Amanda Bradford

Founder & CEO, The League · 1 appearance on the record.

computed by AI from the episodes · how this works → · full disclaimer →

14statements → 4claims → 1claims resolved → 4.29/5average certainty → 2.21/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated →

1 supported 0 partly supported 0 contradicted 3 not checkable as stated how the 4 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

1 prediction · 3 assertions · 1 opinion · 3 insights · 6 disclosures · every statement was checked. The prediction and assertions are the 4 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 1 is resolved, and 3 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Amanda argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

Their most notable supported claim

Assertion Supported

Bradford: Average dating app user bases are 70% male, 30% female

“And usually on average dating apps are about like 70% active users are men, 30% women.”

Amanda Bradford Jun 15, 2018 ▶ 18:41 20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Single Founders, The Benefits of Party Rounds At Seed and How To Pre-Game Your Launch To Have Customers From Day 1 with Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO @ The League

How they sound: speaking style how? →

280 words/min while actually speaking · 5.1 um and uh per 1k words

No argument clarity score for Amanda Bradford: no usable question→answer exchanges on raw tape (a fair score needs 8+). We do not score a sample that small. Roundtable and news formats yield far fewer direct exchanges than interviews. Their coarse estimate from 28 exchanges on the produced feed is ≈4.5/5, shown at half point precision because the sample is small and produced tape scores higher.

Measured by listening to 5,098 words across 1 episode, but every recording we have of Amanda Bradford is the aired feed, and an editor cleaned that audio before release. Some of the hesitation was cut before we ever heard it, so read these as floors: the true rates are at least this high. These are measurements of speaking style, not scores. How it's measured →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Across 1 rated episode:

host pushback ▾ 2/10

pushed back at the host ▾ 4/10

setup questions received 35%

host pushback: the hardest questions Harry asked, tap to play ▶ 21:00“Party rounds are often denigrated because there's no kind of real lead who's willing and incentivized to really go to bat for the company. Having experienced this yourself, how wou…” ▶ 7:50“Can I ask, is it difficult to make the transition from contractor to employee and knowing when the right time is, but also getting them on board with a stat that's been developed b…” ▶ 19:48“How was the fundraising process for you, given the immensely competitive nature of the dating space?”

when Amanda pushed back ▶ 5:10“I totally disagree with it.”

What they said14 Episodes1

Everything Amanda Bradford said on 20VC that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Disclosure

Bradford tested monetization on The League using a fake $15 upgrade button

“But what I did is I created an HTML fake page where I said, Hey, you want to upgrade for 15 dollars? If so, click this button. And then we just said, great, you're upgraded. And we gave them the advanced features without charging their card. And so that gave m…”

Amanda Bradford Jun 15, 2018 ▶ 14:15 20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Single Founders, The Benefits of Party Rounds At Seed and How To Pre-Game Your Launch To Have Customers From Day 1 with Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO @ The League

Disclosure

Bradford priced The League's seed round herself without a lead VC

“I actually priced my own round and then got negotiated down a little bit, but ended up Kind of closing the rounds pretty much led by Amanda, I like to say.”

Amanda Bradford Jun 15, 2018 ▶ 20:49 20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Single Founders, The Benefits of Party Rounds At Seed and How To Pre-Game Your Launch To Have Customers From Day 1 with Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO @ The League

Opinion

Bradford: Small check investors provide equal support as large lead VCs

“When I do need help from my investors, I think they helped me just like they would if they had put in two million dollars or five million dollars, even if they've only put in 25 K. So I haven't noticed a difference based on their responsiveness or their willin…”

Amanda Bradford Jun 15, 2018 ▶ 21:25 20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Single Founders, The Benefits of Party Rounds At Seed and How To Pre-Game Your Launch To Have Customers From Day 1 with Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO @ The League

Insight

Bradford: Solo founders eliminate co-founder conflict, a top startup failure cause

“So, you know, I think the two things they say startups fail is, one, you know, co-founder issues, and two, is running out of money, and so those are the two things I was like, I'm going to make sure those two things don't happen, and you can eliminate one of t…”

Amanda Bradford Jun 15, 2018 ▶ 6:24 20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Single Founders, The Benefits of Party Rounds At Seed and How To Pre-Game Your Launch To Have Customers From Day 1 with Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO @ The League

Insight

Bradford: Solo founders should hire A-player contractors over B-player employees

“And so I think you have to be, I like to say, it's like, you can't really get the A players. So then you have a couple of different options. You can hire B players or you can contract out A players and pay a hefty price tag. And so I chose the latter and reall…”

Amanda Bradford Jun 15, 2018 ▶ 7:07 20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Single Founders, The Benefits of Party Rounds At Seed and How To Pre-Game Your Launch To Have Customers From Day 1 with Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO @ The League

Insight

Bradford: Startups cannot convert contractor engineers into full-time employees

“But yeah, I think in general, the contractor mentality, you can't convert contractors to employees. You just can't. It's their DNA. It's fundamental.”

Amanda Bradford Jun 15, 2018 ▶ 8:13 20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Single Founders, The Benefits of Party Rounds At Seed and How To Pre-Game Your Launch To Have Customers From Day 1 with Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO @ The League

Disclosure

Bradford: The League maintains a strict 50/50 male-to-female gender ratio

“And I would say on the league, it's actually quite hard in the sense that we keep the ratio of 50 50.”

Amanda Bradford Jun 15, 2018 ▶ 18:50 20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Single Founders, The Benefits of Party Rounds At Seed and How To Pre-Game Your Launch To Have Customers From Day 1 with Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO @ The League

Disclosure

Bradford raised The League's $1M seed via a party round

“What I ended up doing is, is more or less a kind of a party round strategy where I had some awesome VCs in that kind of gave me the credibility and some great angels in that gave me credibility. And so I said, I think I can get A bunch of hundred K, 50 K check…”

Amanda Bradford Jun 15, 2018 ▶ 20:15 20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Single Founders, The Benefits of Party Rounds At Seed and How To Pre-Game Your Launch To Have Customers From Day 1 with Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO @ The League

Assertion Supported

Bradford: Average dating app user bases are 70% male, 30% female

“And usually on average dating apps are about like 70% active users are men, 30% women.”

Prediction Not checkable as stated

Bradford: The League will focus on sending users offline to meet

“A couple of things I'm excited about are merging online and offline officially in the sense that when you want to go out, to a bar in New York City. And let's say you're fresh off a breakup yourself. Which bar do you want to go to? And where are the people tha…”

Amanda Bradford Jun 15, 2018 ▶ 25:54 20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Single Founders, The Benefits of Party Rounds At Seed and How To Pre-Game Your Launch To Have Customers From Day 1 with Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO @ The League

Disclosure

Bradford: The League paid over $350 per hour for contract engineers

“Depending on what the resume is or whatever they need, there's some people we paid over 350 dollars an hour when I was pretty desperate just because they had a specialty or something that we needed and couldn't find,”

Amanda Bradford Jun 15, 2018 ▶ 8:21 20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Single Founders, The Benefits of Party Rounds At Seed and How To Pre-Game Your Launch To Have Customers From Day 1 with Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO @ The League

Assertion Not checkable as stated

The League achieved an 83.8% opening-day yield in San Francisco

“On, you know, on our first launch in San Francisco, 419 out of the 500 people we selected showed up, and that was well above kind of the 70% yield we wanted to get.”

Amanda Bradford Jun 15, 2018 ▶ 11:33 20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Single Founders, The Benefits of Party Rounds At Seed and How To Pre-Game Your Launch To Have Customers From Day 1 with Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO @ The League

Assertion Not checkable as stated

Half of early League users invited friends to join the app

“50% of the users actually invited friends after they used the app, and that was a huge number when you're really small.”

Amanda Bradford Jun 15, 2018 ▶ 11:54 20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Single Founders, The Benefits of Party Rounds At Seed and How To Pre-Game Your Launch To Have Customers From Day 1 with Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO @ The League

Disclosure

Bradford raised a $200K-$300K insider bridge round before launching monetization

“I also de-risked the fact that monetization might be a complete disaster by taking a small bridge round from my insiders. I think it was Two or 300 K just to kind of have as rainy day funds in case all hell broke loose.”

Amanda Bradford Jun 15, 2018 ▶ 15:45 20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Single Founders, The Benefits of Party Rounds At Seed and How To Pre-Game Your Launch To Have Customers From Day 1 with Amanda Bradford, Founder & CEO @ The League

Appearances (1)

Episode	Date	Speaking time
20VC: Why VCs Are Wrong About Single Founders, The Benefits of Party Rounds At Seed and Ho	Jun 15, 2018	19m

Amanda Bradford

The record, in short

Their most notable supported claim

How they sound: speaking style how? →

How the interview went all their pushback → series average →

Appearances (1)

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