Today we’d like to introduce you to Tiffany Hwang, Tiffany Chavez-Tay, Tiffany Chukiat and Isa Imamura.
Tiffany, Tiffany, Tiffany and Isa, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
We – Tiffany, Isa, Tiffany, and Tiffany (TITT) – met during our time at UCLA as young undergrads full of irresponsible youth and excitement. We still have the excitement but are a lot more accountable now as mothers, partners, and full-time professionals. While the foundation of our friendship began almost two decades ago in the hallowed halls of Alpha Delta Pi sorority, we have spent thousands of hours together inside and outside of the continental US to really cement our sisterhood. It may sound corny, but it really is a sisterhood rooted in love, conversation, the occasional challenge that we work through together, and the decision to always put each other at the top of the never-ending priority list because that’s how much we value each other.
We have been through the ups and downs of relationships; the difficulty of holding each other through loss in our lives; the joy of birth and children; and have remained each other’s touchstones through it all. We have evolved from giggly teenagers to giggly adults and the conversation has grown stronger than ever through the years. That’s when we took a pause and thought – where are the similar conversations happening around us?
We shared common frustrations at not finding similar voices in media, that of the modern Asian Pacific American mom working her way through issues big and small, from how to support the Black Lives Matter movement to Asian Tiger Mom stories. There was simply a void. And we endeavored, together, to attempt to fill that void with our stories to enable modern womxn to feel seen, heard, and understood.
The show launched in June 2020 despite pandemic restrictions and the positive responses have been overwhelming. The feedback from our community has further cemented our belief that we are bringing value to our listeners and it has brought us incredible joy.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has most definitely been a road paved with big rocks and smaller, spiky stones. The biggest rock was the pandemic altering our plans to record together. But that is nothing technology can’t fix! We invested in equipment to make recording from our homes safe yet effective. We definitely experienced growing pains on all points of the development cycle (How do we put a run of show together? How long are shownotes? Who knows how to design a logo? Who has a family member we can bribe for editing?) but with time comes experience, and by the end of Season One, we had a pretty good idea on general best practices and our own personal cringe-worthy moments to not repeat.
We also had intense schedules from work and families to deal with. But within those 5-minute breaks from meetings and the generous agreement from spouses, we were able to cobble together enough time to enlist talent, record, put together a social media calendar, and cross-train each other on other creative tasks. With every episode release came cause for celebration, and we were able to get together safely (outdoors, 6 feet apart) one summer afternoon to celebrate our first 1,000 downloads. As we embark toward the middle of Season Two, we look back fondly at just how much we’ve grown as friends and fledgling entrepreneurs.
TITT Talks – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
TITT Talks podcast launched in June of 2020 with a mission to connect with modern womxn through the lens of our own experiences. We aim to create a community of modern womxn who celebrate and redefine motherhood. At its core, TITT Talks is a podcast about modern womxn living in a mama world, sharing the fun, the ridiculousness, and the relatable struggles of living our best lives in an ever-changing world of expectations.
Our topics are varied and range from partying in the desert to raising children to be compassionate leaders. What makes us most proud is hearing from our listeners that we are bringing value – in the form of laughter, relatability, and inspiration – to our podcast community.
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Our definition of success is constantly evolving but it focuses on both short and longer-term achievements. For short term, it is three-fold: 1) Were we able to meet the deadlines for all of our deliverables 2) Were we able to secure relevant and timely guests this season and 3) Were we able to see small but consistent growth in episode downloads?
For long term, it is also three-fold: 1) Are we able to make real connections, old and new 2) Are we making a difference in even one person’s life and 3) Are we doing the best we can to empower women through a new series called How She Built This and monthly highlights?
It is a fast-paced world where marketing tasks dramatically outpace the actual responsibility of recording so we are trying to keep things simple and support each other through difficult times. Just in the past several months, we’ve had a job promotion, staff changes, a baby, a pregnancy, return to on-premise work, and so much more…and our number one priority was to boost each other through all these life transitions. At the end of the day, we remember that we are here to have fun and provide value, as long as we’re still feeling that way at the end of each day, we have reached success.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.titttalks.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: titt_talks
- Facebook: TITT Talks
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