Visit from Lynette Claire

Lynette came in a few weeks ago to tell us about entrepreneur networks, mainly the one here in Tacoma called TEN, Tacoma Entrepreneur Network. I think this is really neat since it helps young entr develop the right mindset for running a business, how to determine whether their idea is viable and more. It also lets them develop these skills without any real risk. So instead of pushing out a business and learning from its mistakes, members of TEN can learn without sacrificing any capital or time. Then of course there's the whole networking part which is huge in business, but there might be some other person with a similar idea. So it could lead to a business partner/s. The club/group/network itself might get investors attention too, so there are so many possibilities just from participating in group events.

Startup.com

I really liked this documentary. It really had no bias and just showed how GovWorks boomed and was doomed. I really liked how they progressively showed how many workers they had in the company. It really gave depth with regards to how fast their company grew in such a short timeframe. It was interesting seeing how they frustrated they were constantly. I doubt Kaleil and Tom would ever show that kind of frustration in front of their workers since it might demoralize them. The thing that stuck with me the most was how Kaleil had to let Tom go. That must have been difficult, especially being childhood friends and being their since day 1, to do that. Even more that   I might not have been paying attention but I think it was due to how he was handling the technology and how behind it was compared to their competitors. There was also that part where he brought in the competitor. I wanted to know what he thought of after the invite to their company. He seemed pretty confident that what his company was doing was ahead of theirs, but I am just assuming so. I know that sharing information between competitors is common, but is inviting them over to see how their business is doing in order to intimidate just as common? That kind of felt dirty in a way, like GovWorks was bullying the other company.

Technology Differentiation

So our technological differentiator would be mobile devices, mainly cellphones and tablets. A large percentage of citizens carry a smart phone capable of running apps so there's a large group of potential buyers. There is the drawback of three possible operating systems a phone could have though. Windows mobile, Apple's iOS and Android would require at least three different versions of the the app. From what I have seen though, most people have a phone that runs iOS or android so I am going to ignore Windows Mobile. It is much easier to develop for Android since it has cheaper costs to start publishing on their Google Play Marketplace, and the programming language Android uses is Java which is used to teach students here at UWT. The downside to that is a lot of Android apps aren't purchased; a good number of them are free. And it's impossible to adjust prices as I have been informed in class. This would mean that it'd be impossible to try and promote the game to get it out there, unless there was a separate demo version.
For iOS I would have to learn how to do objective C, and I would somehow have to get the Mac operating system on my desktop in order to program in that language. I have tried to look for Windows compatible programming environments for Objective C but they cost a lot of money. I would definitely need to put in a lot more time if I wanted to sell the app in iTunes, but more people are likely to buy their vs. Android, or so I've read.
Another nice little technological difference is the use of the mobile networking I want my apps to utilize. Speeds and coverage of mobile networks continue to grow rapidly so I want to be able to have my apps use that in order play with friends almost anywhere. There is the data usage issue where the apps will require some amount of data to be sent to other players, but I'm pretty sure a fair warning about it could alleviate any liabilities from me to the user. So long as they know it will use up some data, it should be their responsibility to manage their data usage.

Visit from John Dimmer

This guy is amazing. Once he started to drop numbers I was speechless. He spoke about several ways to fund your business, stating which ways were better and which ways were worse. He also spoke about how to carry yourself around such people such as angel investors. He stated NEVER to mention their age since that will definitely shut down any chances you have to get funding from them. It's really interesting how much personal skills and how you present something can really affect your business. I figured if it's an amazing idea, people will fund/help with it regardless of the person. It makes sense that you have to be likable though, since you could be working with these people.
One thing that surprised me about John Dimmer was that he played an MMORPG called Silkroad Online. He mentioned this outside of the presentation during the break. I would have never imagined someone with that high amount of wealth that can be moved around would play free online games. That game is pretty old too,  so its I found that really weird but cool about him.

Visit from Bruce Kendall

I wrote in my last blog post about Brian North, and how our next guest speaker was going to be more successful than him. I was right. He had mentioned that his company had to cast a huge net in order for him to get some clients to work with. I can't remember exactly, but he said the hit rate was something around 1/50. I thought that was crazy low. To be able to be denied that many times, even to make the effort to contact so many companies for a really low chance of actually working with them is just crazy to me. But I guess when they actually manage to connect with a company, all their efforts are rewarded. I don't think I could work in a business like that. That level of coordination and determination just seems to wild to me. But I guess entrepreneurs do crazy things that normal people would deem crazy. Guess I'm a normal person haha.

Visit from Brian North

Brian North was what my old definition definition of an entrepreneur was before this class. He built a business, which was selling custom made web sites for clients. His company has also began expanding into mobile sites, and a few mobile apps. Compared to Erik Hanberg, where his business of selling books and developing web sites was just getting started, Brian's business seems to be at the place where most businesses would want to be. I had not heard about his company, SiteCrafting, before his visit, so it was really interesting hearing from a small company. I came to the conclusion that building websites is still quite sought after. I figured by now, most websites would be something generated kind of like how this blog was. Anyway, what seemed to stick to me when he was presenting was their culture. He really portrayed that him and his coworkers were really close, with small events such as that brain storming one, and the retreat. I thought that was really cool. He didn't speak much about his whole start-up with the business, but he spoke a lot about how his company is today.

Overall I really liked how different Erik's and Brian's focuses were. Erik seemed to want only him and his wife in the company, which allowed them to be more free whereas Brian's company is still quite small, but considerably bigger than Erik's with a couple of offices in Washington. I'd wager our next guest speaker would be someone who has an even more successful business than Brian North.

What is an entrepreneur?

Before reading the guidebook I always thought an entrepreneur was just some person with a product that they wanted to unleash into the market, in hopes of making it big. I never thought of how a technology entrepreneur sought to solve a problem. When I think about my ideas, I really don't think they solve a compelling problem. My mobile board game app idea really just solves being able to play a fun mini-game based board game without actually having to be near a person. That idea was basically just mimicking a hot technology as the guidebook stated. It makes me less likely to follow through with that idea.

Applying that same concept of how technology entrepreneurs solve a problem to my second idea, making electronic music doesn't have a problem to solve at all. Maybe I am looking at this in the wrong way. If I were to ask how does Erik Hanberg's books try to solve a problem, I don't think that the problem would be there aren't enough entertaining plot thickening twist themed books out there. Then again, its aimed towards technology, which he is using to distribute his books.