Joshua Siler is the Founder and CTO of HiringThing, a Saas provider that helps companies post jobs online, manage applicants and hire great employees. Prior to HiringThing, Joshua was the VP of Technology at Babcock & Jenkins, a relationship marketing agency specializing in high-tech B2B, where he designed marketing strategies and online marketing tools for clients such as Adobe, Microsoft, Oracle, BMC and many others. Siler has been designing and developing innovative software solutions since 1996 – past projects include software and analytics for marketing, automotive, agricultural and health insurance industries. You can learn more by reading the HiringThing blog.

What are you working on right now?

Our startup is called HiringThing, and it’s online software that helps companies post jobs online, manage applicants and hire great employees. We started at the beginning of 2012, and so far things have been going great.

Where did the idea for HiringThing come from?

I was the VP of Technology at a marketing agency, and we were always looking for new talent. We built an internal system for our own use, and it worked pretty good. One day, we say “Hey, this might work well as a standalone company.” And HiringThing was born.

How do you make money?

We’re a SaaS (software as a service) company, so all our revenue comes from monthly subscriptions to our software product.

What does your typical day look like?

I’m not really a morning person, so I’ll start off working through emails and managing tasks that don’t take much brainpower. That helps clear my plate and let’s me focus for the afternoon, when I’ll buckle down and focus on the hard tasks that take concentration and creativity.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I believe strongly in taking an iterative approach. Once I have an idea, I’ll start off by building a prototype, and see how it feels. I can then start improving it until I feel like it’s worthy of the concept, or proves itself a dead end.

What’s one trend that really excites you?

3D printing. Maybe for my next startup…

What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?

I had a job once where I had to dig out crawl spaces under houses. The crawl space would be only 6 inches deep or whatever, and we had to dig it out to 18 inches to meet code. So we’d use these little half shovels and dig sidewise, hauling out dirt in big Tupperware bins. I suppose it taught me how to buckle down and get work done, regardless of how awful it is. Dragging your feet doesn’t help.

If you were to start again, what would you do differently?

Start sooner…

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Fail. The more ambitious a project, the less sure you can be that it will succeed. Being okay with failure lets me try all sorts of things I might not have attempted otherwise. Almost all of my best successes came out of this process.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

In one company, I attempted to work on a startup idea while consulting for revenue. We did well, everyone got a steady paycheck, but we were never able to spend enough time on the “big idea.” We had a great prototype, but didn’t have the focus to get it off the ground. A year or two later another company took the same idea to market and sold it for $3 million. Lesson learned.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

I’ve always wanted a “404” page service that I could plug into websites I manage, that would alert me whenever someone got a 404, and let me wire up redirects using an easy online interface. Would be great for sites that change URL structure and ensuring visitors aren’t lost. Developing something like that would be pretty easy.

If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be and how would you go about it?

I’d love to change how software patents are handled. The current system is deeply broken and damaging to our economy. It slows down progress and allows patent trolls to run what amounts to legalized extortion scams. It’s going to take some brave politicians and aggressive legislation to solve.

Tell us something about you that very few people know?

I was the Divisional Calculus Champion in high school (after I got kicked out of Calculus class for not doing my homework.)

What are your three favorite online tools or resources and what do you love about them?

1. Amazon Web Services: HiringThing runs completely on AWS, and it’s so much better than trying to run our own servers. We can add servers with the push of a button, and the management tools are second to none.
2. Evernote: I store everything in Evernote, including business cards, receipts, notes and other stuff. Having a huge personal searchable database with me at all times let’s me stop trying to remember trivia.
3. Campfire: Campfire is a chat room service by 37 Signals, and we use it at HiringThing to stay connected and communicate amongst the team. It helps our team stay connected, despite the fact that we all work from different locations.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

For entrepreneurs, “The E-Myth Revisited” by Michael E. Gerber is a must read. It’s been around for awhile, but sheds light on why so many small business fail to grow beyond a certain limit.

Three people we should follow on Twitter and why?

Personally, I only use Twitter at events to keep tabs on what’s going on around me. For my day-to-day, I find the signal-to-noise ratio too high to be useful.

When was the last time you laughed out loud? What caused it?

I’m sure it was a cat picture on the internet.

Who is your hero?

My wife. She’s a doctor, works incredibly hard and cares about people in amazingly thoughtful ways. I’m still hoping some of it will rub off on me.

How did you end up in the recruiting space?

Plain and simple, we saw a clear market opportunity. The existing options for small and medium sized business to manage recruiting were either antiquated old-style software or too expensive. I was a hiring manager in mid-sized company, and was frustrated by the process and lack of options to make it better. By creating an easy-to-use, cloud-based solution for companies, we were able to fill a gap in the marketplace.

Best way to relax?

This year it’s been skiing in the Colorado mountains. Summer’s here so there’s less of that, but getting outdoors and away from the grid is still my favorite way to disconnect for a day or two.

Connect:

http://www.hiringthing.com
Joshua Sile on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuasiler/
HiringThing on Twitter: @hiringthing

 

Siddharth Batra is a graduate of the Computer Science Master’s program at Stanford University where he specialized in Artificial Intelligence. He’s a Lightspeed Fellow and has founded two startups: 1) Zunavision, a video advertising company and 2) Mine, a directory of people and their purchases. The Mine team has now joined Twitter, where Siddharth works in engineering on the revenue team.

What are you working on right now?

Until a few weeks ago, I was the co-founder and CTO of Mine, a directory of people and their purchases. Our team has joined Twitter and I’ll be working on the revenue team.

Where did the idea for Mine come from?

Everyone’s purchasing decisions are inspired by the purchases of people they know and admire. This happens daily in real life but doesn’t exist online. The idea of Mine is to put people’s purchase history online and, therefore, in their pockets.

How do you make money?

Mine takes your purchases and those of the people you’re connected with to create a highly customized product search experience. The long-term vision involves charging for sponsored product listings and enabling online retailers to customize a user’s shopping experience.

What does your typical day look like?

A typical day starts with a status update meeting with my co-founders, followed by clearing out my inbox, and the vast majority of the day is spent architecting, programming and coordinating the engineering team. Other days’ tasks include recruiting or investor meetings, user feedback sessions and social media management.

How do you bring ideas to life?

It depends on the scale of the problem. As an engineer, I can solve small scale problems but properly attempting large problems requires a brilliant, diverse and dedicated team that truly wants to solve the problem.

What’s one trend that really excites you?

More and more people are learning to program. It’ll be tremendously exciting to see what innovations that leads to and how it changes the US economy.

What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?

My worst job was as a research assistant in the radiology department at Stanford University. The work wasn’t particularly unpleasant – maybe a little. It’s the only time I’ve ever taken a job for money and not because I loved the work. I’ve learned to never do that again.

If you were to start again, what would you do differently?

Raise more money, hire more people and move really, really fast.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Constantly listen to your customers: explicitly through feedback and implicitly through their actions. Always listen qualitatively and beware of listening quantitatively too soon.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

My first startup, Zunavision, created a phenomenal technology to insert realistic ads into the 3D space of video with a single click. Our vision was to create an unobtrusive video ad unit and become the Google Adwords for video. Sadly, it turns out advertisers are more concerned with the impact of their ad rather than improving the video viewing experience. The failure of my first startup was heartbreaking and I’ll never forget it. It’ll forever be a part of my life that makes me stronger and reminds me of my naivety.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

A universal billing dashboard. I sign in to 30 different websites a month just to pay or review different bills. That’s 30 usernames and passwords I don’t want to remember, 30 emails reminding me of the bills, and 30 payment confirmations. I’d be willing to pay for a universal billing dashboard that shows the status of all my bills and can pay them with a single click.

If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be and how would you go about it?

I would change immigration. Our fates are still decided by the city, state and country we are born in. Millions of children won’t sleep on a full stomach throughout their lives simply because they were born in the wrong country. A lot of the world’s desperate problems can be solved by making it borderless.

Tell us something about you that very few people know?

I enjoy cooking.

What are your three favorite online tools or resources and what do you love about them?

GitHub: GitHub’s hosting is seamless and their open source friendly business model is revolutionary.
BitTorrent: It’s completely decentralized and one of the rare technologies that performs better when the system is under more stress.
DNSimple: Their domain purchasing and hosting service is orders of magnitude better than anyone else on the market.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

“The Black Swan” is a life changing book. Nicholas N. Taleb presents a contrarian viewpoint towards life changing events and our inability to predict or be prepared for them in all walks of life.

Three people we should follow on Twitter and why?

1. @nntaleb Nassim N. Taleb for his contrarian view on life
2. @SeinfeldToday for consistently smart and humorous Seinfeld plots
3. @BillGates for being Bill Gates

When was the last time you laughed out loud? What caused it?

Probably a few months ago when I was with my younger brother. It’s easy to forget the worries of life and be a kid with him.

Who is your hero, and why?

Bill Gates. His intelligence, relentless work ethic, humility combined with the desire to solve big problems makes him an inspiration and sets a bar that’ll be almost impossible to reach.

What’s the hardest thing you’ve done professionally?

Since 2008, I’ve initiated three startups – one right after the other. The lessons have been invaluable but they’ve come at a great cost to my personal life.

What’s the hardest thing you’ve done personally?

Training for a half marathon is the hardest thing I’ve done personally. The physical challenges can be overcome as the body adapts, but it’s a mental challenge to keep training until that point.

Connect:

Siddharth Batra on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sidbatra
Siddharth Batra on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sidbatra
Siddharth Batra on GitHub: https://github.com/sidbatra

 

David is trained in the Co-Active model of Life Coaching from the Coaches Training Institute in California, the global leader in transformative Life & Business Coaching, and for the past twenty-five years has been part of one of the great wisdom traditions and has studied contemplation and practiced advanced techniques of meditation.

David guides & supports entrepreneurs and business leaders to build balanced lives so they can create enough energy, time and wealth to power a truly meaningful life, on their own terms, in their own way.

His process infuses ancient wisdom with contemporary strategies of insight, action and accountability. He delivers sustainable growth for clients and guides them to the discovery of deeper levels of authentic happiness in daily life.

What are you working on right now?

Growing my coaching / creativity consulting and mentoring organization.

Where did the idea for Life Compass Coaching come from?

I rolled my life experience as a hairdresser + my experience as a storyteller/ filmmaker + my 25 year practice in one of the great wisdom traditions + my training as a professional CTI Co-Active Personal Coach which = ‘s a new ”life calling” for myself as a personal Coach and Spiritual Mentor & Creativity Consultant. The name came from the idea of combining ancient wisdom with contemporary strategies to create a compass for transformation.

How do you make money?

The old fashioned way. I charge for my time and expertise and provide an invaluable service to the folks I work with.

What does your typical day look like?

Relaxed and vibrant. I do most of my work on the phone or by skype , so I work from home, although I do meet some clients in person and also travel to meet clients as well if they require it. Everyday usually includes a walk on the beach with my dog Biscuit (worlds greatest poodle), and time for meditation and contemplation.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I always separate creative thinking from critical thinking to generate as many possibilities as I can. Intuition is the wellspring where ideas are born for me, and linking things that appear not to go together is my gift, and I also just build on what my clients bring to the table. Two heads are better than one. I am known as a possibility generator.

What’s one trend that really excites you?

Simplicity. How to make ones life as simple as possible but not simpler. Sustainable happiness is the name of the game.

What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?

Woolco Paint department when I was 16. The assistant manager who was genuinely excited about paint was very disappointed when I quit on day 5, which was the day I spilled a couple of gallons of paint on the floor. I learned that life is too short not to do what you love at every moment, and if you can’t, then hire me and we’ll figure out why.

If you were to start again, what would you do differently?

I would have become a coach 20 years ago.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Enjoy the journey. Enjoy the process…. and stop believing in the finish line… there isn’t one, and while we are at it, I have abolished the word goal from my vocabulary and replaced it with vision.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

Could not get the financing for my feature film so financed it myself.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

Lamps that automatically dim in the evening and change their color hue so they don’t interfere with our circadian rhythms’ ..the light at night syndrome .

If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be and how would you go about it?

I would implement a mindfulness practice and teach meditation that would start in our education system in kindergarten.. do they still have kindergarten?
Teach every child about becoming mindful and aware, and teach them how to still the mind. I have a few other critical components I’d change in our culture, but I’ll follow the rules here.

Tell us something about you that very few people know?

I had plastic surgery on my nose when I was bitten by a small dog as a little boy.

What are your three favorite online tools or resources and what do you love about them?

Coach Accountable – The online portal I use in my coaching practice.
Vcita – for my online scheduling.
Blog Talk Radio – for my radio show

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

“The Soul of Money” by Lynne Twist, because it teaches a great truth; that giving and receiving are equal.

Three people we should follow on Twitter and why?

I can no longer answer this question. I divested of all things twitter and have been living very happily with out it for a year or two.

When was the last time you laughed out loud? What caused it?

It’s a daily occurrence, my dog biscuit makes me laugh out loud all day long, he’s pretty amusing when he’s not growling at me.

Who is your hero?

My spiritual teacher is my hero. He is unconditional love in action.

Why would anyone pay for a life coach?

How you spend the energy we call money depends on what you value, so I might ask the same question about why anyone would spend money on a TV, as I don’t see the value in having one and have lived without one for almost a decade.

If you value exploring your own life and your own mind, if you value understanding how you work and where you get stuck, if you want to clarify what’s important to you and gain fresh perspective, and if you want a champion in your life, then you would want to pay for a life coach, the same as you might pay for a personal trainer if you wanted to take your fitness to the next level or pay for a holiday if you wanted relaxation. For me coaching isn’t just about fixing problems, it’s a idea, a type of conversation one has with ones self and with the world, and your coach facilitates that conversation.

The coaching relationship can last a lifetime, and it only gets richer and deeper with time. I don’t need my coach, but I desire to have that unique relationship in my life and it makes my life richer and very rewarding on so many levels. It is also helpful to keep me accountable in my daily life to the things I say are important to me. Steve Jobs had a coach for many years . Eric Schmidt, the executive Chairman of Google for 10 years has a coach. Bill Campbell coached them both. WHY NOT YOU? The great thing about coaching is you can try it our for free. Almost all coaches offer free sample sessions.

What is the purpose of life?

To find happiness within oneself, independent of anything on the outside, and to discover the true nature of your mind, and leave this world more beautiful than when you arrived.

Connect:

http://www.lifecompasscoaching.ca
Radio of Life Compass Coaching: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/lifecoachradionetwork/2013/05/14/frank-talk
Life Compass Coaching on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lifecompasscoaching

 

Adriaan Smit was born to be an engineer. Always very inquisitive and from a young age spent hours figuring out how every day things around him worked. Toys just seemed more interesting when they were taken apart. Adriaan was born in South Africa and grew up in a small academic town, Potchefstroom; just south of the better know Johannesburg. He grew up on a farm and took full advantage of the opportunity it provided to design and create; building tee houses, zip lines and even pitching in to help fix things around the farm. In high school Adriaan opted to take some science classes and discovered his interest in electronics and computers. The need for an automatic water pump controller to keep the water tank full on the farm spurred his high school senior project and even turned into a small business when the surrounding neighbors decided they need one as well.

After high school Adriaan embraced the opportunity to study abroad and hopped on a plane to Walla Walla, Washington where he did his Bachelors on Engineering. The onion fields of Walla Walla provided an ideal place to explore his engineering potential. Adriaan and friends built all kinds of DIY radio controlled planes and other crafts. Encouraged access to the university machine shop enabled Adriaan and a fellow class mate to build their own snowshoes and cover their costs by taking a dozen or so orders. Adriaan’s interest in improving on existing or designing new product continued to grow during his time in Corvallis. Oregon while doing his Masters in Electrical and Computer Engineering. Adriaan is now a full time engineer at Intel but spends a lot of his free time on entrepreneurial projects. Adriaan also holds a managing position with Green Sky Ventures, a company based out of El Segundo, California that develops and takes creative ideas to market.

What are you working on right now?

At the moment I am working on the WavyWand. It was the first product I designed after graduating from university. I sold them for a few years between 2005 and 2007 before I started working at Intel. People really loved them and came up with all kinds of interesting uses for them. I’ve maintained the website since 2007 in order to support all the users out there. The website gets a steady stream of visits and I still get frequent requests from people wanting to buy a WavyWand. So this year I decided it’s time to get the WavyWand back on the market.

Where did the idea for the WavyWand come from?

Just before graduating from Oregon State some friends and I got together and brainstormed a bunch of ideas we thought had market potential. We weren’t ready yet to work for a large company where we would likely just become another number sitting in a cubicle farm somewhere. We picked the idea that seemed the easiest to design. The idea was a gadget that would attach to a bicycle wheel and turn the wheel into an LED display as it was turning. The LEDs would turn on and off as the wheel rotated and thus draw the images. After some research we found several similar products already on the market. It didn’t take use long to realize a hand held wand like device had much more appeal and uses and that’s how the WavyWand came about.

How do you make money?

I work at Intel to pay the bills and manufacture and sell products for a little extra spending money. Each product has its basic development costs and then there are the manufacturing costs. Product is sold with a markup that covers development, manufacturing, and sweat equity.

What does your typical day look like?

I keep a regular schedule during the week. I am at Intel from 8 to 6 but I have the flexibility to run errands as they are needed. Most of the WavyWand magic happens in the evenings and weekends. Occasionally I would take a half or full day to work on the WavyWand if there is something urgent that needs to get done.

How do you bring ideas to life?

With lots of thinking and then trips to Home Depot. The ideas come from many places. There is very little of my time that I am not thinking about how things work and how they could be better. Many times it’s a matter of “I wish I had something that did this or that”. Friends will come to me with ideas or people just start talking to me about designing products because they know it’s one of my interests. After you have the idea the first thing that needs to be done is making a prototype. This is often times where Home Depot will come into the picture. The prototype is usually a functioning model that is used for testing or just to show people and get their opinions. The prototype for the WavyWand was actually done very quickly. I had some programmable electronics boards with LEDs from classes I’ve taken. I wrote a short little program to turn the LEDs on and off and then I strapped the board to a stick and started waving it around. People liked it so we moved ahead with the design.

What’s one trend that really excites you?

I love how electronics is becoming part of our everyday life and making the impossible possible. Technology is finding its way into places where we never could have dreamt it would be. Science fiction gadgets like the push to talk communicators on Star Trek are now a common device that we hardly even think about but absolutely can’t do without.

What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?

I don’t really think I ever had a worst job. I learned good work ethics from my parents. Even though there might have been things I didn’t like over the years I just took it for the time one has to put in in order to move forward in life.

If you were to start again, what would you do differently?

Not much. I wouldn’t be who I am today if I did things differently. It would have been nice to get a head start by doing some things differently but then I wouldn’t have the experience that came with it.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Keep at it! A quitter never gets anywhere.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

There are many projects that never got off the ground due to various reasons but I never really viewed it as a failure. It’s all learning experiences and one simply moves on

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

I’ve always thought it would be very useful to have a gadget that helps you find your car in the parking garage or in large parking lots. Even at work some days I can’t remember where I parked and probably look very silly walking up and down the rows looking for my car. It is usually the practical ideas that have the biggest market appeal so I think this car finding device would do well.

If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be and how would you go about it?

I think it would be worthwhile to invest a lot more time and resources to developing more efficient solar energy sources for the world. I would start at the grass roots with our universities and schools with research projects and development competitions. Many of our big ideas, like Google, have grown out of projects started by students. There is so much solar energy available and we still don’t really have an efficient way to harness and use it.

Tell us something about you that very few people know?

English is my second language. I was born and raised in South Africa were my family mainly speaks Afrikaans. At the time English and Afrikaans were the official languages of South Africa but I went to an Afrikaans speaking school and most of my friends were also Afrikaans. I took English as a subject in school but I only really became proficient in English when I came to the US to study engineering.

What are your three favorite online tools or resources and what do you love about them?

Google, eLance and Mint. I love Google because they just seem to get it right. Everything they do is useful and just very intuitive. I love eLance because it enables the individual to accomplish their visions and dreams. You don’t have to know anything about engineering for example to build the car locator I mentioned above. On eLance people from all around the world will compete to do the design for you. I love Mint because it allows me to keep a close eye on all my finances in one convenient location. You can track spending trends, set up budgets and they even have an app to see all this from your phone.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

“Getting things Done” by David Allen. Everyone knows the saying “time is money” so it stands to reason that the more productive we are the more money we’ll be able to earn. David gives some good advice on how to sort through your “to-do” list and prioritize the tasks that need to get done. Even in a non business setting it is always good to learn a few tips and guidelines to being more productive.

Three people we should follow on Twitter and why?

I’m not going to give three names here but rather relate something I heard someone say once that really made a lot of sense to me. If you want to succeed in life you need to surround yourself with other people who are successful. If you want to learn something you need to get advice from someone who knows what they are talking about and has a proven track record. You’re not going to get business advice from that family member who is broke and living out of his car. You’re also not going to take advice about productivity from that co-worker who is always taking a smoke break and just loves to stop by to chit-chat. If we want to become the best in something we need to learn from the best. So pick someone who has a proven track record in the areas you are interested in.

When was the last time you laughed out loud? What caused it?

I think life is full of funnies but it is usually the things were you see someone doing something out of the ordinary that really gets me laughing. For instance coming home from a Home Depot trip the other day I saw a guy in a nice looking red BMW driving down the highway with a carpet rolled up and stuck through the two back windows. It was sticking out a good three or four feet on both sides. He was probably also on his way home from Home Depot. He made do with what he had and got the job done.

Who is your hero?

Sir Richard Branson. This is a guy who started an airline with one plane and is now soon to be the first to offer commercial flights to space.

What are you most looking forward to in the next few years as your business grows?

I am very much looking forward to my first product sighting. I think it would be amazing to just be going to town for the evening or running errands and totally unintentionally spot someone using a product that I designed and sold. That would be very cool.

How much spare time do you have and what kinds of things do you like to do during that time?

My week days usually end up pretty busy just because I work full time and still try to manage several business projects after hours. This makes my weekends quite valuable to me so I try to be as active as I can. I live in the North West so the weather can be a bit unpredictable and rainy quite often but I’ve found there are activities for all kinds of weather around here. Kayaking, mountain biking, hiking trails, snowboarding, surfing, and my favorite is kiteboarding.

Connect:

http://www.wavywand.com/
Adriaan Smit on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/adriaansmit

 

Richard Myers founded Realty Capital in 1987 to acquire, develop, and manage investment-grade commercial and residential real estate projects.

In 2011, Realty Capital became an employee-owned firm, Realty Capital Management (RCM), which Richard manages with partners Jimmy Archie and Tim Coltart. The strategy for RCM remains the same: develop in areas with strong positive trends in population, employment, and income, and continue to diversify holdings to offer quality investment opportunities to valued equity partners.

In addition to his responsibilities at RCM, Richard is the chief executive officer of Realty Capital Partners (RCP). This company provides individual investors with the opportunity to invest in real estate projects. RCP has invested approximately $350 million in equity, representing approximately 1 billion dollars’ worth of real estate projects.

Richard formerly was a partner with Lincoln Property Company; prior to that, he was senior vice president of GSC Realty Corporation. While at GSC, he was responsible for the acquisition and development of approximately 450 million dollars’ worth of commercial and residential projects located in 10 states.

What are you working on right now?

Right now, our Lakeside DFW project requires most of my time. This is a $1 billion mixed-use development in Flower Mound, Tex. We have had to be creative in getting this development underway, establishing a tree farm onsite that holds harvested trees from the property. Our plan is to replant the trees in the parks and throughout the development once construction has been completed.

I’m also working on Harvest with our partner, Hillwood Communities. This project is a 1,000-acre master-planned community located in the towns of Northlake and Argyle, Tex.

Where did the idea for Realty Capital Management come from?

Jimmy Archie, Tim Coltart, and I wanted to create an employee-owned company to give our longtime, valued employees some of the benefits of owning the company. We think this concept provides additional motivation for employees, and it rewards them for their years of service.

What does your typical day look like?

It has a lot of variety. I might have meetings with bankers and bricklayers in the same day. Each property development is its own business with marketing, finance, operations, and construction issues. Thus, when you’re developing a property, you’re working on all aspects of its business. I find that variety very interesting.

How do you bring ideas to life?

I love to brainstorm with people, conduct focus groups, and sometimes just daydream about ideas. To bring them to life, I determine an action plan and try to find and put together the best team to help me carry out the plan.

What’s one trend that really excites you?

I’m excited about the current economic recovery. I have been in the commercial real estate business long enough to have made it through previous recessions, so it is exciting to see things turning around. We’ve made it through the last few years, and many commercial development companies can’t say the same thing.

Also, I love the urbanization of American cities, which makes them more interesting places to live. We’re moving away from suburban sprawl and back toward the concept of thriving metropolises.

What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?

It may have been my job as an economic analyst at Caterpillar Tractor Company. It’s a great company, but it taught me that I really wanted to do something more entrepreneurial. Not everyone is meant to be an entrepreneur, but if you’re built to be one, nothing else will really work for you.

What is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Work, don’t worry. The more time you spend obsessing over something, the more likely it is to actually become a problem in your life — it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your productivity and your contentment will be drastically improved by simply putting your head down and working. It will clear your head and help you make decisions based on logic, not fear.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

It’s time to own property in Texas. They say everything’s bigger in Texas, and that includes property values! It is likely a worthwhile investment, whether you’re interested in commercial buildings or residential properties.

Tell us a secret.

I like to ballroom dance.

What are your three favorite online tools and what do you love about them?

Zillow
Google Maps
The Wall Street Journal Online

They’re all helpful tools in getting my daily work done — or learning more about it!

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

I’d recommend “A Pattern Language” by Christopher Alexander, simply because I learned a lot from it.

What’s on your playlist?

I listen to everything from Madonna to Mozart.

If you weren’t working on Realty Capital, what would you be doing?

I would still be doing something with real estate. It’s my passion. If you don’t love what you’re doing, do something else.

Three people we should follow on Twitter and why?

That’s a good question — I don’t use Twitter.

When was the last time you laughed out loud? What caused it?

I laughed because of a dirty joke I heard last weekend….

Who is your hero?

My mom was my hero.

Tell me about a time you failed and what did you learn?

That usually happens once per week; I’ve learned to try again. It’s not really a failure until you admit defeat.

What would you have done differently in your personal life?

I would have spent even more time with my daughter when she was younger. It’s easy to get caught up in your goals, especially where your career is concerned, but it’s very important that we build our lives around the things we value most.

Connect:

http://www.realtycapital.com/
Richard Myers on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/richard-myers/1/a54/642

 

Aly Khalifa is addicted to inventive culture. His firm, Gamil Design, has specialized in invention development and launched products for some of the most exciting sports brands in the world.

Trained as both an engineer and a designer, Aly has traveled extensively for 19 years to manufacture sporting goods design and technologies. His collaborations have garnered more than 16 patents, been nominated for a Grammy Award and exhibited in the Louvre.

Aly is a co-founder of Designbox, a leading multi-disciplinary workspace of creative professionals. Additionally, he founded and leads SPARKcon, the nation’s largest open source festival that promotes local creative culture. As a result he has garnered significant attention as a voice for the creative community, leading to lectures worldwide.

As an Eisenhower Fellow for 2012, Aly has met with top leaders in Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines to explore the connection between creativity, innovation, design, and manufacturing and the impacts of those efforts on SME development and global partnerships.

Aly and his wife Beth founded Lyf Shoes in 2012 to put their latest patent to work. Lyf fuses technology with just-in-time assembly at the retail shop, and eliminates adhesives in order to achieve a new standard in sustainability. The company was seed-funded by Cherokee Investments Group in 2012.

Most recently, his team has also successfully funded a new coffee brewer and technology called the Impress on the crowd-funding platform, Kickstarter. Fulfillment from that campaign was completed ahead of schedule and the Impress launched to consumer markets in late spring 2013..

What are you working on right now?

We had a great Kickstarter campaign for the Impress Coffee Brewer and are now in commercialization. We were actually able to meet our forecasted timeline of initial production and fulfillment. Several improvements and line extensions have already been suggested by this amazing community and we’re now working to bring those to life.

Where did the idea for the Impress come from?

Years ago, we designed The Teastick, a single-cup tea infuser for loose leaf teas. It garnered a lot of attention and exposure from it’s unique design and ease of use combined with the high quality cup of tea it can steep. Customers immediately started asking us to create a Teastick for coffee. Of course brewing coffee is quite different than steeping tea, but it got us thinking. After three years of experiments we ended up with the final Impress design, with some great intellectual property behind it.

How do you make money?

Our primary source of income has been design innovation services for large brands. We are now in full launch of the Impress as well, selling through e-commerce to people around the country and learning what it takes to extend that globally. The Impress has allowed us to put many of our insights and theories to work. It’s nice to have this new source of income and see how it changes our view of customer service.

What does your typical day look like?

Wake up and get a scope on the day with some Impress coffee! Breakfast time with wife and young son generally involves music and some form of dancing. Our workspace at Designbox is shared with other creatives, so the work day usually starts with a weird or inspiring or hilarious story from somebody. Quick team-sharing of today’s fires, and if lucky, into concentration time before lunch. Walk to lunch with my wife every day and then another jaunt with our dog who works with us. Afternoon brings in foot traffic to our retail store front. You never know who is going to walk in… Conference call usually sneaks in somewhere, then ideally another bout of concentration/creative time before the day ends. Last hour reserved for the email firehose before heading home or hanging out in Pullen Park.

How do you bring ideas to life?

Our job is to “creatively listen” to our inventive clients. That means to focus more on what they mean than what they say. Once we have an objective list on paper on what our mutual goals are, we generally move pretty fast. We do this with exhaustive alternative solutions until a hero jumps out at us. From there it’s all about working with the many partners we have developed in manufacturing over the past 20 years.

What’s one trend that really excites you?

Combining new technologies with traditional manufacturing is the key to innovation for me. With the Impress, we had to be very technically innovative in some surprising areas to make our filters and seals function as simply as they do.

What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?

I don’t really think of jobs as best or worst, but there have been many jobs that were different than what I intended or anticipated. For instance, I was hired by my university transportation department to create a bicycle program, but ended up working mostly on the new bus system. I was resentful when asked to design the identity system for the Wolfline bus system… a logo that they still use 25 years later and I see every day. I learned to appreciate that every design opportunity might be the most important one.

If you were to start again, what would you do differently?

Consume less, exercise more!

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Start small, and wipe those stars right out of your eyes. To do something big you have to start at the ground level yourself so you can appreciate what really needs to be done as things scale up.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

We tried to get into the MP3 case market. It worked for a season, but we could not keep up with the pace of product changes and we didn’t have the relationships to get advanced notice of those changes. We learned that we needed to work within the context of our existing networks and build from there. We put this knowledge to use for The Teastick and were able to start from that base and expand further with the Impress. We used existing networks to understand both our market and our product better before introducing it to the world. The folks at Counter Culture Coffee, for example, were not only long-time friends, but also early collaborators and testers who really helped us improve our product so it could work beautifully with theirs.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

Open Source Product Design. Not really a new idea, but one that does not have enough traction. I would love to see the refrigerator designed so that all components work to a universal standard: motors, doors, heat exchangers, etc. This could massively reduce our energy waste and landfill burden.

If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be and how would you go about it?

The biggest market in the world are those who make less than $4/day. If we took all our esteemed designers, engineers and scientists and focused on this market’s needs we could end a lot of suffering and bring more meaning to our lives.

Tell us a secret.

Sometimes I create a to-do after I’ve done it, just so I can check it off.

What are your three favorite online tools or resources and what do you love about them?

Basecamp Classic – easy enough I don’t have to train anyone (New Basecamp is awful though). Google Spreadsheets – has good enough functionality to trade project data. Dropbox – nothing’s too big to share! All of this stuff allows me to travel lighter.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

“The Universal Traveler” by Don Koberg – it explains how the design process is a journey of discrete steps – each of which needs a singular focus. It turns out that entrepreneurship is this type of journey too.

Three people we should follow on Twitter and why? (please don’t include yourself)

@OutofPoverty – Paul Polak is a hero in Design for the Majority
@mikebiddle – This guy is doing important work in recycling the mountains of plastic not normally recycled.
@newraleigh – If’n ya wanna know what’s going on around here.

When was the last time you laughed out loud? What caused it?

Just now – Beth just worked the Soda Stream – man that thing sounds embarrassing!

Who is your hero, and why?

Gandhi has always stood out to me as one of the few who accomplished so much without compromising his personal integrity. These two things normally contradict each other and are so rarely complementary.

“What are you working on next?”

Our next project is to re-imagine manufacturing as a local retail experience – for footwear!
http://lyfshoes.com/

Who is going to the finals in the next World Cup?

USA vs Germany (and it’s gonna end 4-3 again!)

Connect:

gamildesign.com
Gamil Design on Twitter: @gamildesign
Impress Coffee’s Website: http://impresscoffee.com/

 

Launched in 2005 by nationally touring comedian, Carmen Ciricillo, www.constructioncomedy.com is the first of it’s kind in the world. Carmen, a true entrepreneur, found a niche and hasn’t slowed down since. In addition to launching constructioncomedy.com, Carmen is also a professional speaker to the construction industry. Since 1987, he has been speaking to some of the largest construction associations and companies in the U.S. and Canada. He has entertained on the NASCAR circuit and appeared for three years on The Discovery Channel for a home improvement show. Since 1997, Carmen has taught continuing education for Florida Licensed Contractors and has done so with humor, motivation and sincerity.

What are you working on right now?

We are building a new online school complete with audio and visual effects. I am also creating a new stand up comedy routine and we are making music videos for our latest project – Real Construction Rock – the most anticipated construction rock album in the history of man!

Where did the idea for company come from?

I decided to create a unique stand up comedy routine on the construction business in 1992 after performing on the road for 5 years. There were so many comics and I wanted to break from the pack and get more gigs.

How do you make money?

I am a stand up comic and humorous speaker for corporate gigs. I also own a construction school that provides live and online continuing education courses for Florida licensed contractors.

What does your typical day look like?

Thankfully I never have a typical day. I could be doing a live seminar one day and that night performing a comedy show at a club or private function. Some days I write material or I am filming and performing in a humorous music video. I run an office with employees that handle phone calls and seminar bookings. Recently I have been performing in television commercials.

How do you bring ideas to life?

Heavy thinking coupled with worry that I am not doing enough. I like to get myself up against a wall until the pressure forces me to act. I have more ideas than I can implement so I keep an idea box so I don’t lose any thoughts

What’s one trend that really excites you?

The ability to put my seminars, comedy routines and any content I create online and earn money from it is huge!

What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?

Watering sod – seriously boring. I knew after that I had to find something that would keep me interested.

If you were to start again, what would you do differently?

Spend more time writing and creating. The more content the more sales, royalties and exposure.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Do the hardest thing first and get it out of the way. When I first started, I relied on making phone calls to drum up business. That was the toughest part of my business so I would do it early in the day and get it done.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

I used to book comedy gigs at hotel rooms. I made the mistake of being impatient- the hotel manager was about to agree to book the comedy night but wasn’t saying yes quick enough for me. I pushed him just hard enough for him to say he wasn’t interested anymore. After that I learned to slow down, take it easy especially during negotiations. I still have to take a step back every so often when someone is taking a long time deciding to book me.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

Is this a test? Am I supposed to say none – like a true businessman? How bout prescription covers for iPhones so people with bad eyesight can read their texts.

If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be and how would you go about it?

I would take out all televisions from hotel lobbies, post offices, airports so people won’t constantly be reminded of bad news.

Tell us something about you that very few people know?

I used to create my own characters at Halloween – my favorite was a soldier named Johnny Steele

What are your three favorite online tools or resources and what do you love about them?

Constant Contact – I can tell if you’ve opened my email, Google Maps so I can find a Starbucks wherever I am at and Zillow so I can track real estate prices.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

“Atlas Shrugged” – Ayn Rand – a book that reminds us why we are entrepreneurs, creators and will keep you motivated to do more.

Three people we should follow on Twitter and why?

Marc Maron – very honest/ insightful interviews, Louie CK – great comedy and Adam Carolla – smartest guy you’ll ever listen to.

When was the last time you laughed out loud? What caused it?

About a week ago – I scared my wife and she flipped out. Very funny!

Who is your hero?

Batman

Does money define success?

No but who needs success if you got money!

What is your favorite restaurant?

PF Chang – I could eat that everyday!

Connect:

http://www.constructioncomedy.com/
Construction Comedy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Contractors-Educational-Services-Construction-Comedy/
Carmen Ciricillo on Twitter: @bigcarmen
Carmen Ciricillo on Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/carmen-ciricillo/41/3b2/450

 

Patch was started in the heart of Vancouver, British Columbia in 2011 by Founder and CEO Kent Houston. Kent is adamant that anyone can grow food, anywhere! Which is why he conceptualized Patch planters as an easy solution for the urbanites who have limited access to arable land. A landscaper and lover of local food, Kent got hands-on with urban agriculture farm SOLEfood during their start-up days helping them build their first farm at Hastings and Hawkes in Vancouver’s downtown East-side. Seeing the potential to bring urban agriculture into everyday living space, Kent devised the first Patch planter using sub-irrigated (or self-watering) technology.

Familiar with all things green and growing, Kent was partner and founder of successful contracting landscaping company Houston Landscapes. After selling Houston Landscapes, Kent went into full-time prototyping-mode developing and constructing more Patch planters using the self-watering system. He has been growing herbs and veggies non-stop in his 5th floor North-facing live/work space, lovingly referred to as “The Lab”, ever since.

What’s in a name? After long hours and much deliberation, “Patch” became the favourite for best describing what we do best. It’s a fun and friendly way for us to communicate our story about our how inspiration to “Patch” our broken food system. With us, you can start growing your own food today!

The Patch planters “self water” by using a technique called sub irrigation, which allows the water to enter the soil through capillary action; essentially the same process by which a paper towel, or sponge soaks up water. This process ensures the plants in your Patch always have the perfect amount of water. All you have to do is make sure there is water in the reservoir. Easy!

With this self-watering technology you can grow edibles, particularly high-value crops that spoil easily. To start, Patch is offering a windowsill planter with basic culinary herbs or leafy greens and will be releasing more growing options in the near future (think tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and more!).

Patch has exciting initiatives, partnerships and giving programs built into the operation of the company. Patch uses proceeds from every online sale to support Growing Chefs!, a community-based volunteer organization committed to food education for our youth. “Children are the world’s most valuable resource and its best hope for the future”, JFK.

What are you working on right now?

We are currently in the middle of promoting Patch through our Kickstarter Campaign, it’s a great way to a reach early adopters and key influencers to help build your brand and market test your product.

Where did the idea for the Patch Planter come from?

The inspiration was born out of an experience I had volunteering for an urban agriculture effort. I saw a real need for a more durable and portable food container system, and there wasn’t much in the market place that had a strong design aesthetic.

How do you make money?

We moved our product entirely through e-commerce initially, and as mentioned above, have recently turned to Kickstarter to crowdfund the next phase of our product development.

What does your typical day look like?

I’m an avid follower of the Pomodoro Technique, in which I use a timer to break down my day into manageable blocks of time.

How to you bring your ideas to life?

I deeply believe the best way to bring ideas to life is by sharing them. I’m a firm believer in simple, and effective communication through good design.

What’s one trend that really excites you?

Hopefully more than just a trend, but it would have to be urban agriculture.

What was the worst job you ever had and what did you learn from it?

The worst job I’ve had is not having a job. Really, when complaining about your job realize that there are millions of people who would switch place with you in a heartbeat. I learned that one of the keys to happiness is being productive.

If you were to start again, what would you do differently?

I would probably have started sooner, and been more intent on being directly involved in the design process from the beginning.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else to do?

Try, try, and try again.

What is the one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

I define failure as the moment you stop trying, and give up, and remain in a defeated state. Overcoming to me, is choosing to always get back up and keep going.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

This might sound a little crazy but I think there is a major opportunity in the retail sector of the erotica/sex toy market. The idea being, to present the products and objects in a tasteful, clean and healthy way. Get rid of the pornstar packaging and have a few flagship brick & mortar retail locations in major cities that provide brand awareness and marketing support for a tasteful website and catalog. Think Karma Sutra instead of porn.

If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be and how would you go about it?

The one thing, which also coincides with our efforts with Patch, is to get back to a place where we can grow more of our own food. We need to repair (Patch) our food systems and urban agriculture is an important piece of that.

Tell us something about you that very few people know.

As a teenager, all I listened to was Bob Marley. I love Bob, he was a cool dude.

What are your three favorite online tools or resources and what do you love about them?

From a nerdy standpoint, I’m a huge fan of TextExpander. I spend a large part of my day on the computer, which often involves typing out the same stuff. TE allows me to create custom shortcuts that autofill what I’m trying to say. Also, I really am a fan of crowd-funding platforms like Kickstarter, because they allow good ideas, like the Patch planter, to come to life. Lastly, I really love GOOD.is. They have great content with a positive message about doing good.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

“Made to Stick” by Chip & Dan Heath. Because it demonstrates to people how to communicate effectively. The SUCCESS model. If your communication uses some or all of the following key qualities you will have a winning message; simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotional, stories.

Three people we should follow on Twitter and why?

I’ll give a shout out to some local Vancouver friends.
@itsaulgood for recently being recognized for their sustainable business model providing locally sourced gifts.
@hootsuite for not only having an amazing product, but offering a ton of social media education. Lastly, a new friend
@Sara_Lynn a naturopathic medical student and great writer, and the founder of http://latitude-living.com

When was the last time you laughed out loud? What caused it?

When someone recently implied in a conversation that I was lucky to be self employed because I could do whatever I want. Bahahahaha! I think anyone who has been self employed knows that not true at all; it takes a lot of hard work, and persistence in the face of challenges. Remembering what Bob Dylan says “You gotta serve somebody”.

Who is your hero, and why?

I think locally, it would have to be David Suzuki. He has a way of taking complex problems, and presenting them in an understandable, and compelling way. On a very different level Dion Saunders, because he changed the way football is played in the NFL, by being a defensive player who looked at the position from an offensive perspective. I mean what NFL players says “I don’t want to tackle, it hurts, I just want the ball”! Change the Game!

Let’s Patch was started in Vancouver, British Columbia in 2011 by Founder and CEO Kent Houston. Kent is adamant that anyone can grow food, anywhere, which is why he conceptualized Patch Planters as an easy solution for urbanites who have limited access to arable land. The Patch Planter’s “self water” by using a technique called sub irrigation, this process ensures the plants in the Patch Planter always have the perfect amount of water. The Patch Planter comes flat-packed and is fully recyclable, washable and stain resistant.

Connect:

http://www.letspatch.com/
Patch Planters on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/letspatch
Patch Planters on Twitter: @letspatch
Patch Planters on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/letspatch/
Patch Planters on Instagram: @letspatch