Michelle Madhok is one of those extraordinary women entrepreneurs who have succeeded in disproving the claim that women are better off being employees rather than CEOs. She is a role model to follow.
Michelle Madhok, CEO of SHEfinds Media
She is only about 40 years old (born on May 26, 1971), and she started her business from the scratch in 2004.
Michelle Madhok is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer, CEO, of White Cat Media Inc. – DBA SheFinds Media, the parent company of SheFinds.com, BrideFinds.com and MomFinds.com, where she helps busy women save money and shop reasonably. She writes for Real Simple, Comcast Shopping and Huffington Post. What she does primarily is to help busy women locate affordable and fashionable wears online.
How Michelle Madhok started the Journey to Being a Woman Entrepreneur
What Michelle Madhok does today started out as a free service. At the time she was still an employee, she helped her friends, coworkers and colleagues do personal shopping whenever they were too busy.
Before starting her business, she worked first as Director of Entertainment Marketing for CBS Broadcasting New Media and Group Director of Editorial Products for Women at AOL.
However, the idea of starting a web portal for busy women did not strike her until she had so many people and had to be sending them links of shopping sites. She offered that idea of having an online shopping site to 3 established websites that turned her down. She just had to start on her own. She bought the domain name shefinds.com from a porn site that had stopped using it.
The Worth of Michelle Madhok Today
Michelle Madhok began her entrepreneurial career at her own apartment in New York seven years ago (in 2004). As at then, she worked 70 hours in a week and earned $30, 000 a year. By 2008, she was making $500, 000 in sales alone. However as at January 2011, she works only 50 hours in a week and grosses $1.3 million.
She started her business with $20,000 from her own pulse. So, it is really true that women often start their business out of their savings.
Today, she has a huge number of followers on Twitter – 14,573 followers and 9,906 tweets so far. She describes herself as Online Shopping Expert and CEO of SheFinds Media: shefinds.com, bridefinds.com and momfinds.com. She uses a very fascinating background displaying SHEfinds all over the wall. On Facebook, she has 1,225 friends.
Decisions and opinions of Michelle Madhok in the Past
In an article on Career Cookbook Michelle Madhok said, I got tired of having a boss … they laid people off every three months … I went to the Head of Shopping at AOL and said I have this idea and he did not really want to commit to it, his job was a little shaky. I went to Conde Nast and they said we think you are a marketer trying to be an editorial person. I went to Hearst and this editor at this new magazine Shop etc. said she hated the Internet, hated ecommerce.
When asked about important entrepreneurial qualities, she said, You have to have a little bit of bravado when you are out because you are coming from nowhere … Even though you are so much smaller you have to be like we are going to be the next big thing
Michelle Madhok advises that would-be-entrepreneurs should rather learn from other people’s mistakes than from their own bitter experiences. She emphasizes a need to constantly learn and do something even when there is nothing to do.
On SHEfinds.com press page, she wrote:
Our goal is to become a trusted resource for our readers and relied upon to provide only the best product and service solutions. With our distinctive, “confidant” writing style and commitment to reviewing only products we’ve tested, we have tens of thousands of loyal readers.
Michelle Madhok Connections
You can maintain constant touch with Michelle Madhok on the following links:
- Michelle Madhok on Twitter @ SHEfinds
- Michelle Madhok on LinkedIn @ Michelle Madhok
- Michelle Madhok on Facebook @ Michelle Madhok
- Michelle Madhok’s Page @ Michelle Madhok
More Info on Michelle Madhok
Michelle Madhok studied Communications at University of California, Berkeley before going for MS in Marketing at Northwestern University. She is happily married to an Internet Expert, Michael Palka, and they live in Manhattan.
To her, the major rewards of being an entrepreneur are
- Managing her personal schedule.
- Not working for anybody.
- Knowing how much money is in the bank when she goes to sleep
Further Reading on Women CEOs for You
Women CEOs: How Chelsea Rustrum makes $120, 000 to $140, 000 from Her Blog annually
Woculus 