Work Mappers Podcast

About Work Mappers Podcast

Welcome to Work Mappers, where we believe in forging new paths but drawing a map for others. In this podcast, we'll hear from people who have carved out unexpected careers, built different types of businesses, or have gone against the grain within the workplace, all in an effort to create something better than what's come before. No set schedule, but we're ever on the lookout for the next Work Mapper. www.workmappers.com (https://www.workmappers.com?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Lydia Frank

Category

business · business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

27 Jul 2026

Latest episode

31 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

5 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   31 Aug 2026

   Ep. 04: Tori Dunlap - Financial Education as a Form of Protest for Women & How Her Business Went from $40 to Start to Millions in Revenue

   In this Work Mappers podcast episode, I talk to Tori Dunlap of Her First $100K (https://herfirst100k.com/). Tori started her business with just an audacious goal to save $100K by the time she was 25 years old and $40 to secure a web domain and a subscription to a website builder. She hit that first goal, and by age 28, she was a multi-millionaire teaching other women about personal finance. Her First $100K has millions of followers on social media and produces a wildly popular financial podcast for women, Financial Feminist (https://herfirst100k.com/financial-feminist-podcast/). Tori also published a book (https://herfirst100k.com/financial-feminist-book) of the same name that hit bestseller lists for The New York Times, WSJ, and Publisher’s Weekly. Her business also just made the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies list this month. Get full access to Work Mappers at www.workmappers.com/subscribe (https://www.workmappers.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

2. 

   10 Aug 2026

   Ep. 03: Micah Baldwin - Real Talk on the Lonely Life of Founders & How to Pushback on the Pressure to Keep Up Appearances

   In this episode, I talk to Micah Baldwin, former founder, current startup coach and Global Head of Strategic Partnerships for Microsoft for Startups. He started his first business when he was 9 years old and sold the last one about 10 years ago. Between those, he started or was early at six companies which raised a total of $350 million. After selling his last company, he spent time at Amazon, Madrona Ventures. I have always admired Micah for how open and vulnerable he's willing to be about his own founder journey and struggles from substance abuse to a bipolar diagnosis. Get full access to Work Mappers at www.workmappers.com/subscribe (https://www.workmappers.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

3. 

   10 Aug 2026

   Ep. 02: Geraldine DeRuiter & Rand Fishkin - A Better Way to Startup + Advice for Writers & Raccoons

   Opening (00:01) Welcome to Work Mappers, where we believe in forging new paths but drawing a map for others. We’ll talk to people who have carved out unexpected careers, built different types of businesses, or have gone against the grain within the workplace, all in an effort to create something better than what’s come before. I’m your host, Lydia Frank, and I’ll act as a bit of a workplace and career cartographer, helping our guests sketch a map of their journey so the road ahead becomes a bit clearer for the rest of us. Lydia Frank (00:37) Today I have with me two guests instead of one. I have Rand Fishkin and Geraldine DeRuiter. Rand Fishkin is a leading expert in SEO and audience intelligence. He is CEO and co-founder of three companies SparkToro, Alert Mouse, and Snack Bar Studio. He’s the co-author with Amanda Natividad of the upcoming Zero Click Marketing and 2018’s Lost and Founder, Geraldine DeRuiter, is the creator and voice behind the James Beard Award-winning blog The Everywhereist and author of If You Can’t Take the Heat, Tales of Food, Feminism and Fury, and All Over the Place, Adventures and Travel, True Love and Petty Theft. They also happen to be married and regularly extol one another’s virtues and supervillain qualities online. Rand and Geraldine, thank you so much for joining me today. Rand & Geraldine (01:37) Well thanks for having us. Yeah, great to be here. Lydia Frank (01:39) Rand, I’m gonna start with you. So many people first came to know you through your first startup, Moz, which initially started as a marketing consulting business. Can you kind of talk about how that business began and what kept you focused on that path even when it got challenging? Rand Fishkin (01:59) We didn’t stay focused, which was probably a good thing. I dropped out of college and started doing web design for my mom’s Jillians, my my co-founder at Moz small marketing consultancy. And we were terrible at web design and couldn’t make any money. And then we sort of fell back on a lot of like classic marketing stuff. That wasn’t going so well. And then we found this SEO thing. That’s what that’s what took off. So the early years were sticking to trying to make something work, but not sticking to any one path. Lydia Frank (02:32) What really let you know that SEO was the the thing that you should double down on, I guess? Rand Fishkin (02:39) Well it had a very clear win condition, right? So if you if you rank at the top of at the time Google and Yahoo and MSN search, you were good at it, right? That meant that meant you were good at it. And so it was very easy to prove to clients that we were good at it. Rand Fishkin (02:54) And it was very easy to find people who were willing to pay for that at the time. Lydia Frank (02:58) I’ve seen you speak in some other interviews, podcasts and various things about the beginnings of Moz. And I know there were a lot of ups and downs there. what what kept you doing that versus kind of throwing your hands up and going and getting a regular job? Rand Fishkin (03:16) Huh. I didn’t really have a choice. So yeah, Geraldine knows the whole sordid story. But my mom and I basically had gone deep into debt because of these failed machinations attempting to build the business, and we did not tell my dad, to whom my mom was still married at the time that we were in this debt and we we both feared that if he found out the consequences would be dire. So, I couldn’t really leave I felt like if I left and found a regular job, I would be abandoning my parents’ marriage to who knows what horrible things. Lydia Frank (03:51) Complicated. With Moz, once you found your footing there and and it moved from a consultancy into a tech company, you were pretty intentional about how you built the culture. what was TAGFEE? And are those still values you ascribe to today? dive into that a little bit for us. Rand Fishkin (04:13) Sure, so TAGFEE’s an acronym. It was created by Geraldine. Geraldine DeRuiter Thank you for not using those letters in a different order. We really appreciate that. Rand Fishkin Yeah, basically so I think you sort of ran this process, even though she was not paid to do it. Rand & Geraldine I think I was. I wasn’t paid a lot, but I think you did pay me some. good. Yeah. Well that’s great. Yeah. because it was after venture funding. Yeah. It was I was still drastically underpaid. I think I made $18 an hour for this project. Lydia Frank (04:45) But it was something, yeah. Rand & Geraldine (04:47) Yeah, above the fifteen dollar minimum wage. Absolutely. Yeah, so we basically ran this exercise where, you know, Geraldine had a survey that we sent out to everyone on the team and then I think you sat and interviewed everybody, right? Yeah, I talked to I think I primarily it was a much smaller team. It was like five of us, six of us. Yeah. And I talked to you guys about what you valued in the company. What were the things that you really cared about. And a lot of similar concepts came up. Everybody was saying kind of the same thing. And I just put a title on that. I was like, All right, everyone is saying authenticity. Everyone is saying that they want to be kind of the industry sort of exception, the one who does things a little bit differently. I’m now realizing I don’t remember any of the things that that TAGFEE stands for You got two of ‘em. Transparency. Lydia Frank (05:41) I think it’s yeah. Rand Fishkin (05:42) Yeah. Authenticity, generosity, fun, empathy, and the exception. And those yeah, those six sort of stayed with us for I think the entirety of my CEO tenure. And then when the new CEO took over, I encouraged her to to change the values, which took a couple of years, but eventually eventually they just got rid of them and didn’t I I don’t think they created new ones. But to the to the second part of your question, in a way, yes, those things are still important to me. Certainly empathy is still very important to me. professionally, fun too. Transparency less so. I don’t feel the same visceral pull to sort of build in public and like have to show everyone our books all the time and tell everyone all the time what’s going on internally. It just it seems less meaningful now. The culture around it has changed. Yeah. Yeah yeah I think that’s I think that’s probably true. And it I don’t know, there’s something around like, hey, we’re a tech software company founded by, you know, two white dudes. Let’s show everyone how great we’re doing. who cares? You know like, “Shut up.” Lydia Frank (06:55) Gotcha. What would you say is your most important values at this point for for your current companies? Rand Fishkin (07:02) Yeah, we have different ones. We use the same structure that we did with Geraldine back in the day for Spark Toro, but you can read about it online. It’s it’s BELUX. B-E-L-U-X. Rand Fishkin (07:12) If you search for that you’ll you’ll find those. I think the most important one for us is boundaried, which is what the the B stands for. Very different, right? Moz was no boundaries. Moz was, you know, work consumes all. It would, you know, it had that that sort of early tech startup culture of like life is work and like we’re a family, you know, that kind of thing. lots of problems there and plenty of regrets. But SparkToro is very boundaried. Amanda’s does not work weekends. Does doesn’t matter what’s going on. She nope, weekends, that’s family time, right? I I almost never work more than six hours in a day. Just doesn’t happen. And many days are three, four hours. Geraldine and I do a lot of travel. We we have another company together, right? That takes a lot of priority and takes a lot of time. We have friends and family stuff. last week my grandfather was in the hospital. We I think we went to see him four times, right? ‘Cause we’re yeah, like we’re just not Geraldine DeRuiter (08:08) I work about 45 minutes a day. Very productive. Extremely productive. Super productive 45 minutes, but no more than that. Lydia Frank (08:17) Time box, yeah. Geraldine DeRuiter (08:18) Makes even less than eighteen dollars an hour now. Also, for the record, I wanted BELUX to I wanted the acronym to be XLUBE, but I got completely got completely booted. But no, the problem was Elon had already taken that for his company. Lydia Frank (08:30) I like it. I like it. Lydia Frank (08:36) So the boundaried that’s so interesting because it’s so different than most startups, that you hear about. Do you think that’s stage of life or do you think that is just do you wish that had always been the case? Like if you were going back to your younger self, would you say this is how you should be thinking about building a business? Rand Fishkin (08:58) Yeah, I I think there is a component that’s stage of life. I think there’s you know, it’s absolutely true that when you’re in your 20s and early 30s you you have far fewer obligations and life complexities and health issues and ailing parents, so all all that kind of stuff. so yes, it is far easier to be unboundaried. I I think that You know, Amanda is a good bit younger than I am. Casey’s a little bit younger than I am, and and both of them are still very boundaried people, and I think that that’s a wonderful thing to be. I wish more people in the professional world were that way. We’ve started valuing it more. Like it’s been a big shift that we value it more as a culture. That that is also true, yes. I think it’s you know, it’s a twenty twenties era thing where it was rarely a 2000s or a 2010s era thing. Lydia Frank (09:53) Yeah, definitely. Geraldine, let’s talk about the early days of The Everywhereist. I know you’ve talked about the fact that your award winning blog, The Everywhereist, started after a layoff. Can you talk about those early days and kind of what led you to launch your blog initially? Geraldine DeRuiter (10:11) Yeah, I think a lot of weed actually. Lydia Frank (10:13) Yeah. Geraldine DeRuiter (10:15) Peer pressure really. I mean it was let’s see, so it’s 2008. I’m about to turn 28 I’ve just lost my job. So I thought, well, I have so much wisdom to share. Yeah, just so much. I have Lydia Frank (10:36) So much life experience. Geraldine DeRuiter(10:39) No, I need to tell the world about everything I’ve learned. Lydia Frank (10:45) Ha ha ha. Geraldine DeRuiter (10:46) and everyone had a blog in 2008, right? It was Lydia Frank (10:49) Sure. Geraldine DeRuiter (10:49) the heyday of blogs. And I had right before social media. Yeah, it really was. Like I think Twitter was kind of, Lydia Frank (10:56) Definitely. Geraldine DeRuiter (10:58) Twitter would become a thing a couple years later. We were both super early adopters to Twitter and I was getting a lot of pressure from my soon-to-be husband and Lydia Frank (11:08) Ha ha ha. Geraldine DeRuiter (11:10) A lot of my friends who were in the tech world they were like you should start a blog. They’re like, look, you wanna have more of a writing career. I had a bit of a an editorial career in my last job. I was creating content for toys and games, but I wanted to do more in that space. And they were like, just start a blog, it’ll be essentially your online portfolio. And my degree was in journalism, and I thought, okay, that’s what that’s what I’m going to do. I n I thought that it was essentially going to be kind of a living resume when I started it. And then it just turned into a multi-headed hydra of its own. And so it, know, it became bigger and bigger. And in the end, I was like, wow, the thing that I did while I was looking for another job is now my job. Lydia Frank (12:03) There’s so many people I feel right now who are impacted by layoffs and, you know, are are kind of looking at reinventing themselves and trying to figure out what’s next. And not everyone’s looking to go back to a full time career. and I a lot of people too. I mean, there’s talk about portfolio careers and different revenue streams and I mean Rand’s a perfect example. Like one company was not enough, he has three, right? You know, so I Geraldine DeRuiter (12:33) Well that’s a psychological problem though that we we do need to address. That’s not I don’t think we should encourage that. Ad (12:47) If you like what you’re hearing so far on the Work Mappers podcast, remember to leave a review, follow us, or like us on your various podcast apps. That helps the show keep going. Or you can subscribe at WorkMappers.com. Lydia Frank (13:04) What lessons would you share, for people who maybe are thinking about launching a a writing career or a platform of some sort, post layoff? Geraldine DeRuiter (13:14) I think especially if you are an artist of any kind, is like you need to take the pressure off of yourself. There is this idea of, I’m going to sell a book, I’m going to make money, I create and I’m going to make a living doing this in two months, six months, or whatever. I you know, I see people doing that. They’re like, in one year, all of my revenue is gonna come from this. I’m like, wow, just First of all, ease up because you have such little control over that. What you have control over is essentially your output. You know, how much you create. That’s what you have control over. The revenue stream and and all of that is really subject to a thousand factors, many of which are beyond your control. and I think that we also have this idea of like artistic purity that we put on people where if you’re not doing just creating and if you’re not putting all of your energy in this and if you have a side hustle or a job that actually pays your bills that is somehow corporate or less poetic I’m supporting my family on this job but it is not my true artistic endeavor you know we look down on that, and I don’t think that that’s fair. There’s nothing wrong with doing something that pays the bills. The number of friends I have who are like, I’m writing tech manuals, and that pays the bills. And on the side, I get to be a travel writer, and that brings me joy. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. You are a professional writer. You know, you are living the dream. And and yet we give people so much crap for that. We put so much pressure on them to be like, no, you need to be it needs to be 100% artistic. It doesn’t. That’s not how the world works. Lydia Frank (15:05) Well, and I even I mean, at the time, was that even a vision for you that this would be a revenue generator, that this would be a job? Geraldine DeRuiter (15:14) Absolutely not. No, absolutely not. And if we’re one transparent about things, even though I realize that’s passe in like a 2008 kind of way. My writing career, I’m by all measures a a very successful writer. I’ve had two books go to auction. One was a national bestseller. My blog was when I maintained it, which I do not as of late was ludicrously well read. You know, Time magazine listed it on one of their top 25 blogs like over a decade ago. It was on all the, travel blogs of the year, and then it was on all the whatever blogs of the year. Not a lucrative endeavor at all. I do not get paid well at all. And I’m talking like I make less if I think about per hour of work as an author and as a blogger. Lydia Frank (16:10) Right. Geraldine DeRuiter (16:11) I make way less than I ever did working at an office job. Lydia Frank (16:15) Right. So from the outside it may appear as if there’s all this the accolades and the things, you know, but it doesn’t necessarily translate to income. Geraldine DeRuiter (16:24) The success is there. Yeah. Yeah. The success is there. Like I am a successful writer. You can be a ludicrously successful writer and not make money from writing. And I’m not complaining. Like I love what I do, but Lydia Frank (16:35) A hundred percent. Yeah. Right. Geraldine DeRuiter (16:40) that’s you know, there’s a disconnect there. Lydia Frank (16:43) Yeah. Yeah. I also majored in journalism. Not only journalism, but print journalism. Geraldine DeRuiter (16:49) Did you go to the UW? Lydia Frank (16:54) I didn’t. I went to Central Washington, but I don’t think anybody went into that profession thinking, I’m doing this for wealth, you know. so yeah. Geraldine DeRuiter (16:59) Yeah. Yeah. No, I also also majored in print journalism Lydia Frank (17:05) Yes. Geraldine DeRuiter (17:05) in the late ‘90s. We had one like portion of one class that was digital media and it was I don’t know the internet, not really a legitimate place for to get your articles published. Lydia Frank (17:23) I know. I really credit my journalism professor with saving my career, honestly, because she forced the graduating seniors to take an HTML class that she was giving, and we all had to do like “hello world” websites kind of thing. And we were all saying, What is this? Why do we have to do this? And that is absolutely what helped me get all of my jobs essentially is that I knew any kind of HTML. I could code and write. It was like, whoa, you know, in back in the early 2000s, but I don’t want to age myself too much. One thing that I have loved about, seeing both of you online and and talking about your careers and talking about each other is that you really support one another, people who’ve kind of followed you over time have gotten to know, the other one a little bit because of your obvious love and support for each other. and how long have you been together? Something like 25 years or something like that? Rand Fishkin (18:25) 25 years in December. Lydia Frank (18:28) Amazing. But how have you managed those kind of career ups and downs kind of as a couple? What’s been important to you in terms of showing up for each other in that realm? Rand Fishkin (18:41) Do you wanna go first I mean it’s it’s sort of interesting. I think we’re There’s a ton of emotional support, but there’s also a you know “buck up kiddo” like you get to work, right which I think is a healthy balance, right? So Geraldine was always very supportive of my career at Moz through awful turbulent just BS that happened around venture capital world. You know poor hiring decisions and all that kind of stuff. And but she was also like, Okay, you made your bed, now lie in it, like go go make this work, right? And I think you would have been supportive if I’d quit, but yeah, while I was in it. Geraldine DeRuiter Because you wanted to be in it, right? So as long as you’re in it. Rand Fishkin And I’ve been the same way with the video game. Sorry. Geraldine DeRuiter I think I think at least once a week it’s usually me, but it’s occasionally you. One of us will go to the other and just say, I am an abject failure. And the other one will go, Okay. That’s that’s the kind of all right, that’s that’s the kind of day we’re having. And it’s like, Okay, tell me why you’re an abject failure. Hmm, okay. Okay, that’s where that’s where we are. Uh-huh. And is this a feeling or is it rooted in fact? Lydia Frank (20:11) Ha ha Rand Fishkin (20:12) So we have a lot of that. And then it becomes, well, abject failure. You need to, do your work anyway. Yeah. so We sort of we sort of have a rule, which we apply to other people as well, right? Which is that like we are 100% empathetic. You can whine to us, complain about anything. We’re here to support you as long as you’re doing something to fix it. Yep. Yeah. The only rule is you you can’t complain about something you’re doing nothing, even medical stuff, right? So I’ll have I have lots of unfortunately medical problems, you know, but Geraldine’s approach is like she’s here, she’s listening, she’s empathetic. And when’s your doctor’s appointment? And are you seeing a new specialist? Then when are you gonna right like all that kind of stuff? You can complain, but you gotta do something. Lydia Frank (20:56) Right, right, right. That is that’s fair. I like it. so speaking Rand you mentioned, leaving Moz and the end of that chapter of your career. I know that that didn’t end the way that you wanted or you hoped. and that I don’t think is rare, for founders or startups. Can you share a bit about Moz’s ending chapters and the big lessons you feel like you learned from that period? Rand Fishkin (21:22) The technical end for me was the start of 2018, but that had been a process that was a negotiation for multiple years, like like literally two years of negotiations. the book that you mentioned earlier, Lost and Founder, which you can kinda see on the shelf above me. that book in particular caused a massive rift between the members of the board of directors and the leadership team at Moz and myself. there was a lot of fear about what I would put in the book. and they attempted to negotiate with me and my publisher to get an advanced copy, which Geraldine can tell you more about Publishing World, but that is absolutely not gonna Well and I think the White House does not get a copy of, you know, books from former staffers, right? Lydia Frank (22:11) Yeah. Rand & Geraldine (22:11) And I think they thought that they would have sway too over it. Yeah. Lydia Frank (22:14) Right. Rand Fishkin (22:15) That mess created a unreconcilable tension, that mess and others. Irreconcilable tension that led to my somewhere between I left voluntarily and I was dismissed. And it it’s kind of halfway in the middle. That departure did come with and I I give the company full credit and and the CEO did come with a nice severance package. I got I got twice what a normal person would get in severance. So that helped us really like stay solvent for that first year ‘cause it we had a mortgage, we had just bought a house when I got when I learned that I was going to be leaving. Lydia Frank (22:54) Yeah. Rand Fishkin (22:56) Yes. question from the peanut gallery. Lydia Frank (22:58) Yes, Geraldine. Geraldine DeRuiter (23:01) I just I will say that I think you were very even handed in your book. I think I yeah, I think you were actually quite kind. I think there I once they read it, I think they were they breathed a sigh of relief, right? But but they were just yeah. Lydia Frank (23:17) Maybe the fear was unfounded. Yeah. Geraldine DeRuiter (23:19) And I because I wrote about one of the instances it spilled over to me, which that’s not supposed to happen. Rand Fishkin That’s not supposed to happen. Rand & Geraldine (23:32) not supposed to yeah that’s not supposed to happen but anyway and I had to Lydia Frank (23:36) Involved the spouse. Yeah. Rand Fishkin (23:38) meet I had to meet with the legal with my publisher’s Lydia Frank (23:41) My goodness. Rand & Geraldine (23:42) legal team because they were like that’s right. They were like, this is they’re like this is intent so I met with legal and we had to change some names Rand & Geraldine (23:51) and do some stuff. that’s right. Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah. So Yeah. So very messy departure. And you kept Lydia Frank (23:57) Yeah. Rand & Geraldine (23:58) it cleaner than I if I would have burned I would have the gasoline and matches that I would have lent to burn those bridges. We we have we have different approaches to people who’ve wronged us, right, Lydia. Like my my approach is who cares? They don’t matter anymore. And Geraldine’s approach iss you’re gonna pay. Right? Like it’s all over for you. Your great-grandchildren will tell tales of me. But here’s the thing too, like, and I think a lot of people are like this. There is a specific type of, you did something to me that sucked. You did something to my loved one. Unforgivable. Unforgivable, right? I think so many people are like that. Yes. Yeah. Lydia Frank (24:40) Absolutely. Yeah. Can you talk about your current businesses, Rand and and talk about your approach to launching those and what feels different than that last startup experience? Rand Fishkin (24:54) Yeah, so SparkToro is a company I founded with with Casey Henry, who’s a a lovely, semi curmudgeonly but heart of gold, sweetheart of a man, who also lives in the Seattle area with his family and and two kids. He’s very boundary and prioritizes his family very much, which is just lovely. He is sort of runs all the engineering side of the business and I run like the product and marketing side, although he’s doing more with product, I’m very proud of him. And Casey and I started having discussions, yeah, after I left Moz around this. I had already started a website with a with the name SparkToro, but because I knew that we didn’t know what we wanted to do or what I wanted to do with the company yet. I gave it a name that could be anything. Right? Like SparkToro doesn’t mean anything. I don’t know. We could sell, you know, plasma for whales. It’s just totally agnostic. I’m not sure if we need a fourth one. Lydia Frank (26:00) Write that one down, yeah. Rand Fishkin Yeah, the founding of that took an interesting shape in that we because we wanted to do things really differently, we talked to an attorney about setting up a unique sort of funding structure. and that funding structure, by the way, is open sourced. so anyone can raise money using our docs, and several people have. In fact, I have another pitch from some friends in the UK who are who are using that same structure now. Our friend Scott Heimedinger used it for his ultrasonic knife business. Rob Walling and his team used it for the tiny seed investment thesis and and their structure, which which Geraldine and I are investors in. and basically it it’s sort of a what if you want to build a chill work company that is not designed to be a billion-dollar exit or die trying? What if you want to make something that maybe has revenue in the few million dollars a year? But is profitable and pays dividends. Geraldine DeRuiter What if you only want to be a multimillionaire? Rand Fishkin (27:05) Yes, or even a you know, or even a business that makes only a few hundred thousand dollars but only raises maybe a hundred K and pays back its investors and then everyone gets dividends every year. There was just no place in startup world for dividend stocks instead of growth stocks, you know, like there are in the public markets. That seemed ridiculous to us, and so we we invented this and you can download the docs on our website, use them for free, save yourself some money, and raise any amount. So artists can use it to raise, you know, fifty K to start a sculpture business. Like yeah. So that Lydia Frank (27:40) Yeah. And it feels different, it sounds like, than Yeah. Rand Fishkin (27:45) Feels super different. Though because the incentives are different, the focus of everyday life and work is different, right? It it’s a lot of, hey, how do we get profits up? How do we stay solvent? How do we make this thing work rather than how do we burn ourselves and most probably the company out at at breakneck speed with a with the tiny 1 % chance that we might make it? Right, because success is attainable for this capital. Right. It’s a very attainable type of success. Exactly. and Lydia Frank (28:17) Well, in the the long term goal, I feel like for venture capital, like always the long term goal tends to be an exit, right? Like you’re trying to get to some type of exit. Like for this model yeah, Rand Fishkin (28:28) Yeah, a monopoly and an exit. Lydia Frank (28:30) For this model, I would assume that’s not necessarily the goal, right? Is to get to an exit. Rand Fishkin (28:35) That’s exact exactly right. If nobody ever buys SparkToro and no one’s ever interested, or Alert Mouse or Snack Bar Studio, it doesn’t matter. We we can profitably make money, right? And SparkToro does. In fact, SparkToro a couple years ago paid back its investors the full what did we raise? 1.3 million dollars that we raised. All of our investors have their money back. And now we get to pay dividends per rata. Lydia Frank (29:02) Hmm. So the investors still get dividends like after their money was paid back? That’s great. Rand Fishkin (29:02) Great little model and informs how we build. Mm-hmm. For for the life of the business. Lydia Frank (29:09) Yeah, yeah. Super interesting. and I love hearing that because I think so many people that I talk to that are starting businesses feel torn where they they feel like they need to raise capital in order to make their business idea work, but they feel like the only options are venture, you know, and aren’t sure kind of how to how to do it a different way. And yeah, and I did hear you speak about this at recently at an event and yeah, yeah. Rand Fishkin (29:42) That’s right. Yeah, the startup week thing, right? Because so yeah, what Geraldine and I, when I when I left Moz, right, I mentioned like we were in somewhat of a financial panic, right? We were like, Okay, health insurance, how do we do that? That’s why I started SparkToro the day after I left Moz is because we need health insurance. and we had the mortgage and just general expenses and stuff. Without raising money, Casey and I couldn’t have started the company. Like we didn’t have the money to do it. It wouldn’t have been possible. This structure was invaluable for us. Granted, I talked about this too. A few years later, I think in ‘21, ‘22 Moz did sell to a private equity firm. I was off the board of directors, wasn’t part of the process at all. I have comments. yeah, it was terrible. Terrible, terrible deal. Like no nobody made money except the investors and us. And and you know, we did get a giant check from that. which is still ridiculous. I feel lucky every day for it. When SparkToro started, that would not it wasn’t an option. Yeah. I think there’s something else too, which is that raising going the V C route can be you can have a successful company that is, you know, stable and doing fine and then taking V C will be the death knell of it. Yeah. and that I think While not entirely true for Moz, in a way. Yeah. Really kind of harmed it way more than helped it. And I see that yeah, I’ve watched people do it. I’ve just so many watched it happen again and again. And it’s you know Yeah, we have a we have a good friend, several good friends who worked for a company and were founders of a company, w which I won’t mention who they are because it’s not it’s not our story to tell. Lydia Frank (31:26) Sure, sure. Rand Fishkin (31:26) Yeah, they you know they they raised their I think their first couple rounds were like great and the company did extremely well and like had huge success during COVID when, you know, everything was dying, Lydia. And then they raised a huge amount more to try and become this billion dollar, you know, behemoth and you know, and everyone I we we went out to dinner and I was like, don’t do it, man. Don’t don’t do it. But just that’s the narrative. It’s good enough. But that’s Geraldine DeRuiter (31:56) No one’s couldn’t stop. No one’s sold the narrative of that. No one’s no one’s been told good enough is good enough. Yeah. Right? Like you can end Lydia Frank (32:04) Yeah, yeah. Geraldine DeRuiter (32:04) The story there. It’s almost like gambling, right? It’s almost like being in Vegas. And it’s like, no, you’re you’re actually good. You’ve made your money back. You’ve paid for the trip. Geraldine DeRuiter (32:15) You can go home and be happy Lydia Frank (32:17) Know when to walk away. Rand & Geraldine (32:18) and like buy your spouse something nice, buy the kids something nice, everything’s good, and it’s like, no. What are the odds? It’s it’s so heartbreaking. Well, and now yeah. Lydia Frank (32:25) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Rand Fishkin (32:30) I won’t get into it, but now that now I think everyone at that company would agree that that destroyed it and the house always wins. Lydia Frank (32:41) That’s such a good metaphor too, because you can stand up from the table and walk away with a good profit there and the pull is so strong and I feel like that is the case so often in the startup ecosystem as well, unfortunately. You’ve had to go through a lot of hard things in your in your journeys here. Geraldine, I’ll start with you actually. You mentioned, obviously, that the Everywhereist got wildly successful. and even if it didn’t bring in a ton of income, it it got a a ton of attention. It got a lot of accolades. But with that positive attention also comes negative attention, right? You had a couple pieces go super viral, both of which I had to read again because I loved them so much the first time and I read them again before this and I was like, still love them both so much. Geraldine DeRuiter (33:28) Thank you. Lydia Frank (33:30) One being about Chef Mario Batali’s insufficient apology letter and the fact that he included the cinnamon roll recipe inexplicably, which you then made and you know raged about during your article and the other being a strong critique of a Michelin star restaurant in Italy where both of you had a memorable 20 course non meal it sounds like but that level of attention I’m sure is both exciting and it’s terrifying. Would you write those pieces again knowing what you know now? Geraldine DeRuiter (34:09) yeah. Lydia Frank (34:09) about the attention and both the positive and negative that you received? Geraldine DeRuiter (34:14) Yeah, yeah, I would. Rand Fishkin I don’t think those two pieces garnered nearly the negative attention of some of your more popular social posts. Geraldine DeRuiter (34:23) Absolutely. no question. because the thing that I always say is like I got death threats when I was just like a dinky travel blogger. I mean there were like 12 people reading my blog and there were you know, two of them were people telling me I needed to be murdered. So the fact that I’m like you didn’t include their favorite Bavarian foods in your list of Bavarian foods. Yeah, so so so no question there. And yeah, to Rand’s point, the time that I wrote that the joker should have been a woman on Twitter. Lydia Frank (34:55) I remember that, too. Geraldine DeRuiter (34:56) Yeah, was that the number one? That might no. God, there’s one guy who I don’t know if I blocked him or not. He’s followed me to every social media platform and ever for like decade like a decade now. And every now and then he’ll be like, hey, why do you hate men? And I’m like, I’m like, my God, dude, I how are you still at it? And he got really mad at me. He got on my radar and got really mad at me about a post I wrote about Mountain Dew. Lydia Frank (35:29) Gosh. Geraldine DeRuiter (35:31) That post did well. That post did well. But a bunch of people got really mad about it because I insulted their god. Their one ultimate deity that they follow. Code red blue flavor. Lydia Frank (35:45) Ha ha. Geraldine DeRuiter (35:46) There’s no such thing. Unfortunately, I know this. so yeah, so I would I wouldn’t a second, because one, i you know, I hate to say this, the abuse is ubiquitous, regardless. So you might as well have success. and the other thing too is that there I I don’t please do not misinterpret what I’m about to say because I don’t think that it justifies any of it, but there from enough of an academic distance, I did learn and have been able to dissect a lot of how these, people operate. And it has been valuable information. It was really interesting. I was giving talks about this, a decade ago. I was giving talks about the way that we are radicalizing young people and how it’s going to lead to in-person violence and how de-platforming is the only solution and how if we allow these people onto major platforms, we could see a massive societal shift to right wing policies and and you know exacerbating like just widespread hate. and changing the definition of what right wing policy meant. Like when we were you know Yeah, used to not be used to just be Republican and now it’s Nazism. And I started…I remember I gave the one presentation where I was like it could lead to extreme in person violence. And I was like, man, am I making a connection between people saying they’re going to abuse you online and then I’m saying radicalization that’s going to lead to violence in person. I’m like, but this is what the evidence says. And I gave this talk a decade ago and now I’m like, so I’m grateful for that experience, I guess. I don’t know. Lydia Frank (37:37) I’m wondering though, because I feel like especially women online, unfortunately, experience a lot of that hate and violent talk and and threats and things. you know, women, people of color, like, yes, yes. Geraldine DeRuiter (37:55) And and I was gonna say and women of color get it. I think women of color are the group that is more abused than any other by like a magnitude of… Lydia Frank (38:04) Hundred percent. Yeah. Rand & Geraldine (38:07) I think it’s like 30x. I mean it’s insane. Lydia Frank (38:09) Is there any I guess having experienced maybe more of that than your average person because you have been so visible online? Is there advice you’d give to somebody who maybe is experiencing that for the first time? you know, what to do about it? And is it ignore it? Is it reported? Is it, you know, like what’s the right thing to do? Geraldine DeRuiter (38:33) Block instant I mean instant blocking. Instant blocking. Ignore any attempts to reason with, rationalize, engage in conversation or shame. Instant blocking. If you want to screen cap, block, and then shame them, that’s great. That’s a good that is fine. You can do that. Lydia Frank (38:54) Good order. Geraldine DeRuiter (38:55) Yeah, that’s a fine way. but really the thing is the the big way that we can affect change in this entire sphere is by deplatforming. and it’s proven that that works, right? Milo Yannopoulos or whatever his name was, I’ve forgotten because he got deplatformed back when we did that. and he’s back on the Elon Line and back on. Yeah, of course he did. But he was so basically it just took the wind out of his sails. And that works. And I think that’s why Elon bought Twitter, right, was to re-platform a lot of right and like give Trump a chance at the presidency again and you know, all this kind of stuff, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, because that, Lydia Frank (39:41) Yeah. People bringing that hateful rhetoric and yeah, yeah. Geraldine DeRuiter (39:47) You know, I think that’s like something he really values in the world he the world that he wants to live in is full filled with that hate, right? And he’s looking for more of it. And so, you know, we we’ve sort of financially and legally giving it given him the framework to do it. Absolutely. yeah, and the other piece of advice I would be is, you know, f follow there are a lot of women who are writing about this. There are a lot of women who are dealing with it. Follow them. Monica Lewinsky has done a ton of work in this space. Nina Yankovitz, who was the former disinformation czar under Biden. she’s a fantastic follower. She is and she also literally wrote a book about it. I can’t remember what it’s called. Is it the war on women? Yeah, so there’s there’s a lot of there’s a lot of people who are writing about these experiences and who are offering better advice than I could about this. and I think realizing that You know, having again it sounds silly to say boundaries, but like blocking these people and and talking to other people who understand what’s going on because if you’ve got friends who are deeply offline, it’s really hard to be like, hey, so somebody on the social media platform said they were gonna murder me and then they posted my address. Like I feel weird. Lydia Frank (41:20) Yeah. Geraldine DeRuiter (41:21) It’s hard to explain what that’s like to someone who’s not at all familiar with that space. Lydia Frank (41:26) Totally. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Rand Fishkin (41:27) Nina’s book, by the way, which I think is excellent too, is “How to Be a Woman Online. Lydia Frank (41:33) Thank you. Thank you. Rand, you mentioned, you know, your book “Lost and Founder.” I wanted to touch on that for a moment because you you’ve shared in that book and and other places kind of the emotional toll that kind of founding and running a company like Moz took on you as well as as that separation from the company. And I think it’s rare, you know, for founders to share that struggle, to share that maybe there was something emotional, that mental health was not in the best place, you know, during periods of running a company. and I don’t think the struggle is rare. can you talk about how you navigated that and ultimately got through it to something better? Rand Fishkin (42:24) Yeah, I mean, world’s smallest violin, right? Like it’s not does doesn’t I think rise to the level of huge problem in society, but I I would say that… Lydia Frank (42:39) The only reason I’ll stop you there is I feel like anybody’s mental health rises to the level of problem and society. I mean, I I I think you’re allowed you’re allowed, you know, to have challenges. Everybody is, you know. Yeah. Rand Fishkin (42:52) Sure. Yeah, no, I think I that that’s fair. I I guess I would just say like yeah, wealthy white Seattle tech entrepreneur is sad that his company only made him a few million dollars. You know, that’s like not quite the tragic story. no one can believe it. no, let’s see, my my only big bit of advice and the I think I feel good about the fact that I think we’ve done a good job with this is to give yourself permission to change the rules. Change the criteria for success. Right? If you change the criteria for success to something that is achievable, you can feel very successful and and make you know plenty of money or have a plenty successful career or do whatever it is, you you don’t need to be the you know, 1 in 10 million who managed to build a billion dollar company or or a hundred million dollar company that. Lydia, I don’t know to what degree this is an odd thing to say, but like Geraldine and I know more than a handful, but but less than a few dozen people who have ha been wildly successful. Like like a hundred million dollars plus for them personally. A lot of them and they’re not cool anymore. Do you know what I mean? Like it’s like they can’t empathize with the rest of…people. We almost never see them except maybe at an event here or there or something. Rand & Geraldine (44:41) They have these very surface-level interactions with you, like there’s no there’s no connection anymore. I think they’re scared to be a real person in front of other people. Wealth like has turned them into yeah, absolutely I think it’s kind of destroyed them. Lydia Frank (44:53) Hmm. You feel like money is corrupting in some way? Rand & Geraldine (44:58) In a way I I’m not saying that if I had to go back in time I would make all the same mistakes, but I’m somewhat grateful that we didn’t become, you know, nine figure wealth people who are disconnected from society and not me, I want to be a Bond villain. but wait I usually those things go together. It d it doesn’t matter. no it it is this I almost feel like you s you have to they start to in a weird way, they can’t accept what’s happened so they start to justify it. Right? Yeah. Like they’re like, Wow, there is ‘cause nobody deserves to be insanely wealthy. Like nobody’s say what you will, you didn’t earn it. Like nobody’s coal mined their way to being a millionaire. There I guarantee you every single every single tech founder I know who’s ever made tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, none of them have ever in their day worked as hard as most school janitors. Rand & Geraldine (46:06) Not one day. Yeah. Lydia Frank (46:08) No, it’s so interesting though, because I think it is a bit of like a mind F a little bit, you know, like when you get that level of wealth, to try to cope with that, understand it, like to your point, justify how that happened to you and not to somebody else. And and I and I think too, you know, you see so many examples stories too of people realizing that didn’t lead to like their problems don’t go away, you know, just because money came. You are still the same person, you still have the same like issues that you had the day before. and I you know Rand & Geraldine (46:52) I like I like half agree with that. I half agree with that. Lydia Frank (46:54) Yeah. Rand & Geraldine (46:55) I will say the the the day that we got that like it was it wasn’t a check, it was a deposit. Lydia Frank (46:59) Emotional, maybe. Rand Fishkin (47:02) But like that same day we were able to send our nieces to college. We had a friend who passed away and like we started a college fund for their kids and we helped Gerald Dean’s brother buy a house. But I think that’s because we were just we were happy before. The problems that we solved were money problems. Geraldine DeRuiter (47:27) Yeah, but a lot of problems are actually money problems. I agree. No, I 100% agree. I 100% agree that okay, here’s let’s see where I go. Let’s see where I go. Rand Fishkin Uh-oh. Lydia Frank (47:32) I’m on the path with you. I’m on the path. Okay. Geraldine DeRuiter (47:35) I 100% agree that a a lot of problems that people have are money problems. I think a lot of people who have the brains that make them get crazy amounts of money that they amass it or like whatever the circumstances that lead to it. They don’t actually have money problems a lot of them, right? They are coming from positions of privilege for sure wealth a lot of the time, right? Like didn’t Bezos like his parents gave him $500,000 Gates was already a wildly wealthy. Yeah, Gates went to like one of the best schools here, right? . Lydia Frank (48:16) Yeah. Geraldine DeRuiter (48:17) So they Zuckerberg’s super wealthy. They’re not coming their problems are that they suck. Right? And so like then they become wealthy and they’re like, “Oh no, I still suck. I guess I should buy a bunch of satellites and hold, you know, Ukraine hostage.” Which I guess will make them forget the fact that they’re incompetent lovers. Who will never know true joy. I mean, I think that’s really I have questions. Who’s your target demographic for this podcast again? I’m never getting invited back. I’ll show myself out. This is this happened last time I went on NPR too. Lydia Frank (48:55) I love it. I love it. Well, one thing I do want to touch on before we before we move off too far, is, the couple pieces that you wrote that did go viral, Geraldine, they kind of both touched on the restaurant industry or kind of hospitality. And you ended up also writing a book that was touching on those issues as well. What drew your attention there and what made you want to shine a light on challenges in that industry? Geraldine DeRuiter (49:38) You know what I think is interesting is I was actually at the point where I was just writing whatever interested me on the blog. and so it happened to be that those were the pieces that people latched on to. and so it was less that I was writing a lot of pieces about the food industry because I wasn’t. I think I was writing a lot of pieces about a lot of stuff. I didn’t write that much about food. It just happened that the few pieces that I did write about food did very, very well. And so that became the proof of concept that maybe I should become a food writer. So it was kind of weird. It kind of went backwards the way I think it normally does. Lydia Frank (50:15) Yeah. Geraldine DeRuiter (50:15) And once you win a James Beard Award, they force you. Like the the whole committee, they come to your house, they’re like, you’re writing about food now. But I feel… Lydia Frank (50:23) That’s what you do. Geraldine DeRuiter (50:24) and I’ve I’ve talked to Rand about this. I actually feel like I’ve squandered that opportunity a bit in a lot of ways. Because I didn’t go, I you know, I had a conference, I had a conflict, it was a lot of money. They don’t pay you, they don’t pay to fly you out, which is understandable. Like there are not like there’s not a lot of money in James Beard awards. there’s not a lot of money in that. And so I I didn’t go out. And I think if I had, I would have met people and I would have been able to get more entrenched in the food industry. This is the thing, right? Like for all intents and purposes, like I have succeeded in this field and I’m still like, man, I think I’ve really messed up. I think I’ve really squandered some opportunities. Lydia Frank (51:09) I think you’re gonna have one of those failure conversations later today, Rand, where Geraldine’s like, Mm… Geraldine DeRuiter (51:13) We already had one. Rand Fishkin Okay, can we just save this part of the interview? I wanna bring this back when Geraldine wins a bunch of awards for her writing on Snack Bar at the end of the world. Like I just ne I need this to air right after she wins. Lydia Frank (51:27) There you go. There you go. Perfect. Geraldine DeRuiter (51:30) God, god. Lydia Frank (51:34) I would love to know what you both are most kind of excited about and focused on right now. Rand Fishkin (51:41) I mean the video game comes out next year. We haven’t announced exactly the date yet, but that that announcement is coming this fall. Geraldine DeRuiter I put a York peppermint patty in the freezer, super psyched about that. That’s gonna be good. Rand Fishkin Actually that’s a pretty good idea. doesn’t rise to the level of… Lydia Frank (51:55) Can you explain what the video game’s about at all? Rand Fishkin (51:58) So the Snack Bar at the End of the World is a top down 1960s themed Italy-based video game in which you play a chef in a magical small town Italy and you run a restaurant with your brother and during the day you go out and forage and fight magical tomatoes and we just we just created the new zucchini enemy that runs screaming away from you. So cute. It’s so cute. And then it and then it jumps in the ground and like burrows into the ground when it’s…And then you have a you have a surly little mocha pot that follows the cafetere. Like the little Italian percolator that helps you fight enemies. and then there is this, you know, overarching theme of fighting encroaching fascism, with the power of community and good food. Yeah. Lydia Frank (52:49) Love it. I love it. One quick thing I’ll say as we’re we’re wrapping up here is that this podcast partially is about kind of drawing maps for people, to help them understand how you’ve forged a path and how they might learn from from what you’ve done. Who do you think we drew maps for today? Who do you think would most benefit from some of the things that we talked about today? Geraldine DeRuiter (53:15) Three raccoons in a trench coat. Rand Fishkin That’s great. Lydia Frank (53:17) This is our target audience. Rand Fishkin (53:21) That’s great. Turns out raccoon population of Seattle huge. I certainly think that anyone who’s thinking about starting their own business especially in software, I I hope that the example of wait, I don’t need V C, I don’t need someone else’s permission, I could go raise my small amount of money that I need for whatever, for my video game, for my software company and and do that in a way that is more chill and more achievable. I hope that has helped. And and I also, you know, I think the realities of the situation that like being an award winning writer does not necessarily pay the bills. And I think monetization of artistic careers is truly challenging. But I mean like one of my big hopes you can find a way to do it. Yeah. I like I talked Lydia Frank (54:09) But also maybe, yeah, do it anyway. Rand & Geraldine (54:11) Yeah, like Geraldine and I had this conversation where, you know, where I was like, hey, if you wrote the most wildly successful, like the absolute best selling nonfiction book about food of the last decade, you would not nearly approach the audience or the revenue that you would get from the 50th best selling video game on Steam last week. Like a truly mediocre, Lydia Frank (54:32) Right. Rand & Geraldine (54:34) you really kind of sucked as a game. That game is gonna sell more. It’s gonna reach more people, it’s gonna be played by more people, it’s gonna be remembered by more people. You guys I’m writing and so I’m writing a totally mediocre game. You get ready. No, but I I do think that I think that in the end, just take the pressure off of focusing on the wrong thing. So VCs are going to tell you your company needs to make whatever bazillion dollars. No, like you you need to do enough to make you happy. And and literary world will tell you that video games are not an authentic form of writing. And you should discount that equally. I can tell you by how much I have doubted and cried over this game. It is the realest writing I have ever done. But also I will say that people will tell you that unless you are making a hundred percent of your money from whatever you’re doing, you are not committed to your craft and that is not true either. I think like the big thing is you need to throw out whatever intellectual purity or messaging there is about your art and your career and the path you want to take. Like you need to throw that to the wind because, one, it’ll make you miserable and two, it is genuinely not true. Yeah. Yeah. Let go of other people’s expectations of you, let go of culture and society’s restrictions on what you are and aren’t allowed to do and how. There’s a lot of privilege in that stuff. Yeah, no, no. But I think I think a ton of people are, to your point, Lydia, when we started this conversation, are already doing that. They’re finding ways to like monetize six things that they do in life, and some articles, and some this, and I make some money on TikTok, and I have a YouTube channel. Fantastic. don’t fall for this myth that you need a career in one thing. Lydia Frank (56:22) I so appreciate what you all are saying because I think the most dangerous thing you could do today is to try to make money off one thing. Like it’s we’ve all seen that, putting your eggs in one basket, staying with one company, There’s no loyalty there. There’s no guarantees. So I think diversifying your income streams is the smartest thing anybody could be doing. purity be damned in terms of artistic purity. I love what you all are saying because I think that’s absolutely correct. you gotta kinda mix it up. Thank you again for joining me today. I really, really appreciate both of you coming on, and counter to what you said, Geraldine, I would always have you back. thank you. Rand & Geraldine (57:06) Thank you so much for having us take care. Outro (57:08) Learn more about Rand and Geraldine’s various companies, books, and projects at zeroclickmarketing.co, everywhereist dot com, or snackbarstudio.com, or you can follow Rand Fishkin on LinkedIn or the Everywhereist on Instagram or Threads. Get full access to Work Mappers at www.workmappers.com/subscribe (https://www.workmappers.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

4. 

   10 Aug 2026

   Ep. 01: Amelia Ransom - Who Is Still DEI AF

   In this episode, I talk to Amelia Ransom who is a veteran DEI leader with more than 20 years of corporate experience, a storyteller and public speaker, a nonprofit board member, and a cancer survivor. She is also now retired from corporate life but recently launched her own podcast, DEI AF. Get full access to Work Mappers at www.workmappers.com/subscribe (https://www.workmappers.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

5. 

   27 Jul 2026

   Trailer: Work Mappers Podcast

   For everyone who has subscribed to Work Mappers in anticipation of this podcast launch, thank you for your patience. Creating a podcast is a bit of a lift when you’re also trying to launch a business (https://lydiaintheloop.com/). The first three episodes have been recorded and will be released together very shortly here on Substack as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube, or wherever else you listen to your podcasts. Guests for the first three episodes include: Amelia Ransom (https://www.ameliaransom.com/) Amelia is many things. She is a veteran DEI leader with more than 20 years of corporate experience, a storyteller and public speaker, a nonprofit board member, and a cancer survivor. She is also now retired from corporate life but recently launched her own podcast, DEI AF (https://www.youtube.com/@D.E.IAFPodcast). Geraldine DeRuiter (https://www.everywhereist.com/) (joint episode with Rand)Geraldine is the James Beard Award–winning blogger behind The Everywhereist (https://www.everywhereist.com/) and the author of “If You Can’t Take the Heat: Tales of Food, Feminism, and Fury” (https://bookshop.org/p/books/if-you-can-t-take-the-heat-tales-of-food-feminism-and-fury-geraldine-deruiter/f892ed0309831c8d?ean=9780593444504&bkshp-astro=t) and “All Over the Place: Adventures in Travel, True Love, and Petty Theft (https://bookshop.org/p/books/all-over-the-place-adventures-in-travel-true-love-and-petty-theft-geraldine-deruiter/44c66ccd730d40b2?ean=9781541724655&bkshp-astro=t).” The New York Times has both praised and trashed her work. She is currently developing a culinary video game (https://snackbarstudio.com/) with her husband, Rand. Rand Fishkin (https://linkedin.com/in/randfishkin) (joint episode with Geraldine)Rand is CEO and cofounder of three companies: SparkToro (https://sparktoro.com/), makers of fine audience research software, pun-filled Google Alerts alternative Alertmouse (https://alertmouse.com/), and indie game developer Snackbar Studio (https://snackbarstudio.com/). He’s the co-author (with Amanda Natividad) of the upcoming "Zero Click Marketing" (https://zeroclickmarketing.co/) and 2018’s "Lost and Founder" (https://bookshop.org/p/books/lost-and-founder-a-painfully-honest-field-guide-to-the-startup-world-rand-fishkin/57277f44b5d8666d?ean=9780593853962&bkshp-astro=t). When Rand’s not working, he’s usually traveling with or cooking a fancy meal for the love of his life, Geraldine. Micah Baldwin (http://www.currentwisdom.com)Micah started his first business when he was 9 years old and sold the last one about 10 years ago. Between those, he started or was early at six companies which raised a total of $350 million. After selling his last company, he spent time at Amazon, Madrona Ventures, and Microsoft. He currently lives in Austin, Texas with his dogs Alvin and Sydney, where he coaches founders (https://www.currentwisdom.com/coaching) to help them grow. New episodes of the podcast will launch as I collect the stories of new Work Mappers. These are people willing to not only forge new paths as they explore their own careers, create new businesses, or speak up for better workplace cultures and policies. They’re also willing to draw a map for others. For 18 years, I worked at companies with missions focused on improving the workplace — from pay equity to the transformational impact of mentorship. Along the way, I learned a few things and had the opportunity to write and speak to audiences, from HR and business leaders to people navigating their own career journeys. And, this concept is one that I’ve come back to again and again. I’ve said it to more audiences than I can count. “If you forge a new path, draw a map for the people coming up behind you.” The workplace can be filled with potholes, dead ends, and other treacherous obstacles. Why not make the path a bit easier if we can? As this new podcast and publication gets off the ground, please share it with anyone else you think would find it valuable. I’ll likely write some content in between podcast episodes as well, because at my core, I’m a writer first, and I know people like to consume information in different ways. And, if you have any suggestions for future Work Mapper podcast guests, please let me know. I’d love to hear your suggestions. Get full access to Work Mappers at www.workmappers.com/subscribe (https://www.workmappers.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.