About
WaitWhat is a media invention company founded in 2017 by June Cohen and Deron Triff, former TED executives. Its portfolio spans award-winning podcasts, mobile applications, and live experiences designed to spark curiosity and daily learning habits.
The Challenge
WaitWhat sought to extend its hit podcast into a high-quality mobile experience on a lean budget and timeline.
WaitWhat, the media invention company led by June Cohen and Deron Triff, found rapid success with Masters of Scale, a podcast hosted by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. Featuring leaders from Netflix, Slack, Starbucks, and other global brands, the show won multiple Webby Awards and became a trusted resource for entrepreneurs worldwide. To expand the impact of this content, WaitWhat envisioned a mobile app that distilled long-form interviews into short, actionable practices. But with limited engineering resources, a short deadline, and exceptionally high quality standards, the company needed a partner who could quickly assemble and integrate a world-class tea
The Solution
A fully integrated Toptal team designed, built, and delivered the Masters of Scale app.
Toptal assembled a multidisciplinary team—including back-end and front-end developers, a mobile-experienced Agile project manager, and a design lead—to work as an extension of WaitWhat’s staff. In early discovery workshops, the team refined requirements into a budget-conscious MVP that preserved the creative ambition behind the app. They leveraged React Native to achieve iOS and Android parity faster than expected and customized a CMS to manage content scheduling, push notifications, and emails. Accessibility and empathy shaped the product: features included offline listening for users with limited connectivity and WCAG-compliant design to support people with vision, hearing, and cognitive impairments.
The Outcome
Toptal delivered WaitWhat’s most effective tool for entrepreneurial learning in less than 7 months.
The Masters of Scale app launched with a library of 120 episodes distilled into 10-to 12-minute daily practices. It provided founders and executives at Fortune 1000 companies with access to the key ideas and richest learning moments. Adoption was strong from the start, with thousands of downloads and no negative reviews in app stores after the initial launch. Beyond the initial release, the app became a model for expanding premium content into interactive experiences. WaitWhat continued working with Toptal to enhance features and develop a white-label version of the platform for other podcasts, beginning with the award-winning On Being