I’ve kicked my outreach to editors, bloggers, and producers into high gear, pitching Brooklyn Jewels for every press opportunity I can dream up. I figure that our strategy should be full-speed-ahead right now. It seems worth the effort to pursue every idea that sounds even remotely within our reach, because that’s just one more tool for attracting new customers.

So that’s why I’m sitting next to Haley Cardozo, host of the radio show Head Bitch in Charge, a weekly feature on “powerful women who get shit done,” as her slogan says. We’re sitting in a glass-walled studio at the Sirius offices in a dizzyingly tall tower in Midtown. This is one of three press opps I’ve set up this week. An assistant instructs me to slip on enormous padded headphones and adjust the microphone so it’s level with my face. She says I’ll be on right after the show’s first commercial break.

I thought I dressed boldly, but Haley’s clad in a mint green pantsuit over a pale pink T-shirt printed with a portrait of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her canvas tote bag is from the New Yorker, and a gold nameplate necklace that spells out “HBIC” rests against her chest. The magenta highlights in her hair could probably be seen from Mars. By comparison, my purple slip dress, striped blazer, and stacks of Brooklyn Jewels wares—engagement ring included—are positively bland.

“You ready for this?” Haley asks. “It’s live, you know.”

“Let’s do it,” I say.

I try to push away my nerves. This only goes out to a million people or so. No sweat. Haley signals her assistant, who counts backward from three, then presses play on the show’s intro music, which sounds like what would happen if Taylor Swift recorded a pop song about the joys of feminism under capitalism. Once the recorded intro is over, Haley jumps in with an animated promise to “deliver an ah-MAY-zing show to you guys today” featuring an interview with “young hotshot jeweler to the stars Eliza Roth.” I mean, when you put it that way, it almost sounds like my life isn’t on the verge of utter disaster.

In a honeyed voice, Haley zips through a segment she calls “A Broad Abroad,” in which she summarizes a string of thirty-second news stories about notable women around the world, recites her personal finance tip of the week, and hits play on a prerecorded ad about teeth whitening strips. It’s over sooner than I expected, and then I’m on. Haley reads notes off her phone to describe my career path, Brooklyn Jewels’s launch, and the Meghan Markle success story from that Elle interview.

“So, Eliza, let’s talk about funding. It’s the biggest hurdle for so many female entrepreneurs. How did you get started?” she asks.