(🇬🇧 EN) Want to Build a Network? Simple: Start a Podcast at the Stade de France

Co-founding a women's media platform with a classmate and somehow ending up recording at the Stade de France? Easy. In reality, we started with no network, no funding and no real entrepreneurial experience. As the internet would say: delulu is the solulu.

It all began with a number that genuinely shocked us: 2%. At the time, that was the share of women founders securing venture capital. I don't know whether the picture has changed that much since then. But as two students with more optimism than experience, we felt someone had to spread the word. We wanted more women to believe that building a company was within reach.

So we came up with a name: Wali, which means woman in Sango, my mother tongue.

Next came the concept. Back then, podcasts were still a niche format. Most episodes rarely lasted more than thirty minutes. One notable exception was Vraie de vrai by Flomodia, whose conversations sometimes stretched beyond three hours. That was exactly what fascinated me. For the first time, podcasts felt like real conversations rather than carefully packaged interviews.

We could already sense that podcasting was about to take off. We had done our market research—we were marketers, after all. But we wanted to bring something different to the format.

So we started talking. To friends. Professors. Friends of friends. Anyone willing to listen. Until one entrepreneur spontaneously offered to partner with us through his company. Then another did the same. The first gave us access to a recording studio at the Stade de France. The second opened the doors of another studio at La Place, in the heart of Paris.

But that wasn't even the most interesting part...

The Part No One Sees

If I had to sum up that adventure in a single photograph, it would probably be one taken in the recording studio at the Stade de France. If I had to sum it up in reality, it would be two students spending an entire evening trying to choose an opening soundtrack.

When people think about launching a podcast, they often imagine that all it takes is asking a few questions, pressing "Record" and publishing the episode.

The reality is rather different when you want to do things well. Every episode began long before the microphones were switched on.

First came the guest. We had to decide who to invite, reach out and quietly hope they would say yes. Looking back, we were either incredibly lucky or surprisingly convincing—we were almost never turned down. Perhaps we simply had friendly faces. Or perhaps it was because every invitation was carefully crafted. We genuinely had an entire framework dedicated to convincing people to join us.

Our very first guest was a young founder who, like us, had launched a project while still at university and had gone on to pitch it at VivaTech. That was more than enough for us to ask whether she would do us the honour of opening our first season.

Then came the research. Hours of it. Reading articles, listening to previous interviews, understanding each guest's background, company and convictions. We never wanted to ask the same questions everyone else had already asked.

The goal was always to find an angle that would make our guest pause and say, "No one has ever asked me that before… And wait, how did you know I swam with dolphins in Madeira when I was fifteen?"

That was our promise. We had chosen the long-form format, so we wanted to make every conversation worth the listener's time.

Then came everything no one ever sees: finding a date that worked for everyone, booking a studio, checking the equipment, preparing the filming setup, buying snacks—because hospitality matters, even on a podcast.

On the day itself, we dealt with the unexpected, adjusted microphones, filmed additional content and improvised whenever the conversation naturally took us somewhere better than the brief had planned. Afterwards came post-production—without question, my least favourite part. Only then could we schedule the episode, prepare the launch, promote it across our channels and write a companion article for our website.

Then we did it all over again. And again. And again.

Looking back, I often think there is something profoundly true about the idea that ignorance can sometimes be a blessing. Had we known how much work awaited us, I'm not sure we would have started. And yet, perhaps it was precisely because we didn't know that we did.

Over the months, we interviewed people from the worlds of technology, media, high jewellery, publishing and beyond. Every episode became an opportunity to step into someone else's world for an hour or two.

The most surreal moment came when we eventually welcomed Florent and Momo, the creators of Vraie de vrai—the very podcast that had inspired us to embrace long-form conversations in the first place. At the time, it felt completely unreal.

What Wali Made Possible

We thought we were building a media platform. Looking back, I think what we really built was an extraordinary learning machine.

Every episode was an immersion into a different world. For a few hours, we could ask every question that came to mind to people who often had ten, fifteen or even twenty years more experience than we did.

One day we were talking about entrepreneurship, the next about high jewellery, then media, then publishing. My studies taught me a great deal, but I'm not sure they could ever have exposed me to such a diversity of perspectives in such a short time.

What surprised us most, however, was the impact we never saw coming. Wali began with a simple ambition: to encourage more young women to start businesses of their own.

Then the messages from listeners started arriving! I still remember receiving one from a young man who told us he had learned about the pink tax through one of our episodes. It meant a great deal to me because it reflected exactly what we had hoped to achieve: making conversations about issues affecting women accessible to everyone, not just to women themselves.

Another message has stayed with me just as vividly. A young woman told us she had found the confidence to launch her own project after listening to the podcast. I don't know where she is today or what became of her venture. But knowing that Wali may have been the small push she needed is enough to tell me that, in its own way, the podcast fulfilled its purpose.

The One Question No One Ever Asked Us

Looking back on that experience, one thing still strikes me. Throughout the entire Wali journey, no one ever asked whether we were qualified to do it.

Objectively speaking, we probably weren't. We were still students, and neither of us had ever hosted a podcast. We had no audience, no media company behind us, no investors and no network. We learned everything as we went, from adjusting microphones to leading interviews without turning conversations into interrogations.

And yet entrepreneurs agreed to spend an hour with us. Some welcomed us into their companies. Others introduced us to future guests. We were even given access to professional recording studios.

Looking back, I find that remarkable. Because I'm convinced that if we had waited until we felt "ready," Wali would never have existed.

Had someone explained from the outset how much work a podcast really involved, I'm not even sure we would have started. And if we had waited until we had the right network, the right experience or enough credibility to reach out to founders and business leaders, we probably would never have sent that first message.

The project came to life because we were naïve enough not to ask ourselves whether we were legitimate. I often wonder when, exactly, we start believing that we have to earn the right to begin.

As children, we draw without being illustrators. We write without being authors. We sing without being musicians. Then, somewhere along the way, something changes. We begin to believe that competence must come before action, rather than because of it.

Entrepreneurship is no exception. We wait for more experience, more money, more contacts, more certainty—as though legitimacy were a prerequisite, when in reality it is far more often the result.

That is not to say preparation doesn't matter. Wali existed precisely because we spent countless hours preparing every episode. But there is an important distinction between being prepared and feeling legitimate. The first depends on the work you put in. The second is a feeling that, in my experience, never truly arrives.

Perhaps that is the real trap.

So, What About the 2%?

In the end, that 2% figure never really left me. At the time, I saw it mainly as proof that more women needed to be encouraged to start businesses. I still believe that today. But back then, I assumed the biggest obstacle appeared when it came to convincing an investor to believe in your idea.

Now I think it begins much earlier. It begins the moment an idea stays in a notebook because its creator doesn't believe they're ready.

I'm not suggesting this is unique to women. Men experience self-doubt too. But I still believe that many women feel they need to tick every box before giving themselves permission to begin—as if legitimacy had to come before action, when, more often than not, it is the result of it.

Wali didn't change the statistics. What it did change were the two students who created it.

In the end, the first person you have to convince may not be a recruiter, a client or an investor: it may simply be yourself.