Interviewing a successful MD - questions to ask?

james.hill · Sep 5, 2005

Hello everyone,

I've got an interview with the MD of a successful ISP tomorrow, to find out about how he made the company so successful. This ISP has been running for about 10 years now, and has grown from nothing to a successful business with strong profits and strong growth. The company is 100% privately owned (by the MD I suspect), and has never taken on any VC.

I've thought of plenty of questions already, such as:

What's the role of an entrapreneur?
What were your greatest challenges/achievements?
What is/was your motivation?
How did you manage risk? (I know the company has taken a couple of big risks)
What's your role now as an MD compared to your role in the early days?
What would you tell yourself now when you were starting out, if you could go back in time?

Does anyone have any other ideas of things to ask? If I can get permission, I'll make the interview available for you all to see.

Cheers,

James

Jayne · Sep 5, 2005

What did he have to sacrifice to achieve this? this could be a good one.

Jayne

james.hill · Sep 5, 2005

Jayne said:
What did he have to sacrifice to achieve this? this could be a good one.

Jayne

Ooo, that sounds very interesting. That's definately added to the list.

DuaneJackson · Sep 5, 2005

How did lack of investment effect the growth of the company, how did he overcome these problems?

Was it a concious decision to not take investment? If so, why?

Jayne · Sep 5, 2005

How did he raise the finance to start up?and did he have help?

This one interests me, I like the ones best where they grew up on council estates and made it rich. (Cinderella Stories)

Jayne

Sep 5, 2005

a ggod question is sometimes a negative one, in that its great to know he has succeeded, but how did he find it when things were bad, slow or capital was not there.

Q. Has the business ever suffered? And if so what was your reaction, how did you turn your fortunes around?

Cornish Steve · Sep 5, 2005

Maybe you can search the Internet for good and bad news about the company and the MD. I would put some questions ahead of time to current or former employees, customers, suppliers, and so on. If you can track down real people, you could ask them the following questions:

- What is the company like to work for?

- What is the staff turnover?

- What is the company's purpose/mission statement?

- What does the company stand for?

- Can you define the company culture?

- Why buy from this company?

- What truly makes the company different?

Based on the answers you receive, you should be able to construct an objective view of the company and, as a result, come up with some interesting questions. They'll help you to get to the core of the company and to avoid spin from the MD.

Marina Stone · Sep 5, 2005

With MD's who have started up their own business, I imagine the most difficult part of their role is actually directing the business and delegating some of the work they have done so well to get him/her to where he/she stands now! Sometimes we imagine the owner of a successful business should be able to relax after 10 years and watch his team do the work... I bet that's not the case!

Q: Are you still involved in the day-to-day running of your business or do you now have the chance to stand back, analyse your business, delegate and feel confident your team are doing a good job?

Corr, I hope he says oh yes I play golf every Friday, holiday every other month otherwise why are we all working so hard!
:roll:

james.hill · Sep 5, 2005

ebonybailey said:
a ggod question is sometimes a negative one, in that its great to know he has succeeded, but how did he find it when things were bad, slow or capital was not there.

Q. Has the business ever suffered? And if so what was your reaction, how did you turn your fortunes around?

Good question - I know an answer to it, but it'll definately be included.

One answer was that the ISP was originally dialup only (well broadband wasn't even around back then). The MD was always worried that someone would give dial-up away for free, thus destroying his business.

Free dialup was offered, but only to consumers, which forced the company to concentrate on businesses only. The company has embraced this, and finds the customers more profitable, and works hard to capture this differentiated market.

I'm sure there's plenty of other downturns/disasters he can tell me about though ;-)

james.hill · Sep 5, 2005

DuaneJackson said:
How did lack of investment effect the growth of the company, how did he overcome these problems?

Was it a concious decision to not take investment? If so, why?

Thank you, added to the list.

james.hill · Sep 5, 2005

Marina Stone said:
With MD's who have started up their own business, I imagine the most difficult part of their role is actually directing the business and delegating some of the work they have done so well to get him/her to where he/she stands now! Sometimes we imagine the owner of a successful business should be able to relax after 10 years and watch his team do the work... I bet that's not the case!

Q: Are you still involved in the day-to-day running of your business or do you now have the chance to stand back, analyse your business, delegate and feel confident your team are doing a good job?

Corr, I hope he says oh yes I play golf every Friday, holiday every other month otherwise why are we all working so hard!
:roll:

This is one of the first questions I thought of! ;-) I'll be sure to let you all know the results so long as I'm allowed.

james.hill · Sep 6, 2005

Hi all,

I've interviewed the MD, and have permission to post a summary of my notes, which I will do when I've finished translating them into readable text.

Cheers,

James

Marina Stone · Sep 6, 2005

That's good news. How did it go?

I look forward to having a read

marina

james.hill · Sep 9, 2005

Hi guys,

I've writing up my interview with the MD, but haven't got permission to share it. I wasn't able to record the interview and the chap didn't want to be seen as saying things that weren't quite his meaning.

Thank you very much everyone who helped with the questions, and I'll try to give you all the answers as much as I can without breaking confidence.

Cheers,

James

james.hill · Sep 9, 2005

Jayne said:
What did he have to sacrifice to achieve this? this could be a good one.

Jayne

He was working 16 hour days to start with, risking his own money and money he'd borrowed off relatives that would have taken a few years to pay back. I don't think he's sacrificing anything any more ;-)

james.hill · Sep 9, 2005

Jayne said:
How did he raise the finance to start up?and did he have help?

This one interests me, I like the ones best where they grew up on council estates and made it rich. (Cinderella Stories)

Jayne

The finance was all self generated.

james.hill · Sep 9, 2005

Marina Stone said:
With MD's who have started up their own business, I imagine the most difficult part of their role is actually directing the business and delegating some of the work they have done so well to get him/her to where he/she stands now! Sometimes we imagine the owner of a successful business should be able to relax after 10 years and watch his team do the work... I bet that's not the case!

Q: Are you still involved in the day-to-day running of your business or do you now have the chance to stand back, analyse your business, delegate and feel confident your team are doing a good job?

Corr, I hope he says oh yes I play golf every Friday, holiday every other month otherwise why are we all working so hard!
:roll:

Hi Marina,

He's moved from a very hands on operational role, to a role of giving direction, communicating his ideas to the company. He's still involved in some of the operations at the moment, but is looking to move away from all that (as I understand it).

james.hill · Sep 9, 2005

Sorry to the people I missed out - if I missed out the answer to your question it was because I didn't feel that I could rightfully answer without permission.

I guess next time I interview someone like this I'll bring a recording device with me of some sort =]

James

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