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Name: Adam Grossman
Age: 25
Company Name: Atlantic Media Corporation
Company Address: 272 Centre St. Newton, MA 02158
Type of Business: Software/Computer Services
Years Incorporated: 3
Previous Job: None
Education:BA, Political Economy, Williams College, 1993

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1. What is your official job title? Is there a more whimsical description that might be more accurate?

President is the official title. Director of Sales, Lead Programmer, Chief Financial Officer, Director of Marketing are other hats I wear.

2. What was the inspiration for starting your own business?

I was not inspired to go into any of the fields that the Williams career counseling office was pushing. I had run a similar business while an undergraduate and felt it might be worth a shot to do it full time.

3. What makes your company unique?

Atlantic Media provides "facebook" products and services -- that is, name and face directories. We are one of the only companies in the country that has facebooks as its sole focus. We usually do printed facebooks for schools and online facebooks for companies.

4. How did your college major / graduate school degree help prepare you for your career?

Very little. Some of the economics courses were useful, but that was as close to business training as Williams got in the classroom. I did do an undergraduate project that was actually a feasibility study in disguise.

5. What necessary career information was missing from your studies? How did you pick up those skills and information?

I had no business training, so I knew nothing about business plans, market research, financing -- all the key ingredients to a successful business. I learned about these things over time, as things went wrong and I looked for the cause.

6. What difficulties did you encounter starting your business?

Because I did no market research, I started out offering a product that wasn't quite right for my target market.

7. How many hours do you work in a typical week?

Usually 50. If I have a deadline, it can go up to 75, but never more than that.

8. What three things are most frustrating about an entrepreneurship?

• lack of a paycheck
• being unknown
• the difficulty of getting my message out there

9. What things are most rewarding?

• my own hours
• my own vacation schedule
• 100% commission on sales
• feeling that I built something out of nothing
• knowing that I'm providing a useful product or service to my customers

10. What is most fun?

• I enjoy the sales part of my job immensely -- there's always an excuse to go to New York or San Francisco

11. How do you handle work stress?

I yell at the computer and rant at my friends that I want to sue my customers! Actually, this is where being my own boss is great. If I'm having a stressful day, I can just walk out and take a day off.

12. How big a role does technology play in your career path?

Technology is my career path. As technology changes, so does the facebook business. Of course, technology hype has run ahead of reality recently, and that can be frustrating. We constantly ask ourselves, "Do we need a Web product?"

13. How do you distinguish yourself from others in your work?

I try to do what any business must do to get ahead: have the right product at the right time at the right price. Stay focused, be as good as I can be, offer to bend over backwards for my customers every day. I tried to cultivate the image of quality even if the other guys can do just as good a job.

14. What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs?

Find a mentor who is preferably also an investor, develop a rock solid plan, and talk to people you think might be customers to see if they would buy what you are thinking of offering.

15. Which popular song best describes your working life?

Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture." If you can't hear the cannons going off, you're not trying hard enough.