Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day.

Teach him how to fish and he will feed every day.

Loan him money for a boat and he will have a fishing business.

                                  -- Olivier Ozoux

Like my blog co-conspirator Kathy Allen, I too am a BIG fan of person-to-person microlending site Kiva.org. Over the past couple of years that I have been a member, I have made nine different loans to entrepreneurs around the world, including men and women in Senegal, Peru, Cambodia, Mexico, Tajikistan, Samoa, and Azerbaijan. I have been paid back in full on five of my loans, and the others are on their way. To date, Kiva has loaned more than $67 million by way of almost 100,000 individual loans. I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Kiva.org cofounder Matthew Flannery (he and his wife Jessica came up with the idea for Kiva.org while they were working in Uganda for the Village Enterprise Fund) for my book Giving Back: Connecting You, Business, and Community. I thought it might be interesting to include here some excerpts from the interview pertaining to Matthew's own entrepreneurial journey:

Giving Back: What gave you the confidence to quit your job at TiVo and make a go of this?

Matthew Flannery: It wasn't necessarily that I had a lot of confidence; it was just that the situation got impractical to do both. When we started the idea, there was so much skepticism from people I knew and also experts in the microfinance field that this idea wasn't something that could spread, it wasn't something that could scale--it's infeasible using the Internet in this way. Can people in these isolated places really use the Internet and can you actually create person-to-person connections this wide reaching? So I sort of believed it, maybe not fully, but I sort of believed a little of the skepticism, at least partially--enough to be really conservative in not dedicating myself to it. And I really didn't believe that other people would find it as interesting as I would. I was really interested in following people's businesses in the developing world, and I really liked that connection that comes out of it. I found out, little-by-little, that I wasn't alone and other people wanted to connect to those businesses and be an investor.

Giving Back: What do you think is the most significant contribution you've made to your organization by way of your own personal leadership skills?

Matthew Flannery: I would say having a vision of a product and a service and an idea that was two or three years into the future. So I think where we're at today represents a picture in my mind that I had maybe three years ago, and we're not even there yet. So it's just having a vision of something that's many years ahead and then the dedication to achieve it. We try every day--getting one inch closer to it--building brick by brick, for years and years. It's kind of like coloring in the lines of a picture you saw. You're painting the colors in a little bit every day, and you have to have the patience to keep at it.

Giving Back: How about financially--did you have to invest a lot of your own money at first?

Matthew Flannery: We didn't have any money to put into it--it was essentially a volunteer effort for years. I think the only real costs we had at first was we were paying someone to upload data from Uganda. Other than that, we had a $20 monthly Web-hosting bill and my time. I gave my guitar to somebody to make the Kiva logo. There were so many hidden costs--taking a business trip somewhere, driving somewhere and paying for the gas, but no big major up-front costs were needed. It's just all these hidden costs and the cost of your time.

Giving Back: Looking back, I know you are not looking back too far, is there anything different you would do or anything you would do differently from your initial approach?

Matthew Flannery: Yes. I would have believed in myself more earlier, taken more risks earlier, been more aggressive earlier, and gotten more done earlier. I took a year to think about the idea and to ask questions and get expert advice. If I could go back, I would erase that period and I would have thrown out all the advice I got.