CK: In 2002 I had sold SparkLIST, an email list hosting service provider business to Lyris, and upon the closing of that transaction, I concurrently bought out my VC partner on a failed advertising-based revenue project called List-Universe.
I was left with no money, no revenue, and a bunch of domain names or websites of near useless content. My pride was somewhat in tact as I did the right thing for my former customers and found an exit for my VC partner at the time that was amicable.
Borrowing against my home mortgage, I invested a few hundred thousand to get back in the game and hired a small team of former employees who helped forge the start of the current business we're in.
Upside of being self-funded is that I answer to no one externally for how profitable or not we are. This brings the responsibility to find a return on capital on myself. VC's have been knocking on our door, but they are going to need to bring something more than just capital to the table, such as key partnership relationships or exclusive long-term advertising deals.
What has been your biggest challenge and how did you overcome it?
Convincing my family to stick with me during the lean years.
I overcame this by ignoring any doubt they brought to my attention.
What motivates you every day when you go to work?
My life is on purpose. How much more excited can you be when you know you are doing exactly what you are suppose to be doing with your life and time!
I'm humbled at the expertise our collective author community brings to the table and honored to work with a very innovative team of web developers and highly efficient editors who take care of daily operations.
Further building our management team also motives me because they free my time up so that I can work on further innovations or creative marketing solutions to reach our goals faster.
What is the best advice you have for new or future entrepreneurs?
"Do it and stop talking about 'doing it." Get into massive action. Learn and read like mad every single day. Listen to your stakeholders and earn their respect by taking an enormous amount of action that proves you heard what they had to say. Create and design a business that allows you to step out of daily operations. If you are running your business, you are a manager and not an entrepreneur. Nothing wrong with being a manager or even an 'entrepreneurial-spirited manager', but true entrepreneurs in my mind unlock the creativity and innovation in market potential for their business and industry –they can only do this if they are not involved in daily operations of the business.
If you haven't already, be sure to read the first part of my interview with Christopher Knight, Article Marketing for Entrepreneurs.