Questions and answers with professionals who have unique and exciting jobs : Simla, party planner and Web entrepreneur.

iaam: What do you do for living?  What is your job title?
Simla: I'm the founder and creative director of It's a Piece of Cake and co-founder of cocukvizyon.com.  
It's a Piece of Cake, based in San Francisco and specializes in custom-designed children’s parties and hosts educational workshops for kids and parents.  www.cocukvizyon.com is an online city guide for parents based in Istanbul.  A guide to fun activities for the family, kids events, shortcuts to the city at its best: its parks, stores, professional services, restaurants, babysitters, places to stay, and entertainment, among other things in Istanbul.

iaam: What motivated you to start your own business?
Simla: One of my mentors, Sharon Miller says “being an entrepreneur is in people's DNA - its life an E-chromosome that directs them to make it their own way.”
I always had the entrepreneurial spirit in me.  I wasn't into the cookie-cutter careers out there.  I loved performance and visual arts.  I also loved working with children. Children always have inspired me.  It took me so long to figure out what I wanted to do.  At the age of 29, I finally figured out that I can have it all! I can have my cake and eat it too.  But I had to do it my way...

iaam: What does a typical day at work look like for you?
Simla: During the week my mornings are pretty typical.  I check my e-mails, do my facebookin’ and tweetin’ , researching, data entering  and doing the paper work.  I am very hands-on for both of my companies.  I attend to each client inquiry personally.  In the afternoons depending on a party theme in hand you can find me in my workshop making theme related props / costumes/ games or goodie bags.  I usually schedule my event preliminary meetings in the late afternoon.
Weekends are my real workdays, where I work 12-14 hours non stop.  It goes like this: loading the truck, setting up the party, decorating, breaking down the party, unloading the truck and re -organizing everything.  Yes I do have assistants who help me with all of these things but like I said, I’m very hands-on.

iaam: What are the best and exciting parts of your work?
Simla: Working with children. I love the way they think.  Their imagination has no limits.  Making children's dreams come true is the best part of my work.
I live for information and learning, dreaming and creating…I love the fact that my work allows me to research, learn and be versatile each and every day.
I also get to work with very creative people, and incredible performers.
Life at It’s a Piece of Cake is never boring!!

iaam: Would you mind sharing some memorable and fun things that have happened in your business?
Simla: The most memorable thing was seeing my company profile on a leading industry magazine for the first time.  It touched me quite a bit. Starting It's a Piece of Cake had been so difficult