Q 1. Kindly give our readers an introduction to your business. Please include what your business is all about, in which city you are located and if you have offices in multiple locations/ cities.
Ans: How to build electronics. San Francisco and Seattle. 150k members. 10k projects. 120+ partners.
Q 2. Kindly give us a brief description about yourself (it should include your brief educational or entrepreneurial background and list some of your major achievements).
Ans: Masters in entrepreneurship, worked at google, left to start own company, sold hackster.
Q 3. What inspired you to (start a new business venture) or (to make significant changes in an existing business)?
Ans: Worked in crowd funding. Master thesis in crowd funding. Project was late in financing. Discovered people couldn’t manufacture product. Originally hackster was to help manufacture products.
Q 4. What three pieces of advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?
Ans: Persistent, don’t get discouraged when things take time. Find good people to work with.
Q 5. What would you say are the top three skills needed to be a successful entrepreneur?
Ans: Execution, luck, luck.
Q 6. How many hours do you work a day on average?
Ans: 10-12hrs
Q 7. To what do you most attribute your success?
Ans: Luck
Q 8. How do you go about marketing your business?
Ans: Initial stages reached out to people directly, show up at events, social media, google search.
Q 9. Where did your organizations funding/capital come from and how did you go about getting it?
Ans: How did you obtain investors for your venture? Small amount of money from hax a hardware accelerator.
Q 10. What is the best way to achieve long-term success?
Ans: Keep true to your values. Develop a community.
Q 11. Where you see yourself and your business in 5 – 10 years?
Ans: Biggest community for hardware learning, expand around the world. All languages. Go to China.
Q 12. Excluding yours, what company or business do you admire the most?
Ans: Tesla, Autobon.
Q 13. How important have good employees been to your success?
Ans: Extremely important. They do all the work as the company grows.
Q 14. How long do you stick with an idea before giving up?
Ans: Longer and longer until you start to get traction. But don’t give up.
Q 15. How do you generate new ideas?
Ans: When we have problems we find solutions to fix them.
Q 16. How do you define success?
Ans: Are we helping anyone or providing jobs to people. Get thanks.
Q 17. What is your favorite aspect of being an entrepreneur?
Ans: Being your own boss is the best motivation.
Q 18. What has been your most satisfying moment in business?
Ans: The hackathons. Because you get feedback.
Q 19. What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
Ans: Perception of risk. Risk aversion. How much work you’re willing to put into it.
Q 20. What kind of culture exists in your organization?
Ans: Laid back and open. Empower people to get things done individually.
Q 21. If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
Ans: Would study something different because didn’t learn hard skills.
Q 22. How has being an entrepreneur affected your family life?
Ans: Doesn’t spend much time at home. Try to separate both but sometimes brings bad moods home.
Q 23. How did you decide on the location for your business?
Ans: San Francisco just kinda happened but it stuck of all the tech support and mentality of silicon valley.
Q 24. Do you believe there is some sort of pattern or formula to becoming a successful entrepreneur?
Ans: Luck and work.
Q 25. Who has been your greatest inspiration?
Ans: Elon Musk
Q 26. How can you prevent mistakes or do damage control?
Ans: Mistakes will happen it is about how fast you react to them. Providing good customer sport and being responsive. Its about going above and beyond to fix issue.
Q 27. What are your hobbies?
Ans: What do you do in your non-work time? Running, cycling, backpacking, hiking,
Q 28. What makes you happy?
Time at home with partner. Eating food.
Company Detail : Hackster.io