About - Deesignplay

Entrepreneur, FOUNDER & CEO Criya
FORBES Featured Industry Leader.
Woman of Color. Diversity advocate. Public Speaker.
GRAB DEB’s PROFESSIONAL RESOURCES: https://criya.store/deb

Deb is the CEO & founder of Criya, determined to help creatives turn their passion into a business. Deb holds a Masters in Computer science from Carnegie Mellon and before starting Criya, she was Head of Product at PayPal, and has over 12 years of experience in Silicon Valley. But Deb has been the quintessential side hustler – while keeping up with her demanding day job, she has been a content creator for over 7 years. With over 160K followers on Instagram, Deb has been sponsored by 300+ brands and has traveled the world on partnerships.

Her startup Criya is backed by Y Combinator (home to unicorns like Airbnb, Door dash etc). Deb’s vision has always been to build technology with the purpose of empowering women to embrace careers of their choice and participate in the global economy. With Criya, she and her team are reimagining how over 50M creators, particularly women, monetize their talent – by enabling them to run professional businesses by providing them an intuitive, powerful technology platform, resources and supportive community, so they can carve their journey toward financial independence..

With 98% of venture capital going to men, Deb is one of the 2% women in the world, to have successfully raised capital from top tier VCs, with a mission to empower and fund more women owned businesses. Deb’s work has been featured on New York Times, Forbes, Tech crunch, Redfin, Apartment Therapy to name a few.

Deb is a strong Advocate for Women in Tech & Leadership and is a Keynote Speaker at several national & international product conferences. Deb was awarded the EB-1 (A) Green Card by the US Govt for her contributions in the Product Management space in the industry.

Learn more about Deb’s professional career on Linkedin
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Deb is the Founder & CEO of CRIYA. Through Criya, Deb seeks to empower creatives businesses with the best tools, ceducation & a supportive community to help achieve financial freedom. Featured on Forbes, Best of Apartment Therapy 2020, The Kitchn, HGTV Magazine and more (fka RoomPlays).
Criya is backed by Y Combinator and top tier Venture Capitalists.

Learn more about CRIYA

Deb was awarded the EB-1 (A) Green Card by the US Govt for her contributions in the Product Management space in the industry. This category of Green Card is reserved for individuals that the US Govt deems has demonstrated Extraordinary abilities and has generated significant value (through revenue and impact) in the related field.

Bharath Nagaraj, Deb’s husband is the man behind the gorgeous pictures and her biggest support crew. From traveling halfway across the world to Bali, Greece, London, Dominican Republic, Italy, NewZealand… to capture Deb’s Instagram-perfect experiences, to scrambling through shots, hyper-packed itineraries… to her everyday stories, videos, images as well as supporting all her affiliate partnerships, Deb’s husband is the pillar behind Deesignplay, and eventually encouraged her to launch Criya.