mX newspaper's Karina Dunger interviews 199QUERY's Sebastien Maslin. Here's an extract of the article...

It's Not All Work

Q. What was your very first job and what did you spend the wage on?
A. My very first job was working in an Ice Creamery. It taught me the basics of small businesses and Italian Gelatos. I spent the wages on setting up a small electronics venture and feeding my Ice Cream addiction.

Q. As an entrepreneur, how many good ideas do you get a week?
A. Heaps, and they come in weird and random times too. The 199QUERY idea was born when I was having an argument with a mate over who was the Australian James Bond (and then texted a friend to look up the answer) - whilst on a fire-fighting course in Melbourne.

Q. Have you had ideas that are snatched up quickly by other people?
A. Not directly, but I have had ideas "on the back burner" that I've seen developed by others before me.

Q. You've got a bunch of businesses under your belt, what's the secret to being so successful at 26?
A. The 'secret' is to go for it! Heaps of people come up with awesome business ideas every day, but very few people actually act on them. Not everything I've done has worked - but I put it down to actually giving my ideas a go. (Having a good idea does help though!)

Q. What is the most important thing to know when considering starting your own business?
A. Research, Research, Research! It might be the best idea in the world, but in the wrong market place or painted in the wrong shade of blue no-one will notice it, and it will fail!

Q. Tell us how your business 199Query works...
A. 199QUERY is a bespoke question service that provides tailored answers to customer queries sent in via SMS. When a question arrives at 199QUERY it goes through a pretty sophisticated software system that tries to automatically answer the question. These answers are then presented to one of the 30 human researchers working from home, who then conduct additional research and tailor it appropriately, before shooting it back to the mobile via SMS - all in about 3-4 minutes.

Q. What are some of the most common questions people ask?
A. The most common question is "What's the meaning of life?" which has been asked 4,136 times. We're also getting a heap of "ego texts" where people send in their name & suburb, and we surprise them with the amount of info we can dig up on them!

Q. What's the strangest one you've ever been asked on 199Query?
A. Every day, at about 7.30, we get a message from the same person asking what they should put in their sandwich - every day! We've gone from 'Parisian' Ham and Brie to 'gourmet' chicken, avocado and pan fried pancetta.

Q. Your first business was Sebtrackt Productions which flew music artists between Sydney and Canberra, how did that idea come about?
A. I had a crazy idea about throwing a fully fledged music festival in a small multi-level carpark in Canberra, with different bands/djs on each level. So I started up Sebtrackt as a way of raising capital, and whilst the carpark party didn't eventuate, we did put on some of the biggest events in Canberra and had a great time doing it too!

Q. What's your greatest achievement?
A. My greatest achievement was being awarded the top researcher at UNSW this year for my work on autonomously landing unmanned helicopters on ships at sea. Also finally beating my girlfriend at Boggle last night.

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