About The Author

Ann Bernard

I fell in love with the Marine Corps when I was a freshmen in High School – I enlisted the day after my 17th birthday and left for boot camp two months after my High School graduation in 1995. I turned 18 at Parris Island, South Carolina.

I served on active duty for ten years…the first four years as an Enlisted Marine in 29 Palms, California, and next six years as an Officer after receiving a Meritorious Commission. I was stationed on Okinawa for almost three years, to include a stint with the 31st MEU. My final active duty tour was on Quantico and while stationed there; I did a tour in Iraq. (I am now serving again, but this time on Active Reserve)

I left the Marine Corps in 2005 to pursue my entrepreneurial dreams. Over the last three years, I have been traveling the exciting, but often turbulent, and harsh road of entrepreneurship.

When I left active duty, I didn’t belong to any civilian networks and I had no idea what it would take to launch a business or how much of an uphill battle I was facing. I aggressively pursued the steep learning curve, but it’s no surprise that my first business failed. I learned a great deal in the process though.

As soon as I closed the doors on one business I went right into starting a second one. A little wiser this time around, I started my second business, a web startup called WhyGoSolo. As it turned out – my learning curve was still pretty steep.

From early 2007 to mid 2008, I have learned the ins and outs of web development, fund raising, social media, and running a start-up. I remain fascinated with the web, social media and leveraging technology to improve businesses, build communities and change our lives. The core of what WhyGoSolo is built upon.

In August of 2008, I took all that I had learned and grew the concept of WhyGoSolo.  We created a new website  Tickets with a Twist and launched a new company Yut Media, Inc.

I think of myself as a passionate, innovative and motivated entrepreneur. I have surmounted many struggles and continue to face them every day until the day comes that I reach my dream. I am very determined and some days that borderlines on stubbornness.

It took drive, ambition, strong gut instincts and being naturally business savvy for me to get this far and I’m going to continue to pave my way as a leading presence in the web startup entrepreneurial community - certainly more so in the DC, VA and MD areas where I have been pushing to create more of a striving community of entrepreneurs.

I have met amazing people on this journey and I hope to continue to meet many more people and be part of helping other people be successful entrepreneurs.