Sebastien Maslin holds down a full-time job as a Deputy Weapons Engineering Officer in the Navy while running two businesses: 199QUERY, providing human answers to customer queries sent via SMS; and Blue Chilli Technology, enabling live information to be streamed over existing video footage on plasma televisions in pubs, clubs and outdoor venues. Maslin’s businesses employ 40 people and are growing at an extreme 200 percent a quarter. 199QUERY answers over 1,000 questions a day, at $2.50 a question and operates 24/7.

Looking at your resume it's clear to see that 199QUERY isn't your first business venture. Would you describe yourself as a serial entrepreneur? And, what advice would you give to a young entrepreneur who has a multitude of different business ideas and wants to focus on them all?

I would call my self a serial entrepreneur as I get the biggest rush from building businesses and seeing my ideas grow up, eventually on their own - and I know I'm not going to stop. Best advice for someone thinking of starting up would be to go for it - so many people have killer ideas but very few actually act on them. The next step would definitely be Research, Research, Research! It might be the best idea in the world, but sold to the wrong marketplace or launched at the wrong time and it will fail.

What would you say are the three traits that would define an ideal entrepreneur?

I don't think there is such a thing as an ideal entrepreneur, as our greatest trait of being unique means there is no such thing as idealism. Enough of the philosophy though, entrepreneurs in my mind are dreamers who can take their idea and are confident and driven enough to turn it into reality by going down a different path to everyone else.

For me, when I answer the above question, I definitely find myself veering towards a characteristic of unconventionality. How does a free spirited entrepreneur combine unconventionality with regimented life in the military?

I think they actually go in hand in hand rather well. The military has taught me (amongst other things) to be disciplined and how to think analytically (Yes that means I was undisciplined and I didn't think at all before!) So combine these traits with a free spirit, some awesome left field ideas and a touch of confidence and you a powerful recipe for generating successful ventures and keeping them going.

You've said to me that your business 199QUERY is very responsive to marketing. What's been your most successful and your most interesting marketing pursuit so far in respect to the business?

199QUERY is a bespoke question answer service that provides tailored answers to customer queries sent in via SMS. The instant aspect of this business means we get an almost real time picture of what marketing works, we run an radio campaign and within minutes of the ad being aired we'll have 100's of questions coming in.

Our most interesting marketing pursuit would be arranging a few hundred women to rock up wearing pink to an oval in Sydney, to support Breast Cancer Foundation, on the morning a Google aircraft was going to take high resolution photos for Google Earth. We were going to donate a cut of profits to Breast Cancer Foundation and have everyone spell out 199QUERY on the ground in BIG letters thus immortalising us in the maps of the internet. It fell through though when the elements decided to have a play and turn the clouds on - unfortunately causing the aircraft to cancel.

Has anyone surprised you with the questions they've sent through and what's your fave to date?

We get 1000's of questions every week and heaps of these are quite random. My favourite though, would have to be "how fast does a Hippo Run"? (up to 50km/h) which was asked late one Friday. I would love to know how that came up in conversation! Incidently the best time to pick up is 11.32pm and you have to be less than 147cm to be considered a midget.