Melinda Garvey shares her motivation behind starting audible newsletter On the Dot.
By April Cumming
April 4, 2016, On The Dot was launched as an international daily newsletter designed to deliver the information and inspiration women need to start every day off right.
Each weekday, On The Dot features statistics about women in business, a profile on a woman making an impact in our world and an inspirational quote—all of which can be easily read in less than four minutes. However, as the voice and founder of the newsletter, Melinda Garvey knows stopping to read something for four minutes can be challenging on a busy morning, so she created On The Dot to be audible on the go, meaning listeners can tune in while driving the kids to school, on a morning run or while applying their mascara. In short, women can get ready with On The Dot.
On a recent morning, we sat down with Garvey to learn more about her mission.
Austin Woman: What’s On The Dot all about?
Melinda Garvey: On The Dot is all about providing relatable role models for women in business. We want to provide women with the information and inspiration they need every single day to advance their businesses, advance their careers and advance their lives. We feature a relatable role model every day—someone who can inspire you to do that thing you wanted to do, to start that business, to move up in your career—and it’s someone you can actually relate to, unlike a lot of the other super-big names and celebrities that are traditionally featured in business newsletters.
AW: What inspired you to start the daily newsletter?
MG: I knew I wanted to do something in the digital space, and I also know how time-starved women are; it’s just hard for us to find time to do anything. Although I like a lot of the podcasts that are out there interviewing women in business, most women I know don’t have 45 minutes to an hour to listen to a podcast. I felt like women needed more immediate access to these incredible, relatable role models. I also knew I wanted to make it short and quick. I wanted to make it snackable, if you will, so that our audience would be excited every morning to start their day with this inspiration and not feel like it was this arduous task they had to do. So, I knew with all that put together, a newsletter was the obvious choice. Then, one morning, I was trying to read something on my phone—a newsletter—and was hurrying to get ready and put on my mascara. I remember thinking, “Ug, I wish someone would read this to me!” That’s when I knew that it had to be audible. We wanted to make sure there was no barrier to entry for women.
AW: Who have been a few of your favorite women to feature so far?
MG: They all inspire me. Every day that I read or record another story, I actually get emotional about these women. It’s incredible! They just keep coming. It’s hard to pick a favorite because there are so many sectors where women are advancing and are making incredible strides. We hear about that glass ceiling a lot. Well, I’ll tell you, if you listen to On The Dot every morning, you will learn about a lot of shattered glass ceilings.
AW: What has been your proudest accomplishment with OTD so far?
MG: The fact that we can deliver really rich, deep content in four minutes or less, which is pretty incredible. I have an incredible team, and an editor and writer who have mastered the art of being able to give you something that’s bite-sized but also super impactful. It’s not just a cursory glance. I also feel proud of the fact that we are now in 41 states and 10 countries. We’re expanding globally, and that’s super exciting for me.
AW: How does one become an OTD ambassador?
MG: We have a great ambassador program called the Dot Squad. All you have to do is sign up and share On The Dot—with friends, colleagues or anyone who would love this—because the more we share our message and the message of all these women, the more change we can effect. That’s the best reason to become a part of the Dot Squad, not because of the bells and whistles, although we’ve got lots of fun perks, but really, it’s about how quickly we can grow this to make the kind of enormous impact that we know is possible.
AW: Share one goal you want to achieve with OTD in the year ahead.
MG: Honestly, my biggest goal for On The Dot is to grow it to be so big that it makes heads spin. If we have millions of women listening to this and being inspired by this every day—and, furthermore, using their pocketbooks to support the women they hear about, their businesses and products—think about the change that would be made.
AW: What’s one piece of advice you want to share with other women?
MG: You’ve got to follow your passions. Find something that is important to you and learn about it and just do it. Then never give up. We put our statistics in our By the Numbers section in On The Dot because I’m hoping that when a woman hears these statistics—maybe the fact that only 3 percent of creative directors are women—she says, “Well, that’s not OK. You know what? I’m going to change that. I’m going to make that my mission and I’m going to work toward that change.” Never underestimate how much impact you can have as an individual because every little something counts.
Subscribe to On The Dot at onthedotwoman.com and follow the OTD tribe on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @onthedotwoman.
