00027. How Amanda Bradford Raised $2.1 Million in Seed Funding to Build The League, a Membership Dating App
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English - October 01, 2019 03:00 - 45 minutes - 26 MB - ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsCareers Business gritty founder entrepreneur business business podcast capitalism founder startup venture capital income Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
On today's episode of Gritty Founder, Kreig Kent and Mada Seghete talk with Amanda Bradford about how she built and grew The League. Amanda shares advice on finding product-market-fit, raising money, getting press coverage, and generating revenue when you are just starting off.
Amanda Bradford is the Founder & CEO of The League, a dating app that combines data and social graphs from both Facebook and LinkedIn to offer more privacy, more context, and a curated community of ambitious singles who want a partner that shares a similar drive. After graduating from Carnegie Mellon with an engineering degree, she worked at both Salesforce and Google in a variety of technical and product roles before attending Stanford Graduate School of business, where the idea for The League was born. The League raised $2.1M in seed funding in January 2015 and is a membership dating app designed cater to people who want privacy and control over who can view their dating profile.
Some Questions Kreig and Mada ask Amanda:
- What is some advice you can give founders who are in the beginning stages of starting a company? (4:56)
- Can you give some advice to non technical founders on how to find technical talent in order to get an idea off the ground? (8:46)
- What is your PR strategy and what is some actionable advice you can give founders looking to get press coverage? (13:44)
- What was the biggest challenge and how did you overcome it? (26:45)
- What does your day and routine look like? (28:24)
In This Episode, You Will Learn:
- Know if there is a demand and a clear need in the market (5:15)
- Amanda’s experience and thoughts on raising money (11:51)
- When pitching a journalist, prepare and put yourself in their shoes (18:44)
- Think about revenue early on (32:00)
Connect with Amanda Bradford:
Also Mentioned on This Show...
Amanda’s favorite quote:
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ―Mark Twain
Amanda’s book recommendation:
Shoe Dog by Phil Knight