Why Racket Sports Are Wide Open - Spence's Amanda Greeley on Brand Building & Designing for Culture

Описание: Amanda Greeley has spent her career in brand, from building Tink & Tiger out of Brooklyn's garment district in Instagram's early days, to creative direction at Serena & Lily, to founding Thelma (which landed J. Crew placement before the pandemic shut down her Italian manufacturer). Now she's deep into her most considered bet: Spence, a racket sports brand targeting a category that's been split between country club legacy brands and forgettable performance gear for decades.

This conversation covers a lot of ground and it's worth your time if you're building a brand, thinking about raising money, or trying to understand what it actually takes to compete in a crowded DTC market in 2025.

What we get into:

How Spence found its positioning between nostalgia and futurism — and why that tension is intentional
The real state of DTC fundraising: why the VC window that made early direct-to-consumer brands look like rockets has closed, and what that means for founders building now
Building in public as a brand strategy — the risk, the reward, and why Amanda is leaning into it with Spence's journal
Why racket sports (tennis, pickleball, padel, squash) represent one of the most underserved brand opportunities in the wellness space right now
The AI and operations question: where it helps, where it's forgettable, and the trap of over-optimization in both business and life
Lessons from working inside an established brand (Serena & Lily) versus carrying all the risk yourself as a founder
Why doing it alone is the hardest version — and what changes when you finally find the right operating partner

Amanda is one of the sharper creative minds I've gotten to work alongside over the past decade. This one's for the founders, the brand builders, and anyone paying attention to where culture and sport are headed.

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Hosted by Austin Dandridge, Creative Director of Cobble Hill
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