Gretta Cohn — CEO of Transmitter Media on $7,000 of Startup Capital, Touring with Bright Eyes, and Making Beautiful Things

Gretta Cohn is the founder and CEO of Transmitter Media. Gretta's experience runs the gamut of all things audio, from public radio and ringtones, to producing chart-topping podcasts. We discuss her time touring with the band Bright Eyes, being hired as the first production executive at Midroll Media and Earwolf, and starting her own podcast company with only $7,000 of savings. 

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Chris Erwin:

Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to The Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders.

Gretta Cohn:

I thought I would take the more productive path, the one where I didn't leave podcasting and I made this decision in December of 2016 to myself and then spent the next couple of months just tucking away money. And when I say I saved money before starting the business, I saved $7,000.

Chris Erwin:

This week's episode features Gretta Cohn, the founder and CEO of Transmitter Media. Now, Gretta's experience runs the gamut of all things audio. From being a touring cellist with the band, Cursive, to teaching radio workshops at NYU, to working in audiobooks, ringtones, and most recently podcasts. And Gretta's done some groundbreaking work along the way like turning Freakonomics Radio into an omni channel media brand, launching the number one podcast show, Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People and helping build Howl, which eventually became part of Stitcher. But Gretta's career transformed in 2017 when she decided to do podcasting on her own terms. So with only $7000 of savings, Gretta founded Transmitter Media and quickly began producing premium podcasts for clients like, TED, Spotify, and Walmart. Today, Gretta is focused on scaling her Brooklyn based team and creating more, as she describes, beautiful things.

Chris Erwin:

Gretta's love for her craft and team is so genuine and her story is a great example of how sheer will and passion are the ultimate enablers. All right, let's get into it.

Chris Erwin:

Tell me a little bit about where you grew up. I believe that you grew up in New York City. Is that right?

Gretta Cohn:

Well, I grew up in the suburbs, so I grew up on Long Island. My mom is from Queens and my dad is from Brooklyn and there is a sort of mythology of their meeting. My mom's dad was a butcher in Queens and my dad would always tell us that they didn't have toothpaste growing up and he'd go over to my mom's house and just eat. Yeah, they moved out to Long Island after they got married.

Chris Erwin:

Nice. And what part of Long Island?

Gretta Cohn:

Initially I grew up on the eastern end in the town called Mount Sinai and then when I was 13 in a very traumatic move at that age we moved to Huntington, which was more like smack in the middle of the island.

Chris Erwin:

My cousins are from Huntington. That's where they grew up, but then I think they moved to Lloyd's Neck shortly after. Why was that move so traumatic at 13?

Gretta Cohn:

I think it's that really formative age where you are sort of coming into yourself as a human, as a teenager and I remember writing my name on the wall in the closet because I wanted to leave my mark on that particular house that we grew up in. But then we moved and I made new friends and it was fine.

Chris Erwin:

Everything is scary at that age. It's like, "Oh, I have my friends and if I move to a new high school or middle school, I'll never have the same friends again."

Gretta Cohn:

My best friend at the time, Alessandra, never to be talked to or seen again.

Chris Erwin:

What was the household like growing up? Was there interesting audio from your parents? I mean, I think you mentioned, remind me, your father was a butcher and your mother was...

Gretta Cohn:

No, no. Those are my grandparents.

Chris Erwin:

Those are your grandparents. Got it.

Gretta Cohn:

Yeah. No. My parents were both teachers in the education system. My dad was a teacher his whole career life. He taught shop and psychology classes and computer classes. And my mom ended up being a superintendent of the school district on Long Island. She got her start as a Phys Ed teacher and then became an English teacher and worked her way up to superintendent. The sort of interest in audio they instilled in me and my two brothers extremely early. We all started learning to play string instruments at the age of three through the Suzuki method.

Chris Erwin:

The Suzuki method?

Gretta Cohn:

Yeah. Which is like an ear training style of learning music. So you essentially at three years old, you cannot possibly understand how to physically play an instrument and I remember a lot of time spent in those early group lessons just hugging the cello and singing this song, I love my cello very much, I play it every day and crawling up and down the bow with spider fingers, that's what they called it because your fingers kind of looked like spiders crawling up and down the bow and we all started playing string instruments at that age. I played cello and then the brother who came after me played violin, and the brother who came after him also played cello.

Chris Erwin:

Wow. And did you parents play instruments as well, string instruments?

Gretta Cohn:

No. My dad loves to say he can play the radio.

Chris Erwin:

I respect that.

Gretta Cohn:

I think they are educators, they are really invested in the full education of a person and so I think that they thought it was a good teaching discipline and it certainly required a kind of discipline. I can recall really fighting against practicing because I had to practice probably every day and I would rebel and not want to do it, but it was not really an option and I'm glad that ultimately I was pressed to continue to play because playing music has played such a huge part of my life.

Chris Erwin:

Clearly. It led you, which we'll get to, into founding a podcast production company and network and so much more. So very big impact. But, I get it. I began playing the alto saxophone in fourth grade and my twin brother was playing the clarinet and it was lessons with Mr. Slonum every week, an hour of practice every day and it was, when you're putting it on top of sports and homework and academics, it's a lot and it's intense and there's moments where you really don't want to do it and it's not fun and then there's moments where you're very thankful for it. And I think a lot of the more thankful moments came later in my life, but if you can get some of those early on, it's meaningful. When you first started playing, did you really enjoy it or was it just like, uh this is what I'm just supposed to do?

Gretta Cohn:

I remember enjoying it. I remember in particular being able to do little recitals every so often and I know there are photographs of myself in recital that I've seen even recently and there is such a joy in that and I think that showing off something that you've done and your family claps for you, it's a good job. Ultimately, what it feels like to play in a group, in an ensemble, it's pretty magical. I played in orchestras starting in grade school all the way up through college and there is something really amazing about the collective and your part and you can't mess up because it's glaringly obvious if you're the one out of the section of 12 cellists whose got their bow going the wrong direction or the wrong note playing. But it's also really beautiful to play in a group like that.

Chris Erwin:

Yeah. It's a special team sport, right? You rely on other people and people rely on you. When it comes together, it's an absolutely beautiful event, for you and the audience.

Gretta Cohn:

Yeah. I also played soccer growing up, speaking of team sports.

Chris Erwin:

Okay. What position?

Gretta Cohn:

I was defense. They would enlist me to run around and shadow the most powerful player on the other team. I don't know why, but I remember that.

Chris Erwin:

I was very similar. I started out as a recreation all-star like a forward and then got moved to right fullback, which is defense. That was my soccer career. All right. So interesting. So yeah, speaking of studying music, I think that when you went to university, you almost went to study music at a conservatory but you ended up going to Brown instead. What were you thinking, because were you going down a path where it's like, "I want to be in audio, I want to create music." What was your head space there as you started to go through advanced education, beginnings of your career?

Gretta Cohn:

I remember collecting fliers for conservatories. I was interested in conservatory, I think though that as I began to really think about what that would mean, I don't know that I was thinking really broadly, like oh... No one at 17 or whatever really has a full picture of what those choices ultimately mean but I'm glad that I didn't go to music school. I was always the worst player in the best section. So I remember I was in the New York Youth Symphony and I was definitely not the best player in that section, but it was really hard to get in. One summer I went and studied at the Tanglewood Institute in Boston, which is, again, extremely competitive and hard to get into but I was definitely not the best play