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An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself

nytimes.com

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Re: An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself

#31

Post by sumzup »

jessor wrote: post #2

Maybe I value my time more than my net worth. Maybe my fear of boredom outweighs my fear of failure. Or, maybe I have an irrational belief that I will succeed against all odds. Whatever it is, I find the risk of entrepreneurship to be not only worthwhile but also necessary for fulfillment. Work is no longer work. It is life, and a good one. Is it just me or do those last paragraphes sound like beautiful poetry?

It sounds like the language I used to end essays with when I wasn't sure how to write an appropriate conclusion. In other words, mostly BS.

Re: An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself

#32

Post by mambodog »

...I started Khush Inc., which makes an iPhone music application called LaDiDa. It’s a kind of reverse karaoke — it creates background music when people sing lyrics into a microphone...

Someone managed to make Microsoft SongSmith into something that doesn't suck?

Re: An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself

#33

Post by credo »

It is a well-written and interesting article. So unlike some of the comments below, I wouldn't chalk this up to some sort of discrimination (in favor of women)

It is true that her history/accomplishments aren't necessarily extraordinary. A few years ago, in a salaried job, she was "was on track to be earning six figures within three years." Now, she has one iPhone app that is doing well in the app store (the app never made it to the top 3 in the Music category, but it is currently at #7 in Music)

I think that her accomplishments not being extra-ordinary may make the story more interesting to a lot of people. The fact that it is #5 on HN is a testament to the story's relevance. Kudos to Prerna Gupta for a well-written article, for generating positive PR for her company and also for taking the risk of leaving her salaried job to take up entrepreneurship.

She shares the last attribute with many of us on HN :)

Re: An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself

#35

Post by megablast »

limedaring wrote: post #21
Jun8 wrote: post #17

Obviously NYT was having a slow day. However, what I'd like to point out is the discrimination: Do you think the same piece would be created if the entrepreneur in question was an average looking guy? People always talk about how women get discriminated against in CS, EE and the like (which is true to a point) while refusing to see the advantages of being a woman in these areas. When we were interviewing people for p…

I started to agree with you (my first initial reaction while reading this article was "Huh, typical 'I don't do what's easy and became an entrepreneur and now I'm semi successful' story"). But what does make it different that is that women don't usually go this route, whereas it might seem more normal for a man. So it's worth heralding someone who is technically a minority for doing something difficult. I don't see i…

She did not do it alone, she did it with her partner, now her husband.

She may not have done it if on her own, unfortunately.

Re: An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself

#36

Post by alexro »

In spite of the positive outcome for that woman, do you find that article having a depressing effect for you? She was on track for "six figure salary in 3 years" and worked for very reputable enterprises, and still she was not able to come up with any realistic business-model for herself.

An iPhone app while definitely an achievement may as well serve as a proof of a "normal" web-oriented startups going out of fashion.

Re: An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself

#37

Post by pgbovine »

megablast wrote: post #35
limedaring wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started to agree with you (my first initial reaction while reading this article was "Huh, typical 'I don't do what's easy and became an entrepreneur and now I'm semi successful' story"). But what does make it different that is that women don't usually go this route, whereas it might seem more normal for a man. So it's worth heralding someone who is technically a minority for doing something difficult. I don't see i…

She did not do it alone, she did it with her partner, now her husband. She may not have done it if on her own, unfortunately.

She may not have done it if on her own, unfortunately.

care to elaborate on this conjecture?

Re: An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself

#40

Post by Jun8 »

thesethings wrote: post #22
Jun8 wrote: post #17

Obviously NYT was having a slow day. However, what I'd like to point out is the discrimination: Do you think the same piece would be created if the entrepreneur in question was an average looking guy? People always talk about how women get discriminated against in CS, EE and the like (which is true to a point) while refusing to see the advantages of being a woman in these areas. When we were interviewing people for p…

Disagree. The NYT site didn't make it easy, but I just browsed about 12 months worth of this column(?) "Preoccupations." Female and male profiles were about 50-50, and everybody else seemed pretty average looking. Less than half the time is it a profile of an individual, the rest of the time it's a profile of a "trend" (This Hashrocket pair programming article that was on HN a while back, is from this same NYT column…

An interesting addition to your proposed study would be this: in addition to other people, how often does the person covered push their appearance. This was my main objection to this lady, when you go to her web page, her modeling and vanity shots are predominant, e.g. this is how she chooses to represent herself. She may be thinking that this would be advantageous in a male dominated profession.
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