Very Short Interview No. 1

Very Short Interview No. 1

For my Very Short Interview, I interviewed our good family friend Skip Ennis. Skip is a very successful businessman who co-founded a multinational jewelry/diamond business. His business sells high-end jewelry and provides custom diamonds out of New York City. Skip has been running this business for about twenty-one years.

1.    How did you end up in the jewelry and diamond business?

SE: I rather stumbled into it in a sense. I always considered myself artistic but it wasn’t until I met my business partner who was a great jewelry designer, that the idea to partner up and create a jewelry business started.

2.    Would you consider yourself an Entrepreneur? And if so, what do you think that means?

SE: Yes, I would consider myself an Entrepreneur. I believe anyone who starts a business that can create revenue and supplies a product that consumers will pay for, is an Entrepreneur. I think that Entrepreneurship can take many different forms and there is no white and black answer.

3.    Anything that you wish you had learned in school or would recommend to me to learn, regarding entrepreneurship?

SE: One thing that I really believe helped me was learning and developing a hard work ethic. That is extremely important regardless of what type of business or field you go into. Study shows that it’s not mainly your natural talent that will make you successful or not, it really comes down to just being able to work hard and effectively.  So, I would highly recommend doing just that while you are still in school and coming out of school.  Developing a good work ethic.

Reflection: The interview went really well, and the fact that we are good family friends made it easy. He is a very nice and smart guy so he was very open to helping me out. Since I also don’t know a lot about the jewelry business, it was interesting to hear and learn about it.