December 1, 2025 • 38 mins
Aleen Dreksler, co-founder and CEO of Betches Media, joins Simone to reflect on how a $12 WordPress blog created with her childhood best friends grew into an unprecedented cultural force. She shares the origin of Betches’ iconic voice, the leap from pre-med to comedy, the fears and freedoms of coming out of anonymity, and the creative and financial discipline that fueled the company’s 15-year evolution. Aleen also opens up about redefining ambition and learning to trust her own voice, before she and Simone rewind the biggest pop culture moments of 2025, from Bennifer’s breakup to Beyoncé’s historic Grammy win, Taylor Swift's engagement, and the unforgettable Coldplay jumbotron scandal.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Today on the right Side, Alien Drexler stops by to
share her hot takes on the year's biggest pop culture stories,
plus how she grew Btches into a media powerhouse.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Something that has changed is like gaining a truer sense
of self, going from insecure Aleen to.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Like, I know who I am.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
That is the best, the strongest, most empowering feeling. That's
how I learned to trust my voice. That's how I
learned to trust my gut to say, Okay, we're ready
to go, We're ready to sell.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I'm simone voice. And this is the bright side from
Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Welcome back to the bright Side.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I cannot believe the end of the year is here.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
It is upon us.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
But before we ring in twenty twenty six, we are
rewinding the clock to twenty eleven, back to a time
of twelve dollars, word press domains, millennial pink, and a
women's media landscape that was well, let's just call it
aggressively vanilla.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Can you picture it?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Because I know I can, and so did Aleen Drexler.
Aileen Drexler saw all of that and decided to create
something totally unique with her two childhood best friends, a sharp, funny,
brutally authentic voice that we all know and love. Today,
Betch's is a media company that defined and still defines
a generation of women who are not only embracing, but
(01:23):
celebrating womanhood and all its imperfections and learning how to
laugh at the imperfections too. In our conversation, Aleen takes
us behind the scenes of how that anonymous blog went
from a few impressively viral posts to a women's media
company that now reaches one in two women in the US.
We also talk about what it means to evolve creatively
(01:43):
and personally through friendship, motherhood, and the changing definition of success.
And because this is the bride side, we couldn't let
Aleen go without doing a little pop culture rewind of
the year's most unforgettable moments, from Benefit Plot Twist to
Beyonce's Country era. Let's get into it, Aileen, Welcome to
the bright Side.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Take me back to twenty eleven when you and your
co founders started Betches. What gap did you see in
the media landscape and how did you envision filling.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
It twenty eleven, My two co founders and I we
have been friends since we were ten years old. We
met like on the bus, and we all went to
college together. We went to Cornell and we lived together
our senior year and we have always been like creatives.
Before we started Betches, we were like writing a TV
(02:37):
show just for fun.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
I would love to still make that.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
We what was the show about?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
It was called the Apartment. It was like a sad
tire of three girls living together. Which is kind of
funny because then Girls came out a few years later
and we were like, this was we should have made this.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
That's exactly what I was thinking about. Yeah, we're talking
about the concept.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I loved Girls and I love that people now are
obsessed with it. Again, that makes me happy. But back
to twenty eleven, the three of us, we have always
processed the world through the lens of humor. That's just
how we communicate, how we get through anything. And the
other thing that I feel very strongly about is that
(03:19):
I feel very it's almost like an allergy to bs
like phoniness.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
And during that time, women's.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Media was very strongly all of that, like diluted content,
very vanilla click baity, condescending, and it set this expectation
for women to be perfect, and there was truly nothing
that was funny. Everything that was funny for women was
on TV and movies with Chelsea hand Learntina fe Am
(03:47):
polar everything, and so we were like, why don't we
start something funny, but with the caveat that we must
be anonymous because we want jobs afterwards school, because it
was truly done as a creative outlet.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
It wasn't meant to be a business.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Like I was pre met, I was set to go
to medical school, and we wrote our first post.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
We did everything together.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
We wrote every word, argued over comma placements, we did
it all together, and we created almost this fourth co founder,
this fourth voice that was obviously this exaggeration, this satire
of a caricature of all of our internal selves, and
(04:27):
it went so viral, like it went so viral.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Like people, what was that first post? Alien?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
It was called talking Shit. It was basically like all
of us detailing the way in which women communicate, like
we have fun just getting together and gossiping. But it
wasn't a hatery commentary. It was truly like can we
all just like celebrate that this is all fun? Like
we are imperfect and this is how we talk, and
(04:53):
it was done through obviously a lens of humor, and
because we were anonymous, people tagging each other on Facebook
and writing who is writing this?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Is this you? And tagging their best friend?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Because we went so niche and the references were so
specific a niche that it for some reason it was
authentic and people saw themselves in it, and yeah, it
went so viral, and that was the beginning fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I'm so glad that you brought up the voice of
Betches because that is the word that comes to mind
for me as someone who read Beaches all throughout my twenties,
and it feels like such a big part of my
coming of age story as a millennial woman. And I
think about girls, I think about Lena Dunham's character Han
horror Bath and girls who claimed to be the voice
of a generation, A generation, yeah, generation, but Beaches really
(05:44):
is the voice of a generation. So it sounds like
when you made that first post, like the voice was
very well defined. Is that true or did you have
to go through a process to really hone what that
distinct tone was.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Okay, So when we started, the thing that was most
important to us was being as authentic as possible, like
cutting through the.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Bs and being funny.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
And in the beginning it was edgy, it was satirical,
but as we got bigger, satire doesn't really lend itself
to mass audiences. So we needed to still keep that going,
but keep it funny and keep it super relatable.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
But that voice that is still.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
There today, Like I am leading the business and I
work with all of our creative teams, whether it's our
organic content or our branded content, to make sure that
we check off two things. Will people feel seen in
this and will it make them laugh? Do we have
a unique point of view in making people feel seen
(06:48):
and making them laugh? And that has always been my
north star is like I did not care about scale.
I did not care about being the biggest for the
sake of being the biggest. I did not put any
money in marketing forever. It was all about how can
you make the best content that resonates with women because
(07:12):
they're just gonna come back on their own. They're gonna
share it with their friends and come back on our own.
And that's still the reaction because and what I said
earlier was like why was this happening? And I know
now what the reason is it's because we were saying
the things that people are thinking. They just don't say
out loud. Maybe they say it with their friends quietly,
(07:33):
but nobody was saying anything out loud, Like nobody was
talking about how we love to talk shit, and we
were just kind of saying it was like, yeah, this
is us. We're flawed, We're not perfect, we're flawed people.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
We're all human.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Men get to glamorize their imperfections by calling each other
bros all day.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
What are we? So we were just like, let's just do.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
This and yeah, it's I mean, fifteen years is wild.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
It's also wild to think that you are straddling to
you were on this pre med track, and I know
that you're the daughter of Russian immigrants who probably much
preferred that option at the time, but you also you
make this brave move to embrace comedy and humor. And
I actually think that funny girls have a harder time
(08:19):
in this world and society than a lot of people realize,
because I think that funny girls are sometimes punished for
being funny, whereas men are allowed to be funny and
it's like expected from them, Funny girls are told they're
not funny enough, funny girls are told you're not allowed
to be funny and want to go to med school.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
I'm curious, did.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
You ever feel pressure to put yourself in one of
those societal boxes.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I just wanted to be successful. I'm a very ambitious
person because I'm a first generation American. My parents came
here with nothing, and I was born within the year
that they came here, and so I saw what they
had to go through to make my life good and
allow me to go to a school like Cornell. And
(09:12):
so for me, no, I didn't feel the pressure of
being in a box because I knew very early on
what I wanted to do. And I know that sounds crazy,
going from med school to starting a company called Batches,
but I also I was like, I need to do
something that feels good for me. I need to do
something that helps others, and I wanted to make money.
(09:36):
Financial security is really important to me seeing what my
parents had to go through, and I couldn't undo that
or take that for granted. And I wanted to create
further security for my family. I always knew I wanted kids,
so it just kind of had to cover those three things.
And I wanted to do something that would make my
parents proud. And so when I told my parents, I
(09:57):
was like, so I want to take a year off
and not go to med school. They're like, oh okay,
and I was like, I want to do this bechis thing.
Let me try it for a year. And they were anxious,
of course, but they were more anxious about like my future,
like how is she going to make money? But right
(10:17):
after school we got our first book deal with Simon
and Schuster, and they were like, okay, this is actual money.
But I, you know, couldn't afford to live alone. I
couldn't afford to do anything. So two years after when
that book was coming out, that's also when we came
out of anonymity. Was when I started to really take
this business so seriously and moved out. I was like, oh,
(10:38):
I can afford my own things. So my parents were
like okay, yeah. My grandma would call me and be
like when are you going to med school for years
after that, but.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I didn't let that really bother me.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
I was like, I want to be successful. I know
we have something like this audience is ravenous for this,
and it was a creative outlet that I don't know
I was just so gung ho and making it something.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
What was that moment like when you all unveiled yourselves
and came out of anonymity.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Did it feel the way that you thought it would.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
No, I was scared beyond my mind. I was so
scared because you know, like you said, women are judged
beyond reason.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
And I did a podcast with.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
My co founder Sammy for four years called Diet Starts Tomorrow.
I was twenty two or twenty three when that book
came out, first book, and I was deep in that.
I was terrified of what people are going to say
about how I look, and then also like I was
scared what the audience is going to feel, like these
are the girls that I've been obsessed with, Like, Okay,
(11:47):
I'm going to stop following.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
But because we had each other, I think that's.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
What kept us going and strong and just kind of
going getting through it. You know, I've learned to read
comments for fifteen years, so I'm a little bit less
affected by it now, but it took some time.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Do you still read comments?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I mean, yeah, I want to know what people think
about our show, like the show that I do at Betches.
I love feedback, like I'm obsessed with getting better and improving,
and I've always been driving the business forward. Like we
started as a blog, there's no Instagram. I mean Instagram started,
but nobody was on it until like a couple years later.
We had to evolve with technology, social media and the time.
(12:32):
So I was always just like, we must evolve if
we want to stay relevant and stay ahead and start
conversations rather than catch up with everybody else. And I
wasn't afraid to just kind of keep everything going forward.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
We've got to take a short break, but we'll be
right back with Alien Drexler.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
And we're back with Alien Drexler.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
When you talk about the relevance factor, I think that's
one of the most impressive aspects of what you've built.
It fetches the fact that you are still the voice
of a generation. It is still such a relevant force
in women's media. What has been the secret to that?
How do you do that? How do you grow up
with your readers too?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah, it's wild to kind of take a step back
and see that from what started as this measley little
blog on word Press, there was a just for the
sake of us sharing a funny story, like the three
of us we were sitting on our couch and we're like,
do we pay for a domain that takes the word
press out of the URL?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Like it's twelve dollars a month?
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Like that's expensive, Like that is so twenty eleven coren.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
We're like, oh my god, we have to pay to
make our domain private? Like oh god, but no, just
going from that to peeing where we are today and
reaching one in two women in the US is bananas
to me, and still having like still talking about being
culturally relevant, like culture is now such a big buzzword.
(14:08):
But the way we are still kind of ahead is
because I've always ingrained in US. It's in our values
that innovation is the most important thing. Like I said,
you must evolve. Things change so quickly. But the one
thing that I kept my co founders and I kept
so true was that voice and being obsessed with our audience,
(14:34):
like obsessed with what is going to make them feel
good and feel seen and laugh and the medium the
platform that can change. The thing that was so core
was building the brand. Because we never raised any money.
That's the other thing. I never raised a dollar. It
(14:55):
was a bootstrap business until the last two years ago.
We were acquired, but it was a bootstrap business and
so I couldn't afford to just throw a bunch of
money and scale a website. So what we did was
stay really close to understanding how our audience behaves, how
(15:17):
they feel, how they'll react, Where are they going on
social do they care about Instagram? And is that a
place for us to grow? Let's test, let's figure it out,
let's listen. There was so much test and learn, and
so in order for you to stay really culturally relevant
and for us, we created our own culture. Big cultures
(15:39):
started microcultures, and we created our own microculture, and we
were able to start conversations. And then we saw people
just kind of copying us. Like I started shot at
just myself. I was like, all right, guys, we need
to diversify, and brands like Victoria's Secret would copy us,
like just copy a phrase that we put up.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
I was like, this is the best. I wasn't upset.
I was happy. I was like, we are at the forefront.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Well, what stands out to me is the culture that
you created really seems synonymous with your friendship. Because I
was just listening to the podcast that you co host
with your co founders, and you.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Guys still giggle and gossip as if you're those little
girls on the bus.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I want to learn more about your friendship with your
co founders, because you all built this together. Like you said,
no investors, no formal advisors, it was just the three
of you.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
What made your collaboration a success.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I believe that we have a relationship like sisters, and
the three of us value much of the same things,
which is our friendship and our business, and we value
them equally, and we never let one get in the
way of the other equally, Like if we we are
(17:00):
fighting like co founders, we need to protect our friendship
and if we are fighting like friends, we need to
protect our business. So we did everything that we could
to maintain both equally, because at the end of the day,
it was just based on trust. Like the three of
us trust that we all have each other's backs, and
(17:26):
that's what's kept us together all these years.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I know that you didn't have formal support like a
lot of other founders as you were building this company,
but I'm sure that there were mentor like figures who
were speaking into your lives. What is the best advice
that you received while you were building betches.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
In those early years.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah, I never really had a true mentor. Like you said,
there was nobody.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
To say, hey, like this is the way to do it.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
But in terms of advice that I've gotten over the years,
something that has kept me in the business excessful is
our was our financial riggor focusing on profit as much
as we focused on revenue, Like those two things are
equally important. Because we needed our profit to invest back
into the business to grow. I was like, Okay, how
do I hire more people while you need to make money,
(18:16):
more money than you spend. Basically is just the most
bottom line, pay your taxes, do everything that you need
to do, and focus on the bottom line as much
as you can while steadily growing your revenue.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
The person closest to us of a.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Mentor was our CPA, sort of like our third party CFO,
but he started with us since day one and he
was the one kind of being our financial partner because
the three of us were just three idiots, like what's
a tax? And we had to figure it all out
as we went and he was really there to support us.
(18:52):
And I cannot stress enough to you if you are
building a business, do not ignore your profit and I
always thought, but at that time, like the marker of
success was raising a bunch of money, and to be fair,
I was kind of scared.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
I was like, what am I going to use this
money for? A? And B? Who am I going to
let into the business. I don't want to let anybody else.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
They're going to change our entire creative vision. They're going
to make us chase things that are trendy and cool
instead of thinking three years ahead.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
And I didn't want to let that happen.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
And I would only let it happen at the point
that we needed it. And again another let miss us
like what do I need it for? I'm good And
I never raised any money, So I would say that
was the advice that I got from others. But if
I were to give advice from things that I have learned,
I would say.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Learn to trust your inner voice.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
I think women struggle with that the most, and having
two co founders for me was both a strength and
a crutch because their voices started to become my in
our voices, and that's tough. I mean, it's easy to happen,
but it's tough to do so over time, I had
to really learn and hone the skill of like.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
It's not just even your gut.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
It's like, trust yourself, trust your instincts, trust your opinions.
Let others guide you, but don't let them determine your decision.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
That's the number one thing.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Because you will never regret a decision that didn't come
from within, never, even if it was a mistake.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
I know that you set out to be successful.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
I also know that our vision of success can change
as we get older and as you are building betches.
It was coinciding with the girl Boss era, which I'm
still recovering from. I've spent a lot of time recently
going through my old cringey girl Boss posts.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Can you tell me what did it say?
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, Aleen, let's see. One
of my favorites is wake up, kick Ass repeat.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
I hate the word kick ass.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
I know it's so bad.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Another one is I would caption things like Diva is
a few hustler, Like, I know you're spitting out your
water right now, but it's sweet.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
It's so innocent and sweet.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
No, I'm spitting it out because it's like it's fine,
that's okay. Like I think it's like this that everybody
hating on girl bossing is silly.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
It's fine.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
It's whatever made you feel empowered and strong.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
And that's true.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Like you captioning things like I'm a badass bitch, like
you are just telling yourself, like you need to talk
about trusting your inner voice, Like there are so many
people telling us that we're dumb, subliminally or not, and
sometimes we need to tell ourselves. Most of the time,
(21:42):
we need to just remind ourselves that we are not.
And that's what I was saying, is that, like so
much of women's media would break things down so that
we can understand it.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Why can't we understand the complicated stuff? We're smart, right, The.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Pink washing is so annoying.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
The pink washing is annoying.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
But I don't think there's anything wrong with like leaning
into our feminine and reminding ourselves.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
That we've got this.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
However way you do it, cringe or not, whatever, Like,
at the end of the day, it's okay.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
I think I.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Can hold space for both.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
I can acknowledge that baby Simone in her twenties in
New York City needed that inner dialogue to kind of
rev her up. And I can also look back and
laugh at myself and be like, oh that was a
moment in time. That's what a time to be alive.
But now, I mean personally for me, so much has
changed since the Girl Boss era. I am a mom
of two boys. I've had to redefine what success looks
(22:39):
like so that I can be more president at home
and also pursue my ambitions outside of the home. I'm
curious because I know you had a baby right as
you sold batches for up to fifty four million dollars.
What does ambition look like to you?
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Now?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
I think success and ambition and all of that to
me hasn't really change. What it looks like change. But
I've always want, Like I said, I've always wanted a family.
I've always needed financial security, and I've always wanted to
do something that makes me feel good like I'm helping
other people, like I'm making.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
An impact for others.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
So now, yes, I also have two kids, a girl
and a boy. I was destined to have a girl.
To me, you know, not to sound like Walter or White,
but I do everything for my family, but I also
do everything for my audience, and I do things for myself.
Like while I do like to say I would be
so nice to just kind of sit at home and
(23:36):
be with my kids. When I do that on the weekend,
it's so nice, but I cannot wait for Monday.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I love going to work.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I love it, And so for me, ambition success is
that financial security, but also working on something I'm so
proud of and making a real impact on the world,
and something that has changed is like gaining a truer
sense of self. I think through that time, like going
from insecure Aleen to like I know who I am.
(24:06):
Hell yeah, that is the best, the strongest, the most
empowering feeling. That's how I learned to trust my voice.
That's how I learned to trust my gut to say, Okay,
we're ready to go, We're ready to sell. It's time.
In order for us to be the company that we
want to be, we got to find a strategic partner,
and this is the right partner for us. Like I
(24:26):
couldn't have done that five six years before.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
I could not have feeling inspired by Aliens story, I
have a feeling you'll love our past conversations with Lauren
Simmons and Whitney Wolf. Check them out and let us
know what you think. More from Alien Drexler. After this
quick break, and we're back with Alien Drexler. Alien, it's
been really fun hearing how you built Betches from the
(24:53):
ground up. And now I want to pivot so that
we can rewind through twenty twenty five and celebrate the
moment that Betch's no doubt captured on their feeds, the
ones that had all of us talking and scrolling and sharing.
Let's start off with one of the year's biggest breakups.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
J Lo and Ben Affleck.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
So for a while there kind of looked like Benefer
could really get a sequel. But now it's twenty years apart,
they reunited, they got married, and now they're divorced again.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
I don't know, Simone, because on my way here to
the studio, I saw a paparazzi video of Jennifer leaving
Ben's house, them kissing and like having this like hand
shake of a moment where I don't know, are they
star cross lovers?
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Are they Romeo into it?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Like, I don't know. I love j Loo, I don't
know what it is. I think they're meant to be.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
I have to go back to this paparazzi video. This
is recent, it just came out this is breaking news.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah, she's leaving his house. They embraced it looked like
there was a peck on the lips.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Whow So the other thing that comes to mind with
j Lo and this saga with ben Affleck is how
she's been reflecting on love. She said something like, what
I learned, it's not that I'm not lovable, it's that
they're not capable.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Mmm.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Does that feel accurate to you?
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Does it feel accurate?
Speaker 2 (26:19):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Like her truth is her truth, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I think it's okay to have self reflection and also
take some accountability for things.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
I think that's fine.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
But whatever you got to do to make yourself feel
a better girl, it's you know. I think love happens
when we understand what we bring in a relationship and
also our flaws. Let's not avoid them, Like nobody is
perfect and perfect people suck because they're not perfect. So
let's I think if she had said, like, you know,
(26:51):
I tend to do this, I think that people would
have just like ran to her side.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
I tend to agree. I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
And accountability is sexy, especially as you get older.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
Accountability is hella sexy.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Tell my husband that all the time.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Okay, moving on to the Grammys. At this year's Grammys,
Beyonce finally did it. She took home Album of the
Year for Cowboy Carter, and not just that, it was
such a groundbreaking moment because she became the first black
woman ever to win Best Country Album. And then just recently,
the Recording Academy announced they are actually splitting the Best
Country Album category into two, so we're going to have
(27:31):
Best Contemporary Country and Best Traditional Country.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Apparently they have been planning to do something like that
for a while, but there is speculation that they sped
up that process to split the categories after backlash to
Beyonce winning Best Country Album.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
Do you think there's any truth to that?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
When you first said that, and I learned it from you,
my gut is almost like they were planning it. Beyonce
didn't want want to win this like kind of pseudo award.
She wanted to win the award, which she deserved. So
I kind of feel like if Beyonce had won this
like award, be no pun intended be but I don't
(28:14):
think shit would have went down.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Like I don't think that would have happened. Do you
know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Yeah, I do.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I think the Grammys is struggling with relevancy and so interesting.
I do think that it's super important that she won
this award. I think it would actually be more meaningful though,
if she won it from one of the country music
award shows. Those seem to be the spaces where she's
still shut out of. I applaud artists who take risks,
(28:41):
and I applaud artists who innovate, like we were talking
about earlier with Betcha's I that is the key to
staying power as an artist, and that's really what it's
all about.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
At the end of the.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Day, I could not agree with you more.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Moving on to some more female empowerment, that might be
a controversial statement once you hear what I'm about to say.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
So.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Back in April, jeff us as Blue Origin Space Company
completed it's thirty first spaceflight with this all female crew
that we now know is Lauren Sanchez, former NASA scientist
Amanda nuen Aihabo, Katy Perry, Gail King, and film producer
Carrie Anne Flynn.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Were you empowered by this spaceflight, Aleen?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I was more empowered by the Internet coming together on
how funny it was Like that to me was the
empowering thing. And I do want to just say one
thing about the Internet coming together and feeling empowered. Batch'es
does this thing called betch of the Year. We started
it in twenty eleven where we celebrate like the betchiest
(29:39):
batch of all time, but now we've evolved it to
be like the batchiest moments, meaning the moments that the
Internet comes together about these viral moments, whether they intend
to or not to be viral, but that bring us
all a little bit of joy, like sture. It's a
little bit at the expense of Katy Perry holding up
a flower.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
And singing wonderful World and Gail.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
King kissing the crowds, But how fun was it when
we all kind of came together and it just brought
connection to all of us. So every year we make
it better and better. This year, just wait, it's in
December where we like give out awards and people get
to vote like it's the people's choice with the funniest categories.
(30:23):
But the theme of betch of the Year is like
moments that all just kind of brought us a little
bit joy where we where the Internet was connected, and
internet meaning all of us were connected at a moment.
But No, to answer your original question, I was not
empowered at all.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
This may be controversial, but I am really excited about
the democratization of space travel. I am a big space nerd.
I want us to be able to go to space.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Yeah, I love space.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I that's sick that the science has evolved to allow
semi casual spaceflight. But yeah, I think what made it
less meaningful to me was like the branding of it all. Yes,
it made it feel itchy to me, whereas.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
It made it feel false phony.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Like I said, it just it felt like bs. Where
As if it had been the women that were the
scientists and the ones that have been waiting to go
to space because this is what they study their whole lives,
I think that would have been so much more empowering.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
I honestly don't think it's bad to have celebrities go
up in space. I do think that they should have
brought with them stem teachers from a no name town
in Idaho, you know, like I want to see the
women who are on the ground, who are really educating
the next generation of astronauts and engineers and like bring
(31:41):
them with you too. So I think it was just
a messaging misfire PR exactly.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
P ardn't didn't work there, But yeah, I couldn't agree
with you more.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Well, speaking of bad PR, let's talk about the Coldplay
concert that was heard around the world.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
So, oh god, this is another moment.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Another one, another moment from twenty twenty five. So this
guy appears on the JumboTron. He's dodging the camera. He
was clearly not there with his wife. Come to find out,
it's Andy Byron, now former CEO of Astronomer. He ended
up resigning days after being seen with one of his employees,
Kristin Cabot, on the big screen.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Not just his employees ahead of HR.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Yeah, exactly head of HR, Kristin Cabot.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
I think my favorite part of this moment, Aileen, was
the friend's friend or possibly colleague who was in the background,
who was just like there for the mess and was
giddy as this was happening.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
But read the thing about this moment, it was just
the formula for success, for virality. If the girl just
turned around, I don't think it would have went as viral.
If they had made no reaction, nothing would have happened,
that wouldn't have even made social media right. But the
friend made it all, Like you said, it made it
(32:55):
all because she created the reaction that we all then had.
This is funny, Like she allowed us, gave us permission
to say, holy shit, this is hilarious.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
The whole thing was wild.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
I think it also stood out because we live in
a world where everything is highly manufactured and so polished,
and you know, there's so much intention behind every moment.
This was one of those moments that you were not
supposed to see, and it became so clear that we
were not supposed.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
To see it.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
I also think about how Astronomer kind of gave us
this masterclass in how to handle scandal, because you remember
when they hired Gwyneth Paltrow as the temporary spokesperson to
address the crisis.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
No so good. The memes were epic. My favorite meme
or tweet that came out around this and it's still
in my head because I just it was just like
my humor to a t because she was also married
to a CEO, like her husband was a CEO, and
so one of them is like a tweet. And I'm
so sorry that I forgot who tweeted it, but it
was like, come on, leave some CEOs for the.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Rest of us.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
It's just for us, for the rest of us, Like
it's so dumb and funny.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
But yeah, that was the shit storm.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
But now he is dating Lady Lady Stark, Lady Sansa,
what's her.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Name, Sophie Sophie Turner from Game of Thrones. Okay, there
are so many topics that we need to cover. I'm
just gonna mention them quickly. Nicolandria and the whole Love
Island cast. I think it's been so cool to see
how she's now become this budding fashion icon. We've got
Taylor Swift buying back her Masters, which really changed the
game for other pop stars. Taylor then getting engaged to
(34:34):
Travis Kelcey. Let's end on this and just like that
comes to an end. We got three seasons with Carrie,
with Miranda and with Charlotte, and with a few other
new characters.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
I have so many mixed feelings about this. How did
you feel when it ended?
Speaker 3 (34:52):
I didn't watch this last season. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I started and I was just like, I don't know, honestly,
I watch for cha. I didn't realize that I watched
for Chay. They were such good comic relief that I
even though it was non.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Intentional, that I missed it this season.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
So I was just like, and the aiden thing I
just couldn't get on board with. Couldn't she have new
love interests? But I think the way that it ended about,
like you're not alone, you're on your own, is a
nice message for women who are divorced. To be honest,
I don't know it though, well, of course not, but
(35:33):
it is a nice message.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Sure, Aileen, it's a nice message if it's true. It's
Carrie Bradshaws. She is a lover girl all the way.
I just don't buy it that she was okay being
alone in the end.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Because they didn't develop her character arc to make that conclusion,
Like it would be one thing if they spent all
three seasons for her to get to that place, but
there were no signs of it. Right, Yeah, like she
almost ended up alone because it just.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Worked out that way rather what it right.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
But I guess in reality it does just end up
that way. Like I think many women may choose to
not have a partner, but there's many women who it
just works out that way, and it takes time for
them to feel okay with it, And I think like
the ending was about her coming to terms with it
(36:29):
rather than choosing it.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Do you know what I mean? And I think that's real,
That is real.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Yes, yes, And I want to be abundantly clear. I
think being alone and being comfortable being alone is so cool.
I just personally don't buy it for her character, yeah,
because of what we know about her.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I actually I agree with you.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
I got really emotional when the show ended, not because
I thought it was a perfect show, but because it
meant the end of Carrie. It meant the end of
this group that I think it's become a big part
of a lot of our lives.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
And I just loved Sarah Jessica Parker's.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Post that she did, which was kind of like her
homage to carry.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
I'm a big proponent of shows ending when they should though.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
So yeah, no, I do it should have.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Ended, but maybe fine, like give us one movie, that's fine,
But after the first movie, I think we should have
called it quits.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
I think that we should applaud showrunners and actors who
say it's time for it to end. We had a
good run and so I appreciate that they had the
wisdom to do that.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yes, it's called restraint. Yes, we have to have restraint.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
And just like that, this episode of the bright Side
comes to an end. Aileen, thank you so much for
coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Aileen Drexler is the founder and CEO of Betches Media.
For more founder advice, check out our substack please advise,
and to cast your vote for Betch of the Year,
go to beetches dot com. The bright Side is a
production of Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts and is executive
produced by Reese Witherspoon and me Simone Boyce. Production is
(38:13):
by ACAST Creative Studios. Our producers are Taylor Williamson, Abby Delk,
and Adrian Bain. Our production assistant is Joya Putnoy. Acasts
executive producers are Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder. Maureen Polo
and Reese Witherspoon are the executive producers for Hello Sunshine.
Ali Perry and Lauren Hansen are the executive producers for
(38:34):
iHeart Podcasts. Our theme song is by Anna Stump and
Hamilton Lighthouser.
Today on the right Side, Alien Drexler stops by to
share her hot takes on the year's biggest pop culture stories,
plus how she grew Btches into a media powerhouse.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Something that has changed is like gaining a truer sense
of self, going from insecure Aleen to.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Like, I know who I am.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
That is the best, the strongest, most empowering feeling. That's
how I learned to trust my voice. That's how I
learned to trust my gut to say, Okay, we're ready
to go, We're ready to sell.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
I'm simone voice. And this is the bright side from
Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Welcome back to the bright Side.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
I cannot believe the end of the year is here.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
It is upon us.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
But before we ring in twenty twenty six, we are
rewinding the clock to twenty eleven, back to a time
of twelve dollars, word press domains, millennial pink, and a
women's media landscape that was well, let's just call it
aggressively vanilla.
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Can you picture it?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Because I know I can, and so did Aleen Drexler.
Aileen Drexler saw all of that and decided to create
something totally unique with her two childhood best friends, a sharp, funny,
brutally authentic voice that we all know and love. Today,
Betch's is a media company that defined and still defines
a generation of women who are not only embracing, but
(01:23):
celebrating womanhood and all its imperfections and learning how to
laugh at the imperfections too. In our conversation, Aleen takes
us behind the scenes of how that anonymous blog went
from a few impressively viral posts to a women's media
company that now reaches one in two women in the US.
We also talk about what it means to evolve creatively
(01:43):
and personally through friendship, motherhood, and the changing definition of success.
And because this is the bride side, we couldn't let
Aleen go without doing a little pop culture rewind of
the year's most unforgettable moments, from Benefit Plot Twist to
Beyonce's Country era. Let's get into it, Aileen, Welcome to
the bright Side.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Thank you, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Take me back to twenty eleven when you and your
co founders started Betches. What gap did you see in
the media landscape and how did you envision filling.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
It twenty eleven, My two co founders and I we
have been friends since we were ten years old. We
met like on the bus, and we all went to
college together. We went to Cornell and we lived together
our senior year and we have always been like creatives.
Before we started Betches, we were like writing a TV
(02:37):
show just for fun.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
I would love to still make that.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
We what was the show about?
Speaker 2 (02:44):
It was called the Apartment. It was like a sad
tire of three girls living together. Which is kind of
funny because then Girls came out a few years later
and we were like, this was we should have made this.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
That's exactly what I was thinking about. Yeah, we're talking
about the concept.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
I loved Girls and I love that people now are
obsessed with it. Again, that makes me happy. But back
to twenty eleven, the three of us, we have always
processed the world through the lens of humor. That's just
how we communicate, how we get through anything. And the
other thing that I feel very strongly about is that
(03:19):
I feel very it's almost like an allergy to bs
like phoniness.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
And during that time, women's.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Media was very strongly all of that, like diluted content,
very vanilla click baity, condescending, and it set this expectation
for women to be perfect, and there was truly nothing
that was funny. Everything that was funny for women was
on TV and movies with Chelsea hand Learntina fe Am
(03:47):
polar everything, and so we were like, why don't we
start something funny, but with the caveat that we must
be anonymous because we want jobs afterwards school, because it
was truly done as a creative outlet.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
It wasn't meant to be a business.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Like I was pre met, I was set to go
to medical school, and we wrote our first post.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
We did everything together.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
We wrote every word, argued over comma placements, we did
it all together, and we created almost this fourth co founder,
this fourth voice that was obviously this exaggeration, this satire
of a caricature of all of our internal selves, and
(04:27):
it went so viral, like it went so viral.
Speaker 4 (04:30):
Like people, what was that first post? Alien?
Speaker 2 (04:33):
It was called talking Shit. It was basically like all
of us detailing the way in which women communicate, like
we have fun just getting together and gossiping. But it
wasn't a hatery commentary. It was truly like can we
all just like celebrate that this is all fun? Like
we are imperfect and this is how we talk, and
(04:53):
it was done through obviously a lens of humor, and
because we were anonymous, people tagging each other on Facebook
and writing who is writing this?
Speaker 3 (05:05):
Is this you? And tagging their best friend?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Because we went so niche and the references were so
specific a niche that it for some reason it was
authentic and people saw themselves in it, and yeah, it
went so viral, and that was the beginning fifteen years ago.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
I'm so glad that you brought up the voice of
Betches because that is the word that comes to mind
for me as someone who read Beaches all throughout my twenties,
and it feels like such a big part of my
coming of age story as a millennial woman. And I
think about girls, I think about Lena Dunham's character Han
horror Bath and girls who claimed to be the voice
of a generation, A generation, yeah, generation, but Beaches really
(05:44):
is the voice of a generation. So it sounds like
when you made that first post, like the voice was
very well defined. Is that true or did you have
to go through a process to really hone what that
distinct tone was.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Okay, So when we started, the thing that was most
important to us was being as authentic as possible, like
cutting through the.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Bs and being funny.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
And in the beginning it was edgy, it was satirical,
but as we got bigger, satire doesn't really lend itself
to mass audiences. So we needed to still keep that going,
but keep it funny and keep it super relatable.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
But that voice that is still.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
There today, Like I am leading the business and I
work with all of our creative teams, whether it's our
organic content or our branded content, to make sure that
we check off two things. Will people feel seen in
this and will it make them laugh? Do we have
a unique point of view in making people feel seen
(06:48):
and making them laugh? And that has always been my
north star is like I did not care about scale.
I did not care about being the biggest for the
sake of being the biggest. I did not put any
money in marketing forever. It was all about how can
you make the best content that resonates with women because
(07:12):
they're just gonna come back on their own. They're gonna
share it with their friends and come back on our own.
And that's still the reaction because and what I said
earlier was like why was this happening? And I know
now what the reason is it's because we were saying
the things that people are thinking. They just don't say
out loud. Maybe they say it with their friends quietly,
(07:33):
but nobody was saying anything out loud, Like nobody was
talking about how we love to talk shit, and we
were just kind of saying it was like, yeah, this
is us. We're flawed, We're not perfect, we're flawed people.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
We're all human.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Men get to glamorize their imperfections by calling each other
bros all day.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
What are we? So we were just like, let's just do.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
This and yeah, it's I mean, fifteen years is wild.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
It's also wild to think that you are straddling to
you were on this pre med track, and I know
that you're the daughter of Russian immigrants who probably much
preferred that option at the time, but you also you
make this brave move to embrace comedy and humor. And
I actually think that funny girls have a harder time
(08:19):
in this world and society than a lot of people realize,
because I think that funny girls are sometimes punished for
being funny, whereas men are allowed to be funny and
it's like expected from them, Funny girls are told they're
not funny enough, funny girls are told you're not allowed
to be funny and want to go to med school.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
I'm curious, did.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
You ever feel pressure to put yourself in one of
those societal boxes.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
I just wanted to be successful. I'm a very ambitious
person because I'm a first generation American. My parents came
here with nothing, and I was born within the year
that they came here, and so I saw what they
had to go through to make my life good and
allow me to go to a school like Cornell. And
(09:12):
so for me, no, I didn't feel the pressure of
being in a box because I knew very early on
what I wanted to do. And I know that sounds crazy,
going from med school to starting a company called Batches,
but I also I was like, I need to do
something that feels good for me. I need to do
something that helps others, and I wanted to make money.
(09:36):
Financial security is really important to me seeing what my
parents had to go through, and I couldn't undo that
or take that for granted. And I wanted to create
further security for my family. I always knew I wanted kids,
so it just kind of had to cover those three things.
And I wanted to do something that would make my
parents proud. And so when I told my parents, I
(09:57):
was like, so I want to take a year off
and not go to med school. They're like, oh okay,
and I was like, I want to do this bechis thing.
Let me try it for a year. And they were anxious,
of course, but they were more anxious about like my future,
like how is she going to make money? But right
(10:17):
after school we got our first book deal with Simon
and Schuster, and they were like, okay, this is actual money.
But I, you know, couldn't afford to live alone. I
couldn't afford to do anything. So two years after when
that book was coming out, that's also when we came
out of anonymity. Was when I started to really take
this business so seriously and moved out. I was like, oh,
(10:38):
I can afford my own things. So my parents were
like okay, yeah. My grandma would call me and be
like when are you going to med school for years
after that, but.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
I didn't let that really bother me.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
I was like, I want to be successful. I know
we have something like this audience is ravenous for this,
and it was a creative outlet that I don't know
I was just so gung ho and making it something.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
What was that moment like when you all unveiled yourselves
and came out of anonymity.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Did it feel the way that you thought it would.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
No, I was scared beyond my mind. I was so
scared because you know, like you said, women are judged
beyond reason.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
And I did a podcast with.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
My co founder Sammy for four years called Diet Starts Tomorrow.
I was twenty two or twenty three when that book
came out, first book, and I was deep in that.
I was terrified of what people are going to say
about how I look, and then also like I was
scared what the audience is going to feel, like these
are the girls that I've been obsessed with, Like, Okay,
(11:47):
I'm going to stop following.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
But because we had each other, I think that's.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
What kept us going and strong and just kind of
going getting through it. You know, I've learned to read
comments for fifteen years, so I'm a little bit less
affected by it now, but it took some time.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
Do you still read comments?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
I mean, yeah, I want to know what people think
about our show, like the show that I do at Betches.
I love feedback, like I'm obsessed with getting better and improving,
and I've always been driving the business forward. Like we
started as a blog, there's no Instagram. I mean Instagram started,
but nobody was on it until like a couple years later.
We had to evolve with technology, social media and the time.
(12:32):
So I was always just like, we must evolve if
we want to stay relevant and stay ahead and start
conversations rather than catch up with everybody else. And I
wasn't afraid to just kind of keep everything going forward.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
We've got to take a short break, but we'll be
right back with Alien Drexler.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
And we're back with Alien Drexler.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
When you talk about the relevance factor, I think that's
one of the most impressive aspects of what you've built.
It fetches the fact that you are still the voice
of a generation. It is still such a relevant force
in women's media. What has been the secret to that?
How do you do that? How do you grow up
with your readers too?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah, it's wild to kind of take a step back
and see that from what started as this measley little
blog on word Press, there was a just for the
sake of us sharing a funny story, like the three
of us we were sitting on our couch and we're like,
do we pay for a domain that takes the word
press out of the URL?
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Like it's twelve dollars a month?
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Like that's expensive, Like that is so twenty eleven coren.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
We're like, oh my god, we have to pay to
make our domain private? Like oh god, but no, just
going from that to peeing where we are today and
reaching one in two women in the US is bananas
to me, and still having like still talking about being
culturally relevant, like culture is now such a big buzzword.
(14:08):
But the way we are still kind of ahead is
because I've always ingrained in US. It's in our values
that innovation is the most important thing. Like I said,
you must evolve. Things change so quickly. But the one
thing that I kept my co founders and I kept
so true was that voice and being obsessed with our audience,
(14:34):
like obsessed with what is going to make them feel
good and feel seen and laugh and the medium the
platform that can change. The thing that was so core
was building the brand. Because we never raised any money.
That's the other thing. I never raised a dollar. It
(14:55):
was a bootstrap business until the last two years ago.
We were acquired, but it was a bootstrap business and
so I couldn't afford to just throw a bunch of
money and scale a website. So what we did was
stay really close to understanding how our audience behaves, how
(15:17):
they feel, how they'll react, Where are they going on
social do they care about Instagram? And is that a
place for us to grow? Let's test, let's figure it out,
let's listen. There was so much test and learn, and
so in order for you to stay really culturally relevant
and for us, we created our own culture. Big cultures
(15:39):
started microcultures, and we created our own microculture, and we
were able to start conversations. And then we saw people
just kind of copying us. Like I started shot at
just myself. I was like, all right, guys, we need
to diversify, and brands like Victoria's Secret would copy us,
like just copy a phrase that we put up.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
I was like, this is the best. I wasn't upset.
I was happy. I was like, we are at the forefront.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Well, what stands out to me is the culture that
you created really seems synonymous with your friendship. Because I
was just listening to the podcast that you co host
with your co founders, and you.
Speaker 4 (16:18):
Guys still giggle and gossip as if you're those little
girls on the bus.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I want to learn more about your friendship with your
co founders, because you all built this together. Like you said,
no investors, no formal advisors, it was just the three
of you.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
What made your collaboration a success.
Speaker 2 (16:39):
I believe that we have a relationship like sisters, and
the three of us value much of the same things,
which is our friendship and our business, and we value
them equally, and we never let one get in the
way of the other equally, Like if we we are
(17:00):
fighting like co founders, we need to protect our friendship
and if we are fighting like friends, we need to
protect our business. So we did everything that we could
to maintain both equally, because at the end of the day,
it was just based on trust. Like the three of
us trust that we all have each other's backs, and
(17:26):
that's what's kept us together all these years.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I know that you didn't have formal support like a
lot of other founders as you were building this company,
but I'm sure that there were mentor like figures who
were speaking into your lives. What is the best advice
that you received while you were building betches.
Speaker 4 (17:45):
In those early years.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah, I never really had a true mentor. Like you said,
there was nobody.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
To say, hey, like this is the way to do it.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
But in terms of advice that I've gotten over the years,
something that has kept me in the business excessful is
our was our financial riggor focusing on profit as much
as we focused on revenue, Like those two things are
equally important. Because we needed our profit to invest back
into the business to grow. I was like, Okay, how
do I hire more people while you need to make money,
(18:16):
more money than you spend. Basically is just the most
bottom line, pay your taxes, do everything that you need
to do, and focus on the bottom line as much
as you can while steadily growing your revenue.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
The person closest to us of a.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
Mentor was our CPA, sort of like our third party CFO,
but he started with us since day one and he
was the one kind of being our financial partner because
the three of us were just three idiots, like what's
a tax? And we had to figure it all out
as we went and he was really there to support us.
(18:52):
And I cannot stress enough to you if you are
building a business, do not ignore your profit and I
always thought, but at that time, like the marker of
success was raising a bunch of money, and to be fair,
I was kind of scared.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
I was like, what am I going to use this
money for? A? And B? Who am I going to
let into the business. I don't want to let anybody else.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
They're going to change our entire creative vision. They're going
to make us chase things that are trendy and cool
instead of thinking three years ahead.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
And I didn't want to let that happen.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
And I would only let it happen at the point
that we needed it. And again another let miss us
like what do I need it for? I'm good And
I never raised any money, So I would say that
was the advice that I got from others. But if
I were to give advice from things that I have learned,
I would say.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
Learn to trust your inner voice.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
I think women struggle with that the most, and having
two co founders for me was both a strength and
a crutch because their voices started to become my in
our voices, and that's tough. I mean, it's easy to happen,
but it's tough to do so over time, I had
to really learn and hone the skill of like.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
It's not just even your gut.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
It's like, trust yourself, trust your instincts, trust your opinions.
Let others guide you, but don't let them determine your decision.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
That's the number one thing.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Because you will never regret a decision that didn't come
from within, never, even if it was a mistake.
Speaker 4 (20:23):
I know that you set out to be successful.
Speaker 1 (20:26):
I also know that our vision of success can change
as we get older and as you are building betches.
It was coinciding with the girl Boss era, which I'm
still recovering from. I've spent a lot of time recently
going through my old cringey girl Boss posts.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Can you tell me what did it say?
Speaker 1 (20:45):
Oh my gosh, Oh my gosh, Aleen, let's see. One
of my favorites is wake up, kick Ass repeat.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
I hate the word kick ass.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
I know it's so bad.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Another one is I would caption things like Diva is
a few hustler, Like, I know you're spitting out your
water right now, but it's sweet.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
It's so innocent and sweet.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
No, I'm spitting it out because it's like it's fine,
that's okay. Like I think it's like this that everybody
hating on girl bossing is silly.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
It's fine.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
It's whatever made you feel empowered and strong.
Speaker 4 (21:20):
And that's true.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Like you captioning things like I'm a badass bitch, like
you are just telling yourself, like you need to talk
about trusting your inner voice, Like there are so many
people telling us that we're dumb, subliminally or not, and
sometimes we need to tell ourselves. Most of the time,
(21:42):
we need to just remind ourselves that we are not.
And that's what I was saying, is that, like so
much of women's media would break things down so that
we can understand it.
Speaker 3 (21:52):
Why can't we understand the complicated stuff? We're smart, right, The.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Pink washing is so annoying.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
The pink washing is annoying.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
But I don't think there's anything wrong with like leaning
into our feminine and reminding ourselves.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
That we've got this.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
However way you do it, cringe or not, whatever, Like,
at the end of the day, it's okay.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
I think I.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Can hold space for both.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
I can acknowledge that baby Simone in her twenties in
New York City needed that inner dialogue to kind of
rev her up. And I can also look back and
laugh at myself and be like, oh that was a
moment in time. That's what a time to be alive.
But now, I mean personally for me, so much has
changed since the Girl Boss era. I am a mom
of two boys. I've had to redefine what success looks
(22:39):
like so that I can be more president at home
and also pursue my ambitions outside of the home. I'm
curious because I know you had a baby right as
you sold batches for up to fifty four million dollars.
What does ambition look like to you?
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Now?
Speaker 2 (22:54):
I think success and ambition and all of that to
me hasn't really change. What it looks like change. But
I've always want, Like I said, I've always wanted a family.
I've always needed financial security, and I've always wanted to
do something that makes me feel good like I'm helping
other people, like I'm making.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
An impact for others.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
So now, yes, I also have two kids, a girl
and a boy. I was destined to have a girl.
To me, you know, not to sound like Walter or White,
but I do everything for my family, but I also
do everything for my audience, and I do things for myself.
Like while I do like to say I would be
so nice to just kind of sit at home and
(23:36):
be with my kids. When I do that on the weekend,
it's so nice, but I cannot wait for Monday.
Speaker 3 (23:41):
I love going to work.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
I love it, And so for me, ambition success is
that financial security, but also working on something I'm so
proud of and making a real impact on the world,
and something that has changed is like gaining a truer
sense of self. I think through that time, like going
from insecure Aleen to like I know who I am.
(24:06):
Hell yeah, that is the best, the strongest, the most
empowering feeling. That's how I learned to trust my voice.
That's how I learned to trust my gut to say, Okay,
we're ready to go, We're ready to sell. It's time.
In order for us to be the company that we
want to be, we got to find a strategic partner,
and this is the right partner for us. Like I
(24:26):
couldn't have done that five six years before.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
I could not have feeling inspired by Aliens story, I
have a feeling you'll love our past conversations with Lauren
Simmons and Whitney Wolf. Check them out and let us
know what you think. More from Alien Drexler. After this
quick break, and we're back with Alien Drexler. Alien, it's
been really fun hearing how you built Betches from the
(24:53):
ground up. And now I want to pivot so that
we can rewind through twenty twenty five and celebrate the
moment that Betch's no doubt captured on their feeds, the
ones that had all of us talking and scrolling and sharing.
Let's start off with one of the year's biggest breakups.
Speaker 4 (25:10):
J Lo and Ben Affleck.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
So for a while there kind of looked like Benefer
could really get a sequel. But now it's twenty years apart,
they reunited, they got married, and now they're divorced again.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
I don't know, Simone, because on my way here to
the studio, I saw a paparazzi video of Jennifer leaving
Ben's house, them kissing and like having this like hand
shake of a moment where I don't know, are they
star cross lovers?
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Are they Romeo into it?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Like, I don't know. I love j Loo, I don't
know what it is. I think they're meant to be.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
I have to go back to this paparazzi video. This
is recent, it just came out this is breaking news.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah, she's leaving his house. They embraced it looked like
there was a peck on the lips.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Whow So the other thing that comes to mind with
j Lo and this saga with ben Affleck is how
she's been reflecting on love. She said something like, what
I learned, it's not that I'm not lovable, it's that
they're not capable.
Speaker 3 (26:16):
Mmm.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
Does that feel accurate to you?
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Does it feel accurate?
Speaker 2 (26:19):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
Like her truth is her truth, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
I think it's okay to have self reflection and also
take some accountability for things.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
I think that's fine.
Speaker 2 (26:29):
But whatever you got to do to make yourself feel
a better girl, it's you know. I think love happens
when we understand what we bring in a relationship and
also our flaws. Let's not avoid them, Like nobody is
perfect and perfect people suck because they're not perfect. So
let's I think if she had said, like, you know,
(26:51):
I tend to do this, I think that people would
have just like ran to her side.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
I tend to agree. I think that's a really good point.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
And accountability is sexy, especially as you get older.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
Accountability is hella sexy.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Tell my husband that all the time.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Okay, moving on to the Grammys. At this year's Grammys,
Beyonce finally did it. She took home Album of the
Year for Cowboy Carter, and not just that, it was
such a groundbreaking moment because she became the first black
woman ever to win Best Country Album. And then just recently,
the Recording Academy announced they are actually splitting the Best
Country Album category into two, so we're going to have
(27:31):
Best Contemporary Country and Best Traditional Country.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Apparently they have been planning to do something like that
for a while, but there is speculation that they sped
up that process to split the categories after backlash to
Beyonce winning Best Country Album.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
Do you think there's any truth to that?
Speaker 2 (27:52):
When you first said that, and I learned it from you,
my gut is almost like they were planning it. Beyonce
didn't want want to win this like kind of pseudo award.
She wanted to win the award, which she deserved. So
I kind of feel like if Beyonce had won this
like award, be no pun intended be but I don't
(28:14):
think shit would have went down.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
Like I don't think that would have happened. Do you
know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (28:19):
Yeah, I do.
Speaker 1 (28:20):
I think the Grammys is struggling with relevancy and so interesting.
I do think that it's super important that she won
this award. I think it would actually be more meaningful though,
if she won it from one of the country music
award shows. Those seem to be the spaces where she's
still shut out of. I applaud artists who take risks,
(28:41):
and I applaud artists who innovate, like we were talking
about earlier with Betcha's I that is the key to
staying power as an artist, and that's really what it's
all about.
Speaker 4 (28:49):
At the end of the.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Day, I could not agree with you more.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
Moving on to some more female empowerment, that might be
a controversial statement once you hear what I'm about to say.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
So.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Back in April, jeff us as Blue Origin Space Company
completed it's thirty first spaceflight with this all female crew
that we now know is Lauren Sanchez, former NASA scientist
Amanda nuen Aihabo, Katy Perry, Gail King, and film producer
Carrie Anne Flynn.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Were you empowered by this spaceflight, Aleen?
Speaker 2 (29:18):
I was more empowered by the Internet coming together on
how funny it was Like that to me was the
empowering thing. And I do want to just say one
thing about the Internet coming together and feeling empowered. Batch'es
does this thing called betch of the Year. We started
it in twenty eleven where we celebrate like the betchiest
(29:39):
batch of all time, but now we've evolved it to
be like the batchiest moments, meaning the moments that the
Internet comes together about these viral moments, whether they intend
to or not to be viral, but that bring us
all a little bit of joy, like sture. It's a
little bit at the expense of Katy Perry holding up
a flower.
Speaker 4 (29:59):
And singing wonderful World and Gail.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
King kissing the crowds, But how fun was it when
we all kind of came together and it just brought
connection to all of us. So every year we make
it better and better. This year, just wait, it's in
December where we like give out awards and people get
to vote like it's the people's choice with the funniest categories.
(30:23):
But the theme of betch of the Year is like
moments that all just kind of brought us a little
bit joy where we where the Internet was connected, and
internet meaning all of us were connected at a moment.
But No, to answer your original question, I was not
empowered at all.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
This may be controversial, but I am really excited about
the democratization of space travel. I am a big space nerd.
I want us to be able to go to space.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Yeah, I love space.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
I that's sick that the science has evolved to allow
semi casual spaceflight. But yeah, I think what made it
less meaningful to me was like the branding of it all. Yes,
it made it feel itchy to me, whereas.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
It made it feel false phony.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Like I said, it just it felt like bs. Where
As if it had been the women that were the
scientists and the ones that have been waiting to go
to space because this is what they study their whole lives,
I think that would have been so much more empowering.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
I honestly don't think it's bad to have celebrities go
up in space. I do think that they should have
brought with them stem teachers from a no name town
in Idaho, you know, like I want to see the
women who are on the ground, who are really educating
the next generation of astronauts and engineers and like bring
(31:41):
them with you too. So I think it was just
a messaging misfire PR exactly.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
P ardn't didn't work there, But yeah, I couldn't agree
with you more.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Well, speaking of bad PR, let's talk about the Coldplay
concert that was heard around the world.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
So, oh god, this is another moment.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
Another one, another moment from twenty twenty five. So this
guy appears on the JumboTron. He's dodging the camera. He
was clearly not there with his wife. Come to find out,
it's Andy Byron, now former CEO of Astronomer. He ended
up resigning days after being seen with one of his employees,
Kristin Cabot, on the big screen.
Speaker 3 (32:18):
Not just his employees ahead of HR.
Speaker 4 (32:20):
Yeah, exactly head of HR, Kristin Cabot.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
I think my favorite part of this moment, Aileen, was
the friend's friend or possibly colleague who was in the background,
who was just like there for the mess and was
giddy as this was happening.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
But read the thing about this moment, it was just
the formula for success, for virality. If the girl just
turned around, I don't think it would have went as viral.
If they had made no reaction, nothing would have happened,
that wouldn't have even made social media right. But the
friend made it all, Like you said, it made it
(32:55):
all because she created the reaction that we all then had.
This is funny, Like she allowed us, gave us permission
to say, holy shit, this is hilarious.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
The whole thing was wild.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
I think it also stood out because we live in
a world where everything is highly manufactured and so polished,
and you know, there's so much intention behind every moment.
This was one of those moments that you were not
supposed to see, and it became so clear that we
were not supposed.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
To see it.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
I also think about how Astronomer kind of gave us
this masterclass in how to handle scandal, because you remember
when they hired Gwyneth Paltrow as the temporary spokesperson to
address the crisis.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
No so good. The memes were epic. My favorite meme
or tweet that came out around this and it's still
in my head because I just it was just like
my humor to a t because she was also married
to a CEO, like her husband was a CEO, and
so one of them is like a tweet. And I'm
so sorry that I forgot who tweeted it, but it
was like, come on, leave some CEOs for the.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
Rest of us.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
It's just for us, for the rest of us, Like
it's so dumb and funny.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
But yeah, that was the shit storm.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
But now he is dating Lady Lady Stark, Lady Sansa,
what's her.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Name, Sophie Sophie Turner from Game of Thrones. Okay, there
are so many topics that we need to cover. I'm
just gonna mention them quickly. Nicolandria and the whole Love
Island cast. I think it's been so cool to see
how she's now become this budding fashion icon. We've got
Taylor Swift buying back her Masters, which really changed the
game for other pop stars. Taylor then getting engaged to
(34:34):
Travis Kelcey. Let's end on this and just like that
comes to an end. We got three seasons with Carrie,
with Miranda and with Charlotte, and with a few other
new characters.
Speaker 4 (34:49):
I have so many mixed feelings about this. How did
you feel when it ended?
Speaker 3 (34:52):
I didn't watch this last season. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
I started and I was just like, I don't know, honestly,
I watch for cha. I didn't realize that I watched
for Chay. They were such good comic relief that I
even though it was non.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Intentional, that I missed it this season.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
So I was just like, and the aiden thing I
just couldn't get on board with. Couldn't she have new
love interests? But I think the way that it ended about,
like you're not alone, you're on your own, is a
nice message for women who are divorced. To be honest,
I don't know it though, well, of course not, but
(35:33):
it is a nice message.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
Sure, Aileen, it's a nice message if it's true. It's
Carrie Bradshaws. She is a lover girl all the way.
I just don't buy it that she was okay being
alone in the end.
Speaker 2 (35:45):
Because they didn't develop her character arc to make that conclusion,
Like it would be one thing if they spent all
three seasons for her to get to that place, but
there were no signs of it. Right, Yeah, like she
almost ended up alone because it just.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
Worked out that way rather what it right.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
But I guess in reality it does just end up
that way. Like I think many women may choose to
not have a partner, but there's many women who it
just works out that way, and it takes time for
them to feel okay with it, And I think like
the ending was about her coming to terms with it
(36:29):
rather than choosing it.
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Do you know what I mean? And I think that's real,
That is real.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Yes, yes, And I want to be abundantly clear. I
think being alone and being comfortable being alone is so cool.
I just personally don't buy it for her character, yeah,
because of what we know about her.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I actually I agree with you.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
I got really emotional when the show ended, not because
I thought it was a perfect show, but because it
meant the end of Carrie. It meant the end of
this group that I think it's become a big part
of a lot of our lives.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
And I just loved Sarah Jessica Parker's.
Speaker 1 (37:08):
Post that she did, which was kind of like her
homage to carry.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
I'm a big proponent of shows ending when they should though.
Speaker 3 (37:16):
So yeah, no, I do it should have.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Ended, but maybe fine, like give us one movie, that's fine,
But after the first movie, I think we should have
called it quits.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
I think that we should applaud showrunners and actors who
say it's time for it to end. We had a
good run and so I appreciate that they had the
wisdom to do that.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
Yes, it's called restraint. Yes, we have to have restraint.
Speaker 4 (37:41):
And just like that, this episode of the bright Side
comes to an end. Aileen, thank you so much for
coming on the show.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
Aileen Drexler is the founder and CEO of Betches Media.
For more founder advice, check out our substack please advise,
and to cast your vote for Betch of the Year,
go to beetches dot com. The bright Side is a
production of Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts and is executive
produced by Reese Witherspoon and me Simone Boyce. Production is
(38:13):
by ACAST Creative Studios. Our producers are Taylor Williamson, Abby Delk,
and Adrian Bain. Our production assistant is Joya Putnoy. Acasts
executive producers are Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder. Maureen Polo
and Reese Witherspoon are the executive producers for Hello Sunshine.
Ali Perry and Lauren Hansen are the executive producers for
(38:34):
iHeart Podcasts. Our theme song is by Anna Stump and
Hamilton Lighthouser.
Host
Simone Boyce
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Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.