Small Business Profile: White Cat Media

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by all the online shopping sites? Sure, they’re fun for browsing, but who has that much free time to spend Googling keywords and perusing hundreds of sites. When you are on a mission for the best price on one of those quilted handbags seen during fashion week, where do you start your search?

New York City-based White Cat Media Inc. is an online media company that publishes editorial Web sites about shopping targeted toward busy, professional women. White Cat’s employees of Shefinds.com and Momfinds.com discover the best products on the Web and help you prioritize options through a unique editorial voice.

White Cat Media has already experienced success but, since it was founded on a shoestring budget, it still faces the same challenges many small businesses encounter. Traditionally, to grow, a company would hire additional employees to take on more business. But, in the current economy that isn’t an option for most companies, White Cat included. Also, with a number of part-time employees and the increasing need to be mobile, White Cat needed to centralize data management, ensure data security without spending too much. Michelle Madhok, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of White Cat Media travels on foot in New York City for marketing and public relations and needs to stay connected to always be social networking. So, having a laptop wherever she goes is essential to her business.

To enable “go anywhere” mobility and company-wide data sharing, White Cat worked with Dell to get a new Latitude laptop and PowerEdge server, preloaded with Microsoft Small Business Server.

Now, Madhok can access company files without having to worry about the security of her system and the blue color enhances the company’s image as a style maker. The centralized server is the perfect size, being no bigger than a desktop. Plus, with the new server the business isn’t in danger of losing an invoice and with SharePoint (included with the server) employees have access to up-to-date documents and data wherever they are. Now, less time is wasted searching for documents and the business expects to gain 10% in productivity just by sharing data.

Check out the video below for interviews with Michelle, the CEO and Michael Palka, COO and President, on how technology has helped them better manage and grow White Cat Media. Also, keep up with great deals by subscribing to the SheFinds blog and MomFinds blog.

About the Author: Kara Krautter