Making the news fast, fair and fun

👩‍💻 Meet Erica Mandy

Erica is an award-winning journalist and the Founder and Host of the popular daily news podcast, the NewsWorthy. In 2017, Erica left her decade-long career in TV news to launch the show. Now, she’s on a mission to help people stay informed in a more convenient, unbiased and enjoyable way.

Making the news fast, fair, and fun

Erica started her company because she kept hearing from people who were tuning out the news completely. Many people said they felt the news was too overwhelming, depressing, time consuming and biased. This made her search for a better option. She became passionate about creating an on-demand, on-the-go product that helped solve these problems.

The NewsWorthy is a podcast that uses its signature “fast, fair, fun” approach to keep listeners up to date on the day’s news in just 10 minutes. They cover a variety of stories from politics to tech to entertainment.

The grind in the middle

When Erica launched her company, she heard a lot of people talk about the excitement of starting something new and the celebration once you’ve reached some sort of visible “success,” but she didn’t hear very many people talk about the grind in the middle. She says this is where you spend a lot of your time, and it’s important to continue to believe in yourself and take action, even when there may not be as many people cheering you on.

Pregnancy changed the process

One of the biggest lessons Erica learned in the past year was spurred by pregnancy. In order for Erica to take maternity leave, she had to make sure the business could operate without her for a few months. This forced her to improve her documented processes and trust her team even more.

📚 Erica's Best Stack Ever

Erica tries to keep things as simple and affordable as possible. In fact, most of the tools she uses are free!

• Google Workspace docs, sheets, etc are used for scripts and planning (Daily)

• Slack for team communication (Daily)

• Trello project management and interview tracking (Daily)

• GarageBand for audio recording (it then gets sent to a professional audio editor) (Daily)

  • Shure microphone

  • Sony headphones

• Zapier for automations (Daily)

• Mailchimp for email newsletters (Daily)

• Libsyn for podcast hosting, sends to different podcast platforms (Daily)

• Podtrac and Chartable track performance measurements (Daily)

• Squarespace hosts the website (Daily)

• Glow.fm for managing subscriptions to a premium tier (Daily)

• Planoly for content and social media planning (Daily)

• Canva for design and graphics (Daily)

• Textexpander for automating communication (Daily)

• Toggl offers time tracking and hiring tools (Daily)

• QuickBooks for accounting (Weekly)

On a weekly basis, Erica says she spends the most time on growth, monetization and content.

Erica’s advice for those interested in starting their own company?

✨Representation matters. Know someone who might be inspired by Erica? Share this newsletter with them✨

If you have any questions or feedback, you can reach me at [email protected]

Always remember to have courage and be kind 💫

Ellen at Best Stack Ever