Interview with Business Owner: Products, Services, Background, and Legal Form

1. Describe the general nature of the business, describe the location, and identify any important or unusual features.  Provide a URL for the company website.

2.  Identify the owner that you are interviewing and provide telephone and email contact information.  Briefly describe his/her role within the firm.  Identify any other owners of the company                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

3. Explain the main products or services of the business and identify the main customer groups that it services

4.  Describe the background of the owner you are interviewing in terms of education, and work history and explain how he/she decided to become an entrepreneur.
5.  What does the owner think is his/her greatest strength as a business owner?  Greatest weakness?  Explain.

6.  Prepare a brief history of the company, indicating when it was started, and by whom as well as all of the major changes that have taken place between the start-up and now.  What does the owner feel that he/she would have done differently as far as the history of the company?  Why?
7.  Identify the legal form of the business and give the correct legal name of the firm.  Explain this choice of legal form.  If there is more than one owner, explain the distribution of ownership among the partners or shareholders. 

8.  Prepare an estimate of the annual sales of the business.  This information does not have to be provided by the owner (although the owner may wish to give you a range of sales that a business like this one would operate within; for example, $100,000 –
$500,000 or $1M -- $3M).  Use the techniques outlined in the textbook.  Be sure to use at least two different methods.