Entrepreneurs Unpluggd, the new company I co-founded at the beginning of this year with Stella Fayman, was created for many of the same reasons.  We produce events that seek to help entrepreneurs learn from some of the best and make meaningful connections in their communities.

I’ve decided to discontinue this site Beyond The Pedway, and continue doing the interviews over at EntrepreneursUnpluggd.com.

After talking with Stella, my wife, and a few good friends, I’ve decided this is a natural move and makes complete sense.  One site, one brand, one mission of helping entrepreneurs.

All the past interviews on BeyondThePedway.com will remain here for the near future as I gradually move them all over to the Entrepreneurs Unpluggd site.  But BeyondThePedway.com will eventually be shut down, so please start visiting the EntrepreneursUnpluggd.com blog for all future interviews.

Don’t worry – the interviews will continue.  They’re just getting a new home.  If you have bookmarks, please change them.  I’ll swap the sources for the RSS feeds so you don’t need to re-subscribe to those.

• This Friday’s interview and all interviews in the future will be posted to the EntrepreneursUnpluggd.com blog.
• Eventually, all past interviews will be found on the EntrepreneursUnpluggd.com blog.

Thanks for being here, and watching/listening/reading!  I look forward to continuing our journey together over at the Entrepreneurs Unpluggd blog.

(photo credit)

Apparently a few other people had the same problem and loved their solution.  Grubwithus started taking off organically in Chicago.  In the 10 months since then, Grubwithus has participated in the Y Combinator incubator program, raised $1.6 million in funding, and expanded to 6 new cities beyond Chicago.

I invited Eddy here to catch up on their story and learn what has changed, and what he’s learned, in the past 10 crazy months of his journey.

On their blog Pursuing Our Passion, Jill and Jenn recently wrote about an expensive mistake they made with DreamChamps that they wanted to share with their readers.  I invited Jill and Jenn here to expand more on that post, and explain what they learned about the importance of asking customers for feedback.

“My number one piece of advice is to get off your butt and do something now, because if you’re a creator and you’re only working for other people, you’re wasting your abilities. You’re letting someone else strip-mine your future, because you have the ability to create stuff, and they only have the ability to hire you, so if you’re a creator, you should create. It’s kind of simple, if you ask me. Creators create. It’s kind of the thing that we do. It’s our bread and butter.

So it doesn’t mean that we have to create for other people. We don’t need to wait for someone else to hire us to do something. We can do stuff on our own. And designers, programmers, writers, they all need to hear this. It’s the same in all of these creative fields. People are waiting for someone else to hire them to do something, and you can’t. You’re not going to get where you want if you just wait for someone to invite you.”

Check out the full interview with Amy Hoy for more.

In this interview, Mark and I discuss how SpotHero was created, and how best to approach building a website idea when neither you or your co-founder are technical people.

(Mark and I recently realized we both went to Bradley University at the same time).

“I think you need to take a step back and say where is it that I realistically think that this could go? Do I want it to go there? And what do I need to do to make it happen? And what risks am I willing to take to make it happen? Because I think too many of the entrepreneurs, particularly creative entrepreneurs get so caught up in the idea and the you know oh cool, creative passion that they never really set that intention or goal for the business and if you don’t have the goal, then you can’t really measure those risks and rewards based on your own goals and objectives.”

Check out the full interview with Carol Roth for more.

Lesley Tweedie of Little Independent was raving to me about the service and how Ryan and his team had landed her some solid press.  The more she told me about Bite Size PR, the more I knew I needed to sit down with Ryan and learn why he launched this unique service.

“Consistency. Be good every single day, beats the hell out of being great once in a while and being crappy most of the time. I don’t know how else to describe it to you, but being consistently good gets people to trust you and they will come back because they know they can get good from you every single day.”

Check out the full interview with Ben Huh for more.

I interviewed Garrick to learn why he created Zipments, what his previous company did, and why Zipments was one of those ideas he had to act on.

Learn how to create your own interviews!

My new e-book “Use Interviews To Increase Your Blog Traffic” shares my techniques and strategies for using interviews to increase my blog traffic by 650% over the past 2 years.  You’ll learn how to: Create Interviews That Attract Visitors Boost Your Credibility Enable Others To Spread Your Interviews Select The Right People To Interview and much more!
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“I think first you have to look at what type of business you are and how you operate and then take a step back and look at where your values are and then start building it from there. It’s not going to be Camp Red Frog for every company, but every company I think does have something out there that would fit perfectly with them that would create a unique work environment that their employees would love.”

Check out the full interview with Joe Reynolds for more.

In this interview, Rob and I discuss the origins of his iPhone app idea, where he sees the future of this emerging buyer powered market going, and how he went about building an iPhone app.

Learn how to create your own interviews!

My new e-book “Use Interviews To Increase Your Blog Traffic” shares my techniques and strategies for using interviews to increase my blog traffic by 650% over the past 2 years.  You’ll learn how to: Create Interviews That Attract Visitors Boost Your Credibility Enable Others To Spread Your Interviews Select The Right People To Interview and much more!
Get your copy now!

For the next Entrepreneurs Unpluggd event, we’ve gathered an amazing group of entrepreneurs who turned a challenge into an opportunity to grow their businesses.  On July 22, the next Entrepreneurs Unpluggd event will be taking place in Chicago at the Merchandise Mart downtown.  The evening will revolve around the topic of turning setbacks into opportunities.

This is one event you don’t want to miss!  We’ll hear stories from these entrepreneurs:

• Cary Chessick – CEO of Restaurant.com
• Matt Moog – Founder of Viewpoints.com
• Penelope Trunk - Founder of Brazen Careerist
• Michael Farah - Founder of Berry Chill

Buy your early bird ticket now and save 33% off the door price!

“It’s different for everyone. So A/B testing ties to your website goals. Even before doing A/B testing, there are a couple of requirements. For example, you need to have at least some sort of traffic on the site. Because if you are just starting out and your daily visitors are like five or ten a day, I think that’s not sufficient to do proper A/B testing because you do, because in A/B testing, you need to calculate statistical significance.”

Check out the full interview with Paras Chopra for more.

“It’s just about showing up. Get yourself in a position, whatever that may mean, be it financially or whatever to just really give it a shot. And once you get to that point, you will figure out the strategy, you will figure out your own unique talents that stuff will come. You really have to get past this ideation phase where it just sounds like a cool idea that you could maybe do one day.”

Check out the full interview with Tomer Yogev for more.

I interviewed Bob and Brian to learn why they created Photogram, how they went about executing on their idea, and the challenges they faced along the way.

Learn how to create your own interviews!

My new e-book “Use Interviews To Increase Your Blog Traffic” shares my techniques and strategies for using interviews to increase my blog traffic by 650% over the past 2 years.  You’ll learn how to: Create Interviews That Attract Visitors Boost Your Credibility Enable Others To Spread Your Interviews Select The Right People To Interview and much more!
Get your copy now!

I’ve had the fortune of interviewing some founders and CEOs of companies that have amazing company culture, and employees that love working at those companies every day.

1. Threadless

Threadless is a website that crowd sources t-shirt designs and sells t-shirts of the most popular ones.  The site was started in 2000 by Jake Nickell and is one of the most fun environments to work in I’ve ever seen.

I took a tour (above) of the original Threadless headquarters two years ago and was blown away.  I had heard that stepping into Threadless HQ was like stepping into a different world, and my visit only confirmed that.  I always say it was like going to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

My recent interview with Threadless founder Jake Nickell (below) dives into how Jake cultivated the unique culture at Threadless over the past 10 years.

2. Red Frog Events

I visited the original Red Frog Events headquarters two years ago. Red Frog Events throws large, fun, challenging events called Warrior Dash and Urban Race every year in all sorts of cities.

Long after I posted that video, I noticed lots and lots of traffic coming to this site from people searching for information on Red Frog Events. More specifically, people were searching on information on working at Red Frog Events and how to prepare for an interview there.

I was amazed. Why were so many people constantly searching on how to get a job at Red Frog Events?

I emailed Lauren over there and said I needed to do another interview with founder Joe Reynolds (below) to learn more about how he built a culture that so many people want to be a part of.

The Red Frog team had just moved into a brand new, larger office than the one I had originally visited. If you watch the interview below, you’ll see the attention to detail Joe puts into the office and the atmosphere it creates for his employees every day.

3. Firespring

When I was surfing Silicon Prairie News one day, I came across an article about Firespring, a company in Omaha, NE that was recently named to Inc. Magazine’s Top 50 Small Company Workplaces list for being such a great place to work at.

I interviewed Firespring founder and CEO Jay Wilkinson (below) to learn how he built Firespring’s unique company culture by design rather than by default.

Jay’s interview is chock full of his great thoughts on building company culture and how the values of the company extend throughout every single employee and action. They had a mini golf tournament once where groups of employees built each hole.

4. Total Attorneys

Remember the game Orgeon Trail? If you do, you’d probably fit right in at Total Attorneys. Founder Ed Scalan recently organized an Oregon Trail tournament for his employees (video below).

Total Attorneys makes service products for law firms that help them with marketing, administration, technology, and other things that take time away from doing what they do best. When I interviewed founder Ed Scanlan (below), I explained how I didn’t forsee a company servicing law firms to have a very fun company culture. As Ed shows in the interview, I was way off.

I interviewed Lesley to learn where the idea for Little Independent came from, how she created the site, and what she’s learned from being a brick and mortar entrepreneur creating an internet business.

Learn how to create your own interviews!

My new e-book “Use Interviews To Increase Your Blog Traffic” shares my techniques and strategies for using interviews to increase my blog traffic by 650% over the past 2 years.  You’ll learn how to: Create Interviews That Attract Visitors Boost Your Credibility Enable Others To Spread Your Interviews Select The Right People To Interview and much more!
Get your copy now!

“You know if they’re a hard worker, they’re going to be a hard worker whether they’re in the office or out of the office. You know those — there are more important characteristics and requirements to hiring them than the one which is you need to be based in my office wherever that office is. I think that’s a really crappy reason for not hiring someone that’s incredibly talented.”

Check out the full interview with Adii Pienaar for more.

Emerson’s Harry Potter fan site MuggleNet was so popular that it attracted the attention of JK Rowling, who invited Emerson to Scotland to do a special interview with her when one of the later books came out.

I interviewed Emerson to learn how he created this popular network of websites, his process for evaluating new ideas, and why homeschooling ended up being the best thing that ever happened to him.

Learn how to create your own interviews!

My new e-book “Use Interviews To Increase Your Blog Traffic” shares my techniques and strategies for using interviews to increase my blog traffic by 650% over the past 2 years.  You’ll learn how to: Create Interviews That Attract Visitors Boost Your Credibility Enable Others To Spread Your Interviews Select The Right People To Interview and much more!
Get your copy now!