Latest / Uncluttered and Unfiltered: The Podcast For Women Over 50 / BUILDING COMMUNITY WHEN YOU'RE OVER 50 - WITH GUEST BREAM CEO RYAN REID

Transcript

BUILDING COMMUNITY WHEN YOU'RE OVER 50 - WITH GUEST BREAM CEO RYAN REID · Uncluttered and Unfiltered: The Podcast For Women Over 50

• 0:04
  Welcome to Uncluttered and Unfiltered, the podcast urging
• 0:08
  you to let it go and don't look back, with nationally acclaimed
• 0:12
  professional organizer Christine Stone and self-proclaimed Hot
• 0:17
  Damn Mess radio and TV personality Eden.
• 0:20
  Kendall, welcome everyone to Uncluttered and Unfiltered.
• 0:23
  We have a special episode for you today because Christine and
• 0:26
  all of her scrolling came across a project that is really of
• 0:31
  interest to us because it's another woman who recognized
• 0:35
  that there are a lot of us out there looking for connection.
• 0:39
  So before and we're going to chat for a minute before we
• 0:42
  bring this guest on, but tell us a little bit about what you
• 0:45
  uncovered about Bream. Well, first of all, I
• 0:50
  accidentally ran into them and it just piqued my interest
• 0:54
  because they haven't even started yet.
• 0:56
  It it launches Friday, March 17th, 13th, March 13th and it's
• 1:06
  of course when she said over 55 finding new friends, activity
• 1:10
  groups and affinity groups. It just, it caught my attention,
• 1:14
  so I kept following them to see what it was really all about and
• 1:20
  I think it's going to be great. I think it you find local women
• 1:24
  in your area to make friends, to do activities with.
• 1:30
  I just think it's great and it's different than what was that one
• 1:35
  Hinge app or whatever were fine friends or whatever.
• 1:38
  Yeah, fine, friends. And yeah, it's.
• 1:40
  Not like that 'cause this is for over women over 50, so it's a
• 1:44
  different demographic. For I.
• 1:47
  Love it. I love it and and you have said
• 1:49
  from day one that the biggest problem facing our age group, if
• 1:54
  I don't know if it was, it's the biggest, but you've certainly
• 1:56
  said that it is a big problem and that is finding that
• 1:59
  connection, which leads me to something I wanted to share with
• 2:02
  you. While we're waiting for Ryan,
• 2:05
  who is the entrepreneur we're talking about, while we're
• 2:08
  waiting for her to join us, I wanted to share something that
• 2:11
  happened and thank everyone. So I started realizing that we
• 2:15
  were getting, I think, a really extraordinary amount of emails
• 2:20
  from companies wanting to collaborate with us and our
• 2:24
  download numbers were going up a little bit.
• 2:27
  And I was like, what is happening here?
• 2:29
  What has what has changed? Well, they heard that I'm going
• 2:32
  to dance a disco dance if we double our followers by that's.
• 2:36
  True, I'm sure that word got out.
• 2:38
  That's what happened. Well, and luckily while that was
• 2:43
  happening, there are a couple of these websites that highlight
• 2:49
  certain categories of podcasts to make them more searchable.
• 2:53
  The first one is Feedspot. So we got a letter from Feedspot
• 2:57
  saying we wanted to let you know that you have been selected by
• 3:00
  our panelists of as one of the top 70 women over 50 podcasts on
• 3:05
  the web. So I was like top 70.
• 3:08
  That's lower than I wanted to be.
• 3:10
  We're #31 on that particular list.
• 3:13
  So on that one, we're #31 which isn't bad.
• 3:16
  There's another list, this one is from the Pod Ranker, and Pod
• 3:22
  Ranker wanted us to know that our show came in at #8 on their
• 3:27
  Older Ladies Podcasts 2026 list. They're just trying to be nice
• 3:33
  by calling us older ladies. This is this is how they
• 3:37
  described us to their to their audience, Christine and Eden.
• 3:41
  The contrast between a professional organizer and a
• 3:43
  self-described over scheduled, disorganized Co host makes for
• 3:47
  such a fun dynamic. Over 180 episodes and you can
• 3:51
  still hear that chemistry. So.
• 3:54
  I liked it. I like that we're on a list that
• 3:57
  is designed for women who are looking for a podcast.
• 4:00
  Exactly over 50. There really.
• 4:03
  Aren't that many out there? You're right.
• 4:06
  And and also that's another reason why we continue to ask
• 4:10
  you share us with one friend because as you may remember from
• 4:14
  past episodes, we have promised you a party worth travelling to
• 4:20
  come attend that starts at 5:00 PM, wraps up 8:30 or 9:00 at the
• 4:26
  latest. We could say 9.
• 4:27
  I'll stay out a little later for this.
• 4:29
  That is late for you. It will have to be on a weekend.
• 4:33
  Yes. And there will be 70s and 80s
• 4:36
  music. There will be Christine dancing
• 4:41
  and sinking to some Osmond songs.
• 4:44
  Oh my God, that's a definite. Yeah.
• 4:47
  So we just have to, we just have to see a double in our numbers.
• 4:51
  We're not sharing what that looks like with you exactly
• 4:55
  because that would be uncouth. Right I.
• 4:58
  Agree. Done.
• 4:59
  It's just not I. Agree, I I definitely think it
• 5:02
  can happen. I have faith in our community
• 5:06
  so. As do I.
• 5:08
  Oh, she's here. Good, there she is.
• 5:10
  There's Ryan. And the reason she would.
• 5:12
  Probably be here. We're so happy to have you,
• 5:14
  Ryan, and the reason you didn't struggle to hop on this with us
• 5:17
  is because you are not a Gen. Xer.
• 5:20
  So you didn't have all of the little issues that Christine and
• 5:22
  I had trying to go on an online I'm.
• 5:24
  Surprised, like I was saying before I'm I'm not super
• 5:28
  technically capable so I'm glad it went pretty smooth.
• 5:32
  It really, really did. We're happy to have you.
• 5:36
  We have so many questions. But now that we are face to face
• 5:39
  and we see that you are not 50, not 60, let's start there like
• 5:45
  you are somebody who's recognizing that lack of
• 5:48
  community that women of a certain age feel.
• 5:51
  Yeah, so I'm 35. I get this question a lot.
• 5:54
  Like, why are you building something for women over 50?
• 5:57
  I've spent my whole career building communities.
• 6:00
  I'm a community builder. I see the problems with like
• 6:04
  loneliness and isolation that every age group is dealing with
• 6:07
  right now. And then I've also spent my
• 6:10
  whole career designing with and for intergenerationally,
• 6:14
  especially for people over 55. So really it's just like the
• 6:19
  through line of what I've been doing, what I've been
• 6:21
  researching around community and felt like this was a, a
• 6:25
  demographic that is just so profoundly failed by the market
• 6:30
  and wanted to do something there, felt like I had the right
• 6:33
  skills to do it. I work with an intergenerational
• 6:37
  team. So yeah, I'm, I'm, I am the CEO
• 6:39
  and founder and I'm 35 but feel super passionate about building
• 6:44
  something great for women over 50.
• 6:46
  And let's be honest, could somebody my age do what you're
• 6:49
  doing right now? Yes, I'm sure there's somebody
• 6:52
  out there with those that skill set.
• 6:54
  But we're just glad you're here. You know, we're really grateful.
• 6:57
  We're really grateful. Christine has a lot of
• 7:00
  questions. She's the one who discovered
• 7:02
  you. I'm the one that discovered you
• 7:04
  on TikTok. On TikTok, OK.
• 7:06
  Scrolling and this was a month ago or whatever.
• 7:09
  And I said, Oh my gosh, she's perfect because I, I don't see
• 7:14
  anything like this out there. How did you decide to start
• 7:17
  this? Yeah, so I started out doing a
• 7:22
  lot of, well, let me back up. In 2016, I got a Fulbright
• 7:28
  research grant to study the way that women age and community in
• 7:32
  Nepal. So I was living in Nepal for one
• 7:34
  year, studying that, you know, how how women connect across
• 7:38
  generations and and age and community.
• 7:41
  And I was just so blown away about by how different that is
• 7:44
  than the way we think about community here in the US.
• 7:48
  So that was happening. I was researching that, thinking
• 7:51
  a lot about that. And then like I said before, I'm
• 7:54
  a community builder. This is like what I love to do.
• 7:57
  I love to be in community with people.
• 7:59
  I think it's so important for health and well-being for
• 8:02
  myself. And so I was building various
• 8:05
  communities since I got back from Nepal.
• 8:08
  And then I started bream about two years ago.
• 8:11
  And it's taken different forms over time.
• 8:13
  But really the central thing we've done is Co design
• 8:18
  everything. So if you're not familiar with
• 8:20
  that term, we bring women into our headquarters here and think
• 8:25
  about everything from product and marketing and business model
• 8:29
  with them. So it's been a series of
• 8:31
  experiments and and Co designing over time that ultimately got to
• 8:35
  this idea around community and bringing women together.
• 8:40
  And I'm happy to share like how we got there and what it is and
• 8:43
  all of that. But yeah, that's kind of how I
• 8:46
  got to this point of of starting a community for women over 50.
• 8:50
  And let's talk about what that community would look like to the
• 8:53
  average user. Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:56
  So we are launching our our beta product to our wait list on
• 9:01
  Friday, March 13th. So just in a few days.
• 9:03
  And what will be in that product is the ability for women to find
• 9:09
  new friends, affinity groups and experiences both locally and
• 9:14
  virtually. So a few of the things that are
• 9:17
  in there are pods. So we pair you with a group of
• 9:21
  eight women. That's your pod.
• 9:24
  What we're really hoping with there is that they're like your
• 9:26
  companion group that you go through your experience and
• 9:29
  bream with. Hopefully you build really deep
• 9:32
  connections with them and you can suggest your pod, like let's
• 9:36
  attend this bream event together or do that.
• 9:39
  So that's like your core group in there.
• 9:41
  Then in addition to that, there are affinity groups.
• 9:44
  So those are based around like interests, life stages, all
• 9:49
  kinds of things. And and users can also suggest
• 9:53
  their own interests or affinity groups.
• 9:55
  Then there's forums. A woman, one of our Co designers
• 10:00
  called it Reddit if it were just for women over 50.
• 10:04
  So you're like outsourcing with other other women, like the
• 10:07
  people who you trust and want to hear from, right.
• 10:11
  And then there's things like messaging and, and other ways to
• 10:14
  connect one to one with, with other women in bream.
• 10:17
  Really the idea there too, is that like you can connect with
• 10:20
  breamers, we call them locally in your city, but also like, say
• 10:24
  you travel, you can meet up with another woman in another city or
• 10:27
  plan a trip together somewhere. So yeah, that's, that's what's.
• 10:31
  Oh, and then I didn't say there's events.
• 10:33
  So virtual events, and if Bream is open in your city, which we
• 10:39
  have to have a certain number of members, there are local events
• 10:43
  like hikes and meetups. Try it with me, like try
• 10:47
  beginner classes together as a group, restaurant meetups, that
• 10:50
  kind of thing in person. So yeah, that's what's in Bream
• 10:54
  for our beta launch. You know what it makes me think
• 13:28
  of without getting religious, but I've attended in a big
• 13:34
  church setting where they've said, listen, this doesn't have
• 13:37
  to be a big church. If you join a small group,
• 13:40
  that's how you make it small. And what you've done is you're
• 13:44
  saying it's going to be huge, but you're going to be in a
• 13:46
  small group. This pod, which makes it less
• 13:49
  scary if you're planning to be with the big group eventually,
• 13:54
  but you go with your people and that's yeah.
• 13:56
  It's like showing up to a party with a bunch of friends already.
• 14:00
  Yeah, that's great. This sounds amazing.
• 14:03
  I I thought it was more just local but this is even better
• 14:08
  because you can virtually meet up with people which a lot now
• 14:14
  especially post COVID it takes a lot to get us over 55 people out
• 14:19
  of the house. So I think this is.
• 14:23
  Fantastic. You know, so if you prefer to,
• 14:26
  yeah. Like because we, you know, when
• 14:28
  we were thinking about this, we had women who are very
• 14:30
  introverted to very extroverted and like how you socialize is
• 14:34
  really different based on who you are and your preferences.
• 14:37
  So we wanted to have different ways that you could plug in.
• 14:41
  And even what you were talking about with like the religious
• 14:44
  community, it makes me think of like a third space.
• 14:47
  Have you heard of that term? It's like, why does it?
• 14:50
  Ring a bell? Yeah, it's like a another space.
• 14:53
  Like I think religious communities have functioned as
• 14:55
  that. Like if you think of your
• 14:57
  workout group or workout class like those spaces that are a
• 15:02
  community building that are outside of work and family.
• 15:07
  Which is something Chris and I were just talking about, she
• 15:09
  said. Well, you have your community
• 15:11
  because you're a runner. You have the running community
• 15:13
  and. And I said.
• 15:15
  And tell Ryan, Chris what you just said about what happens if
• 15:21
  I end up all alone. I said you have your community,
• 15:25
  you're a runner. And there there's such a big
• 15:27
  group of them. I said, what if I end up alone
• 15:30
  in my house even though I work and I'm an organizer and I do.
• 15:34
  But you know, when you're older, I'm thinking I'm 63.
• 15:37
  So I'm thinking way down the road, like when I'm 75 or 80 or
• 15:41
  whatever, you know, this is so important to have friends
• 15:46
  through that stage of life. Not just I'm 63, but like
• 15:50
  656870, you know what I mean? It's so important to continue it
• 15:57
  through. Yes, I want that too.
• 16:00
  And I think there's like so few systems in place that support us
• 16:04
  in that, like in any phase of life, we're going through
• 16:08
  transitions. And when I think about big life
• 16:10
  transitions, I've had friends have been so critical and
• 16:13
  important to get me through those.
• 16:15
  And like what you're talking about, Christine, like there's
• 16:17
  different life phases we're going through from like 50
• 16:21
  onwards. And having a community of women
• 16:24
  around that can support you and, and help you through those is,
• 16:28
  is really important. Even I'm so curious to hear
• 16:30
  about your running group and like what you do together.
• 16:33
  And all of that was so cool. We take turns coming up with
• 16:37
  ideas that could potentially kill each other is what we do,
• 16:40
  basically. Like really long runs you're
• 16:42
  going to do. Right now.
• 16:43
  Or or oh, that that wasn't hard enough.
• 16:45
  What if we did an adventure race where we also have to bike and
• 16:49
  kayak and find our way around without a map?
• 16:52
  Oh, OK, let's do that. Wow, we're like, we've lived
• 16:56
  long enough. Let's just keep.
• 16:59
  Vicariously through her. But but The thing is, though,
• 17:03
  Ryan, what you're saying, it sounds almost like you could
• 17:05
  find that one other woman somewhere in the world that
• 17:10
  likes playing mahjong and going running and also has, you know,
• 17:14
  maybe doesn't have any kids and is single late in life.
• 17:18
  You know, there's so many different boxes you can take off
• 17:21
  that would keep somebody from maybe connecting.
• 17:24
  But now geography is no longer an issue.
• 17:27
  Yes, and we do ask like in the beginning when your first
• 17:31
  onboarding, we ask a lot of questions about you like how you
• 17:34
  socialize, who you are, what you care about, what your interests
• 17:37
  are. And without we're we're working
• 17:40
  behind the scenes to pair women together who in the pods or in
• 17:44
  other ways and interest groups who have those shared interests
• 17:48
  or life stage or whatever that is.
• 17:50
  So yeah, it's not like we're matchmakers, but we are trying
• 17:54
  to nudge you towards people we think you would get along with.
• 17:58
  What is? What is the?
• 17:59
  What is the cost for the user? Yeah.
• 18:02
  So for our beta launch, it's a monthly subscription.
• 18:06
  It's $19.00 a month or if you pay annually, it ends up being
• 18:10
  14 a month. So like equivalent to a Netflix
• 18:12
  subscription? Yeah.
• 18:14
  I mean, there's a, there's a price you can, you can't put a
• 18:18
  price tag, I guess on, on community.
• 18:20
  Yeah, yeah. And new friends.
• 18:23
  I mean, I just think that so many people are so lonely and
• 18:27
  this is such a great idea because they are not.
• 18:31
  They like even going out to dinner with somebody or talking
• 18:34
  to someone virtually. It just it, it really helps when
• 18:38
  you're alone and you don't know what to do.
• 18:41
  So I thought this was a great idea for women over 50.
• 18:45
  I really did. Yeah, and like, no.
• 18:48
  Please, you continue, Ryan. I was.
• 18:50
  Just going to say that on our pricing, we really went through
• 18:56
  a lot of phases of like what, what should that be and ask
• 18:59
  women what they thought. Initially we were planning to
• 19:03
  make it free for women and then we would have brand partnerships
• 19:07
  inside the product, but they told us no, That feels weird.
• 19:10
  Like we just want this to be a safe, like curated, vetted group
• 19:13
  of women who are in here. So that's how we got to the
• 19:17
  monthly membership in the. I agree with that.
• 19:20
  I like that. Yeah, I like that.
• 19:22
  I agree. We have, we have all of our
• 19:25
  social media and then we have a ladies only group.
• 19:28
  It's uncluttered and unfiltered ladies only.
• 19:30
  And the women who want to be a part of that know that you can
• 19:34
  make comments on all of our reels and Tik Toks and what have
• 19:38
  you, but the world is going to see those.
• 19:40
  But then within this one safe space where we have to approve
• 19:44
  you before you come in, there's no cost on that.
• 19:47
  But what I'm saying is you just to know that you're now inside a
• 19:50
  safe space and the person who's commenting isn't trying to sell
• 19:53
  you anything, isn't trying to take advantage of you in any
• 19:57
  way. So.
• 19:58
  That makes sense. You're paying for security.
• 20:00
  Exactly. And the privacy, and, you know,
• 20:03
  we're not selling your data and it's moderated, so there's
• 20:07
  really strict community guidelines to make sure it feels
• 20:10
  safe for everyone inside. That's great.
• 20:13
  I hope you have so much success. I hope is waste by you all the
• 20:18
  way that you know, I hope people are are are being hit by this
• 20:22
  news the way we were, which was just like bravo.
• 20:25
  And I'm even more excited now that I know that the people
• 20:28
  behind it are of all different generations.
• 20:30
  Yeah. Thank you.
• 20:31
  I really appreciate that. And.
• 20:33
  You know why I like that? Because you know, one day you're
• 20:36
  going to be where we are. Exactly.
• 20:38
  That's the crazy thing. Every day, every moment,
• 20:41
  everyone is getting older. But somehow our society has,
• 20:44
  like, amnesia about that. I am designing this like, truly,
• 20:48
  I say this a lot to our team and early users.
• 20:51
  I'm designing this with, like, the long game in mind.
• 20:54
  I'm designing this for myself, right?
• 20:56
  For my, you know, future children, all of that.
• 20:58
  Like this is, yeah, this is for the long term.
• 21:03
  How can our How can our listeners get on your waiting
• 21:06
  list? So they can join our wait list
• 21:08
  at hellobream.com. You just put in your name,
• 21:11
  e-mail and zip code. If they're on our wait list by
• 21:15
  March 13th they'll get access to beta.
• 21:18
  Otherwise, they'll get access at the public launch in April,
• 21:22
  mid-april. That sounds good.
• 21:24
  I have one other question. How did you come up with that
• 21:26
  name? Because it's BRE AM and I just
• 21:30
  want our listeners to know that that's how it's spelled so they
• 21:32
  can. Find you.
• 21:33
  Yes, thank you. Yeah, so it's Hello BR eam.com
• 21:38
  And a bream is a small fish that swims in a school of fish.
• 21:44
  And that's how they thrive and survive and do well.
• 21:47
  So that's where the name comes from.
• 21:49
  It's like the idea that community and community support
• 21:52
  is well-being. Oh, I love that.
• 21:54
  Yes. I'll be swimming with my minnows
• 21:59
  so. One of the things we do, Ryan,
• 22:02
  and we're not going to keep you much past this, but one of the
• 22:04
  things we do is we always end every one of our episodes with
• 22:08
  saying something that you can let go and don't look back.
• 22:12
  Whether that's, you know, something it has to do with
• 22:14
  organizing because Christine's a professional organizer, or maybe
• 22:17
  it has something to do with a behavior or just baggage you're
• 22:22
  carrying around. So I guess didn't we say, Chris,
• 22:25
  did you write down what you came up with?
• 22:26
  No, I. Didn't write it down, but if you
• 22:29
  think the time has come where you can't make new friends.
• 22:33
  Well, you can let that go. And don't look back.
• 22:36
  I love it, I love it. I one that comes to mind too is
• 22:41
  I love that one, Christine, that's so good is letting go of
• 22:45
  not being who you actually are. Like just show up authentically.
• 22:48
  I think that's so important when you're building community and
• 22:51
  friendships.