Tiger Sisters: From Stanford MBA & Goldman Sachs to a #1 Business Podcast in 18 Months

Hollywood told them they were "respectfully, nobodies." So they sat down at a kitchen table and built one of the fastest-growing podcasts in the world.
Cherie and Jean Luo come from the most traditional path you can imagine: Ivy League degrees, Goldman Sachs, Snapchat, Stanford MBA. Instead of keeping that knowledge locked inside boardrooms, they chose to share it publicly. Tiger Sisters launched as a fully bootstrapped, two-person operation with no outside investment, no team, and no playbook. Within two years, they hit #1 on the podcast charts.
In this episode, we get into how they treat their podcast like a tech startup; running experiments, killing their ego, and letting their audience co-produce the show!! We talk about why the fear of looking cringe is the single biggest thing holding people back, why they intentionally delayed monetization for a full year, and why the information you think is obvious is exactly what someone else desperately needs to hear.
If you've been sitting on an idea waiting for the perfect time, the perfect credentials, or the perfect setup... this conversation is going to wreck every excuse you have.
Mentioned in this episode:
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03:21 Coming from corporate and getting over the fear of looking cringe
06:20 Jean's journey from extremely private to co-hosting a #1 podcast
09:34 Cherie's first post and the TikTok video that changed everything
13:41 How they treat Tiger Sisters like a tech startup
15:22 Dropping the ego: why they A/B test everything and take nothing personally
21:10 How they ran everything as a two-person team before hiring anyone
24:05 The rejected reality TV show that became a #1 podcast
27:02 Why more people from elite career paths are building personal brands
37:42 Jean wasn't the most qualified on paper and it didn't matter
39:10 Why they waited a full year before monetizing
45:52 Information is power: the story that proves it
48:26 The future of personal brand and the creator-corporation convergence
About Tiger Sisters
Cherie and Jean Luo are the co-hosts of Tiger Sisters, a top business podcast built in under two years with zero outside funding. Cherie brings six years of content creation experience and a background in tech and product management. Jean left a 15-year corporate career spanning Goldman Sachs, Snapchat, and other major companies to go all in. Together, they're on a mission to empower 1 billion women by un-gatekeeping career, money, and mindset information that's traditionally been locked behind elite institutions.
They approach everything with a startup mentality: experimental, ego-free, and community-driven.
Connect with Tiger Sisters
🎙️ Podcast: Tiger Sisters on Spotify & YouTube
👍 Instagram: @tigersisterspodcast
👍 Cherie's Instagram: @cherie.brooke
👍 Jean's Instagram: @jeanluo_
💼 Cherie's LinkedIn: Cherie Brooke Luo
💼 Jean's LinkedIn: Jean Luo
Stay connected with me
📧 Contact: courtney@smoothmedia.co
👍 Instagram: @builtinpublicpod
👍 Instagram: @courtlynnjohnson
💼 LinkedIn: Courtney Johnson
🎶 TikTok: @courtney..johnson