Very Short Interview, Part 2

Very Short Interview, Part 2 

For this second part, I went back to the friend who I interviewed for Part 1, Skip Ennis. Skip is a good family friend and a successful business owner and co-founder of a multinational jewelry/diamond brand. He has storefronts in Sarasota and New York City. Skip has been running this business for about 21 years. 

*Since Skip is a good family friend and lives in Sarasota, I really did not feel comfortable recording our conversation over the phone, especially because some of it was quite personal. You can go check the transcript from Part 1 for more info on Skip. 

Reflecting back on the first Interview, I feel like I got a good feeling for how he would describe his business and some of the aspects of that, but I did not feel like it offered anything too detailed or groundbreaking about the industry. I was glad though that I not only just asked him about the jewelry business but also about his thoughts on being an entrepreneur and what he wishes he learned in school. I was appreciate that he took the time to speak with me and I felt like he at least gave thoughtful answers. 

Me: Do you feel like you wish you had learned about how to create a business plan, or study the VC market, or perform interviews on other entrepreneurs? 

Skip: Definitely. I think all of those things are great skills to learn now, and it sounds like your class that your doing now is teaching some good skills. I have had to create multiple business plans and etc. over the years and had to learn those things on my own. So, yes I wish I had learned that back in school. 

Me: What keeps you motivated? 

Skip: What keeps me motivated now and what kept me motivated back in the day are very different (Laughing). Now, it is mostly about maintaining our brand and planning for that retirement one day when I can boat and go to the US Virgin Islands. 

Me: Is there any advice that you would say don't listen to? 

Skip: Great Question. It may seem cliche but I would advise you to always follow balance. I think that is the most important thing, because so much advice is to point you to one extreme or to another but really the best is just healthy balances. That is what can keep you motivated and consistent. 

I do think that I feel more comfortable now at least interviewing than I did before. I would say that because we were already very familiar with each other, it was comfortable both interviews but what I do feel like I especially got out of this class was that I developed questions quickly to ask him, and questions that I actually really cared about hearing the answer. Not just some generic questions, but specific questions to what I am interested in hearing the answer. He also thought the class offered a lot of good concepts, so in that sense I do think he feels like it has grown me.