The 2000 AWIB Entrepreneurial Achievement Award Winner - Mie-Yun Lee
Founder and Vice President of Content
BuyerZone.com
BuyerZone.com, a Cambridge, Massachusetts based company, is the premier Internet purchasing hub for small to mid-sized businesses, combining the most comprehensive decision support with the industry's leading purchasing management and e- commerce tools. The company delivers a guided buying experience that empowers customers to easily evaluate and quickly make the right purchases for all their business needs. Since the launch of its web site in 1997, BuyerZone.com has influenced the buying decisions of over 2 million small and mid-sized business customers.
Mie-Yun Lee founded the business in 1992 after spending 3 years as a management consultant following her graduation from Yale University. As a consultant, she worked with several startups and saw that they all had the same challenges when setting up their offices - selecting the right phone systems, furniture, insurance, etc. She saw that each person responsible for purchasing spent a lot of time reinventing the wheel figuring out what to get for the office. In true entrepreneurial fashion, she saw a void that needed to be filled and, with a partner, invested their own money to start the Business Consumer Guide, a Consumer-Reports like newsletter for small businesses.
In 1995, she wrote an article about the Internet and realized that the advice she was giving others about how it could be used to help small businesses expand was advice she should follow herself. With the Internet, they could add the local shopping element that her readers had been asking for over the years. Their business model transitioned from print to the Internet; BuyerZone.com was established in 1996 and the site was launched in 1997.
At the time, companies catering to the general consumer audience were the rage. Floating a business-to-business business plan for financing was not easy during these times. What’s more, as a young Asian woman, she did not fit the typical fundraiser mold. Her tenacity soon paid off and her company started to attract angel investors and finally, in May of 1999, the company closed on $6.5 million in venture capital from firms including BancBoston Ventures, Commonwealth Capital, One Liberty Ventures and Women’s Growth Capital Fund. With the site successfully bringing buyers and sellers together, the company closed on $15 million in second round financing, with UBS Capital as the lead investor, in the spring of 2000.
In addition to her duties as founder and Vice President of Content for BuyerZone.com, Mie-Yun writes a syndicated small-business purchasing advice column called "The Savvy Business Shopper." It is published in 30 business journals such as the Washington Business Journal, the Houston Business Journal, the Puget Sound Business Journal and other journals from around the country. She is widely recognized as the trusted expert on purchasing for small and medium-sized businesses, and often serves as an authoritative source for articles and TV shows including USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Smart Money and CNBC.
When asked what advice she would give to women entrepreneurs, Mie Yun stated that "You must be incredibly focused and clear about your business. No matter how good your idea is, you may not make it unless you understand how you are going to reach your market cost-effectively. And don't be afraid to inject your personality into the business."
A second generation Korean-American, she comes from a family of doctors--her mother, father and two brothers are all physicians. Dispelling the myth that you can't have a personal life if you are in a new media business, Mie-Yun has been married since 1993 and is a mother of a beautiful 10-month old girl.