Dan Roselli describes the entrepreneur's mentality as "ready, fire, aim." He says that only half-jokingly.

And he puts his money where his mouth is, having invested $8 million - so far - in the renovation of the 84-year-old Packard Place office building uptown into a thriving hub for startups.

The building, which "launched" last March, is a work in progress, as the small army of construction workers throughout the five-story structure one morning last week attests. Roselli, 42, gave a tour of the building, at 222 S. Church St., before sitting down to answer a few questions about Packard Place, its future and the current state of entrepreneurial activity in Charlotte, which he calls robust despite the sluggish economy.

Roselli's own story is a testament to that. In addition to spearheading Packard Place, he also runs three small but fast-growing companies with a marketing emphasis.

What follows is a Q&A that has been edited for space and clarity.

Q: So, how's business?

(Chuckling) I think business is good. It's certainly a very challenging time. I think we've weathered the worst of the storm from an economic standpoint. I think we'll continue to see slow, sustained growth. I also think what's important is that entrepreneurs with good ideas, there's plenty of good business opportunities out there. I think entrepreneurs that have really good ideas that meet consumer needs that are unmet right now, those companies are thriving. There are phenomenal success stories and explosive growth stories that are happening even in the midst of an economy that may not be robust.

Q: Cite some local examples.

You have Yap, which is a local company started by UNCC grads. MailVU here in Packard Place, a Five Ventures competition winner, just won the N.C. IDEA grant. They're on a very fast growth trajectory streak. One of my own companies, Customer Stream, first time on the Inc. 5000 list, is just experiencing explosive growth because we're filling an unmet need with community banks by helping them with their marketing efforts.

Q: Tell me about your three companies and how they're faring in this economy.

Sure, there's Red F, a full-service marketing agency focusing on Fortune 500-size clients, helping big, national clients move their business forward. CustomerStream I've mentioned. We build a marketing engine one time, but then it's utilized by many community banks to drive acquisitions, customer loyalty, customer retention, card and transaction profitability. We build that engine and allow community banks to buy it on a per-usage basis. TargetPoint is a technology development company, so it focuses on developing Internet portals, really any kind of coding development need a company may have. We have particular expertise in the marketing space, but it's much more of a technologically oriented development company.

Q: What's the market for high-tech startups in this area?

Charlotte has a very robust emerging technology community that is under the radar screen to most people. There's a group here called the Charlotte Regional Technology Council. There's a group called Hackers and Founders. There's a wonderful technology startup called OtherScreen. There's Skookum, a technology development company that's doing very well.

At a CRTech meeting, you'll see 40 or 50 executives from 40 or 50 different technology companies that are in various stages of startup or rapid growth based here in Charlotte. I don't think Charlotte will ever be another Silicon Valley, and that's not the point, but Charlotte has a much more robust critical mass of technology-oriented companies than people think are here.

Q: Where do these entrepreneurs come from?

They come from all over. I think it's one of the biggest net draws we have in Charlotte because Charlotte is a net importer of intellectual talent. That is one of the greatest assets Charlotte has in terms of entrepreneurial resources. Look at myself, who came down here to work for Bank of America and then left Bank of America to become an entrepreneur and founded four different successful companies here employing dozens of people. You see that kind of talent transition happening all the time.

Q: So why is it still under the radar, as you say?

It is, but I think that's going to change. We're working very aggressively as an entrepreneurial community to put together a plan for what's the vision for Charlotte as an entrepreneurial community in 2020. That includes people from the city, the Chamber, Ben Craig Center, Packard Place, from SBTDC (Small Business Technology Development Center), from CPCC, you name the organization. I can really see the community coming together in a way that's unique, that hasn't happened before for whatever reason.

I see more energy, optimism and coordination in the entrepreneurial community than I've seen in the 10 years I've been here, and that's really encouraging.

Q: What's behind that energy?

To the credit of organizations like the Chamber or the city or the county, I think within the last couple of years there's been a great transition in people's minds. One example is that the Chamber recently took a trip to Seattle, and I think people saw firsthand how vibrant Seattle's entrepreneurial community is and how much that added to the economic engine of the region, how everyone talked about it there.

I think that helps people understand that while it's fantastic to have Bank of America here, to have Duke Energy here, to have Goodrich here, to have Chiquita here, those are wonderful things, but the reality is, the vast, vast majority of jobs in the Charlotte region come from companies of less than 500 people in size. I've heard statistics that say as much as 85 percent of the jobs come from companies of 500 people or less in size.

It's the companies like mailVU, Skookum, Pinstripe, Red F, OtherScreen that are going to create the jobs two at a time, four at a time, 10 at a time that are going to add up to tens of thousands of jobs created in the region.

Q: Talk about entrepreneurs' role in Charlotte's becoming an energy center. You showed me space being built out for startup energy companies in Packard Place.

So the name of the energy incubator is CLTJoules. The idea is that the energy capital committee has done a fantastic job of putting Charlotte on the map as the new energy capital of the U.S., if not the world, but there's been a gap on the entrepreneurial component of that, so we're trying to fill that gap.

We want Charlotte to be the single best place for energy startups, so we've created a nonprofit entity that just became incorporated; the board of directors is now in place. The co-share space you saw on the mezzanine level of Packard Place will be ready by April 1. We'll have 6,000 square feet of space for the energy incubator. We already have three companies that have agreed to be the inaugural companies - not to be disclosed yet - but all that will be happening in the first quarter with the big launch in April.

If you think about where Charlotte has validity to draw entrepreneurs nationally, it's in energy, it's in financial services and it's in health care. We have critical mass here. We have more big energy companies located in Charlotte than any other city, as I understand it. I think it's 22 to 25 major energy companies here. That's a tremendous asset for potential partners, to mentoring resources, to people to pilot, to people to sell stuff to, so if I'm anywhere in the U.S. and I'm thinking of doing an energy startup, Charlotte has to be one of the top two or three places I'm looking at. We're trying to make that a physical place, a visible place so we can draw people nationally.

Q: You said earlier you wanted Packard Place to be the kind of place Charlotte didn't know it was missing. Elaborate on that.

It's interesting. When you lose the corporate headquarters of a Wachovia, everyone knows that, a lot of people feel it. I don't think a lot of people realized how much entrepreneurial talent and companies we bled over the last 20 years because it doesn't happen like a big corporate center leaving, but it has had a large impact on our economy. What Packard Place is trying to do is not only make entrepreneurs feel wanted and know they have a home in Charlotte, but to be a beacon for entrepreneurs outside of Charlotte to go, 'Wow, that's a really exciting community that knows about entrepreneurship and knows where things are headed.'

You don't miss what you never had. I've said that two years after our launch, hopefully Packard Place will be one of the partners making the entrepreneurial community in Charlotte so vibrant and engaged and refreshed that I can't imagine the entrepreneurial community in Charlotte without Packard Place being part of it.

Q: Describe the entrepreneur's mindset.

I think this building would be a good example. We knew we were paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent to somebody else, and we said that's kind of silly. We bought this building right before it went into foreclosure; it was the bottom of the commercial real estate market. It needed a lot of fixing up, but we saw things in it that no one else saw. Where others saw a tear-down, we saw a hub of entrepreneurship, a place that would be here for 20 or 30 years as a beacon for startups. Two radically different views of the same building.

Entrepreneurs take calculated risks when other people wait on the sidelines to see what someone else does.