Setting her sites: a busy young Web entrepreneur shares the secrets of her success.Recent college grad Robin Liss n. 1. Release; remission; ease; relief. v. t. 1. To free, as from care or pain; to relieve. didn't did·n't Contraction of did not. didn't did not didn't do have to buy a good suit, pound the pavement pavement, the wearing surface of a road, street, or sidewalk. Parts of Babylon and Troy are believed to have been paved; Roman roads were noted for their durable stone paving. Cobblestones were common from late medieval times into the 19th cent. , and sit through interview after interview to land a job. That's because Liss, 23, already had a job--as the chief executive officer (CEO (1) (Chief Executive Officer) The highest individual in command of an organization. Typically the president of the company, the CEO reports to the Chairman of the Board. ) of her own company, Reviewed.com. It's a job the 2006 graduate of Tufts University Tufts University, main campus at Medford, Mass.; coeducational; chartered 1852 by Universalists as a college for men. It became a university in 1955. Jackson College, formerly a coordinate undergraduate college for women, merged with the College of Liberal Arts in had throughout her high school and college years. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When Liss was 12, she started building Web sites for fun, using a book as her guide. At the same time, Liss was also exploring another hobby A hobby is a spare-time recreational pursuit. Origin of term A hobby-horse was a wooden or wickerwork toy made to be ridden just like the real hobby. From this came the expression "to ride one's hobby-horse", meaning "to follow a favourite pastime", and in turn, : making Claymation videos with her home camcorder. One day it dawned on her: Why not combine the two interests? "I wrote about making movies for under $100," Liss says. "Seventy or 100 people read it on the first day! I realized people wanted this and liked what I had to say." Thus the review site CamcorderInfo.com got its start. It became a major destination for consumers shopping for camcorders. Liss juggled school with researching and writing camcorder reviews. "When I was running the site in school, I really learned to rely on my employees well because I didn't have time to micromanage micromanage Administration A popular term for excess oversight of lower management by upper management ," Liss notes. Today, Reviewed.com also runs sites that review digital cameras, cell phones, and printers. CEO Liss is the youngest person in the company. "I've learned [to] let credibility and hard work speak for itself," she says. "If you work hard, and if you are made of what you say, then your employees will respect you." Liss's success may also stem from the sense of responsibility she feels toward her readers. "We approach technology reviewing in a really unique way that has the interests of consumers first," she says. Liss has strict rules for her editors. They cannot accept gifts from manufacturers, and they are not allowed to interact with the advertising sales team, who make money for the company by selling ads to manufacturers of the equipment that's reviewed. The rules keep her editors from forming biases. That's important to Liss, who notes, "Almost a million people every month make a purchase based on what our editors say." |
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