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Name: Jaime Y. Lynn
Business: Geekboxed.com/Zinogy, LLC, an online platform for high tech and industrial design products
Industry: E-Commerce, High Tech
Location: New York, New York, U.S.
Reason for starting: I have a finance background, took one of the most challenging financial exams, and worked in high yield debt then moved on to late stage VC, doing sourcing and due diligence. While I was at VC sourcing, I would hear about companies with these awesome products but I wondered to myself, as a consumer, how come I had never heard any of them? I would love to buy them! And that’s how it started.
Related: Read about another High Tech entrepreneur here.
How do you define success? Success is about achieving the goals you’ve set for yourself and your company and not what others dictate.
Biggest Success: My biggest success has yet to come. But so far, to code and design the entire marketplace is very rewarding. I do want people to know it’s possible to get your project done without a tech guy. It’s possible to just learn it yourself. It’s an extra skill I’ve gained and I talk to developers and designers with so much ease now. Before it might take me days to get my point across now it takes me two minutes.
What is your top challenge and how have you addressed it? When I first started, I wasted about 6 months of trying to find a technical group. At first I outsourced, I knew some database and programming but did not like the end results. I then asked a friend of a friend to join the team…he stuck around and helped here and there butI had to ask him many questions because I sensed he wasn’t going to finish the work. Unfortunately, I was correct. I ended up programming 95% of the website, and 99% of designs. Doing everything on my own was difficult, so I did write programs where things would be automated. I took interns and had them design a year’s worth of marketing materials. For now, I have brought on a hardware engineer for product research and I no longer need a software engineer since I became who I needed.
Related: Amanda Aitken: The Girl’s Guide to Web Design
Who is your most important role model? My mom. She’s my biggest fan and supporter. She will constantly remind me what my passions are (since I am prone to compare what others have, which is not good) and if I didn’t have it my business would fail.
[box_light]Website www.geekboxed.com
Twitter @GeekBoxed
Facebook www.facebook.com/GeekBoxed
Pinterest www.pinterest.com/GeekBoxed[/box_light]
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Edited by The Story Exchange