Hi Guys, I’m here with Another interview, Today My guest is Erin Blaskie, A young Entrepreneur that started her company at the age of 21, I wanted to ask her how she started her company, what inspired her, her involvement in blogging and social media, and also tips on why and how we should all be collaborating online.

Enjoy the interview.

Hey Erin, how you doing? Thanks for sharing some of your time with me on YHP

Can you give us some background information about yourself?

I started my first company in August of 2004. I started this company after I had finished college and was working as an instructor at a private college. While I loved the daily interaction, I had this entrepreneurial spirit and passion inside of me that I couldn’t ignore. The company grew quickly and I was able to quit my job and leap into self-employment full-time.

So how did you get in blogging and social media?

I am an experimenter at heart. Experimenting with new tools, new ideas and geeky gadgets is my life. Blogging has been something I’ve been doing since before the popular platforms came into existence like WordPress and TypePad. I was doing blogging on the first series of journal style websites that hit the market.

As for social media, I registered with Facebook and Twitter when they were both in beta and have been using them ever since. For me, it was never a conscious decision of, “I have to do this for my business” but more a question of, “What is this neat and interesting tool?”

What do you like the most about the internet, blogging and social media?

It’s openness. It shares who we are with the world and creates a new sense of transparency and authenticity. I love also that it’s an open format. You can use these mediums however you wish and really, there are no “wrong” methods of using the tools.

I also love that these mediums promote creativity and expression. Never before did we have such an instantaneous medium for our messages and such open communication. I can post a blog post now and be engaged in a conversation through comments in minutes.

Tell us about BSTEC Your outsourcing company? What do you guys do?

BSETC was started as a virtual assistance firm which provided administrative and Internet marketing support to entrepreneurs. Now, we are a creative, professional outsourcing firm that supports entrepreneurs around the world in the building, growing and management of their online businesses. We do everything from graphic design to web design to administrative support to social media support to in-depth strategy and consultation.

What inspired you to start BSTEC?

I actually had the idea when I was 16 years old. I didn’t want the “regular” summer job so instead, I had this idea that I would pass out flyers to local businesses in which I would offer to do small administrative jobs. Organize offices, type up documents, etc. Unfortunately, it didn’t pan out at that time – I was offered a job in an ice cream factory instead and that was much more appealing to my 16-year old self

Fast forward to 21 and the idea popped back into my head but this time it included a website and a global audience as opposed to flyers and my local business sector.

What does your company do different from other companies in the Virtual assistant industry?

I wrote an e-book called, “From Puppet to Puppeteer” which talks about the difference between a firm like ours and other virtual assistance companies. The e-book mostly focuses on engagement. We provide our clients with services that engage and inspire them to create amazing projects and we take the guesswork out of the process. Where other firms may only provide services on an as requested basis, we’re thinking for our clients to guide them through the process of running an online business.

I am currently writing a post on online collaboration and wanted to get your thoughts? Why do you think it is essential in today’s world? What value does it add to one’s work?

I totally agree in the collective as opposed to the individual. There is something much more powerful about collaboration and crowd-sourcing things in today’s marketplace. The power of course lies in the uniqueness in each person’s thought and in their ability to see the project different from his/her colleagues.

We use Basecamp as our method of communicating out as a group to our clients. We brainstorm, banter and create through this medium so we can create best practices and provide the best opportunities for our clients.

What do you think anyone interested in collaborating online should do or start doing?

Get out there and provide value to others. It’s only through providing value that others will see your value and invite you to participate with them. Companies now call on me to provide feedback and get really, really involved in their work because they know that when I love something I’ll get invested and engaged. Engaged collaboration creates a really powerful force.

What are the most crucial things you have done to grow your business?

I’ve become involved in the processes. Too many entrepreneurs are building and starting new things all of the time without ever honing in and fine tuning what they have. I concentrate as much of my effort on fine tuning what I do now as I do on the new projects. That begins to create a business that you work on instead of a business you work in.

How do you promote/advertise your work, especially for someone trying to start their business and looking to get some presence online, what advices can you give them?

Just get out there in every way you can. Think about all of the different mediums available to us – audio, video, blog, social media, traditional media, joint ventures, etc. and make sure you’re taking advantage of it all.

I like to think of a new business as being stranded in the middle of a corn field that is filled with really, really tall husks of corn. Every time you create a new avenue (ie: setup a blog, setup an account on Twitter, etc.) you are creating a road of visibility to your business. The more you do that, the more opportunities you have to be seen and noticed and therefore hired.

As an entrepreneur, what qualities do you think aspiring entrepreneurs should have to be successful?

Be fearless. Ditch the perfectionism. Be original.

What is your favourite online tool?

I have many! I can’t live without Gmail, Basecamp, Freshbooks and right now, Threadsy.

If the internet never existed, what would you be doing?

I’d probably be living a life devoted to learning and yoga.

What is the most valuable skill you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?

Authenticity.

Thanks for your time Erin

If you enjoyed the interview, Stop over at her site to say her or follow her on twitter.

I had to do an interview with Grace Boyle, A blogger that writes at smallhandsbigideas, also wanted to introduce her to you guys, I really like what she writes about on her blog, shes talks about career, relationship and inspiration, Anyways i dont want to tell you everything about her, when you could just go on her blog and read the interview below.

Enjoy this quick interview i did with her. She talks about internet, blogging and social media

Hey Grace, how you doing? Thanks for sharing some of your time with me on YHP

Thanks for thinking of me! I’m happy to be talking with the YHP team.

Can you give us some background information about yourself?

I’m 24 years-old, grew up in Iowa, went to college in Vermont and after graduating with my B.S. in Public Relations I decided to move to Boulder (without a job, friends or place to live). I’m still living in beautiful Boulder working at the online, tech startup, Lijit as their Publisher Services Manager. I love my Italian family, traveling, food, connecting with people, wine, writing, snowboarding and laughter.

So how did you get in blogging and social media?

I got into blogging and social media when I was college. In college I had such great professors who understood the relevance of social media and blogging. Projects we had included using Twitter, creating blogs for client projects and running e-mail marketing campaigns. Finally, the multitude of internships I completed in college helped me learn online social media in the professional world. This early educational foundation has been imperative to my interest and subsequent career in the online world.

What do you like the most about the internet, blogging and social media?

The infinite, meaningful, and real connections it can create.

What inspires you? What inspires your posts?

I am inspired by the little things – eye contact, reconnecting with an old friend, sharing a bottle of wine with friends, a musicians riff, climbing a mountain, collaborating with intelligent people, learning something new, holding the door for a stranger and exchanging a smile, and deep, belly laughter. Even pain inspires me, because there’s so much to be felt and learned.

My favorite posts come from these simple, real-life experiences, that undoubtedly, others can relate to.

What are the most crucial things you have done and think most bloggers should be doing to grow their blogs?

I think blogging is largely about the community you create and the connections you (perpetually) make. I compare it to a cocktail party. No one likes it when there’s that one person who talks just about themselves and doesn’t care to listen.

When I started my blog, I was sure to use my voice and style, but I also turned to other bloggers to learn the ropes and find inspiration. This collaboration, talking with other bloggers, having someone to turn to with a question or bounce an idea off each other and listening to your readers are an integral part to blogging.

Finally, in the words of Steve Jobs, I tell bloggers to “stay hungry, stay foolish.”

How do you manage your time?

Oh good question. Sometimes I even need to ask myself this!

A few things: I use my Outlook calendar and a daily planner (I like to write things down still, call me old fashioned) to visually view what my week looks like, I make sure to schedule time to myself so I can stay centered and I also learn to say “no” because I can’t do everything (even though I often think I can).

How do you promote/advertise your work?

I don’t heavily focus on this aspect of blogging although I do have a degree and background in public relations.

I use Twitter and Facebook to publicly promote my blog posts. That’s about it. I think there’s a time and a place for self-promotion – I also believe that for my own blog, people will come because they like me (or don’t) and because of the content I’m creating.

What is your favourite online tool?

I really enjoy Twitter. It’s concise, easy, powerful and has created some of the most rewarding professional and personal relationships in my life.

If the internet never existed, what would you be doing?

My job is based on the Internet, but there are many things that I still do that doesn’t involve the Internet (a necessary part of my life, actually). Professionally though, I would be traveling the world, become a professional food taster and maybe have my own travel show sharing all my worldwide cultural secrets.

Who are your role models? Who are the people that inspire you online?

My parents are my role models. They’re both entrepreneurs, have started companies from the ground up, are compassionate, respectable and still make me laugh.

Online: I am inspired by Rebecca Thorman (http://www.modite.com) as she is one of the first bloggers I started reading. Her writing is elegant, witty and intelligent.

What are your favourite websites?

I have an eclectic taste and I work online so these are some of my favorite sites to visit they make me laugh, think and are intriguing: http://weburbanist.com/, http://chelseatalkssmack.blogspot.com/, http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/, http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/, http://www.creativeclass.com/, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/, http://livethecharmedlife.com/, http://caitlinmccabe.com/ and http://failblog.org/.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years? 10 years?

It’s interesting because I have a lot of aspirations and I would consider myself motivated, but currently, my life is very moment to moment. I’m learning, loving, laughing and thoroughly enjoy working at a startup. I also know that life is filled with surprises, so I could list off what I see for myself in the future, but right now, I’m excited to see what it has in store.

I will say that in 5 to 10 years I hope to continue to work hard, play hard and love hard.

Thanks for spending time to do this interview with us.

Thanks for having me here. I’m easily reached by email (gracekboyle at gmail dot com), Twitter or feel free to stop by my blog and say hello.

Today, i did a quick interview with brian pedone, Founder abpsoftware, to just see how he is doing and the latest on his company.

Remember Brian Pedone was recognized by BusinessWeek as the Top 25 Entrepreneurs 25 Years and Under in America

Enjoy the interview.

Hey Brian, how are you doing today? Can you quickly give us some background information yourself, what you do?

I just finished work with my first company out of College, Grad Techs, and I really wanted to do something on my own with no partners. I started working on a project, NeedMyPassword.com, and needed to put it under a company.

How did you know it was the right idea?

My parents were a huge help in terms of making sure that I took every opportunity to do my own thing while I am still young. I had a good job, but knew that I could do work on my own.

Did you write a formal business plan?

For Grad Techs I did, but for ABP Software I did not. I just wanted to get a product out there and see the response from the public. When BusinessWeek recognized it in 2008, it was tremendous exposure.

What are the biggest challenges you faced starting up and how did you overcome them?

Steady income, people putting your products down, and getting overwhelmed with tasks. I took a step back and really mapped out all of my goals for my future and knew that these would all be things that had to be overcome.

What has been the most valuable lesson you’ve learnt so far as an entrepreneur?

Never ever give up! Money is not everything, and that with the right passion and drive the money will come.

How did you raise cash to start abpsoftware?

From my previous full-time job I had some money and I got a big consulting project that really funded everything.

How many employees do you have?

It is still just me! I have had a lot of interns from East Stroudsburg University, but still just me.

What are the most crucial things you have done to grow your business?

Using all of my networking and just telling everybody what I am working on. Plus doing great work and keeping customers happy.

What systems have you used to automate your business to give you more time for business planning and development?

I developed www.KeyNextSteps.com to manage my projects and created www.BuzzyBook.com to promote my events and promotions.

What are the biggest challenges you face now?

In the process of locking down a few larger clients so that the business can start to flow easier and give me more time to really plan for the future of the business.

What is the worst experience you’ve had as an entrepreneur and how did you bounce back from it?

Going through a few weeks with absolutely no money. Hustled to get more consulting projects and doing programming outside of our regular scope of business.

Are you guys profitable yet?

We are currently in the break even point and see this year as we will start to become profitable.

What current projects are you working on right now?

www.KeyNextSteps.com and really pushing my non-profit boxing gym (www.phhboxing.org) as we open a second location in Old Forge, PA.

Any latest update regarding NeedMyPassword.com, How are you looking to improve the services it offers and also create awareness for it?

We actually sold the product to developer in Canada and changed the model to really go more mobile with www.MobileSafeBox.com

I read the article of you in businessweek that you’re looking to turn your boxing gym into a nonprofit area for youths, what made you decide to do that?

We have over 220 kids in the gym and have seen great improvements in terms of keeping kids out of trouble, etc. We really want to get more involvement from the community so that we can do bigger and better things.

How long do you plan to keep operating this business?

For at least another 5 years.

What are your plans for the future?

Getting a few software products off the ground and start generating consistent revenue. With the profit from that we will expand the boxing gym and reach out to other areas.

What advices can you give to aspiring entrepreneurs looking to start their business?

Think of what you want to do, set a goal, and go for it!! There are a ton of people who will doubt you, but that is because they are afraid to do what you are doing.

Thanks for your time
Check out his company’s website: www.abpsoftware.com

After over 2months of doing this interview, I have finally been able to put it up, although i would have loved to put the audio interview with it, but some parts were damaged.

This is a fantastic interview and i would recommend you to read every single part of it, “from beginning to
the end”.

The reason for this interview been amazing was because matt decided to just open up and share some amazing tips for everyone, especially young entrepreneurs, it’s truly amazing.

In this interview, Matt talked about:

How sitepoint started and getting featured on USATODAY, LA TIMES and on the Washington post
How they celebrated their 10 year anniversary
How hard it was developing a website in 1999
Starting his first business at 10/11 years old, “he started up a bank”.
Making money from advertisers during lunch time in high school.
How he started selling books online and sold over 25,000 copies in his first try
His inspiration
Qualities an entrepreneur should possess
How he manages his time and “he doesn’t have a facebook account”.
How he manages his employees and keeps them motivated.
His love for his employees.
Crucial quality he’s developed as an entrepreneur
The most crucial decision he made to grow his business
Why he prefers Steve Jobs over Bill Gates
What to expect from him in the New Year
Why he loves Hawaii and México and has never been skydiving.

Enjoy and let me know your thoughts about it, leave a comment

How you’re doing today matt?

Very well thank you

You sounded a bit busy earlier on?

Yeah, my phone been ringing off the hook, but now it’s on mute so it’s all good.

So how is it going down there?

Umm, we’re coming in to winter so it’s just rainy and cold, and we have the winter Olympics coming up in 2010 so it should be a lot of fun.

Great, Thanks for taking time to speak with me today on YHP

Thanks for having me

Great, so matt, what inspired you to start sitepoint?

So the pre-courser to sitepoint was actually a website called webmasterresources.com that i started while i was in high school, as i was learning to build websites as a hobby i had to do a lot of research, as in the best tools, the best html entries, SEO, all these other things and whilst going through this process i thought I’m doing all these research I’m sure other people are struggling to find these information aswell so i basically created at the time a directory, a listing of different tools and resources i find useful and i launched the website around it which was called the webmasterresources.com.

I launched on April 1st 1998 and within a few weeks of launching i gained massive massive momentum, the website was featured in USATODAY,LA TIMES, Washington post, i had a full page write up about the website on windows magazine which at the time had millions of subscribers, they actually offered me a writing gig for their magazine which was fantastic as well so definitely being at the right place at the right time, everyone wanted to learn how to build their website, i quickly became the go-to resource for that information.

Wow, 1998 that’s a long time ago

That’s right, we’re over 10 years, and we just celebrated our 10 year anniversary.

How was that?

It was a really good party, We had it down in melbourne, Australia where our headquarters are.

Now I’m wondering that maybe i should have met you earlier, maybe i would have been invited?*Laughs*

So what was the hardest part in developing a website at that time (1999), for you personally?

Umm, basically i was never really technically competent, I’m not a programmer, not a developer, not a coder,im not a designer either so i guess the website wasn’t as functional as i would have liked it to be , it was quite ugly to be begin with it as well, but that dint hold it back because i had fantastic content, a great repertoire with people who were visiting the website, most of all just pumping out really really good information that people found helpful, i really wanted to help people build their web businesses, build their websites, so i started doing product reviews, book reviews etc

Just to point people to best tools and resources to learn about this internet marketing and web design topics.

Great, Great, you mentioned you still being in high school, which is pretty right in the middle of your teenage years, so was entrepreneurship something that was practiced in our family or just something you figured out by yourself?

It just came very naturally to me when i was very very little, even when i was 10 or 11 years old, i actually started up a bank and took money from my parent’s friends, so i guess I’ve always been into business and the internet came along and it made it possible to reach a very wide audience and the great thing about the internet was that i was dealing with everyone over the phone and through emails, no one really knew how old i was, they just knew i had this fantastic website, this massive audience , as a result it went really really well.

What’s the shortest way to describe what sitepoint does?

So sitepoint is a media and publishing company targeting the web professional market, web professionals are people who do web design, web development full time for a living and we educate our audience through online content, blogs, emails, newsletters, forums as well as book publishing which is a business that we got into around 2001/2002, we’ve published around 40-50 books now on topics ranging from PHP to CSS to Web designs and online marketing

Talk about short description *Laughs*

So how did you finance your business?

It was really cheap, probably from $100-$150, basically the cost of the domain name, web hosting and account, everything else i was able to do with free tools, i never really spend anything on marketing, once the website got a little bit of traction in terms of traffic, i started generating advertising revenue, so initially i was selling advertising revenues through ad network, then i started doing it directly aswell especially as the dotcom bubble got bigger and bigger, companies started to call me directly and say i have $10,000, i have $20,000 to spend, what do you have available?

So during my lunch hour in high school, i was in the local starbucks, giving out ad sales and getting a thousand dollars richer.

The Ad Company or the direct advertisers? Where did you make the most money?

Oh by far i made the most money through direct ad sales definitely even till this day we don’t run any ad networks on sitepoint, we only do direct ad sales, obviously advertising worked really really well in 1999, 2000 up until the dotcom crash happened and the stock market collapsed, at which point basically all our revenues dried up and we hired a few people, we had bills to pay so we had to go back to the drawing board to figure out another way to make money to survive, at the time a very popular thing to do on website was to print out our articles and our tutorials when people were learning how to program, they wanted to have the piece of paper sitting next to them by the computer so they could follow along.
So we took our most popular tutorials at the time called “Build your database website using MYPHP and SQL”, we took this tutorial bundled it up and sold it as a print on demand book for $35 online and sold it to the people on our website, “you know why don’t you buy this 250 page book, we’ll print it, we’ll ship it to you etc its only $35” and we’ve now sold over 20-25,000 copies of that book, once we figured out it worked, we were like ok, let’s do it with another book.

How many hours do spend on a daily basis working on your companies?

Umm..Probably 10 hours i would say, but it’s really hard to define because when I’m not sitting on the computer or talking on the phone, I’m always thinking about the business, reading books about business or keeping myself educated and informed so i don’t really think a workday really stops for an entrepreneur, for an employee it does, you know start at the office at 8:30am, finish work at 5:30pm and that’s it, but as an entrepreneur you’re always thinking through problems and challenges, keeping tracks of all the things you have to do, your mind never really stops, it’s kind of hard to turn it off, unless maybe you take a vacation for 3-4days to really switch off and relax.

You were talking about educating yourself and keeping yourself informed and always reading books about business? What books would you say has inspired you the most?

I definitely admire the few autobiographies about Richard Branson, so i would definitely recommend entrepreneurs to get a few of those, it’s really interesting to hear how he started virgin and built the entire business out, aswell as some of the failures he encountered along the way

What are the so-called qualities do you think an entrepreneur must possess to be successful?

I’m going to steal a word from my friend Gary Vaynerchuk who said, entrepreneurs need to hustle, so work hard, work non-stop, make things happen, take initiative, be very proactive, also be flexible and look out for new opportunities, so don’t be too set with one plan,

if someone told me that we will be publishing books in 1999 i would have told them that they were insane and smoking crack,

because we had that open mindset, when the opportunity arose we were fortunate enough to test the idea out and find out that it works.

So as an internet entrepreneur, what is your favourite online tool? Is it the facebook, twitter etc

Believe or not, i don’t even have a facebook account, it’s too much to keep track of, on my desktop i just have mail app, ical, tweet deck and a really cool utility called things.

I’ve been meaning to get the i-cal for quite a while as well.

i-cal is really really good, most people are using it these days and it’s good to keep track of meeting and phone calls and it syncs with my iphone as well so if I’m travelling to san Francisco, new York or los-Angeles i can look up the phone numbers and addresses easily so it’s very handy that way.
And the application called things is also really good at keeping tracks of to-do lists and projects and tasks with tiny timelines and reminders, it’s really good.

How many employees do you currently have in your business at the moment? Full time and partime.

So between sitepoint, 99 designs and flippa which are my three companies, i think we now employ about 45 people full time or there about plus a number of contractors which do a lot of contents for us such as our bloggers.

Wow, 45 that’s a lot, so how do you manage all of them, especially keeping them motivated?

I actually have a general manager for each business who deals with the HR and the hiring so i have actually outsourced that because i don’t think i have a good track record when it comes to hiring personally, that been said i think we have a fantastic group of people, the people who work at sitepoint, 99designs and flippa, for most part look at it more than a job and are really passionate about what we are doing, passionate about educating web developers, web designers, preaching web standards, the people at 99 designs and the team are passionate about changing the landscape of the graphics design market, people at flippa are really interested in allowing web owners to basically hold an auction and sell their website through our market place so i think the people that we have at the three businesses are very passionate, yes, they are a fantastic group of people who have been very much a huge part of our success.

As someone in charge of three successful businesses online, what would you say has been the most crucial qualities that you’ve embraced or developed during your entrepreneurial journey to this moment?

I think perseverance has always served us really really well and obviously trying new things and testing ideas even if they might fail, so for example, back in 2000/2002 we tried selling e-books online, that dint work, we tried selling online video tutorials, like streaming videos, that dint work, but we also tried new things that went really really well, for example, rather than publishing books, i had the idea of putting out this kits, basically binders full of contents weighing 10-12 pounds and selling it for $200-$250 rather than $35-$40 for a kit and we found out that re-packing the product in a new format worked really really well that’s something we experienced because of our willingness to try out new things.

What would you say has been the most crucial decision you’ve made to grow your business?

Bringing on board lots of fantastic people has been absolutely essential to maintaining our growth and trying new things, i see entrepreneurs who try and do too much themselves or don’t realise what their weaknesses are, so i think it’s important to build a great team.

Do you Guys have any plans in expanding your business further in the next year or two?

Definitely they are lots and lots of things in the pipeline, i can’t share them because all our competitors are probably listening or reading.

Not even a sneak preview for the YHP Readers *Laughs*

We’re always innovating so, for sitepoint, the thing that always has been successful for us and the biggest challenge for everyone in our community is always getting more clients, getting more work, so whenever we launch a project or information product it helps people their business it’s always proven successful for us in the past so we are thinking along those lines for the future, helping people promote themselves, their businesses and getting new clients.

What has been your most effective marketing technique in getting your businesses to this level? You website averages 2M Unique users per month which is Great, so how have you guys been able to draw that amount of users to your website?

To be honest, it’s really been about putting out fantastic, high quality contents, we don’t do pretty much no out-bound marketing, we don’t buy banner ads, we don’t buy magazine ads or anything like that, it’s all based around repeat visitors, our email newsletter list which help drive a lot of traffic as well and great SEO which comes having a long term established presence, Google obviously values older websites, Google also values in-bound links, so when we publish high quality contents, people will link to it, people tweet about it and that acts as our marketing vehicle so we don’t take any short-cuts with our contents, we don’t outsource it for $0.05 to India or something like that, we try and do it right, do it well and do something that we can be proud of long term.

Who would you say is your favourite young entrepreneur at this moment under the age of 27?

I m not going to name any names because I’ve got a lot of friends who are entrepreneurs that are all doing fantastic things so i think people can be successful at many different things.

I know people that are fantastic at direct marketing and sales, selling softwares, i’ve had other friends that have had great ideas with facebook and figured it out really really quickly and in less than a year’s time they basically conquered the fan pages for big corporate, so they are lots and lots of people doing fantastic things so there isn’t a particular person that i would single out.

I see you don’t want to get anymore upset, okay, fair enough *Laughs*

What would your tips be for upcoming entrepreneurs? Either starting up or are looking to build on their businesses especially in this Economic downtime?

I think economic downtime probably bring up more and the best opportunities because they are fewer competitors and the competitors that you do have are cutting back on their marketing and their expenditures are they are laying off staffs, so i think launching in this downtime is probably one of the best things to do and if you can be successful in the downtime, it means when things turn up and the economy recovers, you’ll be in a really really good position, so i would suggest to entrepreneurs that they bootstrap their business.

We’ve never raised any outside funding for three of our companies also that they think creatively, for example, for a few years we dint pay any hosting costs, because we did a deal with our web hosting company for advertising space on our website, so always try harder to negotiate discounts, think creatively about how you can get what you need.

Do you have any mentors, any one you look up to, any role models? Steve Jobs, Bill Gates?

I’m more Steve jobs because i think he’s a master of product development and visual eccentrics because i think he’s done tremendously well with apple since rejoining the company, basically re-inventing the smart phone segment with the launch of the iphone, Umm and just doing things very differently.

People like dell probably thought that they were in a really really good position, people had no PM, Motorola got really entrenched and though they had the market conquered and apple decided to enter the market and then just blew it up, which was fantastic because they were an outsider, they sat down without any conceptions, and thought if we could build the ideal phone, what would it look like? And they built the iphone which was so different from everything else out at the time.

I believe that focus served them well than anything else at the time, and that’s something i would do at sitepoint,99 designs and flippa whenever our teams get too big we try and split them up into smaller groups and divide the tasks up so that people can really focus on what’s important at that point in time.

So what should be expecting from you in the nearest future?

Ohh, There’s going to be lots of great things happening at sitepoint, and 99 designs is rolling out some really cool things in January as well.

Actually, we haven’t really talked much about 99 designs, that’s a business that we started about 2 years ago, it’s started off at its own separate company out of sitepoint, 99 designs has now actually flourished to become the largest marketplace for crowdsource, graphics designs.

We connect business owners and entrepreneurs needing everything from logos to business cards, to wordpress themes to banner ads, whatever graphic designs, with a group of over 50,000 designers around the world, that business has done tremendously, tremendously well for us since we launched it in feb of 2008, we’ve completed 31,000 graphic design projects, we’ve done the book cover for Tim Ferris new book “Becoming superhuman”, we’ve done big projects for brands like mashable, HGTV, for some of the luxury retailers.

Nice, that some pretty cool stuff

Definitely definitely, it’s a really destructive model as well because rather than graphic designers bidding on jobs, we have them submit their concepts, they show the business their different ideas, their mock-ups, what the designs will look like, rather than saying, “I’ll come up with something for $300”, they submit their actual ideas.

So on average now, projects on 99 designs sees over 100 concepts submitted for the price of 3-400 dollars, absolutely fantastic for an average small business owners who have no idea on what they want, to be able to come to our site, put up a couple hundred dollars and see a hundred different versions of their new brochures, new business cards or their new logo and have it all done in less than a week’s time, it’s a really really cool module.

WOW..You’ve left me speechless now Matt

But, Quickly to an important question, although you have experience and history behind your company but there are so much companies coming out in the web development, designs side practically flooding out right now, How do you keep such a competitive edge for your company and also maintain such high standards?
We try not to outsource a lot of things and try to do all our developments in-house and apply the quality assurance to all the contents in-house so it means the people that work for us have a great deal of pride in our website, in what we publish and what we do, which i don’t think you can get when you try and outsource things and we do things with the long term in mind throughout so we do things that we can be proud of 4 years from now as suppose to just taking shortcuts to make a buck “here or there” which i think is another mistake which a lot of entrepreneurs try and make, having the short term rather than the long term in mind.

So Finally, What do you do to kick back and take your eyes off work for a bit?

I try and go on vacation; anywhere sunny or warm is good, a beach with a cocktail or a nice beer is perfect for me.

Any favourite spot or location?

Holiday Location, umm, I’ve being to Hawaii 4 or 5 times which probably tells you about that and Mexico as well is a really nice holiday destination especially because of the adventures side and the big commercial
resorts, it can be quite fun.

Any place you visited so far and know you’re definitely not returning to any time soon?

I’ve not had any real disaster stories; I’ve always done my research

Not falling of a bike, or something silly like that?

I spend way too much time over-thinking things, whenever i plan a trip, i spend a lot of time researching everything, researching the hotels, researching the restaurants.

So no skydiving or nothing edgy so far then?

Umm, we’ll see, i haven’t done skydiving yet but a couple of friends are organising a skydiving trip, we’’ see whether or not i get dragged along.

*Laughs”- Alright then, thanks so much for your time matt.

Ok, Thank you for having me.

As the world is moving towards the green initiative, Rich Littehale, A student from yale university is definitely playing his part after starting up a company called yourenew with his friend Bob Casey, Yourenew is an online platform that you to get paid to recycle your old electronics.

So i decided to speak to the company’s Co-founder, Rich Littlehale about his life as an entrepreneur.

How are you doing rich? Thanks for taking time to be here on YHP

Can you give us some background about you and what you do?

I’m originally from outside of Boston and attend Yale University.

When I’m not in class, I am working on YouRenew, a company that helps people responsibly remarket or recycle their old electronics through our online platform. We built the company on the belief that people want to do the right thing with their old electronics.

Describe/outline your typical day?

There really is no typical day as I’m constantly on a different call or going out to meeting. But in general I aim to start off the day by blasting through the big thing I’m aiming to get done that day. Once I finish that, I’ll dive into emails which I usually get lost in for a few hours. I have a great team that I enjoy working with, so fun is always mixed in with work!

How many hours do you work a day on average?

On average, probably about 12 hours.

How did you finance your business?

My co-founder and I provided the initial seed capital, had some family and friends join in then raised a larger round from angels and early stage venture capital.

What is the most crucial decision you’ve made so far regarding your business?

Hire the best people who believe in your vision.

What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?

I’ve been an athlete my whole life so working out and playing sports are my most favourite.

How do you market your products or services?

Right now, we try to spend little to no money on advertising. We’ve been fortunate with press and hope to continue more. Most importantly we’re trying to build a loyal following through outlets like social media.

What has been your most satisfying moment in business?

For me there have been many, but I think launching the website was definitely up there. It signified us building it and achieving a pretty amazing goal.

If you could talk to one person from history, who would it be and why?
Tough question, but I’d say John D. Rockefeller. I’d like to understand better how he kept control over his organization as he scaled and continued to execute beautifully.

What have been some of your failures, and what have you learned from them?

I’ve had numerous failings. One in particular was actually growing a bit too quickly initially. It ran me and my team members ragged trying to keep up with the flow of business and we started making sloppy mistakes. We’ve learned now that you need to make sure the organization is scaling to meet demand.

Do you have a favourite business tool or resource?

I read a lot of books on business as resources. My favourite is Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. Otherwise, I try to reach out to more experienced people to see what they’ve done and how they have succeeded.

Where do you see in yourself and your business in the next 5 years?

Our vision is to be a leader in the industry.

What is the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done?

Good question – too many things. Most likely it’s when on Halloween dressed up as Axel Rose, I sang Sweet Child of Mine to my now girlfriend to try and get a date.

What is one thing that people wouldn’t believe you do?

Play guitar.

Any last comments before we leave you for now?

The key to entrepreneurial success is finding something you’re passionate about and doing it with people who are as passionate as you. If you don’t find that balance, it’s too hard to successfully execute.

Thanks for your time.

Steve is the founder of Wealthystudent.co.uk, A site dedicated towards helping students financially through university. although as discussed in the interview, he is looking to re-launch it into a much more success/career based site in a few weeks time.

In this interview, steve touches on some key tips especially for entrepreneurs looking to start their business int he university or straight after..

Enjoy…

Steve, how you doing today?

Very good thanks! Thanks for giving me the chance to do this interview.

Wealthy student? How and when did you start your business?

I started the business back at university in 2008. I got some funding by my university, who backed the idea and it took off from there. The prelimonary idea behind the site was to be a site to help students financially through university. The site has got sidetracked through 2009 as I got involved with another student business. I am now back on track and we are going to be re-launching with a much more success/career based site in a few weeks time.

What inspired you to start you to start the site?

I had always wanted to be my own boss and it just hit me one day that the internet was clearly an opportunity to start a business. It was staring me in the face. Anyone can start a business on the internet. To be successful though, takes tremendous amounts of perserverance, quick learning and having massive focus.

I also wanted to do something about student’s situation. I had managed to graduate with about £10,000 in the bank, just through working a part time job. Anybody could do that, too.

How difficult was it starting a business?

I found it fairly easy to get started. You need to get people around you who can mentor and help. I think the difficult part is when you get a year or two into the business and things haven’t got quite as planned. Will you still be motivated to be a success? It’s then when passion counts.

How did you raise money for your business?

I got a £3500 grant from my university, much of my savings of university went into the business.

What’s your business model?

Originally, it had been solely affiliate and advertising revenue but now we are heading into the recruitment sector.

How did you market your business?

JV partnerships, viral marketing (giving my book away), SEO marketing, article marketing – as many things as possible that get you ‘out there’. If you don’t know enough about how to do marketing on little or no budget then definitely get advice.

What are the fundamentals that you think every entrepreneur should follow when starting up a business?

• Get a mentor
• If you are setting up an online business and can’t code the site yourself then ask as many people as possible if they know anyone can, for cheap. Do not pay thousands. There are plenty of people out there trying to rip you off.
• Don’t be scared to tell other people your idea. People won’t steal it, it takes a lot of hard graft to get an idea to go anywhere.
• Write some sort of business plan. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but get something down.
• Have a vision of what you want the business to be in 5 years time.
• Set yearly, monthly, weekly and daily goals.
• Make every penny count.
• Make every minute count as much as every penny. Productivity is key when starting up.
• Make sure you are truly passionate about the business. Don’t purely do it as a road to riches. If you don’t have passion then you will give up in the end.

You’re the 2009 Men’s Health Entrepreneur of the Yr, how does that feel? And also a Part of the Observer/Courvoisier Future 500, that’s got to be cool, it sounds cool anyways?

The entrepreneur of the year was great. I had worked so hard up until that point and it was fantastic to get recognition. Being an entrepreneur can be lonely. The Courvoisier Future 500 is possibly the best thing about being in business. You get to meet some fantastic people, doing fantastic things at the networking events.

You also have a book called Defeat Student Debt, how did that come about?

I wrote the book whilst I was in the process of graduating (available on Amazon). I think I am a bit of a writer at heart and I had a lot to say about enjoying yourself at university but also doing it in a way that would keep you in good financial stead.

Who is your role model?

It can change all the time. Anyone who is at the top of their game whether it is in sport or business. Some names? Richard Branson, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, Roger Federer, Lewis Hamilton and (surprise entry) Ricky Gervais.

What s your favourite entrepreneurial book?

Quite a few. I’ll go for something a bit different – The 4 hour work week by Tim Ferris.

What were you doing before? What would you do if they were no wealthystudent?

I was a student before. If there was no wealthystudent, I’d probably go work and travel somewhere as that is my other passion – seeing, living and breathing other cultures.

What advices would you give to young entrepreneurs starting up?

Think big and go for it! Follow my above advice!

What next for you?

Concentrating on making this business a success and inspiring others to do the same.

Where do you see yourself in 5 to 10 years time?

I’d love to get into investing into startups that are in their infancy. After my experiences with them, there will be a lot I can offer.

Thanks for your time steve, i wish you the very best.

Check out his website Guys, Leave comments so i know your thoughts on this interview.

It’s not everyday you hear someone reject to work with corporate giants such as JPMorgan and McKinsey to pursue life as an entrepreneur.

David Langer made this decision and he’s loving every single moment of it.

This is a must read interview for every entrepreneur starting up, especially those based in the UK. David covers a lot of ground in this interview, he talks about:

• Why he started GroupSpaces.
• How he secured funding for GroupSpaces and what you should start doing right now to be in a better position to get funding for your startup.
• Why he’s not going to work for either JPMorgan or McKinsey.
• Why as an entrepreneur you should be getting connected.
• Why you don’t need to be in Silicon Valley to be successful.
• Why he shares some of Barack Obama’s views on fitness.
• Why he would like to have a cup of coffee with Winston Churchill.

Can you quickly give us some background information about yourself?

I’m a 24 year-old Internet entrepreneur, born and bred in Wimbledon, currently based in Oxford having completed a Mathematics degree at Oxford University in 2007. In addition to working on my startup GroupSpaces, I also write for The Gateway newspaper as their Entrepreneurship Columnist and train for my current sporting passion: triathlons.

So David, tell us about your company and what inspired you to start it?

GroupSpaces is an Oxford-based Web startup which takes the pain out of managing clubs, societies, associations and other real-world groups.

I started GroupSpaces in 2007 with my co-founder, Andy Young, based on our personal experiences on the committee of various clubs and societies at Oxford University.

We observed that every real-world group we came across was managing itself using a mash-up of disconnected tools and processes. This was really inefficient and meant these groups were spending an unnecessarily large amount of time on admin, distracting them from their group’s core purpose.

The status quo was a mailing list on Gmail or a Yahoo!/Google group, a membership database in Excel, events on a Facebook group, payments being collected by cheque or cash and a website which was time-consuming to update and disconnected from everything else.

Andy and I thought that it would be much quicker and easier to manage all these things from one place, which is what inspired us to start GroupSpaces.

What makes your business different from other competitors?

GroupSpaces’ main competitors are Excel spreadsheets, Cc email threads, cheques and some other Web applications solving one specific problem for groups e.g. Eventbrite for event management.

GroupSpaces differentiates by providing an intuitive, all-in-one Web-based solution for group management.

What role do you perform in your company?

We currently have a small team which means I perform many different roles. A typical week for me involves wearing several different hats such as user support, marketing, sales, finance and operations. I currently work on every area of the business except for coding the actual software which I leave to our brilliant team of developers.

How difficult was it getting funding for your business? Is there a right way for young entrepreneurs to get funding?

Prior to raising our angel funding, we had already built a prototype product, had a few hundred groups using it and were generating revenue so we had a fairly good ‘proof of concept’, something which angel investors often look for. We ended up receiving multiple offers of funding for our angel round and the one we took came via the Oxford Early Investments business angel network. It took us about 5 months from our first conversation with prospective investors to getting the money in the bank.

If you’re a first-time entrepreneur and you think that you are going to need to raise funding for your business, I would encourage you to start building relationships with potential investors as early as possible and ask them what they will be looking for you to achieve before they would be comfortable investing in you. This can vary a lot between different investors, countries and markets, so the best thing to do is to just start talking to potential investors.

David you’ve worked in some pretty big companies so far such as Lehman Brothers, JPMorgan and McKinsey. Why didn’t you go down that route and get yourself a safe secured job?

Having done some courses and internships in the corporate world, it was crystal clear to me that being an entrepreneur was my best option. There were several strong reasons for this:
• I could do what I love and am passionate about every single day.

• I could have far more positive impact on the world by starting my own company and this was personally a very important factor when considering how I would spend years of my life.

• The long-term financial upside was greater if you are successful and I don’t think that it’s anywhere near as important to have money in your early twenties versus when you’re older and have a family etc.

• I could spend every day doing what I thought and felt was most important. I didn’t have someone telling me differently.

• Andy and I were already underway working on GroupSpaces and were very excited about its potential so we definitely wanted to continue working on this to start with.

• I’m not sure how safe and secure taking a job with Lehman Brothers would have been…
What are key ingredients that you think makes a successful entrepreneur?

Persistence, persistence and persistence. One of my favourite entrepreneurial books is Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston (Founding Partner, Y Combinator) – it’s composed of 32 short interviews with successful technology entrepreneurs such as Steve Wozniak (Apple), Max Levchin (PayPal) and Evan Williams (Blogger, Twitter). The book concludes with a quote from Ron Gruner, founder of Shareholder.com and Alliant Systems:

“The key to success, if you had to sum it up in one word, is persistence.”

I asked Jessica about this quote a couple of years ago after I had first read the book and she said that it was a deliberate decision to end with this. From her experience at Y Combinator having invested in dozens of startups, it was clear to her that the ones with the most persistent founders were the ones which went on to succeed.

Also from my personal experience both as an entrepreneur and interacting with hundreds of other entrepreneurs over the past few years, it’s clear that the ones who do the best are prepared to do anything and everything to make their companies successful and they don’t give up. Whether that means changing their initial idea, changing team members, raising more money, whatever is required, the most successful entrepreneurs don’t give up, they persist and keep persisting until success comes their way.

Do you feel that there are things which entrepreneurs are doing wrong to break into the entrepreneurial world?

I think anyone starting their first company should try to meet and build relationships with other entrepreneurs. This might mean relocating somewhere with a greater density of entrepreneurs but I believe this can be done in other places besides Silicon Valley. You just need to seek out a couple of other entrepreneurs who are slightly further down the line than you are and can share with you some of the lessons they learned and offer you advice on the challenges you are facing.

I also think peer pressure can be a big motivator for first-time entrepreneurs. Y Combinator companies benefit a lot from this – I remember Paul Graham saying that not screwing up at Demo Day in front of all your friends is a much bigger motivator than getting rich. Similarly if you can just find a couple of other young entrepreneurs at a similar stage to you, it will give you a significant sense of urgency to get shit done if you think their startup is progressing faster than yours.

Why do you think is so difficult for young entrepreneurs to get funding for their company whereas in the US there are tons of investment opportunity e.g. Silicon Valley

There are a couple of ways of looking at this. On the one hand there are far more angel investors and venture capitalists in Silicon Valley than anywhere else in the world, but there are also far more startups there. Obviously this results in a lot more startups being funded in Silicon Valley than anywhere else but there are also quite a few active angel investors and venture capitalists throughout the UK, you just have to look a bit harder to find them.

I’m not in a good position to comment outside of the UK or Silicon Valley as I haven’t spent any time being an entrepreneur there, but certainly in the UK if you are a first-time entrepreneur, you should be able to draw up a shortlist of 10-15 investors who do deals at the size you are looking for. These lists of VC firms for UK-based startupssources of angel financing are good starting points. If you put in the effort to network and get personally introduced to all these investors, get meetings, and still are not able to get funding, then your business is probably not far enough developed for the stage of financing you are trying to raise e.g. if you’re struggling to raise angel financing, you might still need to get more of a ‘proof of concept’ and if you’re struggling to raise your first round of Venture Capital then you probably don’t have enough early traction.

What are your hobbies?

When I’m not working on GroupSpaces, I enjoy working out, spending time with my girlfriend and heading to the occasional drum n bass rave.

In particular, I am a firm believer in ‘healthy body, healthy mind’. This old adage was in fact scientifically proven recently. A lot of people I speak to say that they are too busy to work out but I don’t believe that this is a healthy attitude. My mind functions faster when I’m at peak fitness and that means exercise is an essential part of my life. I make time to keep fit, even if this means sacrificing on sleep sometimes. In the summer I enjoy training for and racing triathlons and in the winter I tend to spend more time in the gym.

If you ever believe that you are too busy to work out, I would encourage you look at Barack Obama. The President of the United States is probably busier than you, even though you may be very busy. However, in a recent interview of Men’s Health magazine, Barack said:

“Most of my workouts have to come before my day starts. There’s always a trade-off between sleep and working out. Usually I get in about 45 minutes, six days a week. I’ll lift [weights] one day, do cardio the next. I wish I was getting a 90-minute workout.”

Who has been your greatest inspiration so far?

I find the most inspiration in people who are able to repeatedly apply themselves to a world-class level in multiple disciplines. As a mathematician, I often see patterns when I abstract parts of my and other people’s lives and I think the ingredients that make one successful in business, sport, politics, entertainment and most other fields are actually very similar.

Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers does a good job of explaining this – Gladwell claims that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practising a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours. There are obviously other factors in play, but I would relate the point made back to my earlier point about persistence being the key driving factor of successful entrepreneurs.

Specific people who have inspired me in this way are:
• Arnold Schwarzenegger for becoming the best bodybuilder in the world then turning his hand to acting and becoming world-class at that and now building a fantastically successful career in politics, becoming Governor of California.

• Mark Zuckerberg for changing the way hundreds of millions of people understand their relationships with their friends. What particularly inspires me about what Mark has achieved is that Facebook isn’t so successful because he executed one idea really well. He has continually innovated and adapted his company to grow and succeed, all at such a young age.

• Marc Andreessen for starting two billion dollar companies (Netscape, Opsware), being on the way to having started a third (Ning, valued at $750M last round) and having now started his own venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz, which seems to be on the way to building a world-class portfolio.
If you had a chance to have a cup of coffee with anyone dead or alive, who would it be and why?

Winston Churchill. By all accounts his determination and data-driven approach to strategy were second to none. Some people laugh at books like Sun Tzu’s Art of War for Executives but I firmly believe that the characteristics of a successful leader in war are very similar to the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs. I’d love to experience Churchill first hand and compare with some of the most inspirational people I have met in my life so far.

Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?

My primary focus is building GroupSpaces into a world-class company and I’m not really thinking beyond that at the moment. Long-term I’d like to probably do at least one more startup, write a book, travel the world and perhaps start a venture capital firm. We’ll see what happens.

Do you have any tips for aspiring entrepreneurs?
• Before making important decisions, double check that both your heart and head are in agreement.

• If you aren’t already in regular contact with other entrepreneurs at a similar stage to you, go and find some – the peer support and peer pressure this will generate is really important.

• Once you’ve settled on your initial idea and founding team, focus on core and be the most persistent person you’ve ever met.

• Finally, I’ll offer a quote from Dharmesh Shah, founder of OnStartups: “The shortest piece of startup advice ever: GO!”

Thanks for your time David and good luck.

To find out more about David, you can follow him on Twitter (@langer ) or view his profile on LinkedIn.

13 years ago when alex decided to start his first company i was still super excited using my first computer, typing away on microsoft word(Microsoft word 95 i remember..Oohh them days i cherish), challenging my friends on how i fast i could type without looking at the keyboard, Anyways this shows how long alex has been involved in the internet start-up.

I decided to go down memory lane with alex and ask him:

how he started t35 hosting
How he’s been able to keep up with the new technology and change
What he has learnt in his 13 years in this industry

And many more juice…

Enjoy the interview and dont forget to leave a comment.

Hi Alex, Welcome to YHP, Tell us about your company? What position do you execute in the business?

I am the president and founder of T35 Hosting. Our company provides free and paid hosting services to almost a million members world wide. Our services range from ad-based free hosting, to feature-packed cPanel paid hosting.

Can you give us some background information about yourself?

I have been involved with internet start-up’s since the mid 1990’s and currently have almost a dozen different ones I am working on. T35 Hosting was actually one of the first “projects”, and it is still around and successful to this day.

Alex you’ve definitely been around for a while, what do you think you’ve done to keep up to pace with the new technologies and innovation from 1997 when you launched your first website?

It has definitely been a very busy time over the last 13 years. Technology and user demands change in an almost real-time environment and it has been a real challenge to keep up. A true testament to this is that out of the dozen or so free web hosts that were around when we started, almost none are left today (especially with Geocities closing it’s doors this year). To keep up we have always promoted a policy of close communication with our customers and we try to grow and adjust with their changing needs.

How long would you say you work on average?

Most of T35 Hosting is automated these days, so I only spend about 2-3 hours a day managing it. I also spend another 4-5 hours/day on the other projects I am working on.

What is the most challenging aspect of what you do?

The most challenging part of my job is trying to decide where to take the company to keep up with customer trends and demands. It’s my job to find out which features are important and which are just fads that will come and go.

In your industry, what is the hierarchy like?

Web hosting like most web-based industries are very flexible and differ company from company. There isn’t any standard hierarchy that is set in stone.

I mean you have over a decade in the internet world, what would you say has been the most crucial thing you’ve learnt?

The most important lesson I have learned is that you have to stay on your feet. The internet world moves at the speed of light and if you aren’t keeping up with trends and new developments, you will not succeed.

Do you think there is a difference between your generation and the upcoming generations of
Entrepreneurs?

I think the younger generations are more entrepreneurial then ever before. Kids of all ages are becoming aware of all the opportunities that are out there (especially with the web facilitating many of those). More and more young people are exploring the internet, making websites and making money online. All of them are entrepreneurs and represent a colossal change over how the previous generations thought and acted.

Do you think that a work-life balance – having a successful career and having a successful family life – is realistic?

Yes, having a work-life balance is more attainable today then ever before. With running your own business, you usually have huge flexibility and the ability to make your own hours. But even in corporate culture, telecommuting and working at home a day a week is starting to take hold which creates a huge boost in work-life balance.

Do you think it is possible to be able to devote time to friends and family while trying to be a successful entrepreneur?

Yes, being a successful entrepreneur doesn’t mean dropping everything else in your life. Like any other profession (and perhaps even more so), you can always create a good balance.

What are you looking forward to as the new buzz on the web?

The new buzz online is how we connect and share information with each other. The web is becoming more and more of a tool for sharing ideas, reviews, and everything else. Even major brands are starting to take notice and beginning to monitor and even control their online presence and what people are saying about them online.

Do you have any plans to expand your business in the near future?

Yes, while the US markets are somewhat competitive (especially with hosting now competing with profile sites like facebook and myspace), there is still a lot of opportunities overseas. We plan to continue our expansion into several overseas market including Asia and South America.

What are you currently working on?

I am currently working on several different start-ups including an image sharing site, free hosting directory and much more.

What’s been the most crucial thing you’ve done to grow your business?

Making our customers happy is what ultimately drives our business. Over half of our customers were referred by other customers.

What motivates you, especially during down-times?

I’m motivated by the fact that our business provides a free service and a free way for people to get their website and ideas online. Almost a million customers and organizations rely on this service and it’s something that always motivates me. We always strive to meet their expectations and help them succeed.

What do you do to relax?

My personal hobby is to travel and to go and explore new places where I haven’t been before. This helps me relax and find new perspective.

What should we be expecting from you in the future?

There are several new start-ups in the work, some that I have mentioned here and some that I am not at liberty to discuss. Watch for the new developments in 2010 though

Do you have any tips for young entrepreneurs out there?

Yes, my greatest advice is to go out there and try and try again and keep trying. Never give up on your ideas or your dreams. The key to entrepreneurship is perseverance.

Good luck Alex and thank you for your time.

T35 Hosting
Alex Melen on Twitter
Check out his LinkedIn Page
His personal Blog

DisQus is a distributive blog comment system that makes your comments more interactive for readers and easier to manage for you — all while connecting your community with other blogs.

Today i did a quick interview with the founder/CEO.

Hey Daniel, How are you today?

I’m very good tonight. It’s a little past 2am here.

Great stuff, Right lets gets started then, Could you give us a bit of background info on you and your business?

Disqus is a web service that builds and connects communities across websites. We do this through a networked comment system, which is, today, used by over quarter million communities.

Our system approaches comments from a social perspective, helping tie together a real community from your site’s audience and the potential audiences scattered around the web.

So, where did your inspiration for Disqus come from?

We started out looking at how engaged web communities can be, especially on message boards and forum communities. The best exchanges and ideas often came from these web societies. I felt that there could be a way to better connect and relate these communities together.

Disqus evolved a bit from there, moving to a focus on conversations found in blog comments, but the core goals has remained the same.

I have to admit, the idea is very innovative, what do those closest to you think of the idea?

My family, long-time friends, and even my girlfriend know a little bit about Disqus, but not too much. I appreciate that they listen and find what I’m doing interesting, but I know they don’t care nearly as much about the internet as I do. And I appreciate that even more.

How have you dealt with setbacks in the past?

We’ve been very fortunate to work with great people along the way who have helped us an incredible number of times. No major setbacks. Not yet.

What are you hobbies outside of Disqus?

I’m still figuring this out, but I imagine that it’ll be something awesome such as fencing or horse riding.

How important do you believe the work/play balance is in life?

It’s very important. Earlier on, this was definitely not work. It was something I wanted to think about all day. Today, I like to mix up my day with other things.
A separation keeps your mind fresh, creative, and ready for more when the time comes.

What would you be doing if you were not doing Disqus?

I’d be working at another web startup. There are so many great areas to explore right now, and you can get into almost anything relatively cheaply and quickly.

What, if any do you think are the disadvantaged of being a young entrepreneur? Do you feel you have missed out on anything in your life that other young people may have accomplished?

I’ve had many amazing opportunities in the last few years. I don’t think I’ve missed anything.

Finally, what “pearls of wisdom would you give to young entrepreneurs… amidst the current unstable economic climate?’’

Learn the importance of tenacity. When you are disadvantaged in every other way, tenacity may be what keeps you in the running. However, don’t use tenacity blindly, remain hungry for ideas and advice and make sure you’re being tenacious for a good goal.

Thank you very much, I appreciate you taking the time to do this quick interview with me.

Connect with daniel on his site
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Elaine Wherry is a Co-founder and VP of Products at Meebo. Originally a classically-trained violinist, Elaine graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Symbolic Systems with a concentration in Human-Computer Interaction.

After graduating, she became the Manager of Usability and Design at Synaptics and co-founded Meebo.com in 2005 with two good friends, Seth Sternberg and Sandy Jen.

Thanks Elaine for doing this interview with us on YHP

Don’t mention it – thank you for having me.

How are you doing today?

I’m very well and excited to be a part of YHP.

I’m sure everyone is familiar with the meebo story, so what was going through your mind whilst you were coding the program? Did you ever think it would turn out to be this big or even start a company?

I think most of our story is pretty typical – two engineers and a business guy working to solve a problem out of someone’s apartment.

However, what most people don’t know is that we spent over two years prior to Meebo building two other products before launching the third product, the Meebo that people know today. We abandoned both prior ideas for various reasons (too much funding required, concern that our idea might not be too niche). After spending two years of weekends and evenings working on failed concepts, I think all three of us were probably harboring doubts of whether any of our projects would see the light of day.

Where did your organization’s funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it? How did you obtain investors for your venture?

We funded the original concept from our pockets and credit cards. After we launched, we realized that buying servers to scale the Meebo service was a lot of financial risk for two unemployed engineers and a business school student to take on. We had a few angel investors who helped us out (Marc Andreessen, Jon Callaghan and Scott Epstein among others). A few months later, we took our Series A funding from Sequoia. Later, Draper Fisher Jurvetson funded our Series B and then our Series C was a combination of Time Warner, JAFCO, and KTB.

How many employees do you have? Full- or part-time?

Most of our team is full-time. We have about 70 people in total. There are about 50 of us in Mountain View, California. We have an additional 20 folks in other offices such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and a few other places too.

How long do you plan to keep operating this business? Do you have an “exit” strategy for getting out of the company?

We’re committed to seeing the company become a self-sustaining business. I think that’s why we spent 2-3 years testing other ideas before pursuing Meebo. We wanted something that inspired us and that would be long-lasting.

What is your business model?

Our revenue stems from brand advertising. We’re fortunate that Meebo has long engagement times and a very social audience which is an ideal formula for brand advertisers. Brand advertisements typically focus on building meaningful interactions that users will want to share or talk about with friends. We’ve been optimizing this model throughout 2009 and we’re pleased that our advertising product has been so well-received and performed so well.

What would you do if there was no internet?

I’m definitely a product person at heart so I’d most likely be developing interesting user experiences in some other medium like architecture or industrial design.

On those impossible days, what motivates you to keep going? The days when you were tiring to see if the concept of meebo was possible and everywhere you turned it is said to be impossible?

The team. It sounds cliché but when you’re working besides incredibly bright, motivated folks, their enthusiasm is contagious.

Do you have a favourite business tool or resource?

I’m a list-driven person so most of my productivity is organized with a simple text editor (like notepad) or within my MoleSkine journal. When I finish a list or journal, I transcribe all of the written notes and save them online in password-protected files for easy access later. I have nearly four years of notes stored online so far. The system works for me but I’m not sure I’d recommend it to others.

Where do you see in yourself and your business in the next 5 years?

The leader in real-time communication. I’d like Meebo to be powering all of the instant communication throughout the web.

Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?

I have an unexpected favorite outside the technical arena. I have enormous respect for Neal’s Farm Yard Dairy in London. I had an opportunity to meet with the owner, Randolph Hodgson, last year and was inspired by his cheese-making practices. In the Web world, we may test and deploy four or five concepts with A/B testing in a week. If you’re making a cheddar that requires over a year to age, you don’t have the luxury of making nearly as many mistakes and you need a way to remember how something tasted months ago. In addition, he’s built a beautiful business that has withstood time by focusing on his products’ integrity and by maintaining a close relationship with his customers.

What sacrifices did you have to make to be a successful entrepreneur?

I’m sure everyone’s experiences are different. From my founder experience, I am constantly hiring or mentoring someone to fill my current role so I can continue to build the team in other areas. As a result, I have never had a role that didn’t somehow evolve after 3-6 months. One thing that I sometimes miss is the feeling of routine and expertise (i.e. “been there, done that”) that comes when you’ve had a role for a longer duration. As soon as I understand a role well enough, then I am off hiring or mentoring someone into that new opportunity.

What qualities have you developed as a result of running your business?

Hiring and building teams. When we first started Meebo, a VC told me that good founders would spend the majority of their time hiring. At the time, I thought that his portrayal of an entrepreneur’s life sounded very un-sexy. However, he was right and then some. The other day I estimated that I’ve done between 2,000-3,000 interviews since Meebo began.

What has been your most satisfying moment in business?

It happens everyday but I really like seeing team members pull a chair up to another person’s desk to tackle a problem together.

What kind of culture exists in your organization? How did you establish this tone and why did you institute this particular type of culture?

When we hire, we evaluate candidates by three metrics: 1) functional skills, 2) team skills, and 3) motivation. Functional is defined by whether you have the skills. If you’re an engineer, this refers to your ability to write JavaScript or C. Team skills refers to your ability to have influence in a team environment. We look for people who can see the team-win and the individual-win, who take initiative to help others, and who are aware of how others perceive them. Motivation refers to showing initiative to take on tasks or owning a project 110%. We’ve had strong hiring practices from day one and because these are the primary metrics we used to hire the team, these areas have also become the three cornerstone values of our culture.

Working with friends is being said to be very dangerous, how have you managed to work with friends and still remain friends with them and have a successful business?

I knew Seth for eight years and Sandy for six years before we launched. In addition, we already had the experience of working on projects for over two years prior to our public announcement. We each have our strengths and weaknesses. However, after working together for so long, we know each other well enough to know how we can be most effective as a team.

How do you find people to bring into your organization that truly care about the organization the way you do?

We hire very slowly, we have calibrated hiring metrics, and we have a culture that is invested in building an amazing team. We also entrust our product and engineering teams with a high degree of creative freedom to shape the products they’re working on. This helps build ownership as well as fueling innovation in the organization.

How important have good employees been to your success?

They are absolutely everything. I can’t emphasize that enough.

What plans do you have now to expand your business further?

Meebo’s overall vision is to help users build connections with the people that matter most to them. We devoted much of 2009 to deploying a new product called the Meebo Bar which takes the real-time technology behind Meebo.com and enables real-time communication and sharing on social and content sites (e.g. CafeMom or Flixster). With the embedded Meebo Bar, our partners enable their users to chat live with their friends from that site and to share site articles or pictures via Twitter, Facebook, IM, or email. We’re excited about this platform and we’re excited to connect users with their friends regardless of whether those friends live in Meebo.com or on partner sites. You can learn more at http://business.meebo.com/.

What systems have you used to automate your business to give you more time for business planning and development?

On the engineering side, we use a bunch of open source projects such as Trac, SVN, and Bugzilla. On a day-to-day basis, I’d be lost without my e-mail filters.

Thanks for your time Elaine and taking the time to speak with me on YHP.