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" In the digital age of blogging, online services and budding e-commerce sites, there&amp;#039;s an endless sea of opportunity waiting to be discovered on the internet for the next generation of entrepreneurs. When there&amp;#039;s already an app and website created for just about everything you can think of, the problem is in finding an idea that hasn&amp;#039;t already been done a million times before. Founder of CaratsandCake.com, Jess Levin, found a way to solve that exact problem with her own recipe for success as a woman in tech. Levin quit her career in venture capital to start her own bridal website\u2014which filled a void in the thriving wedding industry by servicing wedding vendors (florists, caterers, wedding planners, musicians, photographers and more) across the country rather than servicing brides directly.  Levin&amp;#039;s successful startup is now able to help not only local wedding businesses across the U.S., but also couples looking to plan their big day. CaratsandCake.com is a huge database of local wedding vendors (reviewed by other brides) in your area so you can plan every detail of your ceremony in one place.  Here, Levin shares her best advice to other women looking to launch their own sites.  HB: How was the idea for Carats &amp;amp;amp; Cake born? JL: Prior to Carats &amp;amp;amp; Cake I worked in venture capital and invested in luxury retail for brands that worked on the aspirational consumer in true luxury. When I left there for business school I had no intention of starting a company, I was going back to major in accounting and finance then was going back to D.C. One day I was sitting in a lecture and they were talking about diamonds\u2014 it&amp;#039;s a famous Harvard case study\u2014 so I&amp;#039;m no longer paying attention, I&amp;#039;m on my laptop and trying to find a ring and for me. This was the first time I was looking at the industry as more of a business and less of something where my friends are getting married and we&amp;#039;re going to all these great weddings. There were really two things for me: first there was an opportunity to speak to that true luxe and true aspirational consumer, which was built from my past job experience in D.C. The second thing was that it was more fascinating to me was that no one had truly built a business where the focus wasn&amp;#039;t actually on the consumer but rather on the half a million local wedding vendor businesses that power the industry. Key takeaway: Take the knowledge gained from your previous job experiences to the next level by thinking outside the box.   HB: What were the first steps in starting your own business?JL: The first thing I did was really write a business plan and start to synthesize my ideas because I wanted to be able to be really thorough, not just in the research I did on the industry, but also in the research I did on the opportunity. What was interesting on the industry side was when you look at weddings and the business behind weddings right now you have a lot of platforms that focus on the editorial side and focus on the consumer being the couple, but for us the hole was no one really focused on the service businesses [the photographers, the caterers, florists, calligraphers, music, etc] so we found a gap in the industry that needed to be filled.  Key takeaway: Find a way to fill a void that&amp;#039;s missing in the industry you want to pursue.  HB: What are the key things every woman should know before starting a business?JL: I think the biggest thing is you have to know what your business model is, so for us CaratsandCake.com is just one layer of that business model and that&amp;#039;s really how we broke into the industry, because its such a creative space because the power of the brand is so important to these individual artisans (photographers, florists, calligraphers) it&amp;#039;s an art and their work is their art. Because of that we built the brand first on the front end knowing that would drive everything else. It&amp;#039;s about empowering the businesses and vendors we work with and that goes back to your question of &amp;#039;what&amp;#039;s your business model?&amp;#039; and I think that&amp;#039;s really important. There&amp;#039;s so many opportunities nowadays to make money that diverge from that traditional thought process of just advertising. That&amp;#039;s something we are really excited about and pioneer in our industry where our business model is really focused on helping other businesses thrive. We don&amp;#039;t really make money unless they make money so our visions are aligned and our interests are aligned because of that it&amp;#039;s a win-win proposal creating an authenticity to what we&amp;#039;re trying to do. We&amp;#039;re not going to feature a business on our site unless it&amp;#039;s really driven, that&amp;#039;s how our business model works. Coming from that perspective, the key is not to just focus on how your site is going to look but really focus on how you&amp;#039;re going to make money.    Key takeaway: Don&amp;#039;t just focus on how your site is going to look, focus on how you&amp;#039;re going to make money.  HB: Do you feel women are unrepresented in the tech industry?JL: Yes, if you look at the numbers, definitely. But I think what&amp;#039;s fascinating about the space that I&amp;#039;m in[bridal]\u2014 two things that&amp;#039;s really exciting about our space\u2014 it is female led and yet you don&amp;#039;t have as many female leaders as you should in the tech space but because of that women add an insight to the branding and the way the consumer thinks that you know is really unique. I think that you play those strengths, that&amp;#039;s where you have to differentiate yourself and whether you&amp;#039;re a woman or a man, I don&amp;#039;t think it really matters. I think the idea more than anything is &amp;quot;okay, focus on why you are in this space, focus on why you are building that business&amp;quot; and for me it was there was no way I could do anything else, I needed to do this so I really sought the opportunity there. It&amp;#039;s not something that I think about, I might go to some conferences and there&amp;#039;s not that many women in the room\u2014yes. But then when I go to wedding industry conferences there are a lot of women.    Key takeaway: Use being a woman as an advantage and a strength rather than letting it hold you back.  HB: How has the wedding planning process changed since the Internet? And how have you used that to your advantage in starting the website?JL: People are a lot savvier because now you can access so much more information online. When you talk to the industry, photographers and wedding planners, their business is still driven by word of mouth and referral but that is something we think is going to shift now\u2014which is where the idea for Carats &amp;amp;amp; Cake comes in to play. With the review and the power of the review and referral you really want to feel good about what you&amp;#039;re spending so that&amp;#039;s how the internet is changing and driving information when you are planning your wedding. For me if I would have gotten married five or ten years ago the resources I would have had access to would have been limited. It would have been &amp;#039;hey mom who did so and so use for their wedding.&amp;#039; That internet behavior is an important one to tap into. Key takeaway: Predict how the internet and social media are going to change\u2014and get a head-start on that change with your business.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a10676/jess-levin-carats-and-cake/>