Read the interview with Ryan here.

Cristian: Hi Kevin, welcome on board. Tell us a few words about yourself.

Kevin:  When I was a teenager I took a job working at a hotel owned by a couple who had come to the US from Eastern Europe.  I learned a tremendous amount from them about how to run a successful business.  During the 10 years I worked for them the number of rooms in the hotel increased from just over 100 to more than 400 (including a second property they built next door).  This experience triggered a life-long fascination with entrepreneurship and the factors associated with small business success and failure.  I am trained as a scientist and have managed to combine my interests in science and entrepreneurship in a business that designs and conducts clinical trials to tests food and pharmaceutical products.

Read the interview here.

I had the chance to interview Cheney and find out about the availability of green loan programs designed to sustain green products and services, one example being Accion USA. As a leader in U.S. microfinance, ACCION USA empowers business owners with access to capital and financial education. In addition they offer a green loan program with reduced interest rates on loans made to small businesses that provide or use green products and services.

Read the interview here.

Luckily for me, there is now a book called “We are All Born Entrepreneurs” and I got the chance to interview the author, Steve Welch about the book and his discoveries about entrepreneurs.

Read the interview here.

Cristian: Hi Weldon and welcome on Entrepreneurship Interviews. I had the chance to read and review your book The Upside of Fear: How One Man Broke the Cycle of Prison, Poverty, and Addiction. So what is the book about?

Weldon: Well, it’s really a book about how we can all live our dreams if we are deeply committed to achieving them. In a nutshell, I spent 20 years broke, homeless and drunk. I was your garden variety loser who spent 13 years in prison. About halfway through my “prison years” my father died and I decided to change the course of my destiny and that’s what I did. In fact, I walked out of the joint in 2003 without a dime to my name, built an Inc 5000 company with over $20,000,000 in sales and got a home on Maui. The book outlines the journey and the tools I used to transform my life.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Tuesday March 16th 2010, London – Vivid Resourcing, a prestigious London-based agency, celebrated their second anniversary last Wednesday. Though the company began as a small team, they have big dreams which are on course to be realised in the near future. Managing Director Charlie Walker, was only 25 when founding Vivid Resourcing, and his enthusiasm and ambitious nature have enabled him to swiftly grow the company. On course for a second-year turnover of 3.5 million, having doubled monthly profits since May 2009, Vivid are aiming to build their team of consultants to over twenty within the next three months.

“The typical career path for a young graduate with my background would have seen me waiting for at least 15 years before I could reach a position of responsibility and recognition,” explains Charlie Walker managing director of Vivid Resourcing. “This did not sit well with my ambitious nature; I wanted the responsibility and top level experience early on. After hearing a family friend describe how she became a director by the age of 30 while working in recruitment, I knew it was for me.”

Establishing a young, vibrant and driven environment, Walker has settled into his role with ease. Having given up a 150k salary as the top sales-person at an established recruitment brand to found Vivid, his gamble appears to have paid off. He and his team have built themselves a strong reputation with both candidates and clients for the supply of exceptional contract staff in the NHS and are also strong players in the Business Intelligence, Engineering and Finance sectors. With their consistent delivery of quality recruitment services and an enviable list of client testimonials, one can expect big things from Walker and Vivid over the coming months.

Hello Baby is an online nursery shop selling a wide range of product for babies and toddlers including prams, pushchairs, car seats, nursery furniture and highchairs.  Everything you need for a happy family!

See this entrepreneurship story here.

Not sure about you, but when I’m thinking about Argentina, I’m thinking about a delicious Argentinian steak, tango and a Spanish that is music to my ears (Hey, I’ve studied Spanish in High School). So, I’m very happy to say that I’ve got to update my narrow view about Argentina by interviewing the Argentinian entrpreneur Germán S. Arduino. He’s making software, being what you could call a microISV. A Micro-ISV (abbr. mISV or μISV), a term coined by Eric Sink, is an independent software vendor with just one software developer. In such an environment the company owner develops software, manages sales and does public relations.

Sounds small? Yeah, but this guy is selling his products USA, Australia, New Zealand, India, Belgium, Spain, Argentina and United Kingdom. How does this sound for a one person company? Read the interview here.

Read the 36 interviews over to Entrepreneurship-interviews.com

Cristian: Hi Anthony and welcome!  You are one of these guys that started a business in the middle of the economic crisis. What is your business about?

Anthony: Hi Cristian, thank you for having me, I really appreciate the opportunity.  I created and oversee a dietary supplement powder drink mix that prevents hangovers called THC-The Hangover Cure.  My product is for sale online at www.drinkthc.com and through various distribution channels worldwide.

Cristian: You told me that you’ve been laid off from a big company this year due to the economic crisis, so being laid off can be good sometimes?

Read the rest of the interview on Entrepreneurship Interviews.

Cristian: I had a look at some articles about you, and I found out you have invented a lot of new technologies, gadgets and software. So do you consider yourself an inventor or an entrepreneur?

Justin: I would say probably on a day to day basis I consider myself more an entrepreneur more then an inventor. I never really bonded with the word “inventor” I think everyone is an inventor in their creative outlet. But true entrepreneurs those are rare. I don’t even know if I deserve that title yet.

Read the rest of the interview with this young entrepreneur here.

A well-respected authority on online retail sales, Ms. Linevsky has more than 25 years of sales and marketing experience. She launched her first successful online venture in 1994 with her husband, Richard: a men’s catalog called The Artist Collar, in which upscale men’s neckties were marketed and sold via direct mail, along with 24/7 telemarketing, fulfillment and e-commerce. After three years of building the company and establishing one of the Internet’s first e-commerce sites, the Linevsky’s sold The Artist Collar to a competitor. With the capital from the sale, they launched CatalogSavings.com, which later became Catalogs.com.

Here is what I found out at the interview:

Cristian: Hi Leslie and welcome to Entrepreneurship-interviews.com. You’re running an online business, what is it about?

Leslie: My husband and I noticed early on that many merchants were trying to find a balance between traditional catalog marketing and new online avenues. So, we created Catalogs.com to meet that demand. Catalogs.com provides a mechanism for merchants to offer a variety of options, while offering consumers the convenience and efficiency of online shopping. For 13 years, we have helped shoppers find and order the perfect catalogs for the products they want, all free of charge.

We offer access to over 650 print and online catalogs from the world’s largest retail companies to specialized companies providing unique and hard to find items.

Read more on Entrepreneur Interviews.

Cristian:  Andrew, welcome on Entrepreneurship interviews. You are running an online publishing business, what is it?

Andrew: We run a number of websites in the entrepreneur space and have been doing so since 1996. We like to think that the whole business is greater than the sum of each website as we are able to cross-refer pertinent and engaged traffic between them.

Find out the rest over the Entrepreneurship Interviews blog.

On other fields, Ohad sits in the board of directors of the Israeli Photography College (http://www.pck.co.il) and was elected to the city council of my hometown few months ago.

Read the interview with young entrepreneur Ohad Rosen here.

Cristian: How did you come up with the idea to start a business?

Matthew: About 3 years ago, my uncle was running for county sheriff and asked me for assistance with a website for h is campaign. I agreed and with a little research I was able to get his site up within a few weeks. A few weeks later, I was at church when the local Town Supervisor came up to me and asked me what I had been up to. I told him about the website that I had helped my uncle with and he mentioned to me that the local town was interested in having web renovations done for their website. After a few months of work and research I had the Town’s website completed. Creating websites was fun and I loved being paid to work in my own home. It has been to dream to run my own business since the 1st grade, and I saw this as an opportunity to work for myself and be an entrepreneur.

Curious to know how this works? Read the interview here.

Cristian: You told me that books like Toilet Paper Entrepreneur (written by Mike Michalowicz) had an important role in becoming an entrepreneur. But how important is school?

Patricio: School to me is important. Not a big fan of the curriculum and the goals behind today’s education but it’s important. The experiences you can gain are priceless and worth taking advantage of.

He is still 17 and in High school, so how does school work together with running a business? Read the rest of the interview to find out.

Read the interview and find out more about Veedda here.

Ideablob is a site designed to help small business people share great ideas, and vote on the best ideas. The winners get $10,000 each month from Advanta, a company that issues credit cards to small businesses. Advanta as well has a really interesting history. It got its start loaning money to school teachers to tide them over during the summer months and during strikes, something that at the time was unheard of in banking circles.

I had the chance to interview Ami Kassar, Chief Innovation Officer of Advanta and ideablob.com about the “Pitch George” initiative.

Cristian: You are sponsoring an event at George Washington University called “Pitch George”. What is the Pitch George competition?

Ami: “Pitch George” is an opportunity for high school students, undergraduates, graduate students and alumni of GW to pitch their business ideas to a panel of professionals. It is a great way for young professionals to get feedback from a panel of successful metropolitan area entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and GW alumni. Not to mention, a great way to sharpen up their pitching skills.

Cristian: What are the main judging criteria for the contest?

Ami: The panel will evaluate the participants based on their business idea & context, the idea content & quality, and their presentation style.

Cristian: Applications for Pitch George are already closed; can you say a few words about the participants?

Ami: The participants are current GW students, alumni and local high school students. I’m sure it will be a great group of students, and we look forward to awarding the ideablob.com cash prizes to the most promising graduate and high school students.

Read the rest of the interview here.

Cristian: Hi Justin and Welcome on board. Tell us a little bit about your company, what does it do?

Justin: Hello Cristian, thank you for taking the time to learn a bit about First Global Xpress. FGX is an international air courier company.  FGX competes with larger courier companies including FedEx, UPS, and DHL in the international shipping market.  We have been able to compete successfully because we ship directly from point A to point B (unlike our hub-and-spoke competitors).  By shipping direct FGX saves our clients time, money and even reduces their carbon footprint.

Cristian: You started with FGX in 2002 at the age of 23. A company like yours seems to have a big turnover and probably a big number of employees. Isn’t that scary at the age of 23?

Justin: It’s true that taking risks professionally can be a scary thought, but I think the younger you are, the higher your risk tolerance should be. If I were to give a lecture to a class of young people studying business, I would encourage them to take calculated risks.

Read the rest of the interview.

Here is the interview with Dale Cook from 11SquareFeet.

You can read the
Interview with Mike Michalowicz, Author of The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur here.

Here is the interview with Andres Sehr, about Edicy, the fastest Web editor.

Scott Law started Zotec Solutions in 1998 after losing his job at Anthem Inc.’s medical billing subsidiary, Allmed Financial. Anthem pulled the plug on that division, leaving many employees like Law out of work.  But this was only a temporary setback.  He recognized an unlikely opportunity, and decided to take this chance to start his own company.

Ten years later, Law has navigated Zotec from a small one-person shop to the largest privately held medical billing company in the country. In 2007 alone, Zotec added nearly 500 employees and had a revenue growth rate more than 221%.

Here is the interview with Scott.

But… Hold on. We then have young entrepreneur Derek Johnson that while being a college student that in 2007 saw an opportunity to grow a business around text messaging for groups: “We started Tatango to solve a simple problem that many of us faced trying to manage and organize groups we belonged to. We needed an easier way to communicate with fellow group members who were constantly on the go and not in front of a computer. We knew what we had developed was pretty amazing, but never could have imagined it spreading to athletic teams, bloggers, politicians, schools, celebrities, parents, churches, musicians and organizations which are so diverse from one another.”

The service grew within a few months of launch to over 400,000 users and over 15 million text messages. That’s quite amazing for a business started in the parents basement.

See Derek’s interview on Entrepreneur-interviews to find out how you can turn a simple idea into an innovative business.