Meet the Publisher: SheFinds

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007

Meet the Publisher: SheFinds

Michelle Madhok is the Founder of SheFinds.com and MomFinds.com, two online publications that are highly respected in the online fashion world. She provides busy women with up-to-the-minute news on fashion and beauty so they don’t have to search themselves. We got the chance to catch up with Michelle to see what her life is like as the Shopping and Fashion Expert for SheFinds.

Michelle Madhok, SheFinds.com

Let us in on 5 fun facts about you!
1. I met my husband when I made a new year’s resolution to go on 100 internet dates. He was number 20! You can see our wedding as profiled in The Knot Magazine.
2. I was featured in Footwear news for my enormous shoe collection.
3. I am a corporate refugee – 10 years at FOX, ABC, CBS and AOL and now I commute from my bedroom to my home office at 6:30 AM every day.
4. I’m a native Northern Californian – with my dark hair, red lipstick and bossiness everyone thinks I am a born and bred New Yorker.
5. I almost went to get an MFA at the University of Iowa in 1998. It had always been my dream to be a fiction writer. I got in to the prestigious fiction graduate program, went to Iowa, rented an apartment, came back and had a panic attack. I simply could not picture myself in Iowa trying to write fiction in the middle of the winter when the internet boom was taking off. Instead I went to AOL which eventually led to my launching SheFinds in 2004. You can see the writing piece that got me accepted to the University of Iowa program here.

What is your favorite item in your closet?
Barely worn Snakeskin Prada boots – scored on eBay for $50. Some woman’s husband put them up for sale. Boy was he clueless!

Fill in the blank: I can’t live without… Fit’n Free pizzas. I’m totally addicted. Thanks to Hungry-girl.com for the tip. Now I’ve given away my skinny secret to all the fashionistas! Oh and my husband…he’s awesome too.

What’s your favorite gift to give?
The gift of time. I like to buy people certificates for dinners, massages – anything that’s an experience.

If you could max out your credit card at one shop, which one?
Bluefly.com for sure – there’s always something I want. I have to stop myself from looking.

What is one thing every woman should own?
An investment handbag.

What inspired you to start your blog/site?
While working toward my master’s degree in marketing from Northwestern, which has some of the best consumer behavior experts in the country, I learned how to recognize what people want and understand why they buy. After college, I spent three years with CBS Broadcasting New Media helping the company to start CBS.com, when I received a call from AOL, which at the time was the center of the universe for Internet content. They wanted 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 and feel better about themselves.

While working in D.C., I used to shop at the outlet malls for friends who didn’t have time to shop for themselves. So after five years at AOL, I started thinking… say you want to buy black pants. 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.com and then later – at the request of my mommy friends – MomFinds.com.

If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?
New York City – I love this town.

Who is your celebrity style mate?
For casual – I love Jennifer Aniston – that girl can rock a t-shirt and jeans. For a more glamorous look - Emmanuelle Chriqui is my idol.

Name your favorite:

Cocktail: A glass of Viognier. Actually 2 glasses…
Color: I must admit, I dress in a lot of black. This is a bad idea since I live with a white cat.
Band/Singer: When I’m burned out at the end of the day I turn on the Frank Sinatra Channel on Sirius
Fashion Trend: I love wrap dresses from Kathlin Argiro and DVF.
Book: I just read Eat, Pray, Love – but is it bad to say that I thought the Eat part was the best part?