Harvard resident Gina Ashe began trying to figure out what was cool when she was in high school. Now, with the introduction of new social networking sites every day, she thinks that she has finally found a way for teens to figure out the hottest trends without having to scour the pages of fashion magazines, saving the planet while they're at it. She and two partners are the founders of Krush.com, a new website designed to help both consumers and manufacturers determine what the hot new products will be—before they are even produced. According to Ashe, the name Krush is a play on two things: when teens "krush it," they've just accomplished some amazing feat, and it's a play on having a "krush" on someone.

Ashe started her career as a trader and analyst on Wall Street, and then moved to advertising and data analysis for Omnicom. She also cofounded Sermo, a private online community for doctors, where they can work together to solve tough patient cases. She left Sermo in July to start Krush.

"We wanted to know what everyone thinks is cool right now," says Ashe, "not what some Madison Avenue 'expert' tells us we should all like. With new crowd-sourcing and social-networking technologies, we can actually find out instantly by polling what thousands of people are seeing."

Krush is designed specifically for the emerging shopping generation, 14 to 28 years old. "We call them GenNet," Ashe says. "They're the first to grow up on the 'net. They shun traditional advertising and look to each other when deciding what to buy. For this ultra-socially networked generation, retail is about new ways to represent themselves in a 24/7, 'always on' digital world."

The site is in "private beta" testing now. Ashe is keeping the official public launch date a closely guarded secret. But when it goes live, users will be able to log into Krush and post images of products they find, and can "like" or "dislike" other people's posted items. Each week, Krush will release its "top Krushed" list of the most liked items, and those who posted those items will receive that product free of charge.

Krush is also set up to motivate users to "work" items by sharing the item to their Facebook wall, on Twitter, or in e-mail, and by giving away prizes to those who most "worked" the popular items. Even if users don't feel confident enough to post or "work" cool things, says Ashe, they can still be winners just for rating others' picks, because Krush selects random "lucky winners" each week who "liked" the most popular products.

Ashe says that Krush intends to fuel the business through sale of data and top-liked items. Manufacturers want this Krush predictive data in order to save themselves money on producing styles and colors that are not going to succeed, she says. Krush will provide them tools to showcase their future lines—things they haven't even manufactured yet—and get feedback that can save them—and consumers—the trouble of making things that no one will buy.

"I started seeing all these websites where you can get clothes and products for huge percentages off," Ashe says. "These businesses are thriving because designers made a mistake about what would be popular. At the end of the season they have all of these items left over that they had to get rid of, so they dump them. If we could help manufacturers determine which of their new lines would be in demand before they went into production, it would be a win-win for them, their consumers, and the planet."

Ashe says a big part of her site is that she is fascinated with the "GenNet" generation. "This new generation is breaking through boundaries every day," she says. "GenNetters have over 1,000 friends on Facebook; they range from 10 to 80 years old, and they are from all over the world … So we went global instantly. These users care about brands' stories. We want them to be able to showcase the things they care about … Some [posted products] are fair trade; others use animal-free products, and this generation cares about that."

Ultimately, Ashe says, her greatest motivation to begin Krush was to prove a point to her sons and nephews. "A lot of Krush came from just watching what they do naturally with their friends online. Last winter, I was on the snowboarding slopes with [my son] Ryan and [my nephew] Matt, and they were talking about how great it would be to have a place like Krush online. I wanted to show them that you can turn a great idea into a reality. It's been incredible for them and many of their friends here in Harvard to see their ideas come to life!"