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.

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.

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.

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.

Questions and Answers:

Q: Have you ever started a business from scratch before?
A: Yes, I started a home renovation business once before and built it up to sell it.  It was a lot of fun but nothing I wanted to do long term.  This time was completely different because of the passion I have for adoption, fostering and the parental need to talk to other parents!

Q: When you lost your professional job, was creating a new business the first thing you thought to do?
A: Yes, the thought of going back into a corporate environment was one of the last things on my mind.  I have wanted to do this for a while, and with me having the time, everything just fell into place.

Q: What is the largest challenge you have had as you started a new business?
A: Having enough hours in a day is probably the most difficult challenge.  I wake up and start working and work 7 days a week.  I want to make sure I am offering our members the very best experience possible, and right now, I am the only person working all aspects of the business.

Q: What is the largest lifestyle change you had to do undergo as you moved to being an entrepreneur?
A: Balancing life and work, believe it or not!  I now work solely at home and can’t go into the office to focus on what needs my attention.  Working at home is both a blessing and a curse in that I love being around my family all of the time, but when I am on conference calls, it is difficult for my children to understand that I can’t be disturbed.  I am trying to get them more involved, but at 14 and 11 years old, they do not get the impact.

Q: Do you ever see yourself going back to the corporate world?
A: I would only go back to the corporate world for the right company that understood that it is important to treat people in your business like people and not make decisions solely based on business needs.  One that takes the impact to the person into account.

Q: When will you consider yourself a success as a start-up?
A: I feel like we are currently a successful start-up because we are attracting more and more members everyday.  I remember when I got my first email from a man thanking me for creating such an amazing site.  That to me is success!

I was working for a Fortune 500 company and lost my job in August of last year.  I was a top producer, number 7 out of 350 account executives and making well over 100k a year. During my time at Robert Half Technology, I had to wear a necktie just about every day.  In my spare time, I started thinking of ways to make the standard tie more functional. Shortly after losing my position, I filed the patent, got the website up and running, and am bringing The iTie to market. It has definitely been a blessing in disguise, and I would have never had the time to work on my idea if I were still working.

Questions and Answers:

Q: Have you ever started a business from scratch before?
A: Not a legitimate one, The iTie is the real deal and am treating it as such!

Q: When you first loss your professional job, was creating a new business the first thing you thought to do?
A: I have had the idea for The iTie for over a year while still working, always thinking about it. When I lost my job, my first reaction was to find a new opportunity. Given the state of the economy, it was nearly impossible to do. So, I moved forward, filed the patent, started the website, formed the LLC, and here we are!

Q: What is the largest challenge you have had as you started a new business?
A: Having the financial resources to do elaborate marketing and events. I have been able to establish professional business relationships with several vendors that have lowered their initial fees for an exclusive long lasting agreement.

Q: What is the largest lifestyle change have you had to do undergo as you moved to being an entrepreneur?
A: Instead of going out with friends, I attend networking events and trade shows to generate awareness and increase sales.

Q: Do you ever see yourself going back to the corporate world?
A: Personally, NO! I would rather work this hard for myself and be accountable for my own production and actions. Why make money for a company that does not appreciate your efforts when you can make money for yourself?

Q: When will you consider yourself a success as a start-up?
A: I already do, starting from scratch with nothing but some personal savings and unemployment compensation, I have established a sustainable product and revenue stream.  The sky is the limit with The iTie, I am pursuing licensing agreements and retail partnerships, once those are established, I will also be financially successful!

I launched my company at www.parkingspots.com in January of 2008 while holding down my role as Director of Strategy for an ad agency.  It was a year filled with incredible highs and lows especially in light of the economy et al.  Then in late November it happened. I was let go from my role as strategic director, as the agency was forced to respond to the changing economy.  Instead of feeling low, frustrated or angry as many of my peers have felt I was rather elated!  I’d been toying with the idea of focusing on my new business more permanently but was just too scared to make the leap.  The economy forced me to and I haven’t regretted it for a second.   That said, what it did force me to do was figure out how in hell I was going to make money as I grew parkingspots.com.  So – I took the skillset and contacts I’d already accumulated and decided to market myself as a freelance marketing strategist so that I could pay my bills.  In essence, building two companies at once for the last 6 months.

Questions & Answers:

Q: Have you ever started a business from scratch before?
A: Nope.  This is the first.

Q: What is the biggest struggle to having to do side work to cover your day-to-day bills?
A: Trying to find the right balance of time spent on the side work vs. time spent on the actual business.

Q: What is the largest challenge you have had as you started a new business?
A: Trying to find the right business model and not feeling like  a failure when I’ve had to make tweaks.

Q: What is the largest lifestyle change have you had to do undergo as you moved to being an entrepreneur?
A: Life takes a complete overhaul when you start working for yourself.  From cutting back on extraneous expenses to keeping focused on sunny days when the temptation to take an ‘afternoon’ off is overwhelming.

Q: Do you ever see yourself going back to the corporate world?
A: If I can financially make it work, I have no intention of ever going back into full time.

Q: When will you consider yourself a success as a start-up?
A: When I start bringing in enough money to operationally keep my business moving ahead while also providing me enough to draw a salary from ( my early target $10000/month), I will feel as though my business is finally being realized.

Question and Answer:

Q: Have you ever started a business from scratch before?

A: No, prior to starting my fantasy sports advice business I worked as an actuary in the property-casualty insurance industry for 17 years.  I have an Applied Math degree from Harvard – it just took me a long time to discover that I wanted to apply my math to fantasy sports!

Q:  When you first lost your professional job, was creating a new business the first thing you thought to do?

A: Yes.  I’ve actually been laid off twice – the first time (2000) as the result of two regional offices within the same company being combined; the second time (2004) as a result of a merger between two companies. When I was laid off in 2000, I wrote a business plan for an online insurance agency that would serve as the middle man for small to mid-size companies looking to purchase business insurance.  However, after writing the business plan I realized I needed a lot of money ($25-50 Mil) to make the project work, and I also needed a nest egg that would allow me to go without an income for a couple of years.  I had neither.  So, I decided to take another actuarial job in the insurance industry, then put all my discretionary income at the end of each month into a “career transition account”.  When I was laid off for the 2nd time in 2004, I immediately began planning to start my own business using the savings I’d accumulated over the past 4 years.

Q:  What is the largest challenge you have had as you started a new business?

A: My industry (fantasy sports advice) is unique in that happy customers generally will not recommend my service to others – they view me as their secret weapon or competitive advantage, and they don’t want to share that with others!  This creates a marketing challenge:  how do I get the word out about my business when I can’t rely on my customers’ word-of-mouth?

Q:  What is the largest lifestyle change you have had to undergo as you moved to being an entrepreneur?

A: Constantly thinking about finances.  When I worked as an actuary in the insurance industry, I made a good salary, and since I don’t have any expensive hobbies, I could generally spend money whenever I wanted to without having to worry about it.  As an entrepreneur I’m much more conservative in my spending, and I watch every penny like a hawk.

Q:  Do you ever see yourself going back to the corporate world?

A: I have a strong preference not to, but I’ll never say never.  If a bigger company were to acquire my business and offer me a personal services contract to continue managing the business, that’s something I’d have to seriously consider.

Q:  When will you consider yourself a success as a start-up?

A: I already consider my start-up a success in that I’m doing something I love, I’m following my dreams, and I have customers willing to pay for my service.  However, it will be nice when I get to the point where my customer base is large enough to support some of the plans I have for future expansion.

My Web site is the original online coloring book, Coloring.com.  It gets a fair amount of traffic now with hardly any effort (300,000 uniques a month), so the challenge is to grow traffic and monetize it more effectively.  I have a plan for subscription revenue to surpass what is possible solely with ads.

I originally started the site in 1994 as Carlos’ Coloring Book, and branded it Coloring.com in 1996.  Have mostly sat on it while working (and learning) professionally.

Question and Answer:

Q: Have you ever started a business from scratch before?

A: Well, back in 1994 I started my corporation for the purposes of Web consulting, but never as a full-time business. I completed graduate school in December 1995, and I got a job with the Chicago Tribune in January 1996.  Also, I wouldn’t say I’m starting this “from scratch” either. Running the site over the past decade has allowed it to build a base traffic level of 10,000 unique visitors a day.  There are a lot of start-up companies that would love to “begin” with that.

Q: When you first loss your professional job, was creating a new business the first thing you thought to do?

A: Certainly concentrating on turning Coloring.com into a real business was one of my first thoughts, but finding another job was equally on my mind. I was laid off only once before, back in 2000, so being unemployed has not been a major concern.  I’ve been able to craft my career making positive moves from opportunity to opportunity as I desired. When the Internet bubble burst in 2000, it was only the Internet economy that was affected. Now it’s the entire country, so this one feels a lot more “real” and foreboding.

Q: What is the largest challenge you have had as you started a new business?

A: For sure it’s been getting things done by myself; I’m used to collaborating with others. Even when I started my company originally back in 1994, it was with a fellow graduate school student. I’m also very much an idea person, so switching gears from thinking to doing is a daily challenge. They say to get a co-founder, which is again not entirely straightforward since I have an established asset. But I’m working on getting the help of a key developer who I’d be happy to give some equity to, so that he also has a vested interest in the success of the product, and I can delegate to him with confidence.

Q: What is the largest lifestyle change have you had to do undergo as you moved to being an entrepreneur?

A: Well, first there was the lifestyle change of being unemployed; you immediately go into cash-saving mode. Making meals at home, no more discretionary spending on wine or other nice-to-haves, etc. But also the lifestyle change I’m still working on is transforming from a consumer into a producer. As a corporate employee, I was a very good consumer of information and knowledge from others, for the good of the company. But now I’ve found that I need to limit how much information and online social interaction I try to consume before first spending time producing my own things. In other words, I don’t have a blog right now, and if I keep discovering and reading others’ blogs, I’ll never get around to finally establishing my own with what I have to say. And that applies to spending time producing a better Coloring.com site too.

Q: Do you ever see yourself going back to the corporate world?

A: I have some money saved up, so I’m not in a hurry to get another job, but if the right career opportunity comes along, of course it would make sense to stop burning my own cash reserve and start earning a salary again. That right career opportunity is probably with a smaller group of people, rather than a large company, though. I’ve spent a fair amount of my career working for large-ish corporations and think my skills and knowledge right now would be better utilized in a smaller environment.

Q: When will you consider yourself a success as a start-up?

A: My definition of start-up success is when I can build a comfortable lifestyle income for my family without sacrificing quality time. My son is 8 years old, and every day I wish to be home when he comes home from school. And I hope my plan for success includes providing rewarding employment for a few other people, too.
Creating jobs is one of the most admirable traits of an entrepreneur.

Q: What is your revenue plan for coloring.com?

A: Coloring.com is free, and right now monthly serving expenses are easily covered by an advertising network, but not enough to pay me a salary yet based on traffic levels today. I believe online advertising has a ceiling, with an abundance of inventory and declining ad rates, so now is the time to cultivate a community around Coloring.com and find the visitors willing to pay for additional value. My plans include a recurring subscription model, where a family can join the site for $9 for 6 months of premium access for all of their children. The fundamental benefit will be being able to surf the site without ads, but I will also develop premium subscriber-only features.  $9 for 6 months undercuts all of the competition, and I believe is a very fair price to charge a family, even in this economy.

Q  Your business in three sentences:
A: Urban Green Energy is an international manufacturer of vertical axis wind turbines and associated products.  Our focus is on supplying stylish products that are both high quality and high performance.  Our products are available worldwide, either direct from one of our global offices or through one of our distributors.

Q: What made me leave the financial industry:
A: Some people might dream to work in baseball, but there were a couple years where I knew that clean energy was the industry I wanted to work in.  As I explored opportunities I noticed a need for innovation in the small wind sector and jumped at the opportunity.

Q: What is the biggest challenge for your business at this stage:
A: We have come a long way since starting the company to a place where we have what we believe is the industry’s leading wind turbine.  Although development used to be our main challenge, it is now a matter of increasing supply.  We have put a lot of focus into training our workers and investing in technology and have more than tripled our headcount since the beginning of the year (now approximately 75).  We have two more factory buildings coming on line August 1st (doubling the square feet of our factory) that will also help us in this effort.

Q: When will you consider your business a success?
A: My two co-founders and I entered this field because we wanted to contribute toward making the world a better place.  That is my focus and will be achieved by building a successful company that supplies innovative and high quality products to customers around the world.

Q: What is the one thing that you want people to understand about alternative energy?
A: What I want people to understand is the wide range of technologies that are out there.  I am sure a lot of people have not heard of vertical axis wind turbines before, but this is just one technology that has made significant advances in recent years.  It isn’t going to be one technology that puts humanity back on solid ground, it will be a combination of all of them: wind, solar, geothermal, and others.