When he's not in his business classes, second-year Wharton MBA student Nick Martell co-hosts the podcast MarketSnacks Daily, which aims to render business news "digestible and fun" for everyone.
With a five-star rating, MarketSnacks Daily— launched in May with Martell's freshman-year roommate, Jack Kramer — was named Apple's Podcast of the Week in August.
Martell and Kramer met at Middlebury College, from which Kramer graduated in 2011. Martell, though, transferred and graduated from Brown University in 2011.
MarketSnacks Daily is a podcast part of the company MarketSnacks, which the two launched in 2012 as an email newsletter to serve a similar purpose: "To finally make business news digestible for all," as they write on their site.
Kramer said the two had the idea for MarketSnacks when he realized that there was a "big hole in the financial news space for [the millennial] generation." He characterizes the options available for financial news six year ago as dense, boring, and packed with jargon.
The podcast covers U.S. and international affairs as well as mature companies and startups. Kramer and Martell said they have worked diligently to minimize jargon and industry lingo surrounding topics that are often complex.
Martell said he and Kramer recognized the need for more readily accessible business information during the European sovereign debt crisis, when they were both working at banks. While news coverage of the crisis focused on the important topics of bond spreads and the International Monetary Fund, Martell said, the debt crisis remained opaque for many stakeholders.
Martell and Kramer founded the company, which then focused exclusively on the newsletter, while working at their day jobs.
Wharton MBA student Matthew Clark said the podcast is very well-known among fellow Wharton MBA students.
"It really filled a huge void in the podcast market for business analysis," Clark said. "While many podcasts cover sports, politics, and foreign affairs, there are not many daily podcasts that cover business news," Clark added.
MarketSnacks also provides analysis to business news and offers accessible commentary and opinions. Clark said he feels that no one else in the podcast landscape offers this type of coverage.
To operate a company while managing his course load at Penn, Martell said that he and Kramer function by virtue of a "one and done" rule in order to be as efficient as possible.
Typically, there is one draft for the newsletter and podcast script without argument. If an editor decides he does not like something, it is removed or edited and there is no further discussion of the topic.
Running the business, however, necessitates that no courses are taken during the evening, Martell said. Evenings are dedicated to the business.
“Wharton is an incredible place to be a founder,” Martell said. "It’s an exciting time to be growing a media company," he added. "I think we’ve shown some really exciting possibilities for business news.”
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