Congressman

Congressman Adam Smith visited our class and all I can say is that it was very cool and a privilege to have a congressman come to our class and take the time to talk to us. Having said that, I don't like politicians at all, even though he sounded very nice and knowledgable, I only believe 2% of what they say. He talked about the "Rise of the rest" and how countries like China are growing exponentially and have taken a lot of jobs in manufacturing that the US used to have. Also he mentioned that our tax code does is not correctly balanced to compete against countries as China. In general, he seemed to motivate us to change our attitude of "dominating" to "competing" with other countries. In general he seemed to follow his agenda like any other politician.

Angel Investor

Jon Dimmer visited our class and all I can say is that is probably the best speaker we had so far. Not that any other guest speaker where bad, it just that Mr. Dimmer pretty much answered many of the questions that I have currently. Since right now I'm in the process of getting money for my business and Jon Dimmer is an angel investor it was just perfect timing. He gave me even greater perspective as what an angel investor looks when investing money into a new company. With the insight he gave us, I for sure will be using a lot of what I learned when I go out to talk to investors. I already had some talks to investors, but know I can see what I have done wrong and what I can improve next time I present my business to an investor. That is exactly what I wanted to get out of this class, and I really appreciate the effort Andrew Fry has done to get us guest speaker in class.

Business Plan- Another perspective

After reading all the material that has given to us in class, which includes the speakers. I must say that my perspective of how to create a business plan has change a little bit. The essential stuff that I knew was good enough to get the idea out to people interested in my business. But after all the guest speakers and the reading I have learned what an investor really looks when looking at a business plan. Because, as we know the business plan can server many purposes depending where in the cycle of you business you are ate. But since this class is about entrepreneurship and starting your business, then the business plan really is created with one person in mind and that is the investors. You want to be able to show them that you know what your business is about, that you have studied the competition, that you have done your research in the market. But most importantly they want to look at the financials. They want to know how much money they can potentially make by giving you money. And that is logic, why would someone invest in your company startup if the profits are not good enough. After, that they want to know who will be running the business. Again, that is logic why would you invest your money in someone who you cannot trust that will manage the money and the company correctly.

Funding

Funding a company is probably one of the hardest, if not the hardest part when you want to start you company. Unfortunately, not everyone (I would say 99.9%) of the people are not born with a few millions dollars in their bank account. Therefore, in order to start a company most likely you will have to ask around for money. In class we have learned the different processes of funding your company. Starting from friends and family, to angel investors, to venture capitalist and if your company is successful going public with an IPO. As how I'm going to fund my company, luckily for me I have a few friends how have money. So I have invited a friend to be a business partner and I presented him my business plan. He was very interested and decided to join to create the company. With his money, we will have enough funding to have everything that we need to get the business started. We know that with the money we have, it is not going to be enough if we want to be as successful and big as we want to. That is why as of now, we are looking to attract an angel investor. With that money we are planning to use a considerable amount for a big marketing campaign. The more people know about our website and the more users subscribe to the website, it is only going to help us be successful.

Employee Care

Brian Forth was another great speaker that we had in class that talked about how he runs his business. Brian Forth is the founder of SiteCrafting which is based in Tacoma and has expanded with offices in Seattle and Spokane. SiteCrafting started in 1998,  consequently the company was able to survive the dot com bubble. Something that grabbed my attentions is how much Brian cares about his employees. He has an open book policy where any employee can see all the financial stats of the company. I found that to be a very interesting thing to do. He encourages his employees to take decisions without his approval when dealing with customers. For example he said that he would prefer that his employees give a month free of hosting to his customers, if it meant that it would make the customer happy and save the customer time of having to explain himself again if it was transferred to someone else within SiteCrafting.  I guess that for a company of 30 or so employees that is something that works fine for him. I definitely don't see that approach working for a company of  100 or more employees. Another thing that stuck with me is that as much as Brian cares about his employees, he also has a close relationship with his customers.  SiteCrafting does not advertise itself and almost all of his customers are recommendations from other customers. Which says a lot of the customer service he provides for his clients.

Business Plan 101

Ron Kornfeld was our guest speaker this last class lecture and talked about his experience as an entrepreneur. One of the things that I got from the beginning was that before you start you Business Plan you must research and understand the business you want to start. I asked him what are some of the common errors entrepreneurs make in trying to sell their business to investors. He responded that in his experience is that entrepreneurs are not prepared. They haven't done enough research on their business and are not able to answer question that investors ask them. Something that Ron usually ask entrepreneurs is what is the hard part of their business? And thinking more about that question, it is a very good question because it is tough to answer. That is why is the tough part of the business. But if you really want to be successful at the business you want to start, you must understand what is the hard part of it. If you don't understand, you will have a very hard time making you business successful, because you don't completely understand your business. If an investor is going to invest in your business, then you must clearly show him that you understand the business you want to start, if not, you will not get the money you need to start doing business.

Business Ideas

My 5 business Ideas:

1. Upscale Escort Service
2. Selling Sports Picks
3. Employee Schedule Management Software
4. Restaurant
5. Sports Agent Agency

Learning from experience

Erik Hanberg gave a lecture about his personal experience in starting his own company at UWT. I was not able to attend his lecture because I was too busy being awesome skiing at Crystal Mountain. It was my birthday that day, which by the way it was only ones (1/11/11) how cool is that? But going back to Erik Hanberg, from what I got from my other classmates that where at his lecture and from what I've read from other blogs. Erik emphasized that in order to be an entrepreneur you must put yourself in the correct situation in order to be able to connect all the pieces together. He recommended going to bars or parties in order to socialize with other people, because by doing that you can great ideas of business to start or if you already have an idea you can get feedback from other people. In order to start a business you don't need to be the smartest or most skilled person in the world. It's all about  making connections with other people and be able to get them to work together. You can just come with a great business model or copy other business model and convince people that business model works and then connect all the people you know to make it happen. Some people will have the skills needed, other will have great ideas, other will have the money or know how to convince other people to give their money, some will have connections with other people. If you put all that together you can get your self a business.

Entrepreneurship in technology

Some of the things that I've got from reading in the first pages of the Entrepreneurs Guidebook is that it take a big commitment  and you need to have the attitude to be able to succeed. You need to be prepared to face different scenarios when money is running low, the business is going very slow and be still be able to stay motivated to continue. Entrepreneurs need to have a lot of discipline and have a clear idea of where they are going and where they want to go. Entrepreneurship in technology it can be very hard, because technology changes so rapidly that just as the company can grow very fast, it can be gone in no time when a new and better technology comes around. That is why one needs to be prepared to understand that things don't last forever.

Class Expectations

What do I expect to learn from TINST 475- Entrepreneurship? The reason I'm taking this course is because at the moment I'm in the process of starting a new business and what a better way to learn how to do it by taking this class. From this class I expect to learn from all the guest speakers that will attend class, all their experiences good and bad from starting their own business. I believe that there is no better way to get a feeling and an understanding of how it works than from real people who have done it before. I expect to ask them questions that will help me understand better what it take to start a business. Something that I like about this class, is the class itself it taught by an entrepreneur that has started his own business many times in the past. Also, I expect to learn the process of creating a business plan. I've already created a rough draft for my business, but with what I learn from this class I'm sure my business plan will be 100 better than it is right now.