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New York, NY--According to a story by Catherine Clifford of CNBC, a 20-year-old college student has launched a jewelry line worn by Michaelle Obama. Pictured at left, Shilpa Yarlagadda, the founder of Shiffon. (Photo credit: Jenny Tarbell. Styled by Maria Encalada. Photos courtesy Shiffon via CNBC.)

From the story:

Growing up in Silicon Valley, surrounded by tech giants and start-ups alike, Shilpa Yarlagadda saw “so many companies,” but she “just never saw that many women in the C suite,” the 24-year-old founder of online fine jewelry start-up Shiffon told Marcus Lemonis on his upcoming CNBC limited series, “Streets of Dreams with Marcus Lemonis.”

So while still in undergrad at Harvard, Yarlagadda and some friends started Shiffon as a passion project to make money to fund women entrepreneurs. And much to Yarlagadda’s surprise, the business took off.

Now, since launching Shiffon in 2017, Yarlagadda is juggling school (she took a gap year from Harvard but is on track to graduate in 2021) with running a business in an industry she knew little about, learning as she goes.

It may not be a typical path to the jewelry business, but then not much about Shiffon is typical. In fact, Yarlagadda is building her business by deconstructing the traditional fine jewelry business model, selling direct-to-consumer online, and using the extra profits she makes by eliminating the middleman to fund start-ups that are led by women and that support women.

It started with a Google search.

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