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.

♻ If this was useful, repost so more founders see it
✅ Follow Michael Krayenhoff for more on building teams, leadership, and careers

CMO & Founder @ Huemor ⟡ B2B websites that outsell the competition ⟡ 93% more website leads & ZERO extra AD spend ↴ [DM me so HUE can learn MOR]

Huemor builds memorable websites that sell for brands like 23andMe, Boston Dynamics, Live Nation, Revlon, and The United Nations.

Book a call with me to:
✅ Generate more qualified leads
✅ Make your website a breeze to update
✅ Become the industry leader in your niche

Don't believe me? Here's what our clients have to say 👇

“Something I found most unique about Huemor is how much they care [about] the success of the project. The site is a lot cleaner and shows a very in-depth narrative of our story.”

Jenny Lee, Creative Director at BetterCloud

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The Huemor team has that impossible combination of genuine creativity and professionalism that turns every project they work on into a success. They do truly amazing work that is unique to each client and their market. Partnering with Huemor is the best decision a company can make. Great team doing great work.

Ed Deaton, VP of Marketing at SurePoint

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“Our project manager was always readily available to address feedback with his team, and made sure that all parties understood their deliverables and deadlines. From a technical standpoint, we have already seen our search rankings increase and overall improvements to the website's usability.”

Lisa Turnbull, Head of Global Marketing at Encompaas

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Getting the nuances of messaging, design, and technology right is no easy task.

To produce the right outcomes, you need a partner you can trust.

An expert who can guide you to the right strategy, take charge of the process, and deliver a website that your customers will love.

After a website redesign, our clients typically experience:
+ 83% monthly website visits
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ARE YOU READY TO BE BETTER THAN "GOOD ENOUGH"?

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APPLY FOR A FREE WEBSITE ANALYSIS

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(or click the link in my featured section)

Jeff Gapinski

Since when did clean formatting = AI?
Em dashes and bullet points aren’t crimes

Lately, there’s this weird pressure to strip out em dashes, add in spelling mistakes, or avoid clean formatting just to prove a human wrote it.

That’s a problem.

Writers shouldn’t have to unlearn clarity, remove helpful structure, or rethink their voice just to avoid the “sounds like AI” label.

Em dashes aren’t the enemy. Neither are H2s, bulleted lists, or smart, scannable sentences.

They’re tools. And they’ve been part of good writing long before the internet decided to play detective.

If your writing is clear, well-paced, and useful, then it’s doing its job. Whether or not someone assumes it came from a human, a machine, or a little of both.

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Follow Jeff Gapinski for more content like this.

♻️ Share with someone hiding their em dashes.

CRO & Founder @ Huemor ⟡ We build memorable websites for construction, engineering, manufacturing, and technology companies ⟡ [DM “Review” For A Free Website Review]

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The Battle

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