The Dating App Founder | 8M members | Bootstrapped startup with a team of 50+ | Co-founder & COO of Inner Circle | Follow for insights on business, leadership and relationships

I build and scale companies by raising standards, strengthening teams, and scaling execution.

I’m an entrepreneur with over 14 years of experience founding and scaling businesses. 
I’m the Co-Founder of Inner Circle, a dating app founded in 2012, which has grown to over 8 million users across 50 countries. 

As Chief Operating Officer and acting Chief Marketing Officer, I sit at the intersection of leadership, hiring, execution, and growth.

Across that journey, I’ve helped build teams from 0 to more than 50 people across two continents. 
I’ve interviewed 1,000's of candidates and hired 100's of high performers, giving me a front-row seat to what separates teams that scale from those that stall. 

As companies grow, performance rarely breaks because of strategy. It breaks when clarity fades, standards slip, and execution becomes inconsistent. My perspective is practical and grounded in operating reality. High-performing companies are built by A-player teams, clear priorities, and leaders who combine ownership with humanity. 

My leadership principles are:

⟶ Disciplined execution beats complexity. 
⟶ Trust works when standards are explicit. 
⟶ Momentum comes from focus, not motion.

This account is for founders and leaders who want to build companies that perform consistently as they grow, without losing speed, accountability, or their human edge.

To collaborate with me as a creator please contact: enquiries@alecrickard.com

Michael Krayenhoff

Most founders don't have a talent problem.

They have an "overthinking" problem.

The way you frame a hard moment decides everything.
Not your skills. Not your network.

The story you tell yourself.

Every team eventually hits a wall.
A bad hire. A missed target. A product that didn't land.

What separates the ones who recover from the ones who don't?

They see the same situation differently.

Learning to code at 35 wasn't about code.
It was about proving to myself that hard things are learnable.
That discomfort isn't a stop sign. It's a starting line.

That shift changed how teams around me operate too.

When the leader treats hard problems as puzzles, not threats,
the team starts doing the same.

It's not about being positive all the time.
It's about training yourself to ask a better question.

Not "why is this happening to us?"
But "what does this make possible?"

That's the real competitive edge.
Not the strategy deck. Not the funding round.

The mind you bring into the room every morning.

Train it like a muscle.
Push it when it wants to stop.
Question the first story it tells you.

The obstacle doesn't change.
But what you do with it always depends on how you see it.

What's one moment where changing your thinking changed the outcome entirely?

Drop it below. I'd love to read it.

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