GirlCrew, unlike other social networking sites, immediately connects women with others in their city for nights out, hikes, brunches, holidays, and more. It also has in-built careers, entrepreneurship, and personal interest groups, where women can share knowledge and advice on everything from getting a pay rise to restaurant recommendations and make-up tips. We also verify every single member who joins the app.
Founder, Aine Mulloy
Name: GirlCrew
Location: Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, but GirlCrew is also located in the US, Canada, Australia, the UK and Belgium.
Website: www.girlcrew.com
Product / Service Offering: Women’s Social Networking Application
Founder Interviewed: Aine Mulloy
Other Key Management Team Members: Elva Carri and Pamela Newenham (co-founders)
This article is part of our Women Entrepreneurs Spotlight Series featuring female entrepreneurs and their companies. We hope these founders’ interviews will inspire and motivate you as you undertake your own entrepreneurial journey.
Tell us a little about yourself with a focus on what motivates you.
I was born into a very academic, but also quite a creative family. This definitely shaped my outlook on things. It has always been important to me to be part of something that is bigger than myself, a company to which people feel attached and one that is making a positive change. I have been fortunate enough to meet many inspiring, brave, and tenacious women through GirlCrew, and can only hope one day someone may say the same about me. Because I have four younger siblings, I truly believe people have a responsibility to do good, share wisdom, and help one another where and when you can.
When did you establish your company and where did the idea originate?
GirlCrew began one Friday night when my co-founder Elva Carri really wanted to go out dancing but had no one to go with her. All her friends were either busy or tired. Believing there had to be other women in the same position, she put a call out for some platonic dancing buddies on Tinder. She had no idea she would quickly garner more than 100 enthusiastic matches. She added everyone to a secret Facebook group in Dublin, where she was based, and GirlCrew was born. Having gained lots of new friends, and a jam-packed social calendar, Elva was going to need help. She teamed up with myself and Pamela Newenham. We began growing GirlCrew groups in cities all over the world and registered the company during the summer of 2015. Then we started building an app for the community and launched it on Apple and Android in June 2017.
What need or needs does your company seek to fill for its customers?
GirlCrew provides a member with the option to post in the afternoon and see if anyone is free after work to go for food, drinks, or the cinema. So many organizations are faceless. We try not to be that. All of the team are in the various groups, and we go to events on a regular basis. It is very easy for women in groups to contact us.
What is the one thing that sets your company apart from its competitors?
We have been compared to meetup.com; however, we are different in that there are lots of last-minute events in our groups.
What was the biggest challenge you faced while getting your company up and running, and how did you overcome it?
None of us know how to code, and we had no experience in hiring or managing software engineers. We initially outsourced the development of our app which was a big mistake.
Thankfully we got an amazing technical advisor on board, who was able to guide us through everything. GirlCrew had to start over from scratch again, but we did it and brought development in-house. Without our tech advisor, we would not have known if the developers we were interviewing were saying. We might have made some more costly decisions.
Are there resources you have utilized that other founders might find compelling or useful?
The GirlCrew app! We have an entrepreneurs group on it, which is great for advice and support, host a Female Founders Supper Club regularly, and a Careers event called GirlCrew Pro where we invite women entrepreneurs to speak. My co-founders and I are also big fans of a site called Fiverr. We got our logo designed on that! You can get lots of various tasks done for $5.
What steps have you taken to secure funding for your company and what, if anything, would you do differently if you had to start over?
We have raised almost $1 million from investors including LinkedIn chief executive Jeff Weiner, Wrigley CMO Orla Mitchell and Reddit director of data Joe Gallagher. My co-founder Pamela did all the investor meetings and secured the investments. Several people said “no” to her initially. It was difficult as they would give her different reasons each time. One investor would say no because we did not have a certain thing in place. We would put that in place, and then another investor would say no because we had it. Some investors wanted us to focus on growth, while others were more interested in revenue and profits. We learned that you cannot please everyone, so you must follow the right strategy for you.
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Have there been any questions you have had as an entrepreneur of a fledgling startup that you had a particularly hard time finding the answers to?
I do not know if there is one in particular, but people often ask us “what’s next?” It can be anything from tech features to projects and campaigns, locations or goals. The GirlCrew team has global ambitions for our community, but we also want to be empowering people in practical ways. You need to be forward-looking, while also keeping an eye on the task at hand.
What challenges, if any, are you grappling with?
Hiring good technical talent, without having to offer a sky-high salary. It is really hard to compete against the massive, more established technology companies when it comes to salaries.
What is the most helpful tip or “hack” you’ve ever learned, stumbled across, or been given?
My co-founders and I did not have the money or technical knowledge initially to build our own platform. We learned that we could utilize other platforms to build an idea and test if it could be a business before we began developing our own platform. All of us kept our full-time jobs and worked on GirlCrew part-time, trying out various revenue streams, growing the groups, launching in new cities, etc. We did not quit our full-time jobs until we knew we were onto something.
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Is there anything else you would like to share about your company?
GirlCrew, unlike other social networking sites, immediately connects women with others in their city for nights out, hikes, brunches, holidays, and more. It also has in-built careers, entrepreneurship, and personal interest groups, where women can share knowledge and advice on everything from getting a pay rise to restaurant recommendations and make-up tips. We also verify every single member who joins the app.
Women have got jobs through GirlCrew, found roommates, received promotions, and made new friends. We have had members who signed up after moving to a new city. Initially, it was really hard for them to settle into that city, but once they joined GirlCrew, they quickly made new friends and had a jam-packed social calendar as a result.
Advice to female entrepreneurs…
Move fast. Speed is the key to start-up success. You need to have a clear vision of where you are going, and you need to get there quickly. There is a phrase in the start-up world which feeds into this, and its “done is better than perfect”. You can always iterate later.
Are you familiar with other Women-led startups? If so, we would like to hear from you. Tell us about them in the comments below!
Sandra Sloan
Sandra has previous supply chain and business operations experience which she is leveraging as an author with FundingSage focused on spotlighting entrepreneurs and their startup efforts.
