by Alexandra Moncure
What industry has a $100 billion dollar annual spend and is
controlled by 2.3 million women? Weddings. Kellee Khalil is thefounder
and CEO of Lover.ly, the world’s first visual search and commerce engine
revolutionizing the weddings industry. Lover.ly allows brides and
grooms to search, save, shop, and share all things wedding in one place
through beautiful, curated images from targeted vendors and
partnerships.
Khalil began her career in finance before joining her sister’s
wedding industry focused public relations agency. While working in the
bridal industry and simultaneously helping her sister plan her wedding
in 2010, Khalil experienced first hand the difficulty of making a
wedding come to life.
On the hunt for the perfect wedding elements—from dresses, shoes and
accessories to event decor and wedding vendors—she was also overwhelmed
by the millions of pages of wedding content on Google. It was then that
Khalil decided to create an
all-in-one resource
to help brides and grooms discover, search, shop, and share wedding
ideas and products in a simple, streamlined, fun and tech-savvy way.
However in order to accomplish this, Khalil needed to build a team
that understood her vision and possessed the skills she lacked from a
technology perspective to make the vision a reality. She understood that
it was important that she not only hire people who possessed the skills
she needed, but would also be a good fit for the company culture she
was hoping to build. When
building her team,
she focused on hiring people who had tremendous amounts of passion,
creativity, and interest in the problems that they’re working to solve.
“I think especially in early stage companies, the culture is derived
from the founders and the CEO,” Khalil said. “I tend to surround myself
with people with skill sets that are far beyond mine. One of my core
strengths I think is that I’m good at finding people who are better at
things than I am and bringing them around me.”
Read the full article and other articles from Levo League online.
