But alas\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n As co-host Ashley Hesseltine explained, <\/span>\u201cThe title is open to interpretation. The phrase encompasses various ideas: literally, girls gotta eat food. But it could also mean they gotta get laid\u2026 or get their money. But food itself is a big part of our life, and while I initially thought we might discuss it a little more on the podcast, it just turned into something very different.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n That \u201cdifferent\u201d is clearly apparent in the podcast\u2019s description:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhy do guys just want to f*ck you once then stalk your Instagram forever? Should you ditch the apps and meet people in the wild? How do you get over a breakup when you feel like you’re gonna die? These are all topics discussed on <\/span><\/i>Girls Gotta Eat<\/span>\u2014a comedy podcast about dating, sex, and relationships.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Covering everything from <\/span>\u201csexual fetishes to finances,\u201d <\/span><\/i>Rayna described how, despite being in the Comedy category, <\/span>\u201cWe\u2019ve done every type of episode, from politicians to porn stars. We also run the gamut of really serious topics, like sexual assault and abortion. But we’ll also talk about how to have better butt sex. We do it all… and that has really allowed us to fold in different topics every single week.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Ashley\u2019s background is in writing. After attending Clemson University, she was the social nightlife editor for a magazine in Atlanta. She then went out on her own as a freelance writer and blogger before her comedy-based Instagram account led her straight to influencer status. Along the way, she did standup comedy and appeared in several gigs in radio and on television, including on HLN\u2013CNN, where she weighed in on <\/span>\u201clighter\u201d<\/span><\/i> topics.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, though, I just went for the hair and makeup. It was incredible! I would go on a Friday and just get all dolled up for the weekend,\u201d<\/span><\/i> she joked. <\/span>\u201cAs far as radio goes, I had a podcast with a station before people even knew what a podcast was.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n After attending Indiana University to study marketing\/PR, Rayna moved to New York in 2008. As excited as she was to work, it was right during the market crash of 2008, and <\/span>\u201cNo one would hire me,\u201d<\/span><\/i> she said. So began her longtime employment in the restaurant industry, including working for Danny Meyer\u2014who Rayna described as <\/span>\u201cone of the greatest, most prolific restauranters in the world.\u201d<\/span><\/i> She credits him with teaching her all about management and business growth.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n From there, Rayna went into tech, working with startups through Amazon and Groupon while pivoting to food blogging and Instagram\u2014before everyone jumped on the bandwagon of posting food-related content on that platform. Her account quickly became one of the largest in food, beverage, and travel.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI wasn’t under a magazine or anything like that,\u201d<\/span><\/i> she said. <\/span>\u201cI did all the photography myself. I built the website. I did all the writing on the website. I did all the outreach. I tried to forecast what the trends would be and what people wanted. With my background in restaurants and my love of food, it just made sense that people would want my advice, since I could really speak to it.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n Each had her own healthy following already, so when they launched the show, the pair had a warm audience\u2014including Ashley\u2019s hundreds of thousands of followers of her hilarious <\/span>Bros Being Basic <\/span><\/i>Instagram account, through which men spoof clich\u00e9 photos women often post.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI got 100,000 followers in five days,\u201d<\/span><\/i> Ashley shared. <\/span>\u201cI mean, it just skyrocketed. It\u2019s since peaked at around 900,000. A lot of that success was simple timing. I started in 2014, when there really weren’t a lot of humor or meme-based accounts. There was really nothing like it at the time. I don’t think you could achieve that same success today.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cThe same goes for the podcast. We weren\u2019t the first humor podcast about sex and dating, but we were early enough to get in there and achieve a lot of success.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n In fact, the pair knew they had something special with their podcast the very day they launched.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHonestly, we knew immediately,\u201d <\/span><\/i>Ashley said.<\/span> \u201cIt was pushed out to about 1,000,000 people on day one, in large part thanks to Rayna\u2019s following on <\/span><\/i>One Hungry Jew<\/span>. Prior to that, we had spent hours and hours recording, editing, planning, doing photo shoots, branding, teasing on Instagram\u2026 all those things. We treated this as a brand we were launching, as opposed to just tossing a 40-minute podcast out into the world to see if anyone liked it. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cThe feedback was immediate and so positive. We could feel it, and we were right. Personally, I consider myself so lucky to have met Rayna when I did. I already knew I wanted to do a podcast, and she was the right person to do it with me. It was literally a perfect storm of all the key factors for success. The entire trajectory of this show has only ever been upward. Of course, there have been times when it’s flatlined a bit, but it\u2019s always regained momentum.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cPeople continuously suggest us to their friends<\/span><\/i>,\u201d Rayna added. <\/span>\u201cWe have a fantastic website that has the full catalog of episodes, which we want new listeners to be able to come and listen to. This certainly has been a factor in our continuing to grow.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n In terms of that growth, Rayna added that leaning into what they both knew as single women in their 30s for content contributed significantly, as well.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe just dialed into what we wanted to talk about. It was like, how many different topics can we do around sex, dating, and relationships? What type of guests will be fun for us? At the same time, we looked at it from a business perspective\u2014it was important to us, and we wanted to treat it with respect. We respect our audience’s time every single week. We think a lot about our content in terms of what we know they want to hear from us.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cSo much of the live show is Ashley’s vision and creation,\u201d<\/span><\/i> Rayna said. <\/span>\u201cI had never been on stage a day in my life\u2014not even for a talent show. But I was always the girl who said the crazy stuff people didn\u2019t really expect. I never knew where to put that! Now, I do. And it\u2019s not a straight standup show. It\u2019s this crazy, fun, interactive thing. We get to be funny and do so much improv, and we’re so good together on stage, because really, we’re just trying to make each other laugh.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s gotten bigger and bigger every year, too. Every time we go back to a new city, we do a larger venue. We spend more money, adding more dancers, strippers, jets, t-shirt cannons\u2026 it’s gone from what was a show at Caroline\u2019s in 2018, where there were two chairs on stage and we read emails, to this giant \u2018circus\u2019 at the Chicago theater. To see people so excited about the brand that they want to spend their birthdays, bachelorettes, and parties with us is really special. I\u2019m so proud of it!\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cWe joke that it’s a safe space for thousands of people,\u201d<\/span><\/i> Ashley added. <\/span>\u201cIt\u2019s like, <\/span><\/i>\u2018Don’t let this leave the room!\u2019<\/span> Our live audience wants a party, and we have leaned into that more and more over the years. It’s just wild\u2026 we have dancers, music, drag queens\u2026 and there’s so much crowd participation. You truly never know what’s gonna happen. What we have created is a unique, one-of-a-kind experience you walk out of and just go, <\/span><\/i>\u2018What the hell just happened?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n With a full tour schedule beginning in 2023 and a weekly release of podcast episodes, it seems these friends and co-hosts have their hands full. Believe it or not, there is much more on the horizon for this forward-thinking power duo.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cRayna wants to start a Girls Gotta Eat real estate portfolio,\u201d<\/span><\/i> Ashley laughed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cShe says that like it\u2019s not an amazing idea!\u201d<\/span><\/i> Rayna interjected. <\/span>\u201cI\u2019ve been trying to start it for years already.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a tech company; it’s an app; it’s a sex toy company,\u201d<\/span><\/i> Ashley elucidated. <\/span>\u201cWe invented the first Bluetooth devices that pair with the audio in an app in an erotic content space.<\/span><\/i> And we plan to take over the world with it! The plan is to make it f*cking huge.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cThis is our current pivot, which was born out of the question we constantly ask ourselves\u2014what\u2019s next? Ashley and I never want to get comfortable in any type of success. We never have. We’ve always thought about next steps. What can we do better? What can we give our audience that they’re gonna love?\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cWe could have partnered with any sex toy company, but we didn’t. We designed every single product. We picked the colors. We designed the boxes and took care of the social media, and every person in the company is in-house. It’s really just us from the ground up. And that’s the pivot for now\u2014we\u2019ll continue doing <\/span><\/i>Girls Gotta Eat,<\/span> and we\u2019re adding Vibes Only to the full-time mix. We’re basically exhausted!\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cRight out of the gate, the response has been phenomenal,\u201d<\/span><\/i> Ashley added. <\/span>\u201cAs far as what\u2019s on the horizon, we never really know. Neither of us are really five-year-plan kind of girls. My life has just been about staying creative, pivoting, working hard, being nice to people, and just seeing what happens.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re more like, \u2018<\/span><\/i>Let’s plan the next six months to be really f*cking great. And then, we’ll see what the world looks like,\u2019\u201d Rayna agreed. <\/span>\u201cBut I would love for us to have a Netflix special or be on the cover of Forbes as tech\/sex moguls.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u201cEither way, as long as we keep getting ideas and people want it, we’ll keep doing the show,\u201d<\/span><\/i> Rayna concluded.<\/span><\/p>\n As Ashley and Rayna continue selling out their live shows and perpetually growing their audience, <\/span>Girls Gotta Eat<\/span><\/i> clearly isn\u2019t going anywhere anytime soon.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n September 2022<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ashley and Rayna joined forces to create the truly dynamic Girls Gotta Eat podcast four years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[3744,3539,3748,3746,3750,3753,3751,3752,3745,3749,58,3747],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWith over 26,000 reviews averaging 4.7 stars on Apple alone, there is little doubt that this show has reached the level of success many podcasters only dream about. Rayna and Ashley attribute that success to several factors\u2014including skill stacking.<\/span><\/h2>\n
![\"Girls](\"https:\/\/podcastmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Girls-Gotta-Eat-1024x1024.jpeg\")
Combining their skills, Ashley and Rayna joined forces to create the truly dynamic <\/span>Girls Gotta Eat <\/span><\/i>podcast four years ago.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\nThe podcast was so successful, so quickly, Ashley and Rayna soon added a live tour to the mix, resulting in what can arguably now be deemed a media enterprise.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n
In the meantime, the ladies have started an entirely separate, self-funded company, Vibes Only.<\/span><\/h2>\n