Wheresgeorge.com

 www.wheresgeorge.com

Over lunch one day, Hank Eskin decided to find out where the money in his pocket had been before it reached him.

He founded WheresGeorge.com, a website where users can enter bills and, sometimes, find out where they've been, or where they go.

Six years after launching the site, Eskin found himself as the reluctant guru of a community of thousands of currency tracking addicts, some of whom have entered tens-of-thousands of bills and are tracking their travels across the globe.

Name:                        Hank Eskin

Position / title:           Owner/Founder

Company name:

”Where's George?” (and “Where's Willy?” for tracking Canadian currency, too.)

Websites: 

www.wheresgeorge.com  

www.whereswilly.com

Your company / website vision statement / goal: 

To provide U.S. and Canada with the most educational and fun currency tracking experience and online community available.

Have you always wanted to run your own business? What were some of your previous jobs / companies? 

Yes.  Previously, I was a business intelligence consultant and data warehouse architect, while waiting to have my “big idea” to start my own company.  I created “Where’s George?” as a weekend project to develop a dynamic, database-driven website – mostly as a prototype and learning experience so when I eventually had my ”big idea” I would be able to “hit the ground running” and shorten the time to market.  Little did I know at the time, that “Where’s George?” was my "big idea", and my other “big idea” never happened – not yet, anyway.

Have you got any qualifications? Please tell us about yourself academically? 

University of Pennsylvania, BA 1986, Wharton MBA, 1992.

How / when did the idea of your website / company come about? 

I got the idea after coming across a dollar bill with a chain letter-like message, written around the border, telling me I would receive good luck by repeating the message on 10 other bills.

I looked at it and thought, “Where did that message come from and how did it get to me?”

Realizing that the serial numbers on dollar bills are unique and therefore make it possible to track their movements – as well as looking for a project to get up to speed with emerging Internet technologies - I put together “Where's George?”

If you could give readers of this book one piece of advice what would it be?   

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