Entrepreneur Interviews

The first interview was conducted with a 28-year-old female named "Allison" who owns and operates an e-commerce retail site that markets arts and crafts items and kits, generating total annual sales of about $125,000. This entrepreneur remains in business after five years. The second interview was with "David," a 32 year-old partner in a dotcom enterprise that, at its peak, garnered revenues of over $6 million through brokering sales of licensed computer hardware (parts) and software products; this entrepreneur is now "retired" having sold his firm to a larger rival.

Neither Allison nor David stated that they had come from an "entrepreneurial background;" both had dual-earner family backgrounds, with professional fathers and in one case a mother who was a nurse and in

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t for over $1.5 million in computer hardware parts came in, putting the firm back on the path to prosperity. In the meantime, he and his partner actually lived in their office to save on rent costs. Allison said her greatest initial problem occurred when a craft kit for a holiday home decoration generated an unexpectedly large number of orders. She had to tap into her family savings to buy the basic materials for the kit and enlist friends and family in puting it together and shipping it out. She also experienced some difficulties in developing a credit card account for taking orders and mastering other basic business processes. Her greatest triumph came when she negotiated an agreement with a local artists' cooperative to market their creations, thus significantly expanding her product offerings and acquiring the ability to reach out to new market segments. This also substantially increased her earnings while reducing some of her costs. Allison said she learned "the hard way" that she could either manage the business or make the products she sold; consequently, she now works with a sheltered workshop for mentally challenged adults which assembles from her directions the craft kits that she sells. Werther (1999) sugge
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Allison David, Asian Russian, Supervision American, Association SBA, Capital Requirements, Berlin Germany, Schedule Attached, Germany Korea, William McDonald, Risks Assumptions, david partner, initial capital, initial capital requirements, capital requirements, 30 percent, design development, cash flow, south korea, flagship locations, business plan, tacos envivos, global business leaders, shares outside investors, pro forma monthly, envy global business,
Approximate Word count = 3176
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page)

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