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On the top floor of a building near Union Square, there’s a small, white-walled office filled with frazzled 20-somethings munching on Cinnamon Crunch and jelly beans. A whiteboard with a countdown calendar is marked off in red. On a shelf nearby, a plaster Roman bust has a pink balloon stuck to his mouth, like a bubble-gum bubble about to pop. Outside the door: a little sign that reads “Phia,” the name of a new e-commerce tool dreamed up by two Stanford grads in their dorm room.

A basic start-up. Except for one thing: the Gates factor.

See, Phia, a web browser/app that went live April 24, aims to be the Booking.com of fashion, offering an instant price comparison from thousands of e-commerce sites for any item, new or used, that may catch your fancy, is the brainchild of not just any old Stanford undergrads. It is the invention of Phoebe Gates, 22,

Keep reading this article on The New York Times Small Business.

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