The people behind great podcasts
This is the first edition of our Creator Spotlight series, where we highlight the people behind the podcasts and the thoughtful work they’re bringing into the world. First up is Janel and Anna from the Strange Birds and their podcast Flying the Coop!
Some podcasts are built to teach you something. Flying the Coop is built to bring you along for the ride.
Janel and Anna, the founders of Strange Birds, run a small business that is in the middle of a very big transformation: turning their company into a worker-owned cooperative. And instead of keeping that messy, exciting, possibly uncomfortable process behind the curtain, they’ve put microphones right in the middle of it.
Their guests show up with stories that don’t sound like the business world’s usual highlight reel. Co-op founders talk about why they traded hierarchy for shared power. Advocates and organizers unpack the unexpected ways compassion shows up at work. Creators talk through the tug of war between meaningful work and systems that were never built with people in mind.
Part of what makes the show so engaging is that Janel and Anna are not hosting from the mountaintop. They don’t pretend to have a fully polished framework or a five point plan for ethical business. What they do have is curiosity, a deep belief that work should honor the human beings inside it. We highly recommend starting with the first episode as they introduce themselves and talk about what kind of “strange birds” they embody (and what a hoatzin smells like).
| Name: | Anna Hetzel | Janel Torkington |
| Location: | Columbus, OH | Barcelona, Spain |
| Favorite beverage: | black coffee or hop water | Vermut with a slice of orange and a briny olive |
| Surprising hobby: | Learning how to sew my own clothes from thrifted fabric | Collecting spices. Finally found a local source for black limes! |
| Current obsession: | Cooperative board games | Electric Callboy’s We Got the Moves |
| Recording/editing tip: | Think hard about the order of questions you want to ask and consider how to help your guest feel comfortable. it’s scary being recorded, help them settle in with a fun, insightful question and not just “who are you what do you do” | Don’t overpolish! Watching too many TikTok-style videos can make you think you’re supposed to edit out every slight pause. Leaving in some of the human rhythms of speech makes it feel a lot cozier. |
As Strange Birds continues its shift into a cooperative, Janel and Anna are clear about what growth means for their podcast. They want more people to find the show and feel a little less alone in imagining better structures for themselves and their teams. They told us that a big win would be “having consistently ~100 people listening to each episode,” which tells you everything about the grounded, human scale they care about.
If you’re looking for a podcast that approaches business with warmth, curiosity, and a clear sense of humanity, Flying the Coop is worth your time. The show feels grounded and reflective, offering ideas you can actually sit with, and conversations with interesting people. Janel and Anna speak about the future of work with sincerity, and every episode shows them putting their values into practice.
You can sign up for their newsletter for new episode updates, visit their podcast’s website, and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks Janel and Anna for trusting Castos with your podcast!
