Matt Forsman: my one thing is…

Matt is a passionate runner, running coach, and running evangelist based in San Francisco

Q: There’s a saying, to pick one thing and do it well. What’s your one thing?

Matt: I suppose my ‘one thing’ is making people believe they can do something they never thought they could do. I sometimes refer to myself as the ‘run whisperer’  (jokingly). But, there is some truth to it. I make people believe that they can run. I make them believe they run farther and perhaps faster than they believed they ever could.

Q: What do you like about what you do?

Matt:  I love seeing people do something they didn’t think was possible. I think once you accomplish something like this in one facet of your life it opens the doors to countless possibilities. It reduces fear and uncertainty and catalyzes vision.

Q: Anything else you’d like to add?

Matt: Fundamentally, what I do is ‘not’ about running per se. I provide inspiration to those who crave it or need it. Running is merely the gateway or vehicle to provide this. 

Lisa Congdon: my one thing is…

Lisa is an illustrator and fine artist living in San Francisco and co-owner of Rare Device

Q: There’s a saying, to pick one thing and do it well. What’s your one thing?

Lisa: I have a ton of energy and even more ideas, and I follow through on many of them, so I guess you could say I am good at creating, doing and making stuff happen.

Q: What do you like about what you do?

Lisa: I spent most of my 20’s and 30’s at jobs that made me really depressed. I love being my own boss now, getting up and making things, whether it’s a drawing or painting in my studio or conceiving of and coordinating a new illustration assignment or creative project. I love to collaborate with other creatives and I am starting to do this quite a bit more lately.

Q: Anything else you’d like to add?

Lisa: Follow your dreams with fervor. You will not be disappointed.

Dan Mall: my one thing is…

Dan is an interactive art director, designer, and developer. He works as a Senior Designer for Big Spaceship in Brooklyn, NY.

Q: There’s a saying, to pick one thing and do it well. What’s your one thing?

Dan: Design. But I don’t mean that in a “pushing pixels in Photoshop” kind of way. I mean crafting and creating. Whether it’s figuring out what to make for dinner, writing a musical arrangement for my band, assembling a color scheme, or choosing a CMS based on a client’s specific needs, I love finding ways to make situations more efficient, more extraordinary, and simply more enjoyable.

Q: What do you like about what you do?

Dan: It’s fun! I go to work every day, loving what I do and the people I work with and for. I get to do what I love AND get paid for it? Swoon.

Q: Anything else you’d like to add?

Dan: Nope!

Natali Del Conte: my one thing is…

Natali is the technology contributor for The CBS Early Show and WCBS and a host on CNET TV. Natali’s daily newscast on CNET TV is called Loaded.

Q: There’s a saying, to pick one thing and do it well. What’s your one thing?

Natali: I like to think that I do a few things well but very few. I take pride in the things that I do so I do them with care and thought. I am a good writer. I am a good host on CNET. I am a good thinker, reader, synthesizer. I don’t try to blog like crazy and beat out other news organizations to be first. I don’t try to pimp myself out across a million platforms on the Web. I try to keep up with the Internet and technology from a very cautious, methodical, and smart way.

In my personal life, I take things the same way. I have few hobbies but I am passionate about them. My grandmother used to say, “Anything worth doing is worth doing right.”

Q: What do you like about what you do?

Natali: I like that it is always a challenge and that every day is a new story to tell and a new audience to tell it to. I also like the way the Internet affords for a diverse and loyal audience. I’m so grateful that it is a medium where it is not just me speaking to the masses but me speaking WITH the masses.

Q: Anything else you’d like to add?

Natali: Depends. Anything else you’d like to ask? :)

Photo by Matt Greenslade

Tina Sharkey: my one thing is…

Tina is Chariman, Global President of BabyCenter

Q: There’s a saying, to pick one thing and do it well. What’s your one thing?

Tina: I’ve been told that I empower, support and inspire others to do their best work.

Q: What do you like about what you do?

Tina: I’ve had the privilege and fortune of being successful in many aspects of my career, but at BabyCenter I’m able to touch the lives of millions of moms who look to us for support, advice and friendship. I can think of nothing more gratifying than to be in a position to support the journey of motherhood around the globe.

Q: Anything else you’d like to add?

Tina: The most important thing in my life is my family. If I can be remembered for one thing, I want to be known for being a great mom to my two sons Jacob and Charlie. Non sequitur, but something I would like to add: Always fall forward. At least you move ahead a step or 2.

Fabrice Grinda: my one thing is…

Fabrice is co-founder and Co-CEO of OLX and blogs at Musings of an Entrepreneur

Q: There’s a saying, to pick one thing and do it well. What’s your one thing?

Fabrice: I somewhat dispute the saying in the sense that having a wide range of interests and broad base of knowledge allows you to get “Gestalt” by making analogies between different contexts. That said, from a work perspective it is absolutely key to focus in order to succeed. In that sense my one thing is running OLX, one of the world’s largest free classified sites with over 120 million monthly unique visitors. OLX is essentially a Craigslist 2.0 for the rest of the world, especially Brazil, Russia, India, Mexico, Portugal and Spain.

Q: What do you like about what you do?

Fabrice: It is hard to imagine the joy of entrepreneurship until you actually become an entrepreneur. The freedom of thought and imagination is incredible. It is only matched by the pride you feel from creating something from nothing, from giving opportunities to your employees and to receive thank you letters from your customers. Every month we receive hundreds of thank your notes from our users - they found the house of their dreams, the job of their dreams or simply got a good deal on something. There is nothing more gratifying for an economist to create a free marketplace to help people better live their lives!

Q: Anything else you’d like to add?

Fabrice: Follow your dreams or as Goethe said: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic to it!”

Anibal Damião: my one thing is…

Anibal is Founder and CEO of InfluAds

Q: There’s a saying, to pick one thing and do it well. What’s your one thing?

Anibal: Along the way, I’ve been moving from trying to do different things to focus on some and wining while doing those. Even so, to do one you’ll have to be very cross-skill, which I always try to. The 1 thing I picked, after some time of exploration and reflection, is to build the 21st century version of digital advertising which will allow the web to be cleaner and better place. That’s the vision behind InfluAds. I’ll be able to achieve it when InfluAds is an alternative as democratized as AdWords/Adsense is, even if it may not be as used in terms of scale due to our focus on quality. My personal thing that I’m trying to be good at is reaching goals and objectives: I thought that I was good multi-tasking when I started InfluAds but soon found the complexity involved on building a startup bootstrapped. From that point on, I switched to reaching “impossible” but very actionable goals, set on different basis from yearly,monthly and even daily.

Q: What do you like about what you do?

Anibal: The big vision. Digital can be consumed free, supported by ads that do not destroy the user experience by contributing with clutter. I also like to achieve goals that seem unachievable at first.

Q: Anything else you’d like to add?

Anibal: Focus, focus, focus, be around smart people, listen and dream.

Saman Rahmanian: my one thing is…

Saman is the CEO and founder of Tischen

Q: There’s a saying, to pick one thing and do it well. What’s your one thing?

Saman: Knowing what’s important. And more importantly, knowing what’s not. I find this ability to recognize what deserves attention and what doesn’t, to be essential in many parts of life – but most significantly so when doing business. When you are creating something from scratch – a creative idea, a product or a company – there are many things you need to attend to. There are those strategic, big-picture issues. And then there are the small details. Being able to strike the balance of knowing when to focus on the big picture and when to dig into the small details, is probably an important prerequisite to success.

Q: What do you like about what you do?

Saman: For the last few years I have worked in big advertising agencies creating ideas for companies to sell a lot of burgers and cars. Now, I am using a similar skillset to create Tischen – a site that aims to rid the world of unemployment. Although the objective is very different, in both situations I have been lucky enough to “create”. And being able to create something that hadn’t existed before, and that would never exist if it weren’t for my contribution, is probably the most enjoyable part of what I do.

Q: Anything else you’d like to add?

Saman: Maybe I’ll just throw out some thoughts that help me throughout the day: Stay dedicated. Coming up with an idea is the smallest of all hurdles. Execution is where you stand out. Ask for forgiveness, not for permission. Love what you do. Use what you create. Be grateful. Pray.

Daniel Burka: my one thing is…

Daniel is Director of design at Tiny Speck

Q: There’s a saying, to pick one thing and do it well. What’s your one thing?

Daniel: At the risk of being a contrarian, I dislike the idea that people should pick one specific thing and focus on it. Specialization has taken ahold of (what was once called) the web design community. Where most people used to identify themselves as web designers or webmasters, we now see a wide spectrum of specialists employing ever more scientific-sounding titles: interface designers, user experience specialists, information architects, interaction designers, front-end developers, user researchers, usability experts, search engine optimizers, and on and on. I foolishly engaged in a debate a few months ago with a gentleman who insisted he was neither an information architect, nor a interaction designer – he was in fact an interaction architect. Meh.

I broadly enjoy problem-solving. Sometimes that means solving visual problems, sometimes that means figuring out how all of the bits of a project fit together, sometimes that means finding the write words to express an idea, and sometimes that means finagling code. I’m certainly not good at everything, but if I specialize in anything it’s in being flexible enough to find a pragmatic solution to the challenge in front of me.

Q: What do you like about what you do?

Daniel: I like that what I do actually affects real people. The way I design an interface genuinely influences how people interact with each other online, what they purchase, or how quickly they can accomplish a task. Something like the big green download button I designed on the Firefox product page has been clicked by millions of people to download a product that will make their lives just a little bit easier – that’s exciting.

Q: Anything else you’d like to add?

Daniel: Go out and build things! Don’t have a great job? Well, awesome, you probably have spare time to work on something epic. There are so many great problems out there to solve. You don’t need to be paid to start solving them. Take inspiration from 37signals’ early ‘37Better Projects’ (http://37signals.com/better). Hone your skills by solving real-world problems with whatever skills are required.