CHAPTER X

Let’s begin at the end.

Imagine a world in which, with the snap of your fingers, you could understand any topic. You name it, you know it. Minimal effort.

Now imagine everyone else around you has a similar depth of knowledge. Perspectives differ, but when you raise a point it’s met with responses like ‘I see what you mean’ or ‘nicely put’ or ‘I never thought of it like that’. Your opinion matters, and people listen. But you know your knowledge isn’t boundless and that constant learning is key. You’re confident enough to change your mind when other people serve up better points of view, supported by facts. Conversations aren’t emotional and heated, but rational and empathetic. Best of all, you always manage to see two steps ahead.

Snap! You know how to make money from the stock market. Snap! You know how politics works and what is to be believed. Snap! You know how to get ahead in your career.

You know how to play the capitalist game. And so do those around you.

This is the chapter you’re helping Noa write and we’re looking forward to welcoming you to the family, as a listener, a partner, a team member, or an investor – you choose.

While you consider your role, let’s jump back to the beginning and share Noa’s story. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 1

2014

In July 2014, Gareth Hickey – one of Noa’s co-founders and early backers, and then aged 23 – reached a disheartening conclusion. Well, two conclusions actually.

Reading books and quality journalism helped him become a better investor, like two people he admired – Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett. He actively used an app called Pocket to bookmark articles to read later. The problem was that despite reading insatiably, his list of Pocket bookmarks grew faster than he could get threw them. This was conclusion number one: he needed a way to read more – to know more.

Around the same time, while in the car on a sunny July afternoon with his girlfriend Sarah, he realised how little he knew about what was happening in the Middle East at that time – from the Syrian Civil War to the rise of ISIS to U.S. and Russian interventions. This became evident when he tried to explain the situation to Sarah. Making this all the more frustrating was the fact he had read multiple articles covering the region. This was conclusion number two: despite heavy reading, making sense of the world as a 23-year-old is extremely hard – he wanted an easier way to understand the news.

An idea had seeded.

CHAPTER 2

2015 - 2018

The founding team at Noa began to take root.

Shane Ennis wore the CPO hat and worked tirelessly in the early days alongside Gareth and Philomena McGinley to pitch publishers on the idea of audio-journalism. This was the bootstrapped phase and lasted from 2015 to early 2018.

Seán Anglim and Dave O’Donovan came on-board in early 2018 and helped Noa take an idea (and some publisher agreements) to market – Seán wearing the CTO hat and Dave the CFO one.

A company was born.

CHAPTER 3

2018 - 2020

Noa’s early publisher line-up of Bloomberg, the FT, The Independent, and The Irish Times grew. Users turned to listeners turned to fans. We knew we were onto something.

Publishers knew it too. In a single month in 2018 Noa welcomed both The Economist and The New York Times to its line-up. Pulled by our fans, we launched Noa’s Alexa and Google Home ‘skills’. Overnight, Noa became the voice of a handful of our partnering publishers flash briefings. We were introducing ‘news nevers’ to quality journalism, in audio.

And the innovation continued.

Our mission has always been to help people understand and know more. But how could we make quality journalism 10x better?

And with that, “Series” were born – topic-specific playlists of handpicked audio articles which begin with a short Noa explainer before offering the opinions, insights, and perspectives of some of the world’s best writers back-to-back. Simply press play!

Never before has it been so easy to understand and know more about the topics shaping the world.

Audio journalism wasn’t just about spoken word audio anymore. It was about curation too.

CHAPTER 4

2021

Welcome, to the present day, to the growth phase.

If you’ve read this far you’ve got grit and clearly like what we do. You’re one of us.

This is where Noa’s secret sauce meets distribution. It’s where our brand is born and shared with the wider world. The “MVP” heading on our whiteboard is replaced with “ROI” and we begin the exciting process of iterate, measure, iterate, measure, iterate, measure.

Our vision for the future is both definite and optimistic. We know who we are, we know where we’re going, and we know how to do it.

With each new listener we get one step closer to the end – the end of the beginning, that is.

We’re in the content business after all. You know there’ll be a sequel.

We’ll leave you with this:

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of
evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Join us in doing something! Download the Noa app, listen every minute you can, and tell your friends and family.

The future is bright.