Ruffin was the quiet kid who'd rather take a B than raise her hand, then became an accountant everyone assumed would stay one. Now she reaches more than 200,000 women online and helps them invest in female founders.
Why I wanted Ruffin on the show:
Ruffin has built something I really admire: a business that makes investing and company-building feel accessible to women who were never invited into those rooms. I wanted to hear about the long, winding path behind it, from accounting to venture to content, and what it actually took to finally go all in.
About Ruffin:
She's the founder of Brydge Club, a media, community, and investing platform that reaches more than 200,000 women on TikTok and Instagram. Through Brydge Club, she runs a community of women angel investors and helps female founders raise from them.
She grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, studied accounting at Wake Forest, and started her career as an auditor at Deloitte. From there she joined the real estate investing startup PeerStreet, earned her MBA at UCLA, and worked in venture and at a family office before going all in on Brydge Club.
In this episode, you'll hear:
• growing up with two entrepreneur parents, and why seeing her mom build a 100-agent brokerage shaped everything she makes today
• how acing one intro class pigeonholed her as an accountant, and why she's now grateful she didn't love that path
• why she calls business school a privilege, not a requirement, and what she'd tell anyone deciding whether to work at a startup before founding one
• posting 3 to 5 TikToks a day for her first 30 days, and the VC who laughed her out of an interview for asking if TikTok counted as a sourcing strategy
• six years of experimenting and part-time roles before she went all in, and why it still feels like it could all go away some days
• how she decides what to say yes to now, and why explaining what Brydge Club actually is gives her family-gathering anxiety
• staying motivated on a problem that's moving backwards, and why her How She Built This series might be her biggest impact
Follow Ruffin on TikTok here: @ruffinmitchener
Learn more about Brydge Club here: https://brydgeclub.com/
Read the Granola notes from this episode and chat with them here: [link]
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About the good work talk show
"the good work talk show" is a deeply honest exploration of work and how it can be a tool for discovering and becoming your best self. hosted by mallory contois, each episode is a conversation with someone whose career you may have admired from afar, without knowing the full picture.
Get every episode in your inbox with mallory's notes and takeaways: watchgoodwork.com
Find audio-only versions of every episode wherever you listen to podcasts.
Subscribe to "good work" on Substack: readgoodwork.com
Follow the good work talk show on instagram: @watchgoodwork
Follow mallory on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mallorycontois
Season 01 is presented by Granola. Get 3 months free at Granola.ai/goodwork
Produced by Joseph M. Olender
Directed by Adam Chavez
Edited by Aaron Bratcher
Graphics by Saltwater Agency
Theme music: "The Other Side" by The Deep West. used with permission. © ℗ 2021 The Deep West. Listen on Spotify.
