Q&A with Hired Gun Michelle Madhok KEY STATS: Title: President, White Cat Media LLC Email: michelle@shefinds.com Websites: www.shefinds.com, www.shefindsmom.com Current 'hood: Upper West Side, NYC

• Website: www.bloglines.com
  
  
• iPod Crack: NPR Podcasts
  
  
• Bedside Reading: Books? Who has time to read books? Lucky Magazine, New York Magazine, The Sun Literary Magazine.
  
  
• Best cheap eats in the Big Apple: Lupa

FACTOIDS:

Number of Hired Guns gigs: 3

Via The Hired Guns, I was brought into 3 separate gigs. In the first gig, I was hired by a major interactive agency to be their Internet E-marketing Strategy Consultant where I developed a targeted email marketing strategy to reach consumers with specific conditions for a major pharmaceutical client. My next gig was for a start-up marketing communications agency that specialized in fashion. While there I developed an online editorial strategy for a luxury goods retail client. My most recent gig was a quick one where I was brought into another interactive shop to advise on content strategy for a new E-tail site (currently in development).

Number of years until retirement: NEVER!

Weirdest job you've ever had: Ghost writer for John Gray, author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.

Best advice given to you by a mentor: Make your mistakes on someone else's dime.

Best advice you’ve given to an underling: Pick your battles carefully.


THE NITTY GRITTY:

Q: Since college how many fulltime jobs have you held?
A: Just two, but several freelance gigs. I like to call all my moves "career segues." I went from TV reporter to fiction writer to TV marketing and promotions to Internet marketing to Internet content development.

Q: Tell me about SheFinds.com. When did you launch? What’s it all about?
A: I started SheFinds.com in 2004 and am headquartered in New York City. We scan the Internet for online shopping "finds." We focus on fashion and beauty, but will occasionally alert readers to wonderful products for the home as well. Findings can be found in a free weekly newsletter and a daily blog which gets sent out to thousands of readers in the US and abroad.

Q: What makes you the "authority" on fabulous and affordable fashion?
A: I've been shopping for 25 years! While working in D.C., I used to shop at the outlet malls for friends who didn't have time. Meanwhile, last Christmas was the biggest online shopping season ever, with an increase in spending of nearly 20 percent over the previous year. So after five years at AOL, I started thinking … say you want to buy black pants. When you search Google for "black pants," you get 10 million results! No one was telling you the best place to buy black pants on the Internet. Shopping magazines like Lucky were popping up, but the online content did not exist, so I created SheFinds.

Q: How did your corporate AOL experience prepare you for She Finds?
A: AOL hired me to revamp their editorial content for women. I took the job, changed the content based on extensive research into what women want online, and within a year we went from about 150,000 to 10,000,000 unique users per month. One of the things that kept hitting home is that women are split in half… one half is the woman who is CEO of her home – she goes to work, pays bills, gets kids to soccer practice and plans dinner, and the other half is the woman who wants a bubble bath, a glass of chardonnay and time to have her nails done. Women are time-starved. My goal is to help women use the Internet to add time back into their lives and fulfill their desires to look better and feel better about themselves. I was able to use AOL as a place to learn and test before I launched my own site. It also gave me a great leg up on how business is done in this field.

Q: What was the scariest part of giving up your so-called secure day job to start your own company?
A: Letting go of the corporate safety net. I've been a "good girl" all my life, a good student, worked for good companies. Making the jump into business for yourself, sometimes people look at you cross-eyed and say, "You're going to do what!?" You're not going to starve. You can always get another job. But it's a challenge for most of us to get over that initial fear. Taking consulting gigs -- thanks Hired Guns! -- helped me make the transition from full-time employment to full-time entrepreneurism.

Q: Speaking as one entrepreneur to another: what’s the best advice you would give to someone who wants to quit their day job and start their own business?
A: As a woman, it's important to connect with other female entrepreneurs so that you can cheer each other on. When I started this business, I set a goal to meet four new people each week. I told myself that I HAVE to do this, every week. What really makes a business succeed is who you know. However, you can't always take -- sometimes just ask what you can give. I believe in Karma -- you help someone and eventually they will help you.

Q: What did your parents, friends and family say when you quit to do your own thing?
A: My father spent 20 years with AT&T and then took over a small business which made him far happier and wealthier than he could have ever imagined when he was a corporate guy. That made him very supportive. My boyfriend (now husband) was a little more nervous -- but now that he sees the success he's my biggest champion.

Q: You're very particular about the kinds of freelancing you choose to do to support your income stream while you’re building your business... Tell us why and how this has benefited you and your business?

A: I only want to take gigs that will help me gain skills or contacts that can help me with my business. On my first gig for The Hired Guns, I was able to learn everything about the new and best practices for email marketing. At the marketing communications agency, I worked on branding for a major luxury retailer Vivire under a woman with a well-respected pedigree in the fashion business. Not only was my boss an amazing woman to learn from, but the experience also allowed me to find out what the issues are that affect retail sales in the marketplace today.

As I've gotten busier I have to be really picky about my schedule. I try to take on assignments where I can work from home or where there's limited time in the office.

Q: Do you still have time to network? What sort of groups and associations are you a member of?
A: I believe more in independent networking....meeting for coffee just to pick each other's brains. However, I do belong to several women entrepreneur groups -- Divas Who Dine, Ladies Who Launch and another entrepreneur group through the Columbia School of Business.

Q: How do you handle time management and the balance between doing the work you love, and doing the work you have to do to pay the bills?
A: I'm extremely efficient....that's why I like having my own biz -- I always felt like much of my time in corporate was wasted waiting for other people! Luckily now the biz pays the bills. Back when it didn't, I would consult and pay someone else to do what I couldn't. That's how I've staffed my biz, with freelancers -- first there was a web producer, then writers, then managing editors....now I have project managers and SEO experts and designers as well.

Q: How is Shefinds.com doing? What’s on the horizon for you?
A: SheFinds is doing great -- we now have 10,000 subscribers a day visiting the site and getting our newsletter. We've sold over $500,000 of merchandise for retailers in the last year. And there's been some interest from big media in creating a show from our content. In fact, we signed a deal with MSN a few months ago.

Q: Who should sign up and how?
A: Whether you're a shopping fanatic or fatality, fashionista or frump, fellow e-commerce enthusiast, or just interested in staying on top of the latest finds, SheFinds.com will instantly bring you up-to-date by getting the Net's most promising finds right in front of you. To check out the most recent SheFinds Newsletter, go to our Archive page, www.shefinds.com/archive.html. For daily trends, check out our blog, blog.shefinds.com/.

Q: We're going to ask everyone this: "What's the best tip about gigging you can give to your fellow hired guns?
A: Be REALLY clear about your other commitments... the tough thing is that the client wants to treat you like an employee, but the reason to freelance is so that I don't have to have the strict schedule of an employee.

Q:  How about some holiday shopping tips on SheFinds.com?
A:  Sure!  Here are some great picks from the site:
Gift for Him:  ClarinsMen Products
Gift for Her:  Jennifer Meyer Necklace
Gift for Mom:  BodyLinens by Thread Count PJ's
Gift for Dad:  Bald Guy Shampoo
Gift for Boss:  A chic new laptop bag