Falling in Love with the Problem: The Rebirth of The Qube

Anna takes a look back at the journey and shares why she believes this time will be different

In June 2021 I started my Qube journey with our Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. I was confident everything would go just as I planned. I would raise the money we needed to successfully launch, grow and scale.

Watch the crowdfunding video we produced during covid
in different parts of the country 🔥

One of our original crowdfunding materials used during the campaign

I would find investors who believed in a dynamic early stage founder with a proven track record of building from the ground up. I would find my people, word of mouth would spread and The Qube platform would be a big hit! I knew we’d encounter challenges but those would be no match for us. Our work would resonate and The Qube would be a household name in no time.

Well, I was wrong.

The business model I implemented of solving podcast discoverability by curating first and building the database next was wrong. It stifled our opportunities to actually scale and grow the platform at a rate that made it appealing to users and investors. You know what else stifles growth? Lack of money. Exasperated development costs due to unforeseen setbacks and feature sets ballooning out of scope. The costs of finding, building and sustaining a quality team were significant. Having the money to make mistakes, evaluate, and try again was non-existent. I hadn’t done the necessary work of building a business model or plan that factored in these realities.

Now, don’t get me wrong, the Qube platform did catch a wave of momentum. In June 2021, our crowdfunding campaign raised $70,000 which superseded my expectations. I secured our first investment of $25,000 from Fifth Star Funds; a Chicago based founder-led fund writing the first check for overlooked tech founders. I attended all the major podcast conferences, made it to stage to speak at all of them and in turn I found my people.

I love that most people know us for our Qube Original productions and award-winning podcasts like Black HIV in the South & Second Sunday. Both of which landed distribution deals with two major media companies; Urban One and PRX. I love that some know us for our Podcast Salons which bring communities together over the love of podcasts. Then there are those who joined me on the journey of making history by becoming the first company to press Black and Brown podcast voices on vinyl. The podcast community has embraced me and this idea of The Qube. I’m choosing to share all of this because these wins were born out of the pivot when the platform failed. It has been a beautiful journey and I recognize it isn’t enough for me.

Five years ago when I started this journey, failure was a bad word. A word I would never accept as an adjective to describe any aspect of my life. Today, I embrace failure as a badge of honor. It is honorable to have tried and failed because so many of us choose not to try or we self-sabotage along the way. Gay Hendricks, author of The Big Leap, calls it upper limiting. He describes this as an internal thermostat that subconsciously caps the amount of success and joy we allow ourselves to experience. When we choose to rise above that thermostat setting, we self-sabotage to drag ourselves back down to a familiar, safer place. This book helped me recognize my own settings and gave me the tools to finally leave those limitations in the past. Today, I accept the ways I have failed and succeeded over the last five years, while being very clear that I am ready for more. I’m a BIG dreamer but the dream has yet to be fully realized.

In July of 2025, my friend Shana connected me with Robyn Exton, founder of the HER app. HER is the world’s largest dating and social networking app designed specifically for lesbian, bisexual, and queer women, as well as non-binary and trans individuals. During our call she shared a piece of wisdom that provided me the breakthrough I desperately needed. She said, “I need you to fall in love with your customer’s problem, not your solution”. PAUSE RE-READ. and PAUSE AGAIN. Give yourself some time to sit with that statement as I had to do. Take some time to reflect on your own journey and know it’s okay to say ouch along the way. I have literally had hundreds of conversations about The Qube over the last five years; podcasters, podcast listeners, friends, family, fellow founders, investors, but this statement at that specific moment in time provided me the guidance I needed to rethink and re-evaluate my approach.

Today the problem of finding podcast content produced by Black & Brown creators still exists. Social media and word of mouth are the ways we find our content and I believe we deserve better than that. We deserve a dedicated platform that gives creators a space to reach their primary audiences and listeners an opportunity to discover them. I have learned from my missteps of the past. I have sat in silence and let the dream stir inside me. I have listened to those who have achieved the success I am determined to find for myself. And now it’s time.

Our mission is to build the largest database and dopest search engine of Black and Brown hosted podcasts.

Our vision is to be the most comprehensive podcast search engine for audiences invested in culturally aligned content as we are committed to amplifying the voices that often go unheard.

The Qube, where discovery meets the culture.

Do you have a podcast? Add yours today.

Do you listen to podcasts? Join our waitlist today.

Want to follow the journey? Join our Substack and support the work by becoming a Qubie.

We’ve got a team poised to take this work to the next level so join me for this next phase because I’m not done yet.

In solidarity,
Anna DeShawn