Lina Trivedi facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Lina Trivedi
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| Born | June 11, 1973 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
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| Education | DePaul University |
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| Known for | Beanie Babies web site, Beanie Babies poems |
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Notable work
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WordBotic |
Lina Trivedi (born June 11, 1973) is an American entrepreneur, author, and educator. She is known for her big role in the Beanie Babies craze. Lina wrote the first 136 poems for the Beanie Babies tags. She also created the very first website for a business to sell directly to customers. This website was for Ty Inc., the company that made Beanie Babies. Many people say she helped bring the Internet to everyday life and invented E-commerce (online shopping). Thanks to her work, Beanie Babies became the world's first huge Internet sensation. This helped Ty Warner, the owner of Ty Inc., become a billionaire.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Lina Trivedi is an Indian American born in Chicago, Illinois. Her family spoke Gujarati. She grew up mostly in Addison, Illinois. Lina went to DePaul University to study Sociology. While she was there, she started her career at Ty, Inc..
Her parents were entrepreneurs, meaning they ran their own businesses. They taught her computer programming from a young age. In the early 1980s, when Lina was only 7, her family bought an IBM PC. Her mom made her read the DOS 1.0 manual three times! By second grade, Lina was already writing simple computer programs using BASIC.
Creating the Beanie Babies Craze
Lina Trivedi joined Ty, Inc. in 1992 as their 12th employee. By 1995, Beanie Babies were becoming very popular around the world. In early 1995, Lina had an idea. She told Ty Warner, the company president, that the Beanie Babies tags were boring. She thought that unique birthdays and poems on the heart-shaped tags would make the toys more special.
She showed him an example poem she wrote for Stripes the Tiger. It even included her own birthday! Warner liked the idea. He gave her the job of writing all the poems for Beanie Babies. She also designed the inside of more than 100 product tags.
Later in 1995, Lina talked to Warner about something new called the Internet. Back then, the Internet was mostly used by colleges for research. But students were starting to make personal websites. Lina thought a website for Beanie Babies could be a great way to connect with customers.
She brought her 14.4k modem from DePaul University to show Warner how the Internet worked. Warner was very interested. He gave Lina permission to create a website for Beanie Babies using her own ideas. When the first Ty website launched in late 1995, only about 1.4% of Americans were using the Internet.
The First Business Website
The Beanie Babies website Lina created was the first of its kind. It was the first business-to-consumer website. This means it was designed for a company to connect directly with its customers. The website had many cool features. You could vote for a Beanie Baby that wrote a blog. This blog had many new posts every day!
There was also a trading post where people could swap toys. The site featured fan mail and a list of "101 things to do with a Beanie Baby." The Beanie Babies website received over 1 billion visits each year. Lina is given credit for making Beanie Babies so popular through the Internet. In 1996, she even arranged for three private Boeing 747 planes. These planes brought Beanie Babies to stores in America just in time for Easter.
The huge success of Beanie Babies and the rise of the Internet happened very quickly. Ty, Inc. kept their sales numbers private. But Lina said that "sales were overwhelming." Lina also helped design new Beanie Babies characters. She helped decide which ones would be introduced and which would be retired. In 1996, she let fans help choose the 100th Beanie Baby character through the Internet.
Beanie Babies became popular faster than anything before it. This was because of the Internet's instant nature. Lina posted all the announcements on the official Beanie Babies Website. Many people bought and traded these toys online. They used the official site and other independent sites. Some collections were worth over $100,000! At the peak of the craze, 10% of all sales on eBay were for Beanie Babies.
Media Appearances and Contributions
Lina Trivedi has appeared in several TV shows and documentaries. These shows talk about the Beanie Babies craze and her role in it.
| Year | Media Title | What it's about |
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| 2021 | Dark Side of the 90s | Season 1, Episode 4, "Beanie Babies Go Bust" |
| 2021 | Beanie Mania | A documentary on HBO Max (streaming service) |
| 2022 | Beanie Bubble (Documentary) | Produced by: The Nacelle Company and Whiskey Bear |
| 2023 | Rewind the 90's | National Geographic / Disney+: Season 1, Episode 5, "Mass Appeal" |
In 2023, Lina was also shown as a character in a movie. The movie is called The Beanie Bubble. Kristin Gore and Damian Kulash directed it. Lina's character, "Maya Kumar," was played by Geraldine Viswanathan. In the movie, Maya gets a temporary job at Ty, Inc.. She then helps turn the Beanie Babies craze into billions of dollars. She did this by creating a huge online collector's market through eBay.
The movie showed her as the first person to build a website for business. It also showed her writing all the poems inside the Beanie Babies tags. The movie ends with her leaving her job. She quits after not getting a raise that matched her contributions. The movie called Maya Kumar "Ty's secret weapon." She was offered "$20 smackeroos per hour." She told Ty Warner, "I'm not your secret weapon. I'm not a secret, and I'm not yours. I quit."
Books Written by Lina Trivedi
Lina Trivedi has also written several books.
| Year | Title | Publisher |
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| 2015 | Lessons Learned as a Special Needs Mom | Blue Lotus Publishing |
| 2012 | 11 Rules for Efficiency | Blue Lotus Publishing |
| 2011 | 9 Catastrophic Mistakes in Business | Blue Lotus Publishing |
Helping Communities and Technology
In 2004, Lina Trivedi worked for the Urban League. This group helps people from difficult backgrounds find jobs. She helped create a program called "Alternative Selection." This program helps employers find good candidates based on their economic situation. It's an alternative to other hiring methods. Madison Gas and Electric was one of the first companies to use this method in 2008.
Lina was also appointed to two public service jobs in Madison, Wisconsin. She served on the Community Services Commission. She also served on the Community Development Block Grant Commission from 2005 to 2008.
Innovations in Technology
During the Beanie Babies phenomenon, Lina worked with the Children's Advertising Review Unit. They helped create rules for children's websites. These rules were designed to protect kids' privacy online. After her time at Ty, she helped other companies follow these rules. She helped change websites for the Chicago International Children's Film Festival and the Spice Girls to meet these privacy rules.
In 1997, Lina started her own web design company. She created the first websites for many famous places and groups. These included the Sears Tower, the Spice Girls, and Mötley Crüe. One of her cool ideas was broadcasting live pictures of the Chicago skyline from the top of the Sears Tower on its website.
Her design firm was named one of the top design firms in Chicago in 1998. This was by Crain's Chicago Business. In 1999, the Chicago Sun Times named Lina one of the top 30 local talents. Then, in 2000, the Chicago Sun Times named her one of the top 30 entrepreneurs under 30 in the Chicago area.
While running her web design firm, Lina also worked on a team that created something new. They made the world's first real-time credit card application. This technology was first used for Citigroup credit cards. These included the Shell Credit Card and Texaco Credit Card.
In 2013, Lina started making software to help people write. This software helps them publish books and websites. One of her most important inventions is an artificial intelligence (AI) that can write. This AI has a patent pending. According to NBC, her inventions help people become authors. They "take the mechanics out of publishing so that writers can focus on the messages they are trying to convey." This AI she invented was later called a very early version of ChatGPT.
Today, Lina Trivedi is developing more artificial intelligence with her new company called Joii.ai.
Personal Life and Family
Lina Trivedi lives in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. She is a single mother to a special needs child. Lina's daughter was born with Goltz Syndrome. This is a very rare condition. Fewer than 25 people in the United States are reported to have it.
Because of the syndrome, Lina's daughter was born without a leg. She also had missing fingers and lacked muscles on one side of her face. By the age of 5, Lina's daughter had already gone through over 25 surgeries. She was also the youngest child in the United States to get a prosthetic leg. She received it when she was only 7 months old.
Lina wrote in her book that being a special needs mom changes your view of the world. Lina has used her skills to teach her young daughter, Nikhita, about business. Before starting 3rd grade, Lina's daughter became the President of a company in Wyoming. This company designs and sells bows. It is based on the business run by Minnie Mouse in the TV show Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.
