Episode
From Caregiver to CEO: Building Bold Solutions for Aging || EP.227
- Published
- Dec 9, 2025
- Duration seconds
- 1164
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Summary
Medicare spends as much on falls as it does on cancer—but 30-50% of those fall-related costs are preventable. Amanda Rees watched her grandmother develop a "goose egg" from a fall while gardening, then watched the shame make her stop gardening altogether, spiraling into depression and isolation. A decade of caregiving radicalized how this Princeton-trained engineer thought about aging. So she built Bold, a company now serving 10 million older adults—with a leadership team and cap table that's "very, very female" in a notoriously male-dominated space. But first, she had to stop making herself small. "You're really good at making yourself seem small," someone told Amanda early in her fundraising journey. The irony wasn't lost—she was downplaying a Princeton engineering degree, $100M in energy investment experience, and a decade caring for her grandmother while running a company literally called Bold. She only needed to hear that feedback once. What followed was a masterclass in building with intention. Amanda raised funding from Rethink Impact, the largest fund dedicated to investing in women, and assembled a predominantly female leadership team—not through quotas, but through mission alignment. "Women tend to be the frontline caregivers for a lot of families, and they see it. They understand that's a very real problem," she explains. In this conversation, Amanda dismantles the preparation myth holding women founders back: "If you have the itch and you wanna do it, do it. Don't go get an extra degree or do this thing before I'm ready." She explains why your first pitch will be terrible, why pitch five is the hardest, and how objection handling refines not just your deck but your entire business model. She also shares why she only hires people who'll stay "when things are…