For an assignment, I am suppose to locate business owners and interview them about how they see the pros and cons of business ownership by asking them the following questions.1. What type of business do you operate?2. How long have you been operating this business?3. What motivated you to start your own business?4. What problems have you encountered during the start-up of the business?5. What would you recommend me if I were to start my own business?6. Does your business provide you a supplementary income or primary income?7. How long did it take for you business to begin showing a profit?8. How did you prepare to be a business person?9. How did the you get your idea to start the business?10. What resources did you use to help develop the business?
      Answer1:Ill try to answer your questions in numerical order:1. My wife and I own and operate 4 different businesses:a. At Your Fingertips - Nail Salonb. An Extra Pair of Hands When You Need Them-Service Bus.c. CFS Enterprises - Delivery and Assembly Businessd. http://TiredOfJustGettingBy.net - Online Advertising Businesse. http://EmployeeWatch - Risk Mgmt. for Auto Dealerships2. a. Over 19 yearsb. Over 10 yearsc. 10 yearsd. Less than one yeare. Over 10 years3. We dont like putting our future in someone elses control and we hate paying taxes on Gross Income so we pay taxes on Net Income.4. The biggest problem that weve experienced is advertising and marketing costs - the financial costs for these are very high - but the best advertising and marketing weve found is by our customers word of mouth.5. Do what you enjoy is my best recommendation.6. The cumulative income of all the businesses creates our primary income but the Employee Watch company is the only one that has the wonderful residual income.7. a. About 6 monthsb. Immediately - not a lot of overhead costsc. About 1-2 years - a lot of startup costs - vehicle, insur and equipd. Immediately - only cost us $10 to start upe. Immediately - the overhead costs are very small8. We were always ready to be business people because we hated the thought of working for someone else and we both saw the results of working for others in our parents - working for 40 years for 40+ hours a week only to retired with less than 40% of what they made. Also when you work for someone else they have your livelihood in their hands and we have seen some of our friends and relatives work for a company for 20+ years only to be let go with nothing....thats why we chose to work for ourselves.9. Well my wife liked being with people and getting her nails done so she chose the nail salon field and has been doing it for 19+ years. As for me Ive tried many different things but the one thing that I enjoy the most is helping people so with the delivery and assembly business I really liked it but it was difficult with the heavy lifting so now I do home repairs for people and move people and help people with their taxes and office work they need done. Weve found that doing what we enjoy is the most important.10. We just used other peoples money to get started (credit cards) and then we saved money to keep the businesses going.Hope this helps