On February 10th, 2014, Gossip Genie turned four years old. Never in my wildest dreams could I have predicted that we would be where we are today. It’s not an easy road but it’s the best one I have ever travelled. I love what I do and I get to choose the people that I want to do it with me. As I have said before, you are only as good as your team. We wouldn’t be where we are without our fantastic team.

After 4 years of doing this, I realized that I get asked the same questions all of the time and I figured it might be good if I answered them on the blog.

1. What is the hardest part of your job?

Firing and hiring. There is nothing worse than when an employee doesn’t work out and nobody responds well to being fired. Hiring is also very difficult because you can never be certain that you will get the same person that you interviewed when they get comfortable. Luckily, I hit the jackpot with my current team but it took a while to get here.

2. You let your employees work from home two days a week? Are you crazy?

I only want to work with people that can be trusted to work without supervision. Two days a week, it’s nice to be in a quiet space without distractions and craft content like I am doing right now. Everything we do is very transparent, if someone isn’t working hard because they are working from home, it will be apparent.

3. Why did you name the company Gossip Genie? Isn’t Gossip a negative?

The work that we do ensures your brand or company will be the talk of the town. We generate positive gossip. Have you ever heard the phrase there is no such thing as bad press? Alternatively, we are reputation managers if there is negative gossip we aim to address it and remediate it.

4. Why do you pay your interns?

From personal experience, the quality of my work is much better when I am being monetarily compensated. We are a profitable company, we can afford to pay anyone that is willing to spend their time working for us. End of story. Many interns have offered to work for free and I will not allow it.

5. How do you have time to do anything else in your life?

While I never fully disconnect, I think it’s extremely important to keep a balance between work and personal life. I can’t sit still for 14 hours straight because I am just too antsy. I have to take an hour or two to workout and step away from the computer. I feel so refreshed after that break and if needed, I can return to working because working remotely is the name of our Gossip Genie game. This balance took about 2 years to realize. It took me another year to realize that if I allowed myself to relax (to a certain extent), everything would fall into place and our company culture would prosper.