Cosmopolitan magazine reaches more than 18 million adults each year and remains the most read magazine by college women in the United States.
Facebook membership is well over 800 million users and growing.
Chicago native Brette Borow has joined the two -- combining the power of print media with the accessibility of social media -- to create
GirlsGuideTo.com, “the Cosmo for the Facebook generation.”
GirlsGuideTo is an online forum that supports and engages young women on topics of life, work, relationships, health and beauty. The site allows users to tell stories, ask questions, post links and videos that other users can then respond to with advice or experience, providing women the answers they need and the reassurance that they are never alone.
With Ohio State University, the University of Cincinnati, Indiana University and the University of Kentucky as well as dozens of smaller schools within 200 miles of downtown Cincinnati, the city seemed a logical place to locate a Web and mobile application geared toward college women.
After months of talks with Borow and a commitment to move the company here from Los Angeles, CincyTech invested $200,000 in GirlsGuideTo as its thirtieth portfolio company.
The investment is part of a larger seed-stage round, led by CincyTech, that will allow Borow to move the headquarters of the company to Cincinnati, launch additional features on the site, grow members and hire a sales and marketing staff in the region.
Borow created GirlsGuideTo when she graduated from Loyola Marymount University’s School of Film & TV. She moved into her own apartment and realized there were so many new things happening in her life as a young woman that she wanted to share with friends or ask questions about to people who had been in her shoes.
The site that now boasts more than 50,000 registered members and more than 130,000 Facebook users began as a simple blog between Borow and her friends. The young women would tell stories about everything from paying bills to bad dates and ask each other questions when caught in sticky situations.
GirlsGuideTo first gained national press in 2009 when it was praised for its use of Facebook Connect, an application that allows Web users to login to a site using their Facebook account. Although this application is now widely used on the Web, GGTo was one of the first to jump on board.
Borow was always a fan of the app because it not only allowed her to collect important demographic information, but it prevented men from trolling the site to meet young women.
“Borow’s early independent success shows us that she is meeting an unfilled need for this demographic,” says Rahul Bawa, director of digital and software investments for CincyTech, who is working with Girls Guide To. “Being located near several major universities will help Borow grow her business quickly and efficiently.”
By Sarah Blazak
CincyTech
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