Since moving to New York City, University of Maryland alum Adam Harrison has found his “match.”
Harrison created a weekly podcast with his two best friends, “Match Made in Manhattan,” which focuses on the lives of “two girls and a gay:” three best friends sitting in a living room bantering about the ups and downs about living in the city in their twenties.
The hosts of the podcast have interacted with fans from around the world, whether it was from the European listener messaging them on Instagram about a hot Copenhagen waiter mentioned in a previous episode, or a listener stopping Harrison at a random restaurant in New York.
“I can’t believe that this is what we’ve created and this is the point that we’re at,” Harrison said. “It brings a lot of joy to my heart when we get to meet people in public.”
While he currently works in sales, Harrison spends time each week chatting with friends on his podcast for listeners to hear.
While at the University of Maryland, Harrison majored in finance and participated in various on-campus clubs and organizations.
Harrison met the majority of his friends through the business school and his business fraternity, Alpha Kappa Psi — many of whom came to New York with him.
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“When I graduated, it was maybe 20 to 25 of us in a group and all but two people picked up and moved to New York,” Harrison said.
Harrison said that when he visited the city for the first time, he fell in love with all it had to offer.
“I just remember coming out of the [New York] subway and looking up and seeing all these super tall buildings and being like, ‘oh my god, this is like the most amazing place in the entire world.’” Harrison said. “It looks exactly like movies.”
Harrison and his podcast co-host Katy Bellotte grew up in Severna Park, Maryland, but the two were never close friends. Though Bellotte went to Elon University, she would visit her high school best friend at this university, who happened to also be one of Harrison’s best friends.
From there, the two immediately clicked and hung out while interning in New York City. Through Bellotte, Harrison met Colbie Cassidy, who would later become their co-host..
The podcast started as Bellotte’s lifestyle YouTube channel. She asked Harrison and Cassidy to be in a video related to dating and got amazing feedback. They decided to create their own podcast structured similarly to that original video, which has grown ever since.
Harrison’s success comes as no surprise to Grace Harrison, his sister and a senior public health major at this university.
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“We always joked, me and my other siblings, that he would be the famous one growing up just because he’s always been really funny and really out there and spontaneous.”she said.
One of Harrison’s friends, who he met through his business fraternity at this university, said they still keep in touch five years after graduation — even though they live in different states.
“When people first meet Adam he comes off maybe like a very big personality. “People really gravitate toward him.” Alvin Wang said.
Bellotte, Cassidy and Harrison’s podcast hit one million listens in February. Months later, that amount doubled.
The trio have recently invited guests such as YouTubers and fellow podcasters to expand the stories beyond their experiences.
While the stories told on the podcast are personal, the weekly discussions are not isolated to the hosts’ experiences. The podcast aims to make listeners feel like they aren’t alone .
“I hope it’s kind of a gentle nudge that you don’t need to have it figured out in your 20s and there are other people who are also figuring it out as they go,” Harrison said.
