Karen Donoghue and Mark Halliday

For entrepreneurs Karen Donoghue and Mark Halliday falling in love not only was wonderful but productive. The married team also married their talents and created a product called CoolCards, which fast is becoming hot.

Friends at the Media Lab in the early 90s where both earned master’s degrees, she got a job in Cambridge, he in L.A. They emailed a lot. On business trips to either coast, they visited often until friendship blossomed into love. Married in a Las Vegas chapel, the pair returned to Cambridge, where they now run Network Sound and Light. “CoolCards,” their email postcard business, is the product of their own long distance relationship.

“We were so frustrated by the limits of email. Like how do you show a smile?” says Donoghue, adding they created the digital cards to be fast and easy like email, but with pictures.

It’s all sold on the web site. You create the card on your own computer, a personalized digital card that can be viewed on any computer.

“Our interest as entrepreneurs lies in doing business on the internet,” Halliday says. “It’s still in its early days, but the opportunities are truly limitless. It’s a new frontier where all kinds of businesses are being created, and we think, will succeed.”

Drawn to entrepreneurship not only by love and money, but freedom, Donoghue says: “We wanted to control our schedules. Most husbands and wives never see each other. Having an online business, we see each other all the time.”

Their shared business experience not only created a bond, but a baby, Max, who Karen sets in a car seat beside her computer day or night. “Business is family,” Donoghue says. “We see it as a win-win situation not only for us and our family, but for all our colleagues.”

The couple extends open hands to mentor and be mentored by others in the business community. “We’re all in this together,” Donoghue says. “We’re not just businesspeople, we’re people.”

(www.coolcards.com)

by Liz Karagianis « Previous | Next »

On Topic: alumni/ae, business, entrepreneurship