For those of you who want to be entrepreneurs, here is my blow-by-blow account of the past 24 hours. I wish I could say the day was unusual, but really, it was typical of every day I spend as president of zipRealty.com.

6 p.m.-8:30 p.m.: Celebration of the first paycheck. After the company's first payroll is met, the team and family get together for dinner and drinks at Pyramid Microbrewery (two blocks from our office). It is a fun evening and the best $300 I have spent all month. Note: Have these once a month.

8:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m.: Family time. Put my daughter to bed and talk with my wife. This time goes by too fast.

9:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m.: Work at home. With the nationally syndicated talk show Love Line as my radio companion, I catch up on over 100 E-mails and prepare for the next day. I have four interviews and numerous meetings tomorrow, so every minute counts. Being unprepared is unacceptable.

12:30 a.m.-5 a.m.: Sleep. I prefer six hours but can get by with less for a few nights. I'll need to catch up on Saturday.

5 a.m.-6:15 a.m.: Getting ready. Now is when I realize I had too many brown beers the night before. I think I dozed off a little in the shower, but once out, The Wall Street Journal and sports page get me thinking.

6:15 a.m.-6:30 a.m.: My partner calls. Juan and I discuss my first interview of the morning. This is a critical hire that could fill both the human resources and finance director positions. We are making an offer, and Juan and I discuss one last time the salary and option package I will present. Everything seems in line with prior discussions and plans. This is not an area where you want to make a mistake. Too low a salary and options package means you won't get the good people you need, while high offers can lead to a quicker run at bankruptcy and can set the bar for future employees in similar positions.

6:30 a.m.-6:40 a.m.: The commute. Living 2.5 miles from your office is the best, unless you are my partner Juan, who lives five blocks away. I drive today because I want to look presentable. Biking does a number on khakis and an ironed shirt. (By the way, I never wear a tie and have interviewed in khaki shorts with sandals and a polo shirt. Khaki pants and a button-down shirt is my top level of dress.)

6:55 a.m.-7 a.m.: The offer. I am cussing myself out for not printing up the paperwork the night before, especially since Mr. X, our prospective HR/finance director, has arrived five minutes early and is just waiting around the conference room. He is here early because he has to leave by 8 a.m. to get to his current job. Very smooth beginning on my part.

7 a.m.-8:10 a.m.: Interview No. 1. Mr. X and I talk for the third time. He is overqualified and will be taking a 50% cut in salary here. However, he is looking for a high-growth, exciting work environment, and stock options. Those I do have. All goes as well as expected. I will hear back by Tuesday. I give us a 70% chance. But you never know until the contract is signed and the person shows up to work. We could really use him.

8:10 a.m.-10 a.m.: Meeting with Juan. We meet every day to stay up to date on the different projects we are working on. This meeting is interrupted by phone calls from investors looking for legal paperwork they need from us and outside product developers wanting to be paid (with money the investors haven't yet given us because the paperwork takes so long). A prospect for a quality assurance (QA) position comes in for his 9:30 a.m. interview with me (No. 2 of the day) and then with John, the technology director. I greet him and tell John that his interview is here. The meeting with Juan never resumes.

10 a.m.-10:30 a.m.: Interview No. 3 delayed. A candidate for marketing director, Mr. Y, calls to ask for an hour delay. I shuffle the schedule because I want to talk to him. I realize that John has been caught up on the phone with Oracle working out a financing deal for servers and software. I apologize to the inteviewee, who is keeping himself occupied by reading. John finally gets to start the interview.

10:30 a.m.-11 a.m.: Impromptu site-review meeting. Juan and the product development team want to review the front page of the site and make corrections based on feedback from hits and interviews. Since my entrepreneur's diary will be featured in Business Week frontier online and we have a couple of marketing experiments ready for testing, there will be a large increase in hits to our site. We have to leave a great impression with viewers as well as gather information. The meeting is going well when the marketing candidate comes in. I want to finish the meeting but need time with Mr. Y.

11 a.m.-12:10 p.m.: Interview No. 3. Another overqualified candidate looking for a high-growth, exciting, hot business. Procter & Gamble, J&J, and startup experience, wow! Are we getting lucky, or just fooling ourselves? The initial dance ends early because of the hour delay in the meeting time. However, both sides like what they see, and a follow-up is scheduled for early next week.

12:10 p.m.-12:45 p.m.: Lunch with my wife. A rare treat. My wife is off work today, and our daughter is in preschool. Of course I am running late. Thank God she loves me. The lunch is great, and we get to catch up a little. I need to do this a lot more.

12:45 p.m.-2 p.m.: Putting out fires. When I get back, I handle three or four mini-crises. There is the ongoing faulty E-mail saga, the inability to get a photo scanned, personnel issues, and discussions about whether or not to hire the QA prospect. I was hoping to get the package together for business insurance, but that will have to wait until late tonight.

2 p.m.-3 p.m.: Interview No. 4. This time it's for someone in operations -- a real estate agent's position. The candidate sounds good, and Ed, our director of operations, wants to talk to him. I say hello, and chat with him for a few minutes. Then I need to meet with Juan again to go over intellectual-property issues and investment documents, and to pick up our postponed 8 a.m. meeting.

3 p.m.-4:30 p.m.: A business development meeting. The first partnership contract has arrived, and we need to get our strategy together for Real Estate Connect '99, the largest online real estate convention, which is only two weeks away. Since Juan and I are the only two people who attended last year, I am advising James, who will be there this year, on what happens and what we need to accomplish. This is James's baby, though, because it is all about forming partnerships. I leave James with a month of work that needs to get done before the conference. It's crunch time, baby.

4:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m.: Wrap-up with Juan. We finally get a chance to complete our meeting. Not a moment too soon, because Juan has to catch a flight out of town.

5:30 p.m.-6:15 p.m.: Making the rounds. I swing by each department to see if anything needs immediate attention. I then race home to look after my daughter, since my wife has a 6:30 p.m. engagement.

Right now it is 10:14 p.m. I am listening to Love Line again and cranking out this article plus other work that didn't get done during the day. With the Internet, there is no time to rest. But I have to smile, because I love it. See you in two weeks.

Scott Kucirek is president and co-founder of zipRealty.com, an online real estate brokerage. The company's Internet site and online real estate agents let people complete the entire purchase or sale of a house via the Web. The company's Web site is www.zipRealty.com, and you can E-mail Scott at Scott@zipRealty.com.