Simon is the owner of Datamystic - a software company in Melbourne and downloadpipe.com - a successful download portal. He had an interesting aussie entrepreneurship story to share, and I’m so glad I got to know him and make the interview. It’s a story about starting a part time business from passion, growing it and doing a full successful business while keeping his own lifestyle.

Cristian: Simon, please tell us a little about yourself and your family.

Simon: G’day Cristian. I manage DataMystic (originally Crystal Software), a software development company based in Melbourne, Australia. DataMystic was a part-time business for years, but in 2000 (after 9 products) it started making more money than my day job! I left my real job, and started working from home, which was terrific because I hated feeling like an ant in peak-hour, and the extra 2 hours a day increased my productivity tremendously. Soon after this my wife and I backpacked around the world for 14 months. This was funded by the business - I answered support emails in unreliable internet cafés, and bug fixes were performed on a tiny laptop – which I even lugged into the pyramids in Egypt because our hotel was so dodgy!

My background – I have a consulting background with customer-facing business analysis, database design, and way too much data correction and integration! Although I have degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, I’ve never used the Engineering side in anger, which is probably a good thing

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I’ve “meet” Dean Hua on the social networking platform Xing, where he is one of the moderators of the Entrepreneurs Playground group. He is a Small Business Entrepreneur running a company called Sachi Studio – Web Design and Marketing Strategies in Kensington, Maryland which makes him perfect for an interview on entrepreneur-interviews.com blog. I was amazed to see so many similarities with my own entrepreneurship experience, so here is what I found out (in a random order as the Skype discussion went along):

Cristian:So what’s the secret ingredient to be successful in such a crowded market as Web design? What’s special about your services to attract customer?

Dean: As you mentioned, Web Design is a quite crowded marketplace and I’m competing against the World. I specialize in Web and blog design, lightweight CMS and I do localized SEO strategies. So I’m usually the best person to talk to if the client needs all these 3 services coming from only one provider. Not all Web design companies do all 3 things simultaneously. With a decent knowledge base of social media and Web 2.0 related topics, I found that I add a lot of value to businesses who want to position their online presence in that realm. I know there are quite a few web designers with knowledge in this realm, but it’s really interesting to see how much of the local customer base don’t know anything about this. Hence, I’ve found it helpful to target my services to some of the localized population here in the Washington DC area.

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• Interview with UK entrepreneur Darren Nicholls
• Interview with a shark guy: Patric Douglas

I’ve got in contact with Darren several years ago, while I was a Project Manager for InterAKT Online, which finally got sold to Adobe. Time has passed and now I’m able to ask Darren some entrepreneur to entrepreneur questions, something that I could never imagine while I had a simple 9 to 5 job. He is the owner of Freshspace, a small web design studio based in Sedbergh, Cumbria, and recently got involved in Ahoy there, a Web 2.0 project that should provide an easy to use system for people who need a job doing and are looking for a reputable service provider .

Cristian: Tell us a little about yourself and how you ended up doing what you’re doing now?

Darren: Hi Cristian, I’ve been running a small web design studio in North West England since 2002, originally from my parents house, moving on to a spare room in my own house and finally getting my own office in 2005.

My background originates in printmaking, my degree was Graphic Arts, Design and Printmaking though by the time I graduated in 1998 I had moved into to working with video; specifically with Adobe Premiere and After Effects; one of my exhibition pieces ended up being used as a visual in a club in Amsterdam which I was pretty proud of at the time! From there I started doing some bits of work for a multimedia company, working on a cd-rom that was used at agricultural shows to highlight farm safety (the complete opposite end of the spectrum to my previous video work!) Eventually I was employed by a Telecoms training company to produce interactive Flash based animations to replace some outdated PowerPoint movies. My introduction to websites came about when my employees got me to work on their corporate website; it was a baptism of fire but it turned out ok and I guess its from their I got hooked on web design.

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As I live in our capital city, Bucharest, and I always wanted to know how business is different in a small town. I had some genuine questions I always wanted to ask another entrepreneur. Becky McCray from Small Biz Survival had some interesting answers.

Becky McCray is an entrepreneur and rancher in a small town in Oklahoma. She writes about small business and rural issues. In her spare time, she enjoys photography, safaris, and spoiling her niece and three nephews.

Cristian: For the readers that don’t know, Becky shares multiple roles under the same hat. She is co-owner of Allen’s Retail Liquors, rancher and business/marketing consultant. I know from my own part time entrepreneurship experience that doing multiple jobs in the same time requires excellent focus and time management, so how do they all work together? What’s the biggest challenge?

Becky: Thanks for inviting me to talk with you, Cristian! I must enjoy handling multiple roles, because I’ve been doing it a long time. The store requires me to work certain hours each day, but all the other things I do are more flexible. My husband takes care of most of the ranching, and I fit in my other work where I can. You’ve identified the biggest challenge: focus.

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