Andrea Bricca said that when TouchPoll came about, "I thought 'This is what I want to do.' " She bought the company in October. Photo by Gary Thompson.

Andrea Bricca likes variety.

Bricca began her career in public relations, handling press affairs for NASA contractor Allied Signal. While working at Allied Signal, Bricca earned her law degree and in 1996, she transferred from Washington, D.C., to the ethics and business conduct department in Allied Signal's Los Angeles office. In 1998, the company reorganized and reassigned Bricca's post to New Jersey; rather than transfer, Bricca joined a consulting company that recruited lawyers and legal executives.

In 2004, looking for a change of scenery, Bricca moved to Las Vegas. She quickly picked up on the entrepreneurial spirit of Las Vegas and began a business of her own: She took over the Nevada franchise of Business Advisors, a national consulting company that counsels companies on a variety of issues.

In October, Bricca acquired TouchPoll Las Vegas, a company that conducts electronic surveys to gauge customer and employee satisfaction. TouchPoll recently completed a poll of workers at The Mirage; the company has surveyed consumers riding the Las Vegas Monorail and is developing a consumer survey for the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay.

"When TouchPoll came about, I thought, 'This is what I want to do,' " said Bricca, who added that she will soon sell the Business Advisors franchise. "I'm a data junkie at heart."

Question: What brought you from Los Angeles to Las Vegas?

Answer: The opportunities, the lifestyle and the change of pace. The cost of living here is lower than the cost of living in Los Angeles. Also, my boyfriend, Michael Haugen Jr., is a professional bowler and he can live anywhere in the country. Las Vegas was a place he'd always wanted to live.

I was actually a little hesitant about moving at first, but I was in a profession where my pay was 100 percent commission (with no salary). You could make a lot of money one month and go the next month without making any money. I wanted to live in a place with a lower cost of housing, where in theory I could not have a mortgage and almost semiretire. I was going to continue working, but it wasn't going to be a rat-race kind of thing. And then I got here and got sucked into the whole entrepreneurial spirit of the town.

Question: You're planning to sell your Business Advisors franchise to concentrate on TouchPoll. Why does TouchPoll appeal to you?

Answer: It's a tremendous opportunity to build a really solid business because of what we provide and who our customers are. TouchPoll has huge customers in the hospitality industry. Another great application is in the trade-show and event market, because we can do surveys on-site during the show, collect data instantaneously and put a report together quickly. There are also applications in home building, which is another great industry in Las Vegas. So the potential of the market, plus the opportunity to use everything I've learned, is what appeals to me. Business is driven by information, and you'll be successful if you can help businesses gather information quickly and target that information to what they do.

Question: You mentioned you caught the entrepreneurial bug after you moved to Las Vegas. What about the city made you want to be an entrepreneur?

Answer: I caught the bug, but my immune system was down. I was very entrepreneurial anyway. Even when I worked in Corporate America, if my co-workers talked about starting a business, they would always tell me, "We want you to run it if we open it."

I think there's a spirit here of independence, a mentality of making it on your own. I found that in recruiting lawyers. In Los Angeles, when I called lawyers to ask them to move to another firm, they didn't say, "If I'm going to make a move, I'll go out and start my own firm." When I was recruiting here, I heard that all the time. I think there's something to the amount of opportunities here. People have more of that drive to be independent and forge their own path.

Question: What traits should someone make sure they have before they strike out on the entrepreneurial trail and open a business?

Answer: You have to be self-motivated. You can't be somebody who has to be told what to do every day or who needs to be given a check list, because you're not going to get that when you own a company. You need self-confidence. You have to believe in what you know, but you also have to know what you don't know. You have to recognize your limitations.

Question: What's the hardest thing about owning a business?

Answer: When you're part of a bigger company, you have that camaraderie with your peers. When you're on your own, you don't have that anymore. There is a little bit of culture shock if you're used to that companionship. That's where joining trade organizations is important, because you can find peers that way. I belong to the National Association of Women Business Owners, and that's been a great way to meet other people and gain knowledge about how they've dealt with things.

Also, it's hard because you're wearing every hat. You're doing everything. I've been lucky that my background has allowed me to wear some of those hats, so I understand a variety of different areas that go into running a company. But I think that is a real challenge for entrepreneurs who have one skill set or one real strength they're building their business on.

Question: How do people get past that hurdle of having a single set of skills?

Answer: They need to bring in experts, though not necessarily through hiring them as full-time employees. Enlist them as consultants. Talk to your accountants or lawyers. Bring in someone who has human-resources expertise if you've never done hiring. Recognizing what you don't know and seeking that information is important. I personally struggle with it.

Question: What issues do you see that could hurt the business environment in Las Vegas?

Answer: I wasn't here right after 9-11, but I have talked to business owners who had only hospitality-industry clients. They were significantly impacted (by a tourism slow-down following the terrorist attacks) and a number of businesses failed after 9-11 because of their focus on casinos. So anything that impacts gaming and hospitality could hurt the small businesses that rely on them. That lack of diversity in industry is a concern. Home building is another huge business here, and that is definitely a concern. Home building is going gangbusters now, but how many times do you have to see a headline about the bubble bursting before you worry? Bringing different industries into town is really important.

Question: You mentioned earlier that a lot of your clients are in the hospitality and building sectors. How are you trying to diversify your customer base?

Answer: We can do surveys in retail, and our employment surveys can serve any industry. This business has applications in a variety of areas. We don't want to forgo our current clients -- they're strong clients and we want to keep them. They're part of growing this business, too.