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Mario Schulzke is the founder of IdeaMensch, a community he started to help people bring their ideas to life. He also is a senior director at independent advertising agency WDCW, where he is managing the digital strategy group remotely from his hometown in Germany.

Mario is a first generation immigrant who came to America at the age of 16, much to the dismay of his family in Germany.  He sports funny socks, appreciates sporks and collects colorful watches.

Mario lives between Los Angeles, Barcelona and his hometown of Plettenberg. When he isn’t trying to get his cat Otto to be cool with his girlfriend’s cat, Mario enjoys Ironman triathlons and pickup soccer.

What are you working on right now?

I am trying to increase the impact IdeaMensch has on the people we feature and the people who read our site.  I want to add more valuable content without losing sight of our core–our daily interviews.

Here are a few initiatives that I am working on:

• Put together an ebook with some of our best content.
• Organize events and meetups wherever there is interest.
• Create more original content for the site, from guest editorials and videos to how-to articles and curated lists.

Want to help or have an idea? Shoot me an email: mario at ideamensch dot you know what.

What does your typical day look like?

Right now, I am back in my hometown, a little place called Plettenberg, Germany. It’s like I moved back home except that I have my own condo here. Anyways, here is my typical day:

• Wake up at around 6:00 am, make coffee and spend two hours writing 1,000 words for my first book (on how to hack your twenties).
• At 8:00 am, I walk to the local butcher and bakery to get breakfast. I come home, have breakfast and catch up on email.
• Before heading to the gym at 11:00 am, I spend a couple hours working on IdeaMensch.
• After the gym, I have lunch, do a few hours of WDCW work and have a couple Skype sessions with my team in L.A.
• At around 7:00 pm, I jump back online and do some more IdeaMensch promotion for the next day’s interviews.
• I end the day having dinner with friends or family (mostly my mother actually, more on that later) and go to bed around 10:00 pm.

What are three trends that excite you?

The Internet, hungry entrepreneurs and our shitty economy.

It is the perfect storm and a great time for people everywhere to bring their own ideas to life. People like my former virtual assistant Anand Parameswaran , who quit his job to start his own business selling chickens, insurance and cookware products.

I want IdeaMensch to help everyone who is passionate about doing something.

How do you bring ideas to life?

Talk less, do more.  I try to accomplish three feats every day. Three things that help move IdeaMensch forward. Three feats that might make me a bit uncomfortable. Three feats that aren’t boring, every day tasks. Then I keep track of them and start anew the next day.

Josh Zabar inspired this.

What inspires you?

That is the easiest question ever. Everyone interviewed on IdeaMensch, everyone who reads IdeaMensch, and everyone aspiring to be interviewed on IdeaMensch. Anybody who is working to bring an idea to life inspires me.

What is one mistake you made and what did you learn from it?

I make a lot of mistakes but this is the one mistake I make every day: I get too excited about an idea and then start a whole new project before shipping my last idea. It takes a lot of caffeine and some painfully long runs for me to finish something I start.

As Seth Godin likes to say, “ship it.”

What is the shittiest job you ever had and what did that teach you?

I cleaned toilets during my freshman year of college. Actually, I cleaned an entire 11-story dorm worth of toilets starting at 5:00 am every Saturday and Sunday morning.  I actually didn’t mind the cleaning part (BTW, girls bathrooms are way dirtier than guys bathrooms), but it sucked to never have a real weekend.

I learned to appreciate weekends.

The experience taught me to do interesting things on the weekend and come back inspired on Monday. Don’t waste your weekends in front of a computer.

What do you read every day?

Flipboard, German soccer news and all kinds of startup and marketing blogs. Here are some of my favorites:

• http://www.seomoz.org/blog
• http://www.springwise.com/
• http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
• http://www.scottberkun.com/
• http://andrewchenblog.com/
• http://www.copyblogger.com/
• http://www.feld.com/wp/
• http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/

What is one book you recommend?

I read a lot of books.

So I’ll keep changing my recommendation but right now I really liked Derek Sivers, “Anything You Want.” Sivers is an entrepreneur driven by passion and common sense, so I relate well to him.

What’s your favorite gadget?

That’s a close call between the iPad and the Kindle. Both are genius devices that let me carry around all kinds of inspiring information.  The iPad wins because it has Angry Birds on it.

One business idea that you’re willing to give away?

I have always liked the idea of selling high quality sausages in America. Similar to Starbucks and premium coffee, there is a big opportunity for a high-end sausage experience.

Universally, I am bullish about creating and publishing content because of the many different devices, distribution channels and audiences that exist for it.

If you have an idea for a book, a video course or anything that provides value to a niche group of people, now is a great time to execute.

And if it something that might be interesting to people who bring ideas to life, shoot me an email about it.

Three people to follow on Twitter?

I am bad at Twitter, so forgive me for not having a terribly insightful answer here:

@ThisIsSethBlog because he only publishes his blog posts–and they are all genius. I always tell people that I want to be like Seth Godin. Then I started losing my hair. I still think he’s great, though.

@RainnWilson because he is funny.

@ChrisGuillebeau because he’s smart, travels a lot and is just an all-around nice guy.

Who is your dream interview?

Barack Obama. Who can introduce me?

When is the last time you laughed out loud and what caused it?

Laughed / Cried.

Since I came back to Germany, my mother has come over for dinner every evening.  The other day I told her that I was hanging out with one of my friends and she asked if he wanted potatoes or spaetzle with his schnitzel.

Why did you start IdeaMensch?

It all started when I was waiting for my green card and couldn’t start my own business. I was so gung-ho about people bringing their ideas to life that I decided to start IdeaMensch and help them.  Now I can start my own business, but oddly enough, I don’t care too much about the business-end of IdeaMensch.  I am building it for impact, not income.

Any advice for people thinking about doing their first Ironman?

Finally, someone other than me brings up the fact that I did an Ironman.*

I have only done one Ironman so I am mostly an expert on how to finish without proper training or preparation. But here are the three pieces of advice for first-time Ironman triathletes:

1. Start slowly. It’s a long day out there. It took me 12.5 hours to complete the darn thing. Start slow and save your energy until the run–you’ll need it.

2. Eat plenty of food.  Eat as much as you possibly can throughout the race. Actually, practice eating during exercise long before race day. I consumed about 5,000 calories throughout the race.

3. Believe in something bigger than yourself.  For me, it was my mother.

*In a later conversation, interviewee admitted the sole purpose of completing an Ironman was so he could brag about it in his IdeaMensch interview.

Connect:

Feel free to email directly, preferably via our contact form.

• My personal blog: http//themarioblog.com
• Me on Twitter: http//twitter.com/themarioblog
• Me on Google Plus:  https://plus.google.com/106721092698226369624/