About

yasmine full headshot by colin lenton philadelphia photographerHi, my name is Yasmine Mustafa.

Until recently, I was the Founder & CEO of 123LinkIt, a blog advertising company in Philadelphia that was just acquired by NetLine in November 2011.  The concept came from a pain-point I experienced. My biggest challenge was running a tech company as a business/marketing person without a development background.

I’m now the Product Marketing Manager at NetLine where I’m in charge of integrating our software into their platform, product development and recruiting new partners to their ad network, RevResponse. I’m also involved with GirlDevelopIt Philly and TechGirlz.org, two organizations that aim to help women get into technology. While I’ll probably deviate from the topic from time to time, I plan on sharing lessons learned as well as regular old entrepreneurship posts.

A few facts about me:

  • I wanted to be a professional basketball player when I was in high school.
  • I come from a family of eight. I have 3 sisters and 2 brothers.
  • My hobbies include reading, playing poker and people-watching. Sometimes all at once!
  • In another life, I’d love to be a UX specialist.
  • I graduated Summa Cum Laude from Temple University in 2006 with an Entrepreneurship degree. I  put myself through school and it took me 7 years to finish. While there, I received the “Entrepreneurship Award” for possessing the highest GPA in my Major.
  • I was part of the first class of DreamIT Ventures in 2008.
  • I currently hold the record for “Most Innovative Idea” competition awards at Temple University with 3 consecutive wins. Ironically, the concept I actually decided to pursue (123LinkIt) only received an Honorable Mention in 2010.
  • 123LinkIt won First Place and $25,000 in cash and prizes in Temple’s Business Plan Competition in 2010. This is something I’m especially proud of because we did not place the previous year.
  • I’ve participated in Startup Weekend three times, coming in as a Finalist once and in 2nd place this past year.
  • I’ve been quoted in Business Week and Philadelphia Magazine.
  • I was once a Temple University ad model for their MBA program. I don’t have an MBA and I wasn’t paid for it.
  • BlogHer features my blog posts from time to time. I’ve experienced the Digg, Hacker News, Delicious and Stumbleupon effect. I’m working on the elusive Reddit and TechCrunch.
  • My blog was named one of the top Entrepreneurship blogs in Philadelphia by TechnicallyPHL in 2011.
  • If you’re not bored yet (what’s wrong with you?), here’s a backstory on how I worked my tuckus off to get to where I am.