Entrepreneur Video Transcripts

Trancript #18 - Diane Howells, Founder of Motorcycle Safety School & eoffice-online.com

What is your background?
•	"I grew up ski racing, which is where my need for speed came from."
•	"I also always started new projects...my first one was a worm farm when I was 10 years old and the idea was to sell them for bait."
Locations & Employees?
•	"I currently have five locations and 30 employees."
How did you go from being an adrenaline junkie to business owner?
•	"I think being a business owner is an adrenaline rush."
Where did your love for Motorcycles come from?
•	"I took a training course in Vermont and fell in love with riding."
•	"Ben & Jerry were actually in my class and later funded my motorcycle documentary."
How did you get Ben & Jerry to fund the documentary and what was it about?
•	"I sent them an email and they remembered me from class."
•	"Riding a motorcycle profoundly changed my life and I wanted to show everyone else how it can change their lives."
Do you ever feel like you are doing too many things at once?
•	"In the beginning, I was saying yes to everything project and idea. I was all over the place."
•	"Now I have set up a checks and balances system where the company can run without me being at the center of it."
Did you ever work a 9 to 5 job for someone else?
•	"Yes, after college I worked in a corporate job. After that, I left and never went back"
How did you realize you wanted your own motorcycle school?
•	"I was passionate about motorcycles. I was looking into learning how to be an instructor and it just took off from there."
What type of marketing did you do to get customers?
•	"Word of mouth, good customer service, and I established great relationships with local dealerships."
Challenges you faced?
•	"I was too involved in trying to make all the decisions. I had no life."
•	"I brought a professional trainer into the company to help systematize the business. First thing we did was create a mission statement and an operational manual."
What do you mean by creating a mission statement?
•	"Once it is written down, everyone understands what the rules of your company are."
•	"Now everyone who answers the phones and processes a job application has to do it a certain way."
Did you ever come close to having to close shop?
•	"No. I am also very financially conservative."
•	"In the beginning you would be surprised how many people you can get to help you out for free or at a low cost.."
Tell me about the software you have put together for your school and eoffice-online.com and plans for the future?
•	"Right now, I am doing a lot with my software company and securing strategic relationships to help it grow for the future."
What steps should someone follow if they want to start their business today?
•	"Number one, you need an operational manual to outline all parts of your business."
•	"Do a lot of research. Buy the 101 Dummies Guide to starting a business. One book that I highly recommend is Entrepreneurial-Myth by Michael Gerber."
Are there any investments you made that flopped?
•	"Yes, I wanted to start a dirt bike school and I trained all my instructors and the location fell through. I didn't sit down and do enough research. At the end of the day, the numbers have to make sense."
•	"I reinvest all the times because the more diverse you are in business, the more stability you will have. It is just like investing in stock, you want to have a diverse portfolio."
Can you leave us with some last bit of advice?
•	"What makes a difference as a business owner is persistence."
•	"I can't tell you how many people have told me that they thought about opening up a motorcycle school at my location. But who did it and didn't give up? That is what makes the difference!"

Transcript #17 - Sergio Fernandez De Cordova and Seth Lippert, Founders of Fuel Outdoor

Why did you start this business?
•	"After the .com bubble burst, we started looking for a better business model that we could follow."
How did you break into the Out of Home industry with such Giants?
•	"There were a lot of obstacles to over come. But it was fun because when you are up against Goliath you are not supposed to win."
•	"First obstacle was getting in the door and getting the building owners to trust us."
•	"A lot of it was also 6 degree of separation. We joined a lot of real estate networking groups to meet people."
What type of financing did you initially get?
•	"In the first year we raised $1,000,000, of which 1/3 was from friends and family and the rest from people we never met before."
What was the purpose of your second round of financing?
•	"The purpose was to allow us to build major structures in places like Times Square."
How did you overcome the Nay-sayers who said this could not be done?
•	"I dealt with nay-sayers by not dealing with them at all. We saw the results ourselves. We surrounded ourselves by industry people who clung to us and were not nay-sayers."
•	"They key is to go out there and network. I always joke that there should be a college course for it because they teach all this stuff except how to network and that is really what's most important."
How many locations do you currently have?
•	"We have a total of 55 locations."
What are daily challenges you face?
•	"My biggest surprise was dealing with people and being able to surround yourself by staff that you trust."
Are you constantly putting out fires?
•	"It is a way of life. When you are growing at 400% a year you are going to have fires."
•	"You have to realized people are going to make mistakes. You end up being a teacher, a parent, and a guidance counselor."
What are some of the most important things you have learned?
•	"The biggest learning experience is experience itself."
•	"When something happens the first time it is a shock to your system, but by the second it happens you know how to handle it and and everyone just reacts."
How do you deal with the inevitable mistakes you make as an entrepreneur?
•	"You have to learn to make mistakes and turn it into gold."
•	They give an example on how they did this.
What resources have you used in NY?
•	"We have joined many groups including YEO, an entrepreneur organization."
•	"A lot of the investment money our first year went into joining groups. Much of our success today is from what we took out of those groups."
What is your 5 to 10 year plan?
•	"To grow a national company and possibly buy out some competitors. Eventually, we will either get so big and will go public or be bought out by one of the giants."
What advice would you give to an entrepreneur who wants to start their own business but is not sure how to do it?
•	"I always tell friends who are trying to start a business to do it, don't think about it, just start it. Evein if it is it a little tiny thing, just start something."

Transcript #16 - Phyllis Stoller, Founder of The Women's Travel Club

What is The Women's Travel Club?
•	"I started it in 1992. It was based on the fact that there was nothing in the travel industry for women who wanted to travel with a group of friends."
What is your background?
•	"I was a corporate banker. I recommend banking if you want to see the inside of a lot of businesses."
•	"Going to business school you learn how to set up a business, and you zero in on what skills you have."
What have you learned over the years?
•	"You have to give yourself a minimum of 2 years in a new business."
•	"You have to expect you are going to work 6 days a week. "
•	"You have to shed your ego and be ready to do everything."
•	"You also have to say, 'I am going to make this thing work not matter what'."
How do you analyze an industry?
•	"I analyzed this industry as rapidly changing, highly fragmented, quite a dinosaur in many ways, with limited products, and service intensive."
•	"Once I did this, I was able to back into the industry and do something I wanted for me."
When you start a business what type of tasks do you need to do to stay successful?
•	"You need to be good at everything."
•	"You have to know numbers, computers, and you have be able to sell all of the time."
What kind of marketing did you do to expand your business on a limited budget?
•	"I didn't have the money to throw into advertising, so I offered to give speeches in different travel organizations to get the word out."
•	One marketing example: "I created a brochure by copying everyone else's brochures and sent it out to 400 women; ten women called back and said it was an interesting idea. I then called all 400 women; I used to give myself a quota to make 75 calls a day."
•	"I think it is important to make quotas because you can burn out from the dredge work in the beginning. This way you can feel like you accomplished something."
What have you done to have a successful business for 15 years?
•	"I still work 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. every single day."
•	"You have to find your way in evolving industries. "
•	For example: "After 9/11, you have to say what you said to yourself after year one; ''I am committed to this, I am going to make it work, and if other people drop out of the industry, good for me'."
What is your 5 to 10 year plan for the business?
•	"In the next few years, my goal is for this to become part of a larger business."
What advice can you give to someone who wants to start a business?
•	"Never take the first price offered to you on anything."
•	"Never assume something is not negotiable."
•	"Look for an office-share situation."
•	"Have a land-line; a 917 number is a dead give away in this area, so is a yahoo account."
•	"We have an 800 number and a local number that I can forward anywhere."
How do you compare your lifestyle now to when you were a banker?
•	"When you have your own business you have to be a grunt and a CEO. But in your own business, the triumphs are yours and the mistakes are yours, which is good because you learn from your mistakes."
•	"You own equity in something that might have sale value and that is your pension in a way."

Transcript #15 - Emily Levy, Founder of EBL Coaching

What is EBL Coaching?
•	"EBL Coaching offers one on one tutoring, as well as small group instruction for students with learning disabilities."
•	"We have over 60 different tutors who currently work for us."
•	"I came to New York City to work in the field of investment banking. However, it never felt right and on the side I started tutoring students more for fun and a sense of fulfillment. "
•	"It grew to the point where I had to make a choice, and I decided to do this full-time."
Did your need to raise money?
•	"I grew the company organically. First I started out of my apartment, grew the company as there was need and I have expanded my offices several times since."
What do you think contributed your success?
•	"The skills that I learned in the two years of finance have been invaluable to helping me run my business."
What are some of the challenges you face?
•	"Trying to manage and empower 60 different tutors is very difficult."
How do you manage accounts receivable?
•	"I have set it up so my families pay upfront for a certain number of sessions."
How do you deal with all of the nay-sayers who tell you that your business is not going to work out?
•	"Yes. In the beginning a lot of other people were telling me to look for other more secure jobs in a corporation. The first six months were the most difficult and I had to look within to stay the course."
How do deal with the inevitable mistakes that an entrepreneur makes?
•	"I have made so many mistakes along the way. Especially in the first two years, and I would take them all to heart, as I am sure all entrepreneurs do."
•	"But at the end of the day, I have learned so much from every single mistake and I would not be where I am today without those mistakes."
Final Advice?
•	"I believe in finding your passion and pursing higher education within that area and becoming an expert in the field and building a business out of that."
What are your plans for the future?
•	"To expand out of New York City."
•	"I really would have to fine-tune the model that we follow here before we take that step in the next five years."

Transcript #13 - Matt Britton, Founder of Mr. Youth

What is your background?
•	"In college, I started The Magma Group, which helped internet-based companies target the college market. We sold it in December of 2000."
How did you start your own company in college?
•	"It is not as hard as people think. People think there is a lot more boundaries."
•	"In a service industry there is very little barriers to entry. Get your first client and make them happy. Then tell the world about it and hope they do as well."
•	"The same rules apply in any service industry, and that is to keep the customer happy."
What is Mr. Youth?
•	"We provide custom-integrated marketing services targeted to the youth market."
•	"One example of a campaign was when we built a three story gift box for Victoria Secret in South Beach during spring break."
How did you know you wanted to sell The Magma Group?
•	"It was more of a bail out than an acquisition. The internet bubble burst and our clients went bankrupt. But it was a great learning experience."
•	"I learned how important it is to diversify clients and, today, no one client makes up more than 20% of Mr. Youth's business."
Did you need financing?
•	"We have a minority investor called The Mentor Fund really for the purpose of offering us strategic direction rather than a need for cash."
•	"The service industry doesn't need financing. It gives a false sense of security and takes away from the urgency and services that they deliver."
How stressful is it to manage your own business?
•	"Our number one stress is managing clients' expectations and keeping them happy."
How competitive is your industry?
•	"We have zillions of competitors. If you are not going to break your back for a client, they are probably going to find someone else that will."
How many employees do you have?
•	"Seventeen full-time employees. We hand pick all employees, and if they do not work out we quickly dismiss them."
•	"The first 30 or 40 employees of an organization are so important to its overall success."
What are some challenges you face?
•	"I can't be involved in everything."
•	"My biggest objective is building a company that is scalable and has enterprise value."
How important is passion?
•	"When you are a chef and you open a restaurant, the last thing you do is cook. The same holds true when you start any business."
•	"I deal with human resources issues, financial issues, growth issues, and customer service growth issues."
•	"It is stressful, but you have to limit stress. If you can't have fun at what you are doing, you might as well work for someone else."
What different resources would you recommend?
•	"Craigslist is a great way to find employees, contractors, really anything."
•	"QuickBooks' products are great for finance and automation."
•	"Google is the best for finding customers."
What's it like running a business in NYC?
•	"It presents great opportunities because there are so many advertising agencies and clients here."
Can you leave us with some last bit of advice?
•	"Have fun in what you are doing and be passionate about it."
•	"Have a plan so you have an idea what you are working towards. It doesn't matter if it changes day by day."
•	"It is very empowering because you realize you can do almost anything you set your mind to."

Transcript #12 - Nancy Slotnick, Founder of Cablight

What is your background?
•	"Cablight specializes in love life management."
•	"I have always wanted to start a business, it was in my blood."
•	"I got into the dating business because I used to own a dating café called Drip."
What was Drip?
•	"A coffee bar that had a dating service for our customers. Over 35,000 people signed up for our services."
•	"It was unique and got a lot of publicity, we were on the Today Show and Oprah well as many others."
What do you think contributed to the overwhelming success?
•	"While you always have to have a good idea, success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration."
•	"You can have a great idea, but if it is not executed properly it will not be successful."
How did you raise money initially?
•	"I went through the Small Business Development Center at Pace."
•	"I got $200,000 in an SBA loan and $100,000 in private equity."
How do you deal with all the inevitible mistakes an entrepreneur makes?
•	"You definitely can't be perfect. That is why a show like this is good because learning from other people's mistakes is always better."
How do you deal with all of the nay-sayers who tell you that your business is not going to work out?
•	"For Drip there were tons of nay-sayers, but after I was successful all those people were like I knew you could do it and said it was a great idea and I should have done it sooner."
•	"There is a lot of pressure. What makes the difference between someone who is going to be a successful entrepreneur is if they withstand all the people that tell them not do it."
•	"When it comes to advice, I like to weigh it based on who it is coming from. If another entrepreneur gives you advice who has been in your shoes, then those are the people you should listen to."
•	"If it is someone who has been in middle management for the past 35 years and is very conservative about what they do with their money, that is not somebody you should necessarily listen to."
What advice can you give that was important in starting both of your companies?
•	"Never underestimate the importance of raising enough money."
•	"If you are able to raise money for your business it is also a proof of concept."
How did you make the transition from Drip to Cablight?
•	"I always wanted to be in the business of helping people with their love life. That is why I started Drip, but I didn't necessarily want to be in the coffee shop business."
•	"I was always hoping to parlay Drip into something else within the dating business. So I started coaching others while I was still at Drip."
Tell me about the book that you wrote
•	"It is called 'Turn Your Cablight On.' My theory behind the 'Cablight' is that people in their dating life think that their light is on and they are making themselves available. But many times it is not and no one knows to flag them down."
How do you get clients?
•	"A lot of people find me because I am in the singles world and I do a lot of seminars."
How much easier was it to start Cablight now than it was to start Drip 8 years ago?
•	"I am much more confident now. Now I have a better sense on how to monetize things and sell."
How stressful is it being an entrepreneur?
•	"Now I am pretty balanced. With Drip it was my whole life and I was pretty stressed. But I was also having a lot of fun. In order to find my personal happiness, I had to break out of the 24/7 work day."
What are your plans for the future?
•	"To create a media empire around this philosophy of turning your cablight on and helping people build successful relationships."
•	"The downside is the cost associated with doing business in New York City."
•	"It's also a challenge because we meet a lot of smart people with great ideas. Therefore, if you want to start a business you are basically going to have to fight against people who are quite good."
Do you have to be an extrovert to be a successful salesperson?
•	"You don't have to be a good extrovert to be good in sales, but you do have to be a good salesperson to be a successful entrepreneur. Everything is sales!"
•	"If you watch The Apprentice, it is always what Donald Trump is talking about."
•	"In sales you have two ears and one mouth and you should use them proportionately."
•	"In fact they have done studies that introverts are better at sales because they listen more."
Do you find being an entrepreneur empowering?
•	"Once you are successful you have tremendous confidence, it is more a matter of getting past that mental boundary."
•	"It is very empowering because you realize you can do almost anything you set your mind to."

Transcript #11 - Ben Lerer, Founder of Thrillist

What is Thrillist?
•	"An email newsletter for men in New York City. Three times a week, we provide information about services, gadgets, restaurants, etc. Anything that we think is interesting, cool, and entertaining information for men ages 21-35."
What is your background?
•	"I was planning on going to business school. I developed this as a ploy to help get me into school. At one point, I realized this idea had legs and I decided to do this fulltime."
What are some challenges you have faced already?
•	"You just have to learn from your mistake. The real challenge is to keep your head down and stay positive when things don't go our way."
How did you turn your idea into a reality?
•	"I had to decide that I didn't want to go to business school. And realize I could learn more taking this risk on my own by starting and growing my own company than reading about other people doing it."
•	"For me this is business school first hand."
What is your revenue model?
•	"Our revenue is based solely on advertising. But we are not actually accepting advertising now."
•	"Now, we are focusing on making the content great and building a loyal user base."
What is some advice you have followed?
•	"The best advice was that execution is 100% of the challenge and it is all that matters."
•	"No matter how good a business man you are there is going to be a time where everything falls apart. People succeed based on their ability to pick things up and keep going. This is going to happen again and again."
•	"It was great advice because it has happened so many times already. On both the small scale, when we do not get a lot of subscribers one day or we get bad feedback on a piece, or on the large scale, when we find there are similar ideas out there to our newsletter."
•	"We just have to realize that we are not the first people with the idea, but what we are is the first with this voice. And we need to keep saying that to ourselves and not get discouraged that other people are trying to do it and not get scared off when someone else is trying to do something similar."

Transcript #10 - Jerome Chasques and Nicolas Caillens, Founders of Giftybox

How did you come up with the idea of the Giftybox?
•	"We wanted to give the gift receiver the ability to be able to choose from different types of gift experiences that he or she would enjoy most."
How did you go from idea to actually starting your own business?
•	"We started working the project at nights and eventually when it got big enough we left our daytime activities."
Did you write a business plan?
•	"We did and read it 6 months later and things were quite different. It had evolved a lot over time."
Daily Challenges...
•	"It is tough to work with smaller budgets than you would like, but it forces you to be more creative than you otherwise would be."
•	"One solution for us was to partner with companies that have more brand recognition than we have."
•	"One partner we currently sell with is Kate's Paperie. They were good to us because they endorsed the product before it actually existed."
How do outside endorsements help?
•	"The product was validated as we went along. First through Kate's Paperie on the consumer side and through corporate references as well."
•	"In addition, it enables us to discover more applications to the product than we originally thought of."
Do you have advice for managing stress of running a business?
•	"It is important to have a business partner when starting a new business."
•	"Sometimes it is hard to know if something you are doing is wrong or right and partners can bounce ideas off each other."
What is it like to start a business in NYC?
•	"NYC has been good to us. The advantage is a lot of companies we want to do business with are close."
•	"The downside is the cost associated with doing business in New York City."
•	"It's also a challenge because we meet a lot of smart people with great ideas. Therefore, if you want to start a business you are basically going to have to fight against people who are quite good."

Transcript #9 - Ian Karr, Founder of IKA Collective

What is IKA Collective?
•	"We are a full service production company that produces national television commercials, movies, television programs, radio commercials, and web stuff."
•	"Basically anything that involves moving images, animation or entertainment."
What's the secret to 20 years of success?
•	"Our approach from the beginning has been about quality, service, and value."
•	"We are all human beings. We all function on the same level; we want to get something great, we don't want to pay a lot for it, and we want to have fun doing it."
How did you get started?
•	"I started this company when I was 22. First thing we did was a local cable show in Manhattan called Single in New York."
•	"While doing the TV show, a friend of mine who worked for Merrill Lynch asked us to work on a project for them and they became our first client."
How important is passion?
•	"Any successful business has to start with passion. I believe very strongly in finding something that you love to do and then find a way to make money doing it."
•	"In many ways running a business is like having a child. There are a lot of parallels between how much time, effort and supervision you need to focus on your child as it grows."
•	"As much as the child/business grows you can never walk away. And the passion part plays a large role; I still love what I do."
About financing...
•	"I take a conservative approach to growth. I like to keep business running at 90% of capacity."
•	"I generally don't take financing on equipment or infrastructure unless I know that there is revenue that will pay for it in a relatively short period of time."
Have you ever been burned?
•	"Accounts receivable and getting paid is probably your number one challenge besides managing your staff."
•	"What I have learned is the first time you work with somebody, you make the first experience COD."
•	"We have been burned early on. It is a lot like running a gantlet those first two years. A bunch of things have to go right in order for you to survive."
What are your plans for the future?
•	"Producing original content."
•	"Part of the responsibility of being a business owner is to build equity into a business."
•	"I want to develop equity that I can sell as a license. Something we can own and will continue to produce revenue long after I become irrelevant as a director."
How do you handle the stress of running a business?
•	"It is like being on top of a very tall ladder. The one thing you never want to do is look down. If I were to look down and calculate all my overhead and look at all the bills, I would make myself nuts."
•	"You have to keep looking up and climbing up the ladder."
•	"Once in a while you take a peek down and that keeps you grounded."
About growth...
•	"We need to make more money in one week today then we made in the entire first year."
•	"It is kind of like weight training in the gym, now we are up to bench pressing 300 pounds, but we didn't start at 300 pounds."
About NYC...
•	"I believe there is an energy in New York that doesn't exist anywhere else on the planet."
•	I believe the old cliché that 'if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere' absolutely holds true."

Transcript #8 - Stacy Francis, Founder of Savvy Ladies

What is Savvy Ladies?
•	"A non-profit organization for women that is safe, nurturing and fun, and helps women succeed both personally and financially."
Why did you start Savvy Ladies?
•	"I saw many women being taken advantage of in the financial service industry."
•	"Many women I know are afraid of finances and are embarrassed that they don't know these things and think something is wrong."
•	"The problem is we haven't been through these things in high school and college."
What are some examples of the typical women in your organization who want to be entrepreneurs?
•	"Many of them are very successful in corporate America."
•	"Their creativity, zest, and passion are not being utilized and they are bored."
•	"The toughest issue is being able to transition to entrepreneurship and dealing with the initial hit in salary."
•	"Best advice I can give is to go out there and talk to entrepreneurs who have their own business and learn from their mistakes so you do not have to make them."
What are some challenges you have dealt with running your business?
•	"Having to wear so many new hats that I didn't have to deal with in corporate America. Such things as dealing with staff, bookkeeping, taxes, payroll, etc."
•	"Small things that you would never think about can sometimes take up your entire day."
•	"Time management is one of the keys to success."
Do you need to be a good salesperson to run your own business?
•	"Yes and no."
•	"If you truly believe in what you do and you truly believe that you are going to change this person's life with what you offer then the sales will happen. Your passion is going to come across."
•	"I found that not to be the truth. The skill you learn as an associate are not the skills you will need to be an entrepreneur!"
•	"Before you have sales experience you have to have that raw passion."
How inspiring is it being in NYC?
•	"I could not love my job more. I have met some of the brightest, motivated people in New York. It is a boiling pot overflowing with ideas."