Friday Q&A: Amanda Steinberg of the DailyWorth

When we were wrapping up our phone call with Amanda Steinberg last week, we asked her if she had anything else she wanted to add.
“Oh, just my Cosmo photo shoot,” she says. “They just called me up one day and asked if they could feature me.”
The founder of the DailyWorth, a financial email newsletter for women and Mount Airy resident, has been attracting lots of media attention of late for her efforts to encourage financial literacy among women. In addition to the Cosmo fashion shoot, Steinberg has also contributed to Forbes magazine.
“We need different financial plans than men,” she says. “We are still under-earning and under-saving related to men.”
During the day, Steinberg is the CEO of Soapbxx, a web agency that she works on out of her home. The Philadelphia-native moved back here after attending college in the 67th Ward.
We caught up with Steinberg as she was traveling to New York City to meet with investors and secure more content deals for the newsletter. After the jump, we ask her how much investment she is looking for, and why she wants to leave her other successful business to start all over again.

Is the DailyWorth your full-time job now?
No, I run a web agency and I don’t take an income from DailyWorth. I need to raise my next round of capital before I go full time.
So is the revenue model to sell sponsorships and sponsored content?
Exactly. It’s very much the Daily Candy model. We’re exploring relationships in the group buying model as well, which is a natural fit for us.
What made you want to make that full-time leap to Daily Worth if you have a business that is profitable already?
I’ve always been someone that set really big goals and had really big ambitions. You know, I’ve been running web agencies in one form or another for 10 years and I always joke that I’ve become an expert in running high-overhead, low-margin businesses. I promised myself that I would one day start a low-overhead, high-margin business.
When Daily Candy hit my inbox in 2001, 2002, I thought “Well, isn’t this brilliant?” I knew it was something I wanted to do, it just took me seven years to figure it out.
What makes financial advice different for women, than for men?

First, there’s a real changing dynamic where more women are becoming the breadwinners for the first time and becoming the CFO of their households. They weren’t necessarily raised with the expectation that they’d be in that position. We also need different financial plans than men. We live longer. We take more time out of work to raise children. We are still under-earning and under-saving related to men.
And, finally, I think packaging has a lot to do with it. When I bought my house in Mount Airy, Money magazine and Smart Money really didn’t speak to me. I didn’t want to read about stock picks.
What’s been your biggest challenge with the Daily Worth?

Keeping the lights on until you grow a big enough audience to sell real advertising. Real email marketing sponsors don’t start until you hit 100,000 subscribers. So how do you raise capital and keep the faith pre-revenue?
Do you think you have to raise capital to keep an email newsletter going?

For the first year I funded it through my web agency. It can’t continue this way, you can’t have two anemic businesses in the family. So I raised $250,000 in friends and family money and now I’m raising $1.5 million in venture capital.
You said that you pride yourself in having  big ambitions, so what’s the big ambition for the Daily Worth?

I’m not sure if it’s so smart to talk about that [laughs]. My ambition is to take the issue of financial empowerment to women. I think a lot of women undervalue themselves and what they can build and earn…. You can think of us as a modern-day Suzie Orman.
I wanted to give you a hard time about something. Your LinkedIn still says you are from the Greater New York City area.

Oh no! I totally have to change that. I grew up on South Street. I always saw myself moving to Mount Airy. My mom gives me trouble about my New York City area code [on my cell phone].
Every Friday, Technically Philly brings you an interview with a leader or innovator in Philadelphia s technology community. See others here.