Hitha Palepu describes herself as an “accomplished multiple screenwriter,” juggling her roles as a businesswoman, investor, writer, and public speaker.
Her primary professional role is as CEO of Rhoshan Pharmaceuticals, an early-stage life sciences company. And as a partner at Adama Ventures, Palepu has invested in startups founded primarily by women, including luxury apparel maker M.M. LaFleur and the Girls’ Night In online community.
But some readers may be more familiar with Palepu from his popular weekly newsletter, and he has since expanded his brand with the launch of a podcast, which premiered just weeks before the closings to slow the spread of COVID-19.
Fortune spoke with Palepu for a new series, The Coronavirus Economy, to ask him how the outbreak has affected his work and his thoughts on the future, and to get an idea of how he has been handling this news, both emotionally and financially.
I started 5SmartThings with a very selfish motive: to be able to discuss news that I thought was important with other people. I launched it on Instagram Stories and didn’t get any engagement from the start. After weeks of posting, I saw people start to swipe up and read the articles, and a month or two before people started responding and sharing the articles with their own communities. I launched the newsletter as a way to share all the readings for the week at once and to share some of my other favorites (articles I loved, books I had been reading, and little updates from my own life). The response and growth exceeded my initial expectations, which was to meet the news with other smart women.
In fact, I came up with the idea for the podcast first, before starting with 5SmartReads. The original concept was different and much more ambitious, but some friends, Farnoosh Torabi and Molly Beck (the founder of Messy.fm, my portfolio company), helped me refine the format and positioning of 1 Smart Thing. I am incredibly grateful for your wisdom and feedback, and the response to the show has been incredible.
My goal with both the newsletter and the podcast is to help people get smarter and faster. Our time is limited and we have countless options on what media and content to consume. I’m not a journalist, but I’m curious and try to share the stories and perspectives that aren’t going viral on Twitter, scrolling through the chyrons of news channels or on the front page of newspapers. I hope you feel more informed and develop your own opinion after reading some of my smart reads or listening to an episode, and I invite you to join the conversation.
My short term plans are to keep everything going, my own business, my content and my portfolio, and come out of this period of COVID more focused and with solid plans in place. And survive my oldest son’s homeschooling!
My long-term plans are more ambitious. My goal with our life sciences company is to ultimately withdraw or discontinue the licensing of our core product after commercialization, and I am confident that we will make it happen. On the investment side, I would love to launch my own venture capital fund and help more founders and companies grow and scale. Much of the content that I’ve been creating, the newsletter and podcast, IGTV and Lives, and the talks, has basically been my personal audition to present The View.
Long term, I see myself at that table, sharing my thoughts on hot topics, political vision, and posing tough questions to our leaders.
There are so many things we don’t know and we are still in the middle of it all. The advice that has helped me is to focus on the day, redefine expectations about what makes a day successful, and savor some of these slow moments if you have the privilege of being safe, healthy, and protected during this pandemic.
My friend shared a practice that has helped me reestablish the day when it inevitably goes off the rails. I hide in the bathroom for a couple of minutes to take a deep breath and visualize how I want the rest of the day to go. It rarely goes as planned, but it helps me stay more focused and calm when kids crawl on top of me, my inbox fills up quickly, and everyone is hungry, tired, and cranky. And when all else fails, a dance party helps restart the day.
