Just got done talking with Don over at Bald Guy Brew and the interview went great. He may be the nicest guy in the world. The man truly cares about the community he's become a part of and it shows. That, and he makes an awesome cup of coffee!
Going through the interview process helped me refine my questions a little bit. I ended up scrapping certain ones, changing others, and adding things I never even thought about (I threw an * next to the new questions). The following is more or less the questions I'll be using in the coming interviews:
-Have you always known you wanted to start your own business or did something prompt it?
*-What's your educational background?
-How did you get into business?
-Do you enjoy it? Why?
-What were some of the biggest challenges?
-Biggest surprises?
-Mistakes or regrets?
-Best decision you ever made?
-Would you have done anything differently?
*-Do you think corporate businesses pose a threat to local businesses like yours?
*-What do you think of Boone as a place to open a small business?
*-Outside of business, what do you care about?
-Any advice for someone in my shoes?
-Anyone else I should talk to?
Having completed the first interview I feel very good about putting together a paper. I imagine there will be recurring themes as the interviews continue. It will also be interesting to compare differences.
Another thing I should note is that I was unable to record the interview as there was a good bit of noise and running around and such. I managed to get down some really good notes and feel good about putting together a nice summary. I suppose the one question I have for anyone that feels compelled to answer is do you think it'd be better to document the interview in the format of stating each question followed by the answer or as a free-flowing more story-like format? By stating each question followed by the response there's less room to accidentally put my own spin on it. That being said, there was a lot of overlap and the natural progression of the conversation didn't exactly follow along with each question in a particular order. This makes me lean in the direction putting it together in a form that more resembled the actual conversation that took place. I haven't decided yet so if anyone wants to weigh in I'd appreciate it :)
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