Introduction

“The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting.” – Walt Disney

I was born in India but I moved to the US (New York) in the year 2000 with my family.

I am an introvert and aloof by nature but when it comes to technical things, I can’t stop talking :). That’s my play field. I love the company of intellectuals and achievers.

I am a workaholic. I am extremely passionate about my work.

Other than family and work, I am also a HUGE basketball (specifically Lebron James) fan :).

I worked for AT&T as a technical architect (developer) but quickly rose to the top of the organizational chain and became a Senior Technical Director in a few years. My boss was great. He recognized my potential and promoted me without bias. I won several performance awards at work but I always felt constrained by the work politics, funding and budgeting process. Being innovative did not help because I could not do everything I wanted to. It was not my own company. Everything had to go through the approval chain and the slow process frustrated me. There weren’t a whole lot of motivated people. I could not do things at my pace. I felt I knew too much to be wasting my time working for someone else.

I finally quit AT&T in 2009. Given my contributions to the company (I felt I was doing the job of 10 people), performing at a very high level, I thought I was as indispensable as it gets. I assumed that I was going to get a call from the HR begging for me to stay. But the moment I submitted my resignation letter, I was already forgotten.

I was just a number!

Leaving my job was the best decision I have ever made because it opened the door for something much greater…

My husband and business partner Ravi Jayagopal, started DigitalAccessPass.com (DAP) back in October 2008. He still had a full time job at that time and was barely getting any sleep as he was trying to manage both full time job and the business. After I quit my job and decided to work full time on the business, our business rapidly flourished. A year later, Ravi quit his job as well and we decided to move to sunny San Diego, California.

One of the best decisions we ever made! We both started working full time on our businesses and we knew the sky was the limit for us.

DAP is widely considered one of the TOP Membership Plugins in the world today.

A majority of membership site owners (at least the ones using DAP) offer Paypal as a payment option on their web sites. There was a glaring need for an upsell software that would automatically take buyers through an Upsell Sales Funnel using just a regular Paypal Standard (Business/Premier) account, where the buyers could pay using just their Paypal account, without the site owner having to sign up for a merchant account with expensive monthly fees and per-transaction fees. That gave birth to the Paypal Standard Upsell Plugin!

I developed one of the first ever Upsell Plugin for Paypal Standard‘ back in 2010! 

The limitation of this plugin is that it does not accept credit card payments. The buyers can only pay using their Paypal account (2-click upsell). There was no way around it because Paypal Standard did not have the APIs to support credit card payments in an upsell flow.

To overcome this limitation, I developed a Full Fledged Shopping Cart software with built-in 1-click upsell module that integrates with Paypal PRO, Authorize.net and Stripe.

The DAP Shopping Cart plugin is one of the most downloaded software programs to date.

It makes the implementation and automation of 1-click upsells almost effortless. The DAP Shopping Cart only works with DAP Powered Membership Sites.

I also founded WickedCoolPlugins.com in 2012!

The goal was to be innovative and develop unique WordPress Plugins for Marketers that helped increase traffic, user engagement and sales. It included plugins for Social Traffic Generation, Content Locking, Signups, Affiliate Marketing, Upsells w/ Paypal, Text-based Marketing, and a whole lot more.

The launch was a huge success!

Every plugin we sell at WickedCoolPlugins.com (WCP) offers something unique to online marketers.

“I covet honor and glory in the same way as the miser covets gold” –  Hans Christian Andersen

I like having a good bank balance (who doesn’t!) but money has never been the motivation for me. I am very ambitious and driven, but it’s never for the money. Success means different things to different people – but for me, success is about respect, recognition and appreciation. I want to be known as being the best at what I do. I want to be appreciated for innovating, for creating tools to help our customers succeed, for being there for the customers and not disappear to work on the next big thing after every product launch.

Even in this day and age, it’s not easy being an ambitious and a driven woman entrepreneur. I am always inspired by the stories of successful women, what obstacles they encountered, how many times they were judged and disrespected by different people along their journey, who supported them, and how they overcame all hurdles in their path to realize their dreams.

I do not believe in giving up. It’s just not in my genes.

“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” – Michael Jordan

Looks like Jordan stole my words :). I have the same mindset. There is a solution to every problem. If you can’t find a solution, then there is always a workaround. Just stay with it and you can resolve whatever challenge you encounter, no matter how difficult it might seem!

To Your Success!

Veena Prashanth
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