Catherine Cook
Co-founder and Product Development Guru,
MyYearbook.com
More From Catherine
Each myYearbook.com user fills out a fun, detailed profile with all of their favorite things. Catherine shares a snapshot from her own page:
Five things she can’t live without: friends, iPod, cell phone, chocolate, caffeine
First thing you’ll notice about her: Her smile. She’s always smiling!
Dream car: Red BMW 3.1ti
Favorite author: Agatha Christie
Favorite sports: running, skiing, gymnastics, ultimate Frisbee, soccer
Favorite movies: Zoolander, Harry Potter, 10 Things I Hate About You
In her bedroom you’ll find: a lava lamp, a lot of clothes, a gumball machine, 2 laptops, sand from Hawaii
Catherine's Strategies
Be adaptable to change.
“My market changes all the time and you have to take action if you don’t want to fall behind. To keep our viewers engaged, we aim to introduce a new feature every two weeks. Once, in just three weeks we launched four gigantic site projects. One of the worst things is getting stuck in a rut where you’re afraid to make any changes or try something out of the ordinary. It can be intimidating to attempt the unfamiliar, but I believe that if you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not making decisions.”
Ignore the naysayers.
“After we started getting major publicity, some people at my school became a little jealous. One guy in particular I remember was incredibly mean to me for no reason. I could have gotten upset but instead I chose to ignore it. If you want to do great things and be successful you can’t always care about what others say. My thinking was if he isn’t able to contribute something positive or offer to help, there’s no need to listen to him.”
Stay grounded.
“The biggest moment came when we were awarded the $4.1 million from our first Series A round of funding. That was an insane amount of money and we could have gone crazy celebrating. But we just went out to eat at P.F. Chang’s and we really only had time for dinner. Afterwards, we headed right back to work.”
Be generous.
“One of the features on the site that I developed and am the most proud of is the Causes application. It allows our members to donate virtual currency towards a variety of charitable causes from saving the rain forest to feeding the hungry. Then our company makes an actual donation on their behalf. So far our members have saved 3 million square feet of rain forest and sent 22,000 books to Africa. I love Causes because I've always wanted to change the world, and so have our members, and now we can all work together to Save the Planet!"
Think Out of the Box
July 2010
In 2005, Catherine Cook did something that would make most 15-year-old girls cringe—she wore the same T-shirt every single day to Montgomery High School in her hometown in New Jersey. But it wasn’t because she had no other clothes. Catherine took such a bold fashion risk in order to promote MyYearbook.com, the social networking website she launched with her then 16-year-old brother, Dave.
While flipping through a yearbook over their spring break, the siblings felt frustrated by its traditional format. “We wondered why anyone was buying regular yearbooks anymore when they could be so much more,” remembers Catherine. “By bringing the format online we realized we could take it so much further. It could reinvent real life, make it even better, make it easier to approach the cute boy in a different class or easier to connect with the people you see everyday.” A heated brainstorming session followed, Catherine doodled the name down on her notebook, added smiley faces in the “O’s” and a logo and a dream were quickly born.
After receiving a check to finance the initial phase of the project from her older brother Geoff, a successful entrepreneur himself, Catherine came up with the clever marketing campaign. “At first I was pretty nervous about wearing the T-shirts, but they attracted the attention we were hoping for,” she recalls. Her risky move paid off in a big way, and in just ten months the site already had 1.5 million members. Now, four years later she is the proud co-founder of the fourteenth most-trafficked website in the nation, with 73 employees, and three offices. But don’t think she’s stopping there. Her yearbook superlative on the site reads “Most Likely to Lead the Free World” and the 20-year old Georgetown University senior is well on her way to that goal!
Strategy For Success: Know When to Sell Yourself
Strategy For Success: Rely on Your Instincts
Strategy For Success: Bloom Where You're Planted
Strategy For Success: Engage the Next Generation