Creative Got me

She was a film director in training, working on indie sets and squeezing into cabs with other broke twenty–somethings on awards nights. Then she took a customer support internship at a little New York startup, fell in love with building internet brands, and eventually quit to sell swimsuits on the internet. That is Melanie Travis, founder and CEO of Andie Swim, and she might be the most “abnormall...

She left Goldman Sachs and Revlon to sell kitchen tools. Eight years later, she voluntarily killed her best-selling cutting board because new research showed she could do better for customers. That's Eunice Byun, founder of Material, and this conversation is one of my favorites. While everyone's chasing growth hacks and viral moments, Eunice is building an "old soul" brand. Human...

What if your brand had a creative director in the cloud? In this episode, I sit down with my boss and Lica’s co-founder/CEO, Priyaa Kalyanaraman , to unpack what we’re actually building and why it’s very different from yet another “type a prompt, get a pretty picture” tool. Priyaa has been working in AI and design long before it was cool. From building presentation design agents at Microsoft to ex...

What happens when you put a 30-year tech pioneer in a room with someone building AI for the next 30? In this episode of Creative Got Me , I sit down with David Cost , VP of Digital & Ecommerce at Rainbow Shops and former co-founder of one of the internet’s first price comparison sites, PriceSCAN.com . David has quietly been at the front of every major tech wave so far: personal computing, the...

You see the polished brand. You don’t see the brother who wired $5,000 at midnight because he believed in a tiny baby-hat idea. In this solo episode of Creative Got Me , I tell the story behind Kinship , the kids hat company I started in 2016 while pregnant and living in San Francisco. I share how my brother became my first hype man, investor, and co-founder… and how everything changed when he pas...

We were taught how to succeed in college, our careers, and promotions along the way. We were never taught how to build and succeed in our intimate relationships. In this episode of Creative Got Me , Monique sits down with sexologist and Wonderlust founder Natassia Miller to talk about the conversations most of us avoid: sex, desire, intimacy, and how all of that quietly shapes our work, leadership...

Miki Agrawal has built three wildly successful companies (THINX, TUSHY, and now HIRO) by talking about the things no one else will: periods, poop, and plastic. In this episode, she opens up about how she turned taboo into trust, scaled without VC, and why she believes creativity (not capital) is the most undervalued force in business. She shares the exact 3-part framework behind every one of her b...

Dan Cox didn’t start Wellthy by staring at Shopify dashboards or growth charts. He started it behind the counter of his nutrition stores in Las Vegas and Southern California… listening to people talk about their bodies, their insecurities, their energy levels, and their fear of trying “one more thing” that might not work. That daily, face‑to‑face exposure shaped everything about how he builds prod...

How do you take a stand as a brand without losing your customers or your credibility? In this episode of Creative Got Me , Michael Stars co-founder and CEO Suzanne Lerner joins Monique for a raw and unfiltered conversation on what it really means to build a values-driven brand that lasts. Suzanne has done what few founders ever do: she’s run a successful fashion brand for 40 years, never taken a d...

In this special solo Q&A episode, ‘Creative Got Me’ host Monique Ritter answers the questions you’ve been sending into her DMs: the ones about AI, creativity, brand voice, and what should (and should never) be automated. I’s the clearest snapshot yet of how Monique thinks about the intersection of soulful creativity and the fast‑moving world of AI. If you’ve ever wondered: • Is AI actually des...

Katerina Schneider was four months pregnant when she flipped over her prenatal vitamin bottle and realized… she couldn’t trust a single word on the label. Instead of settling, she built something better: Ritual, a radically transparent, science-backed wellness brand that now does over $250 million in retail sales and serves millions of customers. In this episode of Creative Got Me , Kat breaks dow...

Dave Blakely has seen every trend in tech: the dot-com boom, the rise of mobile, the AI explosion. But he never chases shiny objects. He watches for what lasts. Dave spent 25+ years at IDEO helping companies like Cisco and Johns Hopkins turn ideas into real businesses. For 10 years, he served as Executive VP at Mach49, where he helped Fortune 1000 companies build and launch startups from within. N...

What if the very thing people assume will hold you back actually makes you better at your job? Heidi Isern joins Monique Ritter to talk about the leadership lessons that come from motherhood, and how she learned to embrace the chaos, drop the script, and bring her full self to both career and family. This episode dives into the emotional and professional terrain of working motherhood, what it mean...

Jessica Lee co-founded Modern Citizen in the middle of San Francisco’s VC frenzy and made a very different decision than most founders: She didn’t raise money. She didn’t chase growth at all costs. She built a brand slowly, intentionally, and on her own terms. In this episode, she shares the real story behind building a modern fashion brand without losing yourself in the process. We talk about boo...

Most creative businesses burn out for one reason: They say yes to the wrong work. In this episode, Monique Ritter sits down with Wilian Iralzabal, founder of Zaval Media, to talk about the power of conviction, choosing clients with care, and how to stay human in a fast-moving AI world. If you’re a designer, founder, or builder trying to scale without selling out, this one’s for you. — 📍 Timestamp...

In this episode, Priyaa Kalyanaraman sits down with Pash Pashkow, Former Head of Brand & Design at Apple TV+. They explore what it really takes to build a resonant brand, whether you're refreshing a legacy name or launching something from scratch. They also cover: ✅ The balance between intuition vs. iteration in creative work ✅ Why brand strategy starts with purpose, not just a logo ✅ H...

What happens when AI changes everything, except human behavior? In this episode, Priyaa Kalyanaraman sits down with Erik Huberman, founder and CEO of Hawke Media, to unpack the state of modern marketing, where brands still live and die by trust, creativity, and execution, even as AI changes how everything gets built. We cover:✅ Why AI won’t replace creativity, but will change how fast teams move...

What does it really take to build a direct-to-consumer brand that not only launches big but sticks around? In this episode, Priyaa Kalyanaraman sits down with Adam Greenfeld, Co-Founder at Frij, to unpack the real playbook behind building brands that convert, retain, and scale. From his early days in sports and real estate tech, to launching Thesis in the early nootropics wave, to now running his...

Performance marketing isn’t just about running ads, it’s about building a high-leverage engine that scales your brand. In this episode, we’re joined by Rei-Ling Hudson, a seasoned marketing consultant and advisor, to unpack a masterclass in paid strategy, creative testing, and team building for consumer startups. We cover:✅ When a founder is actually ready to invest in paid acquisition ✅ Why org...

In this episode of Creative Got Me, Priyaa Kalyanaraman sits down with Ben Sharf, co-founder of Platter, to unpack the strategy behind founder-led content and how showing up online transformed his business. We cover:✅ When Ben realized he had to become the face of his brand ✅ The systems and people that support his content engine ✅ How vulnerability builds trust (and why most founders avoid it)...

What does it take to build a long-lasting consumer brand in a noisy, trend-driven world, especially one selling $2,000+ customizable sleep systems? In this episode, Priyaa sits down with Lisa Tan, CMO of Reverie, to unpack her decade-long playbook for building a DTC and retail hybrid brand that prioritizes long-term value over short-term hype. If you’re building or scaling a DTC or consumer brand...

Lucas DiPietrantonio, co-founder and CEO of Darkroom, has spent nearly a decade building the growth engine behind some of today’s most talked-about consumer brands. In the first episode of Creative Got Me, he unpacks how agencies must evolve, or die, in an AI-driven, short-form-first marketing world. We dig into:– How to know if your brand is ready to hire an agency– Why “on-brand” sometimes needs...