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FourSquare Interview (Post New VC Funding)

July 1, 2011 By Clark Leave a Comment

First interview with Four Square since it’s new $50 Million VC funding by Andreesen Horowitz and $600 valuation. Wall Street Journal interviews Four Square Co-Founder Naveen Selvadurai.

Foursquare is using the money to expand by opening the new office in SF and go on a hiring spree. They also want to expand globally.

Naveen discusses his company’s evolving business model, how to monetize the application, and also how to stay competitive among all the new applications trying to do the same thing (despite Four Square already having 10 million users).

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Enovative Kontrol Systems Interview

April 30, 2011 By Clark Leave a Comment

Enovative Kontrol System’s Derek Zobrist and Gabe Ayala generously offered their seasoned business advice and various experiences in this interview below which I conducted recently.

Derek and Enovative were awarded the Emerging Entrepreneur Award of 2010 by Entrepreneur Magazine, which is well deserved. Click Image below to enlarge Entrepreneur Magazine article.

Among other accolades, Entrepreneur Magazine noted that in four years Enovative “already has impacted the Los Angeles community by reducing its dependence on foreign oil by $1 million annually.”

Gabe and Derek have created an energy efficiency company and proprietary technology that saves energy costs for multi-unit commercial buildings, apartments, schools and offices.

Enovative’s D’MAND CIRC® pumps are currently installed in more than 1,000 buildings. In addition to reducing green house gas emissions, the system can pay for itself in four months due to energy cost savings.

For more information visit Enovative Kontrol System’s Website, or check out these links here or here.Below is an additional video which further explains the technology featuring Enovative Kontrol Systems.

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The Rise to Wealth interviews Steve Kaplan

February 7, 2011 By Clark Leave a Comment

One of the books I really enjoyed reading recently was BAG THE ELEPHANT! by Steve Kaplan (New York Times’, Wall Street Journal’s, USA Today’s, and Business Week’s bestseller list).

In seven years, Steve grew his marketing company SCA from a start up to $250 million in sales with offices in 14 countries. One of the ways Steve achieved this feat was through landing huge clients, also known as bagging elephants (300 of the Fortune 500 companies have been his customers). As a business and success expert, he has appeared on MSNBC, NBC, CBS, Fox Television and has spoken to thousands of college students at various business schools across the country.

Steve is now an elephant himself, having owned 30 businesses across many industries and sold 26 of them. He currently owns businesses including: Steve Kaplan Live, The Difference Maker Inc., and Kaplan Enterprises LLC.

I was fortunate to bag an interview with Steve who generously agreed to share his vast and experienced business advice below:

TRTW: Which aspects of your company SCA do you attribute to its huge success? What were some of the marketing and promotion strategies that worked best?

SK: Success is the [Read more...]

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Baking Billions: Ron Shaich Interview

January 28, 2011 By Clark Leave a Comment


There is an excellent recent Wall Street Journal article interviewing Ron Shaich, co-founder of Au Bon Pain and Panera Bread Co.

Despite the whole carb conscious world, the chain with the word “Bread” in it is doing pretty well. Panera Bread has revenue of $1.3 Billion, and Business Week also listed it in its list of Hot Growth Companies.

In the interview, Ron discusses the ways he financed his first store, and most importantly how he specifically noticed opportunity various times.

Shaich’s advice to entrepreneurs:

“It’s not about starting a business. It’s about solving problems. That’s what being an entrepreneur is. Find a problem that there’s a better way to solve. Get a vision of how it could work better, and stick with it.”

Ron Shaich Interview located HERE.

Similar to my earlier post on franchises, Panera can be franchised (yet at a hefty sum) for anyone fitting the criteria of “Net worth of $7.5 million / Liquid assets of $3 million”

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TheRisetoWealth.com interviews Scott Shane

December 9, 2010 By Clark Leave a Comment

Scott Shane is the A. Malachi Mixon III Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University. He has also written or edited ten books on business and entrepreneurship.

His book Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths That Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live by (Yale University Press, 2008) was one of the top ten business books of the year for Amazon.com. His 2005 book Finding Fertile Ground: Identifying Extraordinary Opportunities for New Businesses won the 2006 Golden Book Award for best business book of the year and has been translated into eight languages.

Additionally, Shane was the 2009 winner of the Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research, hosts a column at BusinessWeek, and is an angel investor and member of the Northcoast Angel Network.

Mr. Shane has a wealth of knowledge on entrepreneurship, which he has generously shared with TheRisetoWealth.com in this interview below:

TRTW:What would be one of the first, or most fundamental, lessons you would teach your students in one of your classes at Case Western Reserve University? What advice would you like to offer to anyone considering starting a business or becoming an entrepreneur?

SS:Most of the focus in entrepreneurship is on the entrepreneur – what characteristics the person has that make them good at starting and running a business. Often overlooked is the importance of the business idea. In my books Finding Fertile Ground and Illusions of Entrepreneurship I point out that the aspects of the business idea – the industry people enter, the business model they have, the nature of their competitive advantage (if they have one at all) – actually account for more of the variation in [Read more...]

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World’s Wealthiest Man Carlos Slim interview: No Scarcity for Slim

November 22, 2010 By Clark 2 Comments

Everyone has heard of Zuckerberg and Gates, but not as much is known about the wealthiest man in the world, Mexican entrepreneur Carlos Slim. In the links below I have included an excellent Wall Street Journal profile, and another link which has an extensive interview on Slim.

In the interview, Carlos explains his business model, reasons for success, and how to deal with mistakes that are outside one’s control.

Slim is primarily the Mexican telecommunications king, but also owns many various other businesses from hotels [Read more...]

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