The Story Behind Naripod: A Quest for Authenticity

Podcasts are polished. Social media is curated. But real life? It’s messy, emotional, and full of incredible stories waiting to be heard. I created Naripod for those stories.

I Listen Everywhere

I listen to stories everywhere. When I work, when I walk, when I travel on public transport, when I wait for a friend, when I cook, and even when I try to fall asleep. Stories are woven into the fabric of my daily life.

But finding these stories? That’s the hard part. I’ve tried podcasts, which are great in their own right, but they’re not always about stories. They’re for everything. And when they are, they’re often highly polished shows, containing much more than just the raw narrative I crave.

Discovering more interesting stories based on what I actually like is a challenge. The current system makes it difficult.

What I truly love are real people telling their own stories, or stories that happened around them, told in their own voices. It’s that raw, authentic feeling I’m always searching for. I find glimpses of it on TikTok, Instagram, sometimes in podcasts, or YouTube videos. But there’s no dedicated space for this kind of storytelling to truly exist.

I feel like I’m bending other platforms to my need to listen to stories. Those platforms are simply not made for that, and it’s hard to find stories, not to mention a non-stop listening experience hands-free on the go.

Building It

This persistent need led me to the idea of building my own platform. It started as a personal quest, a space I desperately wanted for myself. But I quickly realized that many of my friends shared this same desire – a love for real stories, which are surprisingly hard to come by.

One Story

There’s a user who is now telling the stories of his grandparents. These are people he doesn’t even know, but the stories were relayed by his mother. They span decades, covering periods like the Cultural Revolution and World War II. It was a heavy and shocking narrative.

Unbeknownst to him, the actions his grandparents took strongly influenced his parents’ lives, which in turn, deeply affected his own life in ways he didn’t realize. This exploration into his grandparents’ lives accidentally revealed the origin of his own psychological pain, giving him a new angle to address it.

From Film

I come from the film industry, with over 15 years of experience. I’ve always been drawn to stories. While Hollywood has become quite homogenized, my love for authentic narratives needed a new outlet. I started watching more documentaries and indie films, where more intimate, less polished stories could shine.

But making a film, even a documentary, is incredibly difficult. The economics of the film industry mean you can’t just create a film about any story. Yet, there are so many stories worth telling in the world.

Think about the people you meet every day – a cab driver, a barber. They often have incredible personal stories, small but hard to believe, that happened in plain sight. These stories are worth telling, but without a dedicated space, they get forgotten, left out, and eventually lost.

How It Works

Naripod’s whole design is to allow people to record and publish stories with as little friction as possible. The philosophy is that the whole platform is built for storytellers and story listeners.

I envision an app where you can open it, pick a starting story or a few, and then just go about your day. Jogging, exercising, cooking, commuting, driving – the stories will play continuously. After one finishes, relevant stories or ones you might be interested in based on your listening preferences will automatically start.

It’s about a hands-free, immersive experience, much like music apps. You don’t need to constantly interact with your phone. If you don’t like a story, you can simply skip it after a few seconds. The goal is to be completely immersed in real stories, to feel the textures of other people’s lives, the raw emotions coming from them.

Why It Matters

Connecting with someone I don’t know through their experiences energizes me. Humans have this natural tendency to listen to other people’s stories, for whatever reason. It’s an innate drive to connect and understand each other through shared experiences, even those we haven’t lived ourselves. Naripod is built on this fundamental human connection.