Craig Newmark is the one-man founder of the successful San Francisco company, Craiglist. Founded in 1995 and home to local classifieds and forums in 450 cities worldwide, they are the premier site to find gigs in the San Francisco Bay Area.

What was the most important lesson you learned with your experience with Craigslist?

From years of doing customer service, I've seen that people are overwhelmingly trustworthy and that we all pretty much share the same core values. The principal value is that we all feel that we should treat others the way we want to be treated.

What was the biggest challenge you faced with Craigslist?

Well, I needed to listen better to advisors, and then I realized I'm not a good enough manager. Hence, my CEO is Jim Buckmaster, who's very effective.

In today's Web 2.0 market, do you think there is a way to encourage brand loyalty? If so, how would you recommend to do this?

Take the "treat others like you want to be treated" thing seriously and follow through on that, listen to people, and act on their suggestions, as appropriate.

What methods have you found effective to reduce stress in your work environment?

Aside from taking a deep breath, haven't found any.

I, for one, am a satisfied customer to Craigslist and use it daily. Per your commitment to customer service and the constantly changing economy of Silicon Valley, what are Craigslist's plans to ensure continuing customer service excellence?

We've worked hard to build the idea of continuous, incremental improvement into our way of thinking; customer service, and tech talk together all the time. Line workers tell everyone else what needs to be done and that works well, not perfectly, but it gets the job done.

I understand Craigslist was started by you back in 1995, what was your secret to success given a one-man startup?

No secret, just the values as mentioned above, then following through and plugging ahead every day.