The Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur Interview

Feature Image: “rose colored glasses” by teasilvestre is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

Skills in This Piece

This piece is showcasing my research skills. It shows this by showcasing my research of an entrepreneur. The piece also shows how I can write about someone. 

When looking for someone to do this project on, I came at a roadblock. I have always had plenty of ideas for a business. I’ve got about opening up my own restaurant or starting in a place that teaches children foreign languages. I’ve always had a niche for this. This is why I was excited to do this project. However, I had to do a lot of thinking about who I want to do. I looked through plenty of people. Then it came to be the person that I want to do. Someone that was there for me since the beginning. I haven’t talked with them in years but I thought they would give me great insight into how to be an entrepreneur. The person I chose was Mrs. Lil. Miss Lily was my caretaker when I was younger. I remember when she took care of me at our house that’s when it all started. Her business or small in now after years of working at it she owns three daycares. The first ones in Ellenwood. The second one is in Stockbridge and the third is in McDonough. I thought it was very interesting and could give me a lot of insight into how do I own multiple businesses which is something I’m interested in. Thus, is why I started an interview with her. I learned plenty of things from her such as passion, research, and business skills. All of these names I asked her because I felt like they were important attributes to an entrepreneur need it and she also felt the same. Furthermore, I had also gotten more insight into how an entrepreneur needs to find a balance between all of these attributes as they can affect the outcome of the business. 

Daycare you’re all started with a passion just like most ideas. Started when she was a little girl with her mother. She enjoyed helping out and taking care of other kids. Thus, when she got older she wants to do that. It started in a little house. At first, she only had a couple of kids, but then she wanted more. However, she couldn’t do it in that small house is just too small so she had to expand. I believe there is good to start a business on a passion that you love. Makes the business venture more interesting for yourself and also make sure that you put a lot of love into it because you care about it. This is the say that ideas that are not passions of the entrepreneur can’t be good but it says that if it is your passion and you’re going to put a lot more love and work into it. That’s what I got from this interview. I can see her love and passion for the work. Is something she loves to do and something she’s been doing for years. That is a lot of passion as most people would call a job after just a few years just because they don’t like you anymore or just because they were never into it in the first place. Although, passion does affect research later on. 

When the biggest is it Mrs. Lil had run into when she tried to expand was her lack of research. She didn’t understand zoning, laws that were in place for watching children, and resources that were already at hand that could help with the funding of the business. She just thought she could just open up a business and watch children because that was all she wanted to do. This somewhat goes back to my point about passion. Passion is important but it could also cloud a person’s judgment and need for knowledge.  Was Louis should have done more judgment but her past assessable for business and her passion to do it made her feel like she didn’t really have to do much. Because of my being that comes out with a lot of entrepreneurs they believe their passion alone is just something that could make the business run. Even though I do like that idea it’s just not possible. You have to do your own research before you start a business you have to look into all the details. Even if it might come off as a little monotonous, it’s still good to have more information than less.  Of course, this will take a lot of work but you have to do a lot of work when you’re in this business.

My next question is was about how much work they did for the business; how many hours do they put in.  She laughed at this question because it was every day. Even though she now owns three daycares and plenty of employees, she still has a lot of work to do. When I came over her house she had just gotten back from the store because you need to buy more food for daycares. She also told me about how they would still call her and ask her questions about how to do this and how to do that. She wonders why she even hired them if they couldn’t even answer those questions. She also talked about savings. She said save your money when people have a business because I didn’t really save my money at first. She thought, why would I save my money when I was going to get it right back next week? She would use that money and spend it on things for the business that she thought was nice. I saw this one has a very easy lesson to learn because I understand situations may come up where I really need the money and if I didn’t save it well I wouldn’t have it. You need to spend your money on things that the business needs and not just what you would think is nice for the business. I also saw that the employees need to do their own work and not ask Mrs. Lil for advice all the time. If their job is to make decisions, then they need to make decisions. Of course, if the decisions are big, then yes you would need to call Mrs. Lil. 

The last question I asked Mrs.Lil is how would she define success? She didn’t know the answer to that question at first. She thought and let it roll in her head until she found it. She said seeing kids grow up and being something important in their lives. That answer hit me because I want to affect people’s lives with my business just like Mrs.Lil.