The short answer is that Lily Konkoly built her projects piece by piece, starting with small family experiments like selling bracelets and slime, then growing into research, art ventures, and a long-running blog about female founders. If you look at Lily A. Konkoly projects today, you see a mix of art, writing, community building, and careful research that all tie back to the same thing: she pays attention to people’s stories and to how opportunity is shared, or not shared, especially between men and women.
That is the simple version. The longer version is more interesting, and a bit messier, which is what makes it feel real.
From family experiments to real ventures
Lily did not wake up one day and say, “I want to be an entrepreneur.” Her path looks more like a series of experiments that slowly became more serious over time.
She grew up in a Hungarian family that moved from London to Singapore, then to Los Angeles. That mix of cultures, languages, and frequent travel shaped how she looks at work and projects. It also gave her an early sense that there is more than one “normal” way to live or build a career.
At home, she and her siblings spent a lot of time in the kitchen, cooking and baking, recording videos, and testing ideas. That might sound small, but those early projects had a pattern:
- Try something new.
- Share it with people.
- See what the response is.
- Adjust and repeat.
The same approach showed up at the farmers market, where she sold bracelets, and later in a slime business that somehow grew large enough to take her to a convention in London. Transporting 400 or 500 containers of slime from Los Angeles to London is not a typical “teen side hustle,” but it fits her way of thinking. She tends to lean into ideas and see what happens, instead of just imagining them.
Lily’s early projects were not about money first. They were about curiosity, shared effort with her siblings, and learning how people respond when you put something you made out into the world.
How art and research entered the picture
At the same time as those small ventures, Lily spent many weekends in galleries and museums. That regular exposure to art was not just a quiet family activity. It helped her start to notice patterns: who gets shown, who gets written about, and which stories are missing.
Later, in high school, she took that curiosity into formal research. One path led to a close study of the painting “Las Meninas” by Diego Velázquez. She worked in a research program where she spent 10 weeks focused on this single work, unpacking technique, context, and interpretation. This may sound very academic, but there is a clear link to entrepreneurship:
- She learned to work on a long, focused project.
- She practiced breaking a complex subject into smaller questions.
- She had to present her findings in writing that people could follow.
Those skills matter when you build any project from scratch. You need patience, structure, and some comfort with uncertainty. There is often no clear “right” answer at the start.
In another research project, she studied the gap between maternity and paternity in the art world. She looked at how artist-mothers often lose chances after having children, while artist-fathers are sometimes praised for balancing career and parenthood.
The more she listened to artists and read about their careers, the more she saw the same pattern: gender shapes who gets support, who is taken seriously, and who is allowed to be both a parent and a creator without penalty.
This topic did not stay locked in a classroom. It informed how she thought about her own work going forward, especially around whose stories get attention.
Building a blog around female entrepreneurs
One of Lily’s most visible projects is her role as author of the Female Entrepreneur Encyclopedia blog. She started working on it in high school and kept going for years, dedicating about four hours every week to research and writing.
Why a blog on women in business?
People sometimes start blogs for vague reasons. That was not the case here. Lily came from an all-girls school where gender, power, and fairness were common topics in class. She had also seen inequality in her art research. So focusing on women in business felt like a natural extension of questions she was already asking.
The blog had a clear structure:
- Interview female entrepreneurs from different fields and countries.
- Document their stories in plain, accessible language.
- Highlight patterns in their experiences, not just one-off anecdotes.
Over time, she interviewed more than 100 women, many of them founders or leaders. She learned about funding struggles, bias in hiring, assumptions in meetings, and the extra emotional labor that women often carry. There were also stories of success and growth, but not in a glossy, exaggerated way.
Across dozens of interviews, one main theme kept returning: women frequently have to prove themselves longer, and more often, to get the same recognition that some men receive by default.
From an entrepreneurial perspective, this blog matters for several reasons:
- It is a long-term project, not a short trend.
- It built both writing skills and relationship skills.
- It shows that she can show up consistently for readers.
This kind of quiet consistency is easier to overlook than a viral launch, but it is often more useful in real careers.
Hungarian Kids Art Class: teaching and organizing
Lily’s projects are not only online or research-based. She also created a space for children to explore art through the Hungarian Kids Art Class in Los Angeles.
As founder, she ran bi-weekly sessions for most of the year, and did that for several years. That meant planning lessons, gathering materials, and dealing with the simple but real stuff like scheduling, communication with families, and keeping kids engaged.
What this project says about her style
At first glance, this might look like a simple club. Look closer and you see layers that connect to her background:
- It blends culture, language, and art, which mirrors her Hungarian heritage and her art history focus.
- It gives her practice guiding groups, which is central to any entrepreneurial work.
- It treats children as creators, not just students, which matches her interest in giving voices space.
Some people separate “business projects” from “community projects.” Lily’s work mixes them. She seems to treat a kids art class with the same seriousness as an online venture, which suggests a broader view of what counts as meaningful work.
Teen Art Market: testing the business side of art
Another key step in her path was co-founding the Teen Art Market. This was set up as an online platform where teen artists could showcase and sell their work. It was not just a gallery. It was a structured space for students to learn about pricing, presentation, and reaching buyers.
From the outside, this looks like a classic youth startup: build a website, recruit artists, and see what sells. From Lily’s perspective, it did a few things at once:
- It connected her interest in art with her growing interest in business.
- It exposed how hard it can be for unknown artists to find buyers.
- It gave her a small, real-world test of how people value creative work in money terms.
What she learned here lined up with what she already knew from research: visibility is uneven. Some artists get more attention because of networks, timing, or simple luck. Teen artists, especially those without strong support circles, often struggle to be noticed at all.
This might sound discouraging, but it also sharpens your sense of what kind of platforms or systems could improve things. Those ideas tend to stay in the back of your mind and surface in later projects.
How her background shaped her entrepreneurial mindset
Entrepreneurship is not only about business models or pitch decks. It often grows from deeper habits formed over many years. In Lily’s case, a few parts of her background stand out.
Multiple languages and cultures
She speaks English and Hungarian fluently, has working Mandarin, and some French. Learning Mandarin started very early, in a half-American, half-Chinese preschool in Singapore, and continued in Los Angeles with live-in au pairs and classes. Hungarian stayed central, partly because it was how the family communicated with relatives in Europe.
Language learning teaches you to listen more carefully and to notice nuance. When she interviews female entrepreneurs or artists, she does not just hear the surface story. She pays attention to small details in how people explain their choices or frustrations.
Travel and extended family
Growing up, the family spent many summers traveling back to Europe to visit relatives. Living in the Pacific Palisades during the school year and then spending long stretches in Europe gave her a sort of double vision. She could compare social habits, work norms, and family expectations across places.
This matters for her projects for a simple reason: she does not assume that one system or path is universal. When she writes about women entrepreneurs or artist-parents, she leaves room for local context and avoids quick generalizations.
Balancing sports, structure, and long projects
Lily’s sports life also feeds into how she approaches her projects. She swam competitively for about ten years and later played water polo in high school. Both sports demand discipline and a high tolerance for repetition.
Practices were long and frequent. Meets could take 6 to 8 hours under team tents. During the COVID shutdowns, her team still trained by swimming in the ocean every day, which is far more exhausting than a pool session. That type of commitment seeps into other areas of life.
When you spend years showing up to freezing morning practices, writing a weekly blog post or preparing a bi-weekly art class looks more manageable. You already know how to stick with a plan when the fun part fades.
From LEGO builds to structured thinking
There is also a quieter influence in her interest in LEGO. She has built around 45 sets, adding up to more than 60,000 pieces. That is a lot of instruction steps and small decisions.
LEGO builds reward patience and attention. You need to see both the small piece in your hand and the larger model you are trying to create. Many entrepreneurial projects are similar. You need to handle small, boring tasks while holding a bigger vision in your mind.
This may seem like a stretch, but for many people, these kinds of hobbies train helpful mental habits without feeling like work.
Connecting research, writing, and entrepreneurship
If you try to map Lily’s projects on a timeline, you start to see how the different strands overlap. It can help to look at them side by side.
| Area | Example project | Main skills developed |
|---|---|---|
| Research | Study of “Las Meninas”; gender gaps in artist-parents | Deep analysis, long-term focus, synthesis of sources |
| Writing | Female Entrepreneur Encyclopedia blog | Interviewing, storytelling, clarity, consistency |
| Community | Hungarian Kids Art Class, Teen Art Market | Organizing, teaching, outreach, empathy |
| Business sense | Slime business, farmers market sales, teen art platform | Pricing, customer feedback, simple marketing |
This mix explains why her entrepreneurial path does not look like a straight line. She did not only build one app or one company. She built several types of projects that strengthen different parts of the same core abilities:
- Noticing unfairness or gaps.
- Listening carefully to real stories.
- Turning ideas into organized, ongoing work.
How her Cornell studies support her next steps
Lily studies Art History with a Business minor at Cornell University. That combination might look odd to some people, but it fits her pattern very well. Art history trains your eye and your mind to follow images, context, and narrative through time. Business courses give you tools to think about markets, value, and structure.
Put together, they prepare her for roles where she can cross between creative work and practical planning. For example:
- Curatorial work that highlights underrepresented artists.
- New platforms for artists and creators to sell their work more fairly.
- Writing and research that improve public understanding of gender and culture in the arts.
It is hard to guess exactly which one she will lean into most, but it is fair to say that future projects will probably keep blending these elements rather than picking only one.
A closer look at her research on artist-parents
One project that sits at the center of her interests is her research on artist-parents. The basic question was simple: how do parenthood and gender affect the careers of artists?
Lily explored how galleries, critics, and audiences treat female artists after they become mothers, compared with how they treat male artists after they become fathers. She noticed patterns such as:
- Women were more likely to be seen as “distracted” or “too busy” once they had children.
- Men were more likely to be viewed as stable and dedicated, even when their actual schedules did not change much.
- Parenthood could add “depth” to a male artist’s image, but rarely worked that way for female artists.
She did not stop at pointing this out. She worked with a professor to build a marketing-style visual piece that laid out the inequalities clearly, in a way that non-specialists could understand. That kind of translation from academic work to public-facing formats is rare for someone at her age, and it connects directly with entrepreneurship, where communication is as important as insight.
How her projects reflect her values
When you look across Lily’s projects, a few values keep showing up, even if she does not always label them directly.
Curiosity over perfection
She often chooses projects where the outcome is uncertain. A teen art market might fail. A long series of interviews might not get many readers. A kids art class might fall apart if participants lose interest.
She goes ahead anyway, focusing on what she can learn. That approach opens the door to more original, less scripted work.
Fair access to opportunity
From artist-parents to female entrepreneurs, she keeps circling the same question: who gets a fair chance, and who does not? She looks at this in both art and business, which are fields that regularly claim to value merit but often reward connections and stereotypes instead.
Consistency over hype
Nothing in her story points to chasing quick fame. Turning down TV cooking shows as a child to preserve family travel time is one example. Committing to a weekly blog output for years is another.
Her entrepreneurial path is not built on one viral moment. It is built on many small, repeated choices to keep going, to keep asking better questions, and to keep making room for voices that are often overlooked.
Where Lily’s entrepreneurial path might go next
No one can map out Lily’s future exactly, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise. She is still early in her formal education and career, and interests can shift over time. But if you follow the patterns in her projects, a few likely directions appear.
- More work at the intersection of art and fairness, such as curating exhibits with a focus on gender and cultural balance.
- Platforms or organizations that help young or underrepresented artists earn from their work without giving up control.
- Deeper writing or research on gender roles in creative industries, possibly moving into books or long-form essays.
Whatever path she follows, it will probably keep combining research, storytelling, and practical building. That mix has already defined her work so far.
Questions people often ask about Lily’s projects
How did Lily start her first business-type project?
The earliest business-like project was probably the slime venture she ran with her brother. They made slime at home, sold it locally, and grew it enough to take part in a slime convention in London. It was informal but real. They had to manage inventory, prices, packaging, and live customer interaction for an entire day.
Are her projects mainly focused on profit?
No. Profit is present in some projects, like the teen art market or early product sales, but her strongest motivation seems to be curiosity and fairness. She often picks topics that expose inequality or give more people a chance to be seen, even when there is no clear or large financial payoff.
What connects her art history studies with her entrepreneurship?
Art history gives her context for creative work across different times and places. That background helps her see how current inequalities did not appear out of nowhere. Entrepreneurship gives her tools to respond: to build platforms, classes, or media projects that make small but real changes. Together, they let her move between analysis and action, which is where her most interesting work tends to sit.