For this week’s interview we are fortunate enough to hear from Raj Lahoti.

Raj is the Chief Guru, Chairman and Co-Founder of *OnlineGURU*, a San Diego based internet marketing and Web publishing company that develops world-class online sites and Web portals.

Adam: You are managing to have a successful business career as well as indulge your passion for traveling, what technology is a must for this?

Raj: Without dependable and easy-to-adopt technology, I wouldn’t be able to do what I do. Some of what I use includes:

• Laptop + Wireless Broadband — I don’t use a desktop anymore, and neither does my company. The portability makes things so much easier. You can be in the office working on something, and then if you need a change of scene or need to have some alone time to knock something out, you can be at starbucks, the deli, or a park, and still stay connected. Because you are on the same device, your work space and work flow isn’t interrupted when switching your location, thanks to hibernation/standby modes.

• iPhone — All of our employees stay connected with company iPhones, especially on days when they work remotely or outside of workweek hours. For mail, calendar and contacts our iPhones are imperative.

• Jott — This web site/iPhone app is amazing. When I’m on the go, if an idea pops up, and I want to capture the full essence if this, I can just open up the Jott iPhone app or call the toll-free # and speak my idea, task, or reminder and Jott will convert this to text, e-mail it to me, and will also attach the voice clip so I can listen to my enthusiasm/voice when I Jott’ed this note. Although their voice-to-text conversion, is not PERFECT, it is more than 90% accurate, and has never done me wrong, because the voice-clip always captures the note regardless of how the text is converted. A must-have for anyone “on the go” and very in-expensive!

• Video Conferencing via Skype — Each employee has ultimate mobility with a video camera and Skype (along with a laptop) for video conferencing. At the office, our conference rooms have Skype+Cam+LCD-Monitor combos integrated so I can attend any meeting from anywhere in the world.

• Google Docs — This allows us to have amazing amounts of collaboration with each other. Plus it ensures that our ideas are fleshed out, that we have the right people working together and that we don’t have to worry about the “who has the latest copy” nonsense. Google Docs versioning of changes is sweet because we can easily have lots of people working on the same stuff.

• G-Mail — We just switched over, and for corporate mail it has been great. Plus the interface is nice and sleek.

• Chat via Skype — Conversations stay well documented so you can refer back to them, and the interface is clean and easy-to-use. Being able to talk to anyone anytime, whether they are in-house and working remotely, is key.

• Calendar/Contacts/Tasks – These seem pretty basic, but they totally do the trick.

Adam: Were you brought up in a environment that encouraged entrepreneurialism?

Raj: Absolutely. My parents ran several family businesses, mostly catering to the Indian community within Los Angeles. We had a grocery store and a movie theater all while my dad was working as a full-time aerospace engineer.

Both of my older brothers are involved in their own businesses. For the most part they are Internet focused, and are still very large domain name holders. They started off buying, selling and speculating on domains. And now they spend a lot of their time building them out. My oldest brother, Dave, runs UDRPSearch. It’s very cool for keeping up on domain name disputes. My other Brother, Ravi, is a co-founder at OnlineGURU. In addition to serving as a Director on our Board, he continues to acquire new domains and build out new sites.

My sister has to be one of my biggest influences, when it comes to Sales/Marketing/Operations. I worked for her on and off for nearly two years starting at the age of 14. I was her salesperson, handyman, marketing manager, technician, you name it. I even fixed and sold watches for her at various trade shows, home shows and open-air marketplaces. It’s so funny how sales works. Whether you are selling a $10 watch to a stay-at-home mom or a $10,000 campaign to a media manager at an insurance company, you use all the same skills. That was incredible training for me. Although she entered the Internet Space years after my brothers and I joined, she actually runs a pretty large and successful site called DivaVillage – striving to empower and “Awaken the Diva” in millions of women from around the world.

Adam: Your family are an important part of your business, this brings positives and negatives to the table, do you have any advice for family members working together?

Raj: I’m not going to say, “don’t do it.” But I will say working with family isn’t ideal for everyone. The best way to pull it off is to:

• Bring fresh blood to the table. Meaning, add independent parties to the mix. That way family members are more likely to act on their best behavior, and the level of respect, responsibility and accountability improves. Ever since we hired our COO, Karen Baumbach, the perspective she offers has has brought the organization and our Board to an entirely new level.

• Make sure you already have a good relationship with these family members. You want the type of relationship that allows for deep conversations and even counseling and mediation. If you are working with family, it’s likely you’ll encounter some very interesting and challenging moments.

• Remember the bigger picture. The cool thing about family is that we have already spent many years supporting and honoring one another. In business, that dynamic is no different.

Adam: You have had a very formal education, this can be very restrictive, is it something that came naturally or did you have to work hard at it?

Raj: I wouldn’t say formal. I tried going that route, but when the business picked up I didn’t hesitate to drop out of USC mid-stream. I don’t even have my degree.

I actually obtained a lot of my “education” attending a number of trade shows and conferences such as Search Engine Strategies, Webmaster World, and AdTech. I have learned the most by getting myself out there and meeting people working in the same space, exchanging ideas and trying to make sense of it all with one another. As a member of YPO and EO, I’ve also attended various specialty educational events and certification programs which have helped me along the way.

Adam: What was your first business and what lessons did you take away from it?

Raj: My first business involved selling baseball cards to kids and merchants at card shows. Lesson learned: If everyone wants to buy your cards at your current price, you probably are selling yourself short, and you need to raise it.

Next I worked as a MLM distributor for Amway (now Quixtar). Amway, and many other MLM businesses alike, are the original affiliate marketing model. I learned so much about being in the middle of a transaction, having other people do your marketing, and then empowering them and taking a piece of the action. Rather than just being the affiliate, I wanted to be the master affiliate and have others promoting my products, or at least promoting products that I represented.

However, the main lesson I learned was that everyone is able to take action and make things happen. But not every business is ideal for everyone. Whatever you are trying to do, you need to find people who are just as passionate as you are because passion and persistence are the keys to success. We all hit obstacles and roadblocks along the way, we all get knocked down every now and then. But passion and love for what you do keeps us getting right back up to do it all over again.

My first Internet business was Nebulant Corp, now Affiliate Media Inc. It still operates as a successful company and I serve as a Director on the Board. For the first few years, we started and operated as a two-man show — myself, and my partner Warren Jolly. We were able to get a ton done with such a small workforce, but still got in our own way on many small things. Lessons learned: Do it yourself when it needs to be done right. Outsource and delegate all day long when you want to really make things happen. I found that being a perfectionist only takes you so far, and that you’ll become your own bottleneck if you don’t learn to let go.

Adam: How would you describe your management style and the office culture at your offices?

Raj: How I describe my management style vastly differs from how my team might describe it. I’d say very fair, always logical; my team members might laughingly say chaotic. But what keeps us together (and moving toward a shared goal) is our culture. That’s the truth.

Our office culture is awesome. Each Guru is super friendly, shares the company’s core values, and always strives to kick ass and make things happen. In fact, we once listed Kick Ass as one of our core values until we decided it sounded a little unprofessional. Now we just consider it the “unofficial value.”

We have an open-minded culture where team members insist on sharing ideas, encouraging one another and collaborating. Even when we get into heated debates my employees know I value their opinion and want to leverage their experience. I much prefer to figure things out together rather than force my opinions down anyone’s throat.

As an organization, we really focus on user experience. It’s quite obvious my team isn’t interested in launching a bunch of crap content aimed only at making money. Instead our goal is to focus on usability. We believe if it’s right for the user, there’s always a way to monetize it. You just have to be creative in finding those openings.

One area I’d love to improve involves my team’s ability to take some risks every now and then. I always work with my employees to take baby steps toward acting with entrepreneurialism in mind and not being afraid to fail. I want it to exist in my organization, therefore I share my entrepreneurial spirit with them every chance I get.

Adam: Where do you see your business in 5 years time?

Raj: It will continue to evolve. As long as we continue making good decisions and putting our heart and soul into what we do, I’m certain we’ll constantly improve the place we are in.

Our focus is on user experience. Each and every day, as we learn more about how people use the Internet, we are making daily strides toward the continual improvement of the collective Internet experience.

In many ways, we are blazing our own paths and coming up with new ways to do things. It’s always interesting when we see ideas we’ve come up simultaneously emerge through people across the nation and the world. This often leads me to believe there’s truly a collective consciousness working in this space. Because things happen so fast, it’s fun to see examples of this turn up every day.

Adam: What is your take on Google Wave, it seems simple yet revolutionary?

Raj: Google Wave is ridiculously cool. I’m a fan of Google Apps & Docs, and I think Google Wave just takes it to a whole new level. It will most definitely change the way people communicate, and will also change social networking and Facebook.

The biggest reason people use Facebook is for social collaboration on pictures, ideas, etc. They like the ability to communicate with friends on these things and see updates in real time. Google Wave brings all those features to e-mail, and allows for more privacy (when you need it), which will make Facebook’s current features less attractive.

Regardless, these tools are all natural steps in the evolution of the Internet and the online world. I’m just excited to be a part of it and use them to further our goals and mission.

Adam: Do you think that Twitter will keep on growing or is it going to implode?

Raj: Twitter has too many uses to list. It’s an incredible tool for mass communication, and some people really get a ton out of it. I use Twitter to share interesting things I see on my travels, as well as concepts/news that are of interest to me. You can follow me @RajLahoti to see what I’m talking about.

I think Twitter, like most new things, is going to take some time for people to get adjusted to. Right now, tens of millions of people have jumped on the bandwagon, around the world, because they don’t want to be left out. So many people, who I’ve spoken to, are still unclear on why they use Twitter. But they feel like they should, so they are doing it. Blindly in some ways.

Twitter is here to stay. However, the Twitter we know today, and where it is going to be in another year, are completely different. Because Twitter is such a versatile application, most of the innovation is going to come from the online community, as you can see here in this Twitterverse diagram.

Adam: What are your views on the internet censorship that some governments/law enforcement agencies are trying to bring in?

Raj: Good luck. For every one site that you try to censor, there will be 99 more that pop up the next day. But because Google (aka God) is the beginning of the Internet for most people, it could continue to get pressure from many government agencies and might have to continue being regulated to satisfy the countries in which it operates.

What’s very interesting to me about this topic is that the Internet might actually force these countries to change long-standing laws on censorship. They might become more lax on these because they just can’t keep up with the regulation of the Web. The Internet and Technology enhancements and innovation are definitely changing each and every way our society does things.

Two books I recommend that show just how much Technology and Internet innovations are changing what we do: The Four Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferris, and The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman.

Adam Toren