After working on social networks for a successful startup that recently got acquired, I decided that it was time to strike out on my own, but with no real engineering knowledge (I am a Psychology major and Human Resources Master), was unsure how to take the first step to getting there. I got my break when I joined a group of illustrious men, founders of Skewz.com, who needed my social networking skills to complement their engineering and marketing expertise. Skewz is about democratizing the media and more specifically, about revealing the political bias in the media. No better time than an election year, I say! I made it a point to sit next to our lead engineer at every meeting, and as we got chugging along in our late night pow-wow sessions, my vocabulary became populated with words previously known as “tech talk” or “geek stuff”. While I was undergoing this character change, it also occurred to me that the idea of media democratization could and should be applied to several fields – but the inspiration was yet to come.
One day, my husband came home from the supermarket, energized by his weekly consumption of celebrity trash at the checkout line, and revealed that Lynne Spears, Britney’s mum, was in the thick of a roaring affair with Kevin Federline, Britney’s ex and father of her children. As if we didn’t have enough to talk about (we had just found out I was pregnant and we had signed up for a 2 year assignment to Australia), we ended up debating the legitimacy of his claim for 45 minutes, and then as all Silicon Valley loyalists do, we jumped on the internet hoping for a final verdict. Google revealed nothing, People.com was mute on the subject, and Perez Hilton was obsessing over Lindsay instead. Then it dawned on me: “How do I find out if a curious bit of celebrity news is legit? By starting my own site, of course!”. Thus was born HowLegit.com on the foundation of a very simple idea (and slightly caustic marital dispute): users should be able to read and submit celebrity news articles and vote on which ones they think are true (“Totally Legit”), and which are false(“Full of Sh*t”). The wisdom of the crowds has a chance to prevail over the sensationalism of journalists, yet again. Three months later, the site is up. Check out www.howlegit.com and tune in here for next steps on how it came to be.
Kaamna Dhawan had a colorful career in corporate America before realizing that the intersection of technology and human interaction is where her passions lie. And no one makes human interaction as fascinating as celebrities do! As the founder and CEO of HowLegit.com, she brings in experience from running 4 successful social networks and a continuing restlessness for learning and entrepreneurship. Kaamna is now six months pregnant, and just moved across the world to Sydney, Australia, proving that technology has truly removed all barriers against productivity and connectivity. She misses the Bay Area and her interactions with Girls in Tech and secretly stalks the organization through the website and Facebook!
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