What do I have to say about being a young entrepreneur? It’s a bit challenging to comment on because it’s so engrained in who I am
and what I do. Starting Weddington Way was a choice, but it didn’t feel like a choice…it was just what I had to do. I started working on Weddington Way during my second year of the MBA program at Stanford GSB and never looked back. My hobby turned into the subject of every class project I did during my second year of business school. I literally built my curriculum around it. The month before I graduated, I took out a loan to support myself, and shipped my first couple shipments of dresses out of the Paper Source at Town and Country Village in Palo Alto the week of graduation. It was as if an invisible force compelled me to keep staying up late, waking up early, and sketching pages of the site during class, consuming me in the most wonderful way. I LOVE it, and can’t imagine doing anything else.
Here are a few of the benefits of starting a company at a young age. First of all, resilience is key, and the earlier you master how to deal with failure and bounce back from it, the better. One must wake up every day and be willing to put one foot in front of the other, knowing all the successes and failures that lie in a trail behind, and in a path ahead of you. This level of challenge and perseverance is something that I’m excited to take with me wherever I go in life. I’m confident my experience will be invaluable in other start-ups I build.
I love what I do and the people I work with. I’ve found so much joy by the age 28! Something I’ve seen from one of my greatest role models, my father, (also an entrepreneur) is that as you mature and have some successes under your belt, you intellectually understand the struggle that goes into building things from scratch, but don’t totally empathize anymore. The journey becomes sort of a distant memory. I’m still earning my stripes and it’s definitely not a distant memory for me yet. The company is my day-to-day reality, and I’m in the trenches with my team, which is vital to our dynamic. Right now the single focus of our team is helping bridal parties communally shop for bridesmaids dresses through our site.
It’s so much fun to be part of a community of other people who are creating, building, and inspiring me to continue. It’s fabulous to share this experience with a new generation of leaders in Silicon Valley who are setting the tone for innovation in the future.
Which high-tech company do Americans feel has the brightest future: Apple, Facebook or Google? According to Poll Position, new polling data finds that Apple tops Google and Facebook at 44 percent.
