Tom1

Questions for Gathering Information

Would you tell me about yourself before you started your first venture?

Whom else did you know while you were growing up who had started or owned a business, and how did they influence you? Anyone later, after you were 21 years old?

Were your parents, relatives, or close friends entrepreneurial? How so?

Did you have role models?

What was your education/military experience? In hindsight, was it helpful? In what specific ways?

Did you have a business or self-employment during your youth?

In particular, did you have any sales or marketing experience? How important was it, or a lack of it, to starting your company?

When, under what circumstances, and from whom did you become interested in entrepreneurship and learn some of the critical lessons?

Describe how you decided to create a job by starting your venture instead of taking a job with someone else.

How did you spot the opportunity? How did it surface?

What were your goals? What were your lifestyle needs or other personal requirements? How did you fit these together?

How did you evaluate the opportunity in terms of the critical elements for success? The competition? The market? Did you have specific criteria you wanted to meet?

Did you find or have partners? What kind of planning did you do? What kind of financing did you have?

Did you have a start-up business plan of any kind? Please tell me about it.

How much time did it take from conception to the first day of business? How many hours a day did you spend working on it?

How much capital did it take? How long did it take to reach a positive cash flow and break-even sales volume? If you did not have enough money at the time, what were some ways in which you bootstrapped the venture (bartering, borrowing, and the like)? Tell me about the pressures and crises during that early survival period.

What outside help did you get? Did you have experienced advisors?...