Krisztina Holly
Engineer, entrepreneur

As a child, Krisztina Holly played with lasers at the lab where her father worked. She developed that childhood fascination with science into a formidable talent at the Media Lab at MIT, where, as an undergraduate, she helped develop the world's first computer-generated, full-color reflection hologram. Krisztina graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering, with optics, in 1989. In 1991, while doing graduate studies in mechanical engineering with a focus on product development, she co-wrote a business plan that won MIT's $10,000-now $50000-Entrepreneurial Competition. While at MIT, she also co-designed and built a head-eye vision robot.

In 1992, Krisztina, along with Michael Cassidy and John Barrus, invented and patented "The Stylus," a system that operated basically as a consumer's personal interpreter and mediator in the "languages" of bar code and touch tone. The Stylus enabled users to order things-groceries, for example-by scanning a bar code with a stylus that fed the information to the seller via a touch-tone phone.

To market The Stylus, Holly and her partners founded Stylus Innovation-but their most successful product was yet to come. Visual Voice, the first Windows-based computer telephony development tool, allowed even a modest software developer to create and coordinate complex telephony systems, with call answering, voice-mail, and even call placing and fax transmission. Visual Voice was a huge success, not only because it was easy to implement but also because it offered a sweeping range of advanced capabilities for just $500, a price even small businesses could afford.

Krisztina soon found she also had significant talent as an entrepreneur. As vice-president, she managed the operations, finances, marketing, documentation, and human resources of the company, helping grow it from concept to more than 20 employees and $5 million in sales. Within two years, Stylus became a leader in the computer telephony tools industry, surpassing even companies like AT&T.; The founders sold the company in 1996 for nearly $13 million.

After the sale of Stylus, Krisztina Holly moved to RiverRun Media, where, from 1996 to 1999, she helped produce documentary videos and television programs about math education, product development, science and business. Clients included the National Science Foundation and Harvard Business School. She also researched and developed proposals for programs about psychology, mathematics, and the environment, and edited a 5-hour series about math-education reform. She also designed the company's web site.

In 1999, she moved to Direct Hit Technologies, a start-up Internet search engine company, as a marketing consultant and manager. Within four months of launch the new web site had over a million daily page views and achieved top-50 ranking in Media Metrix. Krisztina was the project lead for the $17 million marketing budget. She launched and managed an online sweepstakes that resulted in more than 150,000 registered customers. Ask Jeeves acquired Direct Hit in February 2000 for $500 million.

At Ask Jeeves, Krisztina spearheaded a team that transformed Jeeves Solutions from a services organization into an enterprise software company. She helped take JeevesOne-a self-service software application-from concept to market, opening up a $1.7 billion market. Before JeevesOne, she helped launch two other products, Answers 5.0, an ASP question-answering product, and Compare, an online e-commerce comparison engine.

Krisztina has also coordinated installation of a laser light system for the Spoleto Arts Festival in Melbourne, Australia, and developed a robotic weld-seam-tracking program for the space shuttle main engine. Since 1997 she has been a judge in MIT's annual $50K Business Plan Competition and was a member of MIT Enterprise Forum advisory board for three years.

An avid travel photographer, she is also an accomplished backcountry skier and mountain biker-she is in the New England Mountain Bike Trail of Fame for her advocacy work, helping grow the New England Mountain Bike Association from a small club to the largest regional mountain bike advocacy organization in the world. Krisztina also helps teach trail-building courses. She enjoys writing and music, and has played bass in numerous bands. She co-authored the book Visual Basic Telephony as well as teaching materials for the international Junior Solar Sprint competition, and writes articles for magazines.

Adapted from the MIT inventors web page at http://web.mit.edu/invent/www/inventorsA-H/holly.html and information from Krisztina Holly.

More Stories > >