As is so often the case, one entrepreneur’s frustration led to the creation of a new business. In this case, Robert Fink found himself wishing so often for an alternative to the job-posting websites out there that he decided to start his own. And thus Yoomly was born.

Questions and Answers:

Q: Have you ever started a business from scratch before?
A: Yes, I own another business right now called Fix It All. We are a home remodeling company specializing in basements, bathrooms, and kitchens. My partner and I handle the business aspect of Fix It All and we have three carpenters that work for us. We have been in business for about a year now.

Q: What was your motivation for starting Yoomly?
A: A lot of it was related to Fix It All. I had a very difficult time finding employees and contractors for the business. I used craigslist but had difficulty with the quality of applicants and we could not afford to take a risk on finding applicants with Monster.com or Careerbuilder. I started thinking about how I would change the job searching process if I had the chance; I later met with TK and we are now building a company.

Q: What is the largest challenge you have had as you started a new business?
A: Designing the site and communicating to the developers how I want the website to work. It’s hard to get things from vision to reality. The outsourced developers are pretty good at understanding English — the challenge is communication from my end. All the specifics that you don’t think of initially are actually very important.

Q: What is the largest lifestyle change have you had to do undergo as you moved to being an entrepreneur?
A: Managing my time better has probably been the biggest thing — allotting a certain portion of my day to Yoomly while managing other parts of my life.

Also, staying disciplined and making sure that time spent is time spent effectively. I am quite busy because I am still a student and manage the other company as well.

Q: Do you ever see yourself plugging into the corporate world?
A: No I don’t. I really enjoy making businesses from scratch and watching them grow. It’s a challenging, new experience every time.
When will you consider yourself a success as a start-up?
When the first connection is made on the website; when the first employee is connected with an employer.

Q: What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs out there?
A: The most helpful thing to me personally is that I am always thinking about how to improve the website. I always keep the website and how it relates to what I’m doing in mind, which allows me to think about things from a lot of different angles. Instead of seeing the development of the company as work, it is my passion. And because of that, I can stay constantly focused. I believe that focus and dedication is key.

They say that ideas are a dime a dozen. Not so at IdeaOffer, a brainstorming community spearheaded by Dan Cummins where problem solvers are rewarded much more than a penny for their thoughts.

Questions and Answers:

Q: Have you ever started a business from scratch before?
A: Yes. I co-founded a commercial photography company in Orange County, CA. I learned a lot about the incredible endurance test that is early business development. Very intense and stressful because of the stakes and the activity required, but it beats a ho-hum cubicle type job hands down.

Q: When you first lost your professional job, was creating a new business the first thing you thought to do?
A: Yes. It was also something I’d desired to undertake since as early as I can remember. “Something from nothing” business development is a fascinating and challenging puzzle for me.

Q: What is the largest challenge you have had as you started a new business?
A: Public and interpersonal relations. The more an entrepreneur can train themselves to be a people person, the smoother every day will go.

Q: What is the largest lifestyle change have you had to do undergo as you moved to being an entrepreneur?
A: Adopting Cup-O-Noodle eating, rent splitting, and fun rethinking cost cutting measures as a new norm.

Q: Do you ever see yourself going back to the corporate world?
A: It’s a world I don’t mind visiting, so long as I don’t live there. I’d say, corporate world or not, the important thing is not to lose sight of the big picture.

Q: When will you consider yourself a success as a start-up?
A: When the business starts producing increasing amounts of free time and fulfillment opportunities for the owners without sacrificing its own self sufficiency and growth.

Q: What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs out there?
A: 1. Over prepare. Research. Pay others to research for you.
2. Immerse your life. Involve your family and friends in your thought process. Seek help, allies, and opinions.
3. Start small. Cut costs early. Prepare for higher expenses than you planned and lower revenues than you anticipated. If it turns out better than expected, excellent!
4. Track and measure every effort. Have goals. Change what doesn’t work, but give every effort the time to succeed. Try multiple methods at once.
5. Don’t give up, but also don’t forget there is more to life than business.

Brian Reese’s frustrations with finding time to study gave way to an idea. That idea became TestSoup, a new and innovative way for students of all kinds to study on the go.

Questions and Answers:

Q: Have you ever started a business from scratch before?
A: I used to own and operate a baseball card and lemonade stand in the front yard when I was about seven years old. It took me a while to realize why I wasn’t profitable. Of course, operating at the end of a cul-de-sac didn’t help. I learned a lot about the importance of location and timing.

Q: What was your motivation for starting TestSoup?
A: It mostly started from the general frustration I had when studying for the GMAT. I didn’t like the systems on the market for core concept review and wanted something quick and easy that was both web and mobile based. Also, it brings together three of my favorite things: teaching, learning, and entrepreneurship.

Coming from a business undergraduate background, it had been a long time since I took geometry and basic algebra, and I no longer had access to simplified versions of the coursework. I wanted to find a way to use technology to let people steal a few minutes here and there just to help refresh their memory on certain key concepts needed for standardized tests.

Q: Many people get into entrepreneurship when they lose their job. You haven’t. How is that working out?
A: By day, I’m an active duty Air Force officer stationed in Phoenix, Arizona and by night, I spend a lot of time reading, writing, and entertaining my entrepreneurial side. I think it’s important to stay fresh on the latest business issues regardless of your day job. The bottom line; however, is that you can’t start a business on your own—especially if you work full-time. Without the management and web development support from Wasabi Ventures there would be no way I could have made this happen. Surrounding yourself with a great team is truly one of the most important things to starting any business.

Q: What is the biggest lifestyle change you had to do undergo as you moved to being an entrepreneur?
A: The time constraints — there are lots of late nights and early mornings. Because I have the weekends off from my job, I tend to devote the weekends to my business projects—whether it’s mentoring someone else or working on my own endeavors.

On a side note, I have literally run this company from my BlackBerry. If I didn’t have it, there is no way I would be able to have a full-time job and start and operate this company. I find this particularly interesting because it lines up with the concept on which we built the company — stealing 15 minutes here and there before a meeting or even a movie to brush up on core concepts, like math or verbal skills. It’s the same with operating the business. Whenever you have a spare second, you can’t let it go to waste.

Q: What is the biggest challenge you have had as you started a new business?
A: Probably overcoming the “I’m not qualified for this” mentality. In the beginning, you always have this feeling of, “Am I qualified? Are we ready to launch? Are people going to take me seriously?” My advice is: just go for it. You’ll never know if you never try. This reminds me of the quote “The best time to start a business is never and always.”

Another interesting thing I’ve found is that there is no clear line of where you transition from idea development to sales. One day you’re thinking of an idea for your website and the next you’re taking a call from a potential customer who wants to know what you can do for them. It just happens over night and there’s no definitive period that leads up to that. I remember meeting with a potential client and as I walked back to my car I thought, “We’re trying to do a deal here and I don’t even feel like our website is ready.”

Q: What is the biggest difference between being a military officer and being the CEO of a company?
A: Believe it or not, there isn’t that much difference, which is one of the reasons why companies seek those with military experience. The role of both is essentially to direct resources to accomplish either the mission or the goals of the company. As CEO, there are three essential capabilities that I am constantly trying to balance whether it’s employees or advisors: (1) Initiative, (2) Creativity and Innovation, and (3) Passion. The CEO must be able to provide a basic vision while enabling a community attitude that encourages innovation. If your company is not innovating, you are probably on a slippery slope to failing.

I would say that the biggest difference is that I’m a junior officer so I don’t get to call all the shots. I’m at the middle management level of a huge bureaucracy so it’s sometimes difficult to change things in real-time. One of the things I love about running my own company is that I don’t have to ask for approval—at least not yet. The company as well as all value added products and services can change in real-time. Being able to call all the shots is a powerful thing. I try to remind myself to cherish the moment because your ability to call all the shots dwindles over time as more people and resources get involved.

Q: When will you consider yourself a success as a start-up?
A: I think TestSoup is already a success. With the exception of setting some 12-month goals in terms of number of users, revenue targets, etc, there are really too many things to focus on, so I don’t want to limit the company. Maybe five years down the road I’ll think of a defined end-state and use that as the benchmark. However, as far as I’m concerned: it’s launched, it’s live, and people like it.

Q: What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs?
A: Find a co-founder with similar goals and interests and launch your company as soon as possible. You don’t need an extensive business plan—write a one page executive summary that defines your company and launch! No matter how smart you are or how great of an idea you have, the difficulties of starting a company can wear on you at times. A co-founder brings accountability and purpose. He/she motivates you during the ups and downs. After that, surround yourself with really smart people and constantly reach out to them for advice.

A self-professed love for words and an interest in food started Michele Pesula Kuegler on the path to running her first site. Since then she has created Wasabi Media Group, a network of websites which publish daily on a variety of topics ranging from NASCAR to parenting.

Questions and Answers:

Q: Have you ever started a business from scratch before?
A: No, this is the first go-around.

Q: What was the motivation for you to start WMG?
A: I had worked as an elementary teacher for about a decade — not consecutively, but cumulatively. I just didn’t feel as inspired anymore, and I didn’t want to become the teacher that just “goes because she has to.” In my spare time I had started a blog called “Tasty Thoughts” that had recipes and restaurant reviews because that was something I was interested in.

When I realized that I needed a change of career I started thinking about that, and all the different avenues available like it. I knew there were many sites out there on just about every topic but many just weren’t good quality. So I started with the food website and then started adding others by topic, some randomly, some that were of interest to me, and some that just seemed like they need to be covered due to popularity, like a medical site.

Things started off simply — just me doing pretty much all the work. I had two high-school students helping with some of the writing and access to a team of programmers and designers in Ukraine that took care of all the programming. As the number of sites grew I needed to hire contracted writers to help.

Since then my role has changed — in the beginning I was more focused on writing and editing but now I have taken on the role of CEO, who manages the general direction of the company and the sites.

Q: What is the largest challenge you have had as you started a new business?
A: I’ve found that managing a team of adult workers isn’t much different than managing a classroom of children. I don’t mean that in a derogatory fashion — just that you find yourself facing many of the same problems, such as dealing with excuses for why work is late or dealing with people who don’t follow directions.

The hiring part is difficult because, especially in the beginning, you don’t have much to offer, salary-wise.

Finally, it’s hard to find people who want to buy advertising. People who are willing to pay a startup often have products you may not want displayed on your site, and those that have good products often won’t look at you until you’ve really gotten off the ground.

Q: What is the largest lifestyle change have you had to do undergo as you moved to being an entrepreneur?
A: The biggest change is working out of a home office. I have been able to stick to a work schedule fine — the problem is more the other people around me. People assume that you’re not really working because you’re at home, like you’re just locked in your office eating bon-bons. So trying to tune out the rest of the world while you’re working is still, after about a year and a half, a bit of a challenge.

Q: Do you ever see yourself going back to teaching or the corporate world?
A: While I won’t let my certificate lapse (because you never know), I don’t see myself going back to teaching. I just couldn’t see myself teaching again.

There are moments I’ve contemplated going to work for a company when I think about how I’ve been at this for a year and a half and it’s still at the stage where it’s “almost profitable.” Getting a normal job would at least provide regular hours and a set salary. But the disadvantages outweigh the advantages of a normal job. WMG is an all-consuming project, but I thoroughly enjoy what I am doing.

Q: When will you consider yourself a success as a start-up?
A: I think I’m halfway there now. The growth that I’ve seen in WMG is exciting. For me, success is like an algebraic equation. It is the combination of excellent content, respectable online presence, and high quality sales. When all three are working harmoniously, I will feel that I am a success.