help track the advertisers’ activity with the proposal and make it easier for the network to adjust it based on that (clicks, time spent, new podcasts added to proposal etc.).

I sent an email to 10 podcast networks we had been working with. Within 24 hours all 10 had responded with initial interest. I knew we had something.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn a stubborn belief that as the startup CEO you must be great at everything.

In business school I majored in international marketing and minored in accounting. I hated accounting. But I thought any self-respecting business leader had to be great at numbers & Excel sheets.

I never wanted anyone to talk down to me because I didn’t know how to calculate a profit margin.

Well, nobody has. Turns out, nobody cares.

But for a long time I was ashamed to admit that as the startup CEO I just really did not love numbers. So I went above and beyond to prove that I could do them. Like doing all our financial statements for the first 2 years..

Guess what? Nobody’s given me a trophy for that.

What I have since realized and accepted is that there is no one right way to be a great CEO.

It will struggle creating a process flow chart but put me in front of 1,000 people on a 5min notice and I will deliver a speech of a lifetime.

I learned it was crucial to play to my strengths, not to the idea of what a CEO “should” be.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @annaratala
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annaratala/

Image Credits

Evelien Kong.