An Entrepreneur Who Took a Chance on Herself

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 <i>is</i> true to a point) while refusing to see the advantages of being a woman in these areas.<p>When we were interviewing people for positions, I always sensed somewhat more enthusiasm before interviewing a woman in my colleagues, even if it's a <i>phone interview</i>.<p>You may find these comments Summers-like, but let me know if you have not experienced similar things in your work environment.

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)<p>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)<p>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.<p>She shares the last attribute with many of us on HN :)

Oh now I remember who the entrepreneur actually is. She started one social networking site in India called <a href="http://yaari.com" rel="nofollow">http://yaari.com</a> which was absolutely spammy. Mailed tons of spam endlessly - probably that's why it didn't work out and now that site simply shows her personal blog.

She's a Stanford grad, entrepreneur, surfer, model and apparently she has been published in the NYT. She also created this diet, which looks interesting: <a href="http://thenaturalfoodsdiet.com/about.php" rel="nofollow">http://thenaturalfoodsdiet.com/about.php</a><p>I had no idea human beings like this existed. I feel inferior.<p><a href="http://prernagupta.com/" rel="nofollow">http://prernagupta.com/</a>

I find it mildly interesting that the NYT article omits CS from her dossier. Does branding her as purely an Economics grad make her more of an 'everyman' and thus result in a more relatable story?

<i>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.</i><p>Is it just me or do those last paragraphes sound like beautiful poetry?

She gets points for cajoling a fluff self-promotion piece out of the nytimes. That's not easy.

Her other venture was Yaari.com, which was a scammy dating site aimed at Indians. It was big with some Indian VC's here in Bangalore but eventually got shut down.

the social networking site if I'm not mistaken is www.yaari.com (targeted towards indians) -- as someone who's closely followed the indian startup scene, i seriously doubt if they had anywhere close to 2 million users. besides, think about it - if you have close to 2 mill users, why would you just abandon it ?

<i>...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...</i><p>Someone managed to make Microsoft SongSmith into something that doesn't suck?

One of the more interesting profiles to be featured on NYTimes - interesting for the fact that she could easily have had an easy high-lifestyle life financed by her consulting career and gave it up to make her own destiny.<p>I know someone who worked for the Monitor Group - which is the unnamed consulting group - she was super sharp.

The title sounds like a tautology. Don't all entrepreneurs take a chance on themselves, by definition? :)

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

Sorry but I really find her website too cheesy!<p>Someone who claims to have 5 Million $ worth web company should know better.<p>Also her modelling portfolio is like HFCS worst than cheesy.