Celebrating 1 Year of the Designing Success Audiobook

This month marks one year since the release of the audiobook for Designing Success: Lessons from 20 Years as a Female Tech Entrepreneur.

The book shares lessons from my journey co-founding myYearbook at 15 and growing it into The Meet Group, a portfolio of social apps that reached millions of users and ultimately led to a $500 million acquisition. It focuses not just on building a business, but on designing an environment where you can thrive in both your career and personal life.

While writing the book was a major milestone, recording the audiobook turned out to be an entirely different challenge.

Going into the process, I assumed I already did the hard part. I had already written the content. I just needed to read it out loud.

In reality, recording required a completely different skill set. It involved performing the material, managing pacing and energy, and ensuring a quiet recording environment where even small background noises could disrupt a take. There was also the technical side, constantly checking recording quality and consistency.

The process was far from solo. I worked closely with a producer, sound engineer, beta listeners, and a voice coach. Their feedback helped refine the final product and, more broadly, improved my speaking skills. 

Perhaps the most meaningful takeaway was about finality. Much of my career has involved iterative work, where I could test, adjust, and improve projects over time. The audiobook was different. There were firm deadlines and limits on revisions, and at a certain point, it simply had to be completed.

One year later, that lesson still stands out. Not every project needs endless refinement. Sometimes the most important step is finishing and moving forward.

The Designing Success audiobook is available now, and I’m grateful to everyone who has listened to and supported it over the past year.

If you’d like to learn more about my work, I am happy to provide a free virtual copy of my book to Chamber members.