Do you want to know how they did it?

[Lau]

What would you ask the person who founded the kind of business powered by the internet and their own passion that you would love to own?
Would you ask them how they came up with the idea? how the business works? How it makes money? how it became so successful? how it attracts its customers? How they made it to the tough times, keeping motivated?
So why don’t we? The knowledge is out there and if we can engage with people who are willing to share that knowledge and give back to the community, we don’t have to figure it out all on our own. By studying successful people we can excel our pace of learning tenfold and increase our chances of success by modeling a strategy that already worked for someone else. Sometimes we get lucky and these people inspire us and share their knowledge by writing a book, think Tim Ferris or Gary V, but sometimes they don’t. So what I am trying to say here is if they don’t come to us let’s reach out to them! Let’s brainstorm to put together all those questions we have. If each of us connects with one person willing to share their knowledge, we will soon have a wealth of information and strategies from successful people that we can model ours to, better than any business school. If you can relate to this and want to join our project, please drop me a line and let’s start talking!

[noob]

Just wanted to make a comment that all of those examples are useless questions. Not to flame you but there are seriously way better questions. Most of those questions above can be figured out with a simple Google search or basic common sense. You should be asking questions that would help you if you're going to be asking questions at all.

Someone on this forum posted a webinar with limited questions to Sir Richard Branson. I didn't actually listen to the webinar but I did pass the message along to some friends wanting to get into entrepreneurship. It was a lot like the point you're trying to make in this post. If you had a once in a lifetime chance to ask a billionaire any question (one question), what would you ask. That was basically the premise of the webinar (although only a few select questions would have been chosen). My friend (really good guy) wanted to ask the dumbest question. He wanted to know when the space program would launch. Who the fuck cares. That shit will be announced sooner or later and most questions people have can be Googled. If you're going to bother asking a once in a life time question, or warrant that you should waste someone's valuable time answering your questions, ask shit that you can't otherwise get the answers to.

He did attend the webinar and said most of the questions were generic. This is beyond me. In your example...

1] How did they come up with the idea... There's a million possibilities but most common onces are they got stuck and there were no other solutions so they did it for themselves and it ended up as a business. Or they were thinking of creative ways to create a business and found a missing market. Or they decided to just run with a dumb idea. What does it matter. It won't do crap for you personally.

2] How the business works? If you are passionate about the business model, why would you not already know this? Nevermind that, why can't you find out without wasting someone's time.

3] How it became so successful? If it was truly that successful, there will be countless stories posted. This one isn't so bad but you need to be more specific rather than bring up a useless broad question that goes nowhere.

4] How it attracts customer? It filled a need or a want and did a good job marketing. You're better off asking what it did to initially market the product than to ask how it attract customers.

5] Motivation, this is a personal question for the entrepreneur, not the business. This will vary greatly from entrepreneur to entrepreneur. Most will just be motivated by the passion for their business. Again, varies too greatly and it won't really matter for you personally. You're better off spending time finding reasons that motivate you. Everyone's different.

Again, none of these questions are seriously worth wasting someone's time or for that matter, questions you can't answer yourself with a bit of research. I am seriously not bashing on you but it REALLY irks me that people do this just like my friend and what he told me from the Sir Richard Branson webinar or whatever. Think in the same mindset. If you got one question, one shot, what would you ask and make sure it's one that will make a significant dent for you.

[Lau]

I guess my point did not come across here Noob. My post is an invitation for us to connect and come up with a good set of questions for an interview, not to ask someone 7 super generic questions. The ones I wrote down are just to illustrate my point and direction of my thinking and not to be asked literally. Also I m not thinking about asking the likes of Richard Branson questions, he has written books, there are countless interviews online, he has shared his life story already. Also why do people need to be multimillionaires to be worth asking questions? I m thinking about people who are maybe not quite as remarkable but managed to create a lifestyle for themselves away from the 9 to 5 and therefore remarkable enough for me. I will tell you what motivates me, a good story, an example, my friend who is about to quit his job because his web venture is finally giving him enough income to be able to live the lifestyle he was after; working part time on something he loves doing. Everybody has their 5 pence worth of advise that is worth listening to and it might motivate us or it might give us a concrete idea. I m thinking that if we can gather good stories and publish them online, we can help the people out there doing their 'research' (so they can find valuable info in one place rather then going through a ton of get rich quick junk and downloading a bunch of viruses) and we give the entrepreneurs some good publicity.

You do come across very negative for someone who is not 'bashing on me' but thanks anyway for your 5 pence. Anyone else who wants to share their view on my thinking?

[noob]

That I'm all for and can agree with. I definitely wasn't trying to be negative but as I've mentioned in my previous post, it is a subject that irks me when people chose to ask unnecessary questions. I agree that you can learn from just about anyone and their experience and much like your post, Richard Branson was merely an example. The point I was trying to illustrate is that if you must ask a question, make it count, regardless if that person is wealthy beyond any means or is someone who is successful in their own right, whether if that means they are a millionaire or just some person escaping the 9 to 5. Often times, you will find people asking generic questions regardless of who is on the other end or what they do. That said, I also believe that just because someone has published a book or have written content online, there are things you can learn that aren't listed in those already published work. Things definitely worth asking.