This week I found a really great blog about entrepreneurship that I enjoy reading. The authors challenged us to take their Entrepreneur Interview.
What’s your personal mission statement?
It might sound cliche but it really is to live life to the fullest and take advantage of opportunities that present themselves!
What’s the biggest mess you’ve dealt with this year?
This is an easy one, but it was also tough situation to be in. I had to fire my first client when we were so close to finishing the job. Long story short, he was doing something which was definitely unethical and violating copyright laws and involving us, unknowingly, in it. I wrote a more in depth post about when to fire a client which you can read more of the grisly details on.
What current entrepreneurial efforts consume your time?
My main effort has been spent building up my blog forum and community. A lot of people think you throw up a website and you can be successful; but that just isn’t the case. The site is really built around the community members and my immediate goal is to offer these members more value to their already free membership! I currently offer some WordPress themes that are ONLY available to our community members and I have a few other things in the works. Once traffic is higher, I plan on trying to monetize the site more! I have plenty of other sites that have been in the works for a long time that I need to work on and get off the ground as well.
Why do you do what you do? What inspires you? When do you get most excited?
This is a tough one because there are so many things, I could go on forever. A big reason I started with programming is that I loved to build things and create things and I think those are traits that every entrepreneur should have. You may not be building something tangibly, but you are still creating and building. I love to create and innovate.
The life of an entrepreneur is made up of plenty of ups and downs so it is very important to have sources of inspiration and motivation to keep you going through the lulls. Success stories are one thing that really inspires me to achieve. When I get to hear about successful entrepreneurs who achieved success (which is all relative), it excites and and inspires me as well! My family is a HUGE source of inspiration and motivation for me. I absolutely LOVE the life I have with them and my ability to do all of the little that seem so insignificant, but if I was a 9-5′er, I couldn’t do them like:
- Volunteering at my son’s school every week.
- Taking Sara time on Fridays (if I had a productive week) and treating myself to some time outdoors, just me and my camera. It’s almost a form of meditation for me.
- Going to see my husband for breakfast or lunch.
- Being able to take french classes twice a week.
- My work breaks consist of me throwing the ball for my dogs.
It’s really the simple joys and pleasures that I never want to give up, which keep me going.
I get excited at various times, but I really enjoy the planning stage as that is when you get to flush all of your ideas out which can sometimes get out of hand because what started out as building a toy boat, has turned into building a yacht to sail around the world. It’s also great in the programming stage when the pieces are put together. I tend to develop more modularly and once a lot of those piece can be put together into a complete product, that is awesome.
Boxers or Briefs? or as Naomi says, Bikini or Thong, duh?!?
Ummm… boy shorts! Now, who’s with me????
What do you do when you’re not [designing | programming | managing | writing | toiling for the wo/man]?
Exploration! I love going new places and checking out new things. There is so much beauty around us that really just gets taken advantage of; I make sure I don’t fall into that category.
What one thing made the biggest difference when getting started?
I would say me not being able to find a job right away out of college played a pretty huge role in my starting my company. I thought to myself, all of these companies want experience, so I’ll make my own. Once I started, I couldn’t stop!
What’s your exit strategy?
There is no exit strategy for me. If I fail, that’s okay, I get back up and do it again. Unfortunately I have always been the type of person to learn things the hard way, but I feel that those are sometimes the best lessons learned. I have failed at some things and I have no doubt I will fail again. When you come face to face with failure, it shows you a lot about your inner strength and determination.
What is the last thing that made you belly laugh?
I laugh all of the time, but something that made me spit out my drink was when I was reading my email and the latest spam comments were about my baby maker…it was just so absolutely ridiculous that I couldn’t help but laugh.
Have you ever been in business before?
Still in the same thing I’ve had going on, but my business is changing. I am moving away from developing sites for clients to developing sites for myself.
At what point do you consider yourself successful?
This is very relative. I don’t have certain milestones that indicate success. The questions I ask myself are:
- Am I happy?
- Is my family happy?
- Do I enjoy what I do?
- Am I able to make enough to support my family and our lifestyle?
Right now I can say yes to all of those although in a few months we will be moving again to the Washington DC area where the cost of living is much higher than here, so I need to try to step it up or I may have get a job for the man for a little bit so I can save enough money to buy me some time to build up the income level to where I need it to be. It’s a personal dilemma I am struggling with now so I will keep you updated on that.
We had a Commodore 64 and as a kid I would play a lot of those text-based adventure games and take large sheets of grid paper and map out all of the rooms, etc. My dad also bought these programming magazines that had all of the code in it, so you could type in all of the commands and make your own little games. Those were fun. I think that was more than 20 years ago!
Steve Jobs vs Bill Gates in a jello wrestling match, where’s your money?
Announcer: Look people!! The Job Meister has Gatesy in a head lock and he is shoving his head in the jello!
Steve Jobs: Look you little pencil-nosed dweeb, people are leaving you because we know how to make things pretty. You guys suck.
Bill Gates: Muffled talk
Announcer: Oh my! What is Gatesy doing? He is taking The Job Meister’s cool head move and he is changing up a little bit, but by God, what an improvement! He is sitting on the Job Meister and now he has his face buried in the jello! Could this be the end?
Bill Gates: How do you like that princess? You say we don’t innovate yet we tend to do things just a little bit better than most which is why I’m kicking your ass.
CRASHHHHH
Audience: Gasp!!
Announcer: The folks at home won’t believe this! The lighting from above has just fallen onto the stage and both Gatesy and the Job Meister are now….dead.
Where do you do your best thinking?
I think a lot when I go running. I’m able to enjoy the cold air and the sites around me and my head is so clear, it allows me to think productively (there is such a thing as thinking unproductively).
What does your average daily work / life balance look like? How much time do you work, play and sleep?
My life is lived in bits and pieces. I usually work for a few hours, then play for a couple, work some more, then play, etc. Rinse and repeat until bedtime. I usually get between 6-7 hours of sleep a night.
If I could introduce you to anyone, who would it be?
There really isn’t anyone I am dying to meet. I like meeting interesting people, people with a story. I am a people watcher and I typically create stories for people when I see them. Drew and I could be out to dinner and I’m staring off into space and he will ask me if I’m people watching and I say yep. I’m not staring at people because they have food hanging out of their mouth, but I am wondering about them, what they do, how their life has been, what makes them tick which in turn evolves into a little story I create in my head. So I’d like to meet some of those people and find out the real story.
What stops you from giving up when you are frustrated?
My inspirations. I have given up on some things though. At some point you need to learn to let some things go. I constantly have ideas of things I want to do but it’s not always feasible so you need to learn when to say, it’s ok to give up. I think that is a crucial point in every entrepreneur’s life.
If Chuck Norris and Steven Hawking had a baby (hey it’s my damn interview), would you vote for her for president?
President of the Hair club for men? Sure.
My one original question to other entrepreneurs
What is it that you struggle with on a daily basis, that if improved or fixed, would greatly improve your productivity?
If you are an entrepreneur, I challenge to you take the interview as well! You can post your link here as well as on Shane and Peter’s blog!