25 musts for success (Extra Credit post)

What it makes to succeed in a business? You can be brave enough and take the risk. Well, that’s good, but being brave to take the risk is not enough to succeed. A good idea is enough? Good starting capital? What is enough to improve your chances to success?

I found an article that describes 25 musts of a successful entrepreneur. And 25 is not the ultimate number. The article says, that there are many more characteristics. Here are those 25 musts:

1. Do what you enjoy.

2. Take what you do seriously.
3. Plan everything.

4. Manage money wisely.

1. The money you receive from clients in exchange for your goods and services you provide (income)

2. The money you spend on inventory, supplies, wages and other items required to keep your business operating. (expenses)

5. Ask for the sale.

6. Remember it's all about the customer.

7. Become a shameless self-promoter (without becoming obnoxious).

8. Project a positive business image.

9. Get to know your customers.

10. Level the playing field with technology.

11. Build a top-notch business team.
12. Become known as an expert.
13. Create a competitive advantage.

14. Invest in yourself.

15. Be accessible.

16. Build a rock-solid reputation.
17. Sell benefits.

18. Get involved.

19. Grab attention.
20. Master the art of negotiations.

21. Design Your workspace for success.

22. Get and stay organized.

23. Take time off.

24. Limit the number of hats you wear.

25. Follow-up constantly.

In the light of the ten strengths and weaknesses that we wrote in class before, this list gives more or less complete preview into “Do I really want to start up a company?”  One thing is for sure differentiates a true successful entrepreneur – care for customers (#9 in this list).  Isn’t this the reason #1 why apple is so successful? I believe so.

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/200730

Jeff Goodwin - guest speaker

Jeff Goodwin was our guest speaker at UW Tacoma on Wednesday, May23rd. He is a serial entrepreneur. First his company he started up, he sold to CISCO. Originally, he was writing low-level drivers in assembler. Also, he programmed in Cobol. He said, he really enjoyed low-level programming, so he got a job offer during his honeymoon. He had a choice between taking another, higher-paid job, but that job was not about programming in assembler, so he took the one with assembler programming despite the fact that it was less-paid. He just loved the kind of job, so he agreed. Some time he worked there, writing drivers for various devices. Later, when he realized that he can work for himself, he started his own company, which then was acquired by CISCO.   Most of all, I liked the idea that he did not need big funds to start the company. He needed only $5000. He knew the customers, so he did not have to wait to get revenue. He already had clients. So, the starting of the company was somewhat natural process (at least it so appeared to me). He loved so much his company, so that selling it was not an easy decision. He said, you better don’t get too attached emotionally to you company, because that may stop you from selling it on time to the right buyer, and most probably loosing value.

Also, he mentioned that it is very important who do you sell the company to, because if there are employees, the new owner might or might not favor them, in the first case they can simply lose their job because of the “new boss”. Corporations buy companies for various reasons: because they want to implement the technology in their product, or because the company has some patents that the corporation needs, or simply because they want the company’s market and they might buy and close the company.

Now he is starting Lexbe.com business.

Lynette Claire - guest speaker

Lynette Claire was our guest speaker at UW Tacoma. She is a professor at UPS. She talked about creation of an Entrepreneurial Network, social network for beginning and experienced entrepreneurs. She is very determined to create the network and believes that it will be useful and succeed. She described two types of networks: cohesive and structural holes. In cohesive network, everybody knows everybody else. The information in such a network is more accurate because it can be quickly verified, as everybody knows everybody else. Also, it takes time to enter such a network because you need to know everyone. Such networks cannot grow too large due to its nature of knowing everyone. Another network type is structural holes, where new information is the prime benefit. You know one person, who knows someone else, who knows some information. So, it becomes available to you through that someone who knows someone else, who… etc. Both network types are present in my life with different groups, and like Lynette Claire said, there is benefit in both.

She also talked about the event that she was jury in, some kind of entrepreneur competition, where groups of students from different universities generated business ideas and wrote a short business plan in very short period of time. I think, the problem they had to solve was about waste. Good exercise, in my opinion, but I believe that the best comes from hard work, not from thirty minutes of brainstorming. So, the whole value of the event was to practice the process – from idea to business plan. Honestly speaking, I didn’t get much from this lecture. Sorry, Claire.

Startup.com review

Startup.com is a 2001 movie that captures birth and failure of a new media company govWorks.com. It is a documentary movie, so all the scenes are taken from real life. There are success and happy moments as well as betrayal and failure. Lots of emotions because when you watch it, you realize that they are not actors, and everything happened in real life. This is the source of the great value of this movie. It provides a glance into a company from behind the scenes. I wonder how they could capture such crucial moment that are shown on the screen. This is a great work - capturing real life as it is without being able to edit the scenario.

Not only it is fascinating, it provides a source of true information about successes and failures of a startup company, a true story, real emotions, and real everything. One can analyze the reasons of the failure and take a lesson for his/her starting company.

The idea from the very beginning was really good. Why did it fail? In my opinion, the team did not work out together. They began to split and therefore the whole business failed. Another great factor in their failure was the corporate espionage. Someone stole their information and used it against them. Kaleil should have been more cautious and think ahead of such things and take measures to prevent it. Instead, the company began to fall apart from inside. Kaleil did not find the right people to work with. The whole success depends on who you choose to work with. Instead of focusing on the company and security, they had to deal with their interpersonal problems. Also, Kaleil looks to be lacking experience in managing human resources. He is too naive and self-confident.

If I had 20 million dollars...

If you had 20 million dollars inherited from a rich uncle that you did not know about before, would you start you own company or rather invest into someone else's company? Or buy some shares from Google?

Reply with your own ideas.
Thankz.

John Dimmer - guest speaker

John Dimmer was our guest speaker on May 3rd, 2012. He is a serial entrepreneur and knows much about finances. During our lecture, he gave us plenty of financial advices. I like the overall lecture because it was very relevant and important. Even though money is not the primary goal for an entrepreneur, it is probably second after the actual idea and the joy of actually creating something new and novel. So, how do you get money to start up your company?
1. Friends and family, personal credit&debit cards.
    Ones you have come up with an idea, you are likely to need money to start producing something before you get revenue back out of it. First resource available (hopefuly) is your own money that you might have, or your family or friends. John did not recomend to start your company on your credit cards. Bad idea, but still if this is the only option, go for it. Use it.
2. Angels investors. The best option for start-ups. They look to invest relatively small amounts of money in comparison to VC's. So, it might me the best option to start with.
3. Venture Capitalists. Big money. Beware, they mught just look for information, not to invest into your "really smart idea". Only 1 or 2 percent of startups get VC money. So, do not really count on them.
4. IPO. No comments. Dont dream about it.

There are two types of investment: loan and stock. Also it can be a little bit of both.

Personaly, I would prefer to start with Angel invesment, because my idea does not require that much at start.

Ron Kornfeld - Serial Entrepreneur

Ron Kornfeld came to our class at UWT and held a lecture about entrepreneurship. He is a serial entrepreneur. He began his career long time ago when the internet was just coming to light. Ron was working on some dial-up projects that would make internet available to public. At that time, no one could thing of a reason why internet would become so vital, and nowadays no one can imagine life without it. Therefore, at that time Ron was much ahead of the time by doing things that later will become so needed. Of course, he made a bunch of money and invest them somewhere else to make even more money. He was involved with Dreambox, Tweetiator, and several other projects.

I liked what he said about start-ups, that you don't have necessarily to begin with millions of fundraised dollars. Like he said, you can start with a smaller amount; even use your credit card if no other resources are available. That's great news, because I don't have to wait for an angel or VC to invest money, but can start without such great start. This approach has its good side. You can start something small and test it on the market before risking millions.

Ron also made it very clear that business plan is very important document for both - for us and for VC's.

Bruce Kendall visit

     Bruce Kendall, CEO of the Economic Development Board for Tacoma Pierce County visited UWT and lectured on April 25, 2012. As far as I understood, his business is to attract big companies to Pierce area in order to maximize money flow into this area and minimize the flow of the money out of it. I didn’t know such company exists. I think the idea is right. It turned out that they are interested only in big corporations, not in beginners, which is understandable from his point of view, but not from ours, people who didn’t even start a business, just thinking to do so. Not much of encouragement. Concerning Economic Development Board of Tacoma, in my opinion, first of all it is great that they are not 100% financed by the state, but get 50% of money from the companies they work with, which is around a half of a million dollars.

     Bruce addressed several major problems that need to be solved and they help companies who would try to solve any of those issues. Issues where such as clean water (how to use technology to preserve clean water so that next generations would not run out of clean water), cyber security, health care, and a couple of others. I see why these are still big issues. People do not tend to invest money into some technology that would not bring revenue right now but instead would be helpful for the next generations. That’s why EDB for Tacoma exists and is pretty successful.

What technology differentiates my business from my competitors?"

     What technology differentiates my business from my competitors?"


     One of my business ideas is to deliver things like pizza to a person based not an address, but based on his/her location (cell phone location). Delivery exists to homes and specific addresses, but not to people based on their location. Imagine, you order pizza or coffee using your cell phone and it is delivered to you based on your cell phone location. You could be standing outside somewhere and have coffee delivered to you literally anywhere. Technology that I will build will make it possible to deliver goods not only to addresses, but to cellphones as well. This is revolutionary idea. I simply don’t know anyone doing it now. You can find a closest coffee shop with your cellphone, but not coffee shop can find you. If I really do this, I can change the way people make orders.

Guest Speaker: Brian Forth

About guest speaker Brian Forth

April 18, 2012

If someone asked me to list the keywords that best describe Brian, the list would look like this:

ENTREPRENEUR, SUCCESS, HARD WORK, SITECRAFTING, RISK TAKING, MONEY, PASSION, PASSION, PASSION ...

Brian didn't simply tell us his story and his experience as an entrepreneur. He brought with him to our class all his passion that he has in doing his job. His enourmous zeal was so obvious, that I could feel that he really likes what he is doing. He enjoys his job. He lives and breathes site crafting.

He is a true entrepreneur. Thank you professor Andrew Fry for inviting him to our class for the lecture. Brian is a very bright example of what entrepreneurship looks like. Most of all in his story I liked him as a business person. I would work for his company (for a while only, untill I begin my own adventure :). He has the knowledge and skills, does his job well; he is passionate about what he is doing; he also found the right people to do business with (he was saying how much he values his present employees).

One of the signs that signaled that he has that "crazy passion" about his job was his words: "I would go and work any physical labor (like lawn mowing) to be able to pay his bills or his employees." I need to think about this: if I start something to do, am I that passionate about it so that I would work somewhere else if needed (physical labor) to sustain the business in tough times to keep it going?

That's probably one of the pH test strips about being a true entrepreneur. Is your goal making money or creating something novel and new, change the world, make an impact?

What's Entrepreneurship

What is Entrepreneurship

Someone said: "There is nothing easier then to quit smoking. I did it many times."

It is not that hard to start a business. I did it a couple of times. There is some irony in these words. If someone could quit smoking many times, then it is implies that that person had to smoke again in order to quit it again. Same in entrepreneurship. If you begin meny times, you are probably doing something wrong. Trying several times in good. Trying constantly may mean that the goal is not set correctly or you are not pursuing it good enough, not motivated to suceed.

My father is an entrepreneur and I know much about how it is. I know ups and down of such path. I hope, I'll succeed where my father could not. This is my goal.

I do agree with Reggie Aggarwal that an entrepreneur has to be very motivated, focused, fearless, value or innovation oriented (not money oriented). I feel that spirit and definitely it is in me, but still it looks to be not easy. So, in order to succeed, I would need to be willing to take the risk.

Eric Hanberg lecture

Reflection on the lecturer presentation (Eric  Hanberg)

I knew that we had a lecturer that day, so implicitly I had some expectations. I had a feeling that we are going to see an extremely successful entrepreneur who started his career from something like $20 and now has become a billionaire in several years. Also, I had some expectations that the person would already have a working company with several to many employees. To my surprise, it was not quite what I expected. My first feelings were very different. Because of my high expectations, it was a bit disappointing. Probably many people read stories about poor people becoming rich. This was not one of them, though can become one later (who knows…).

Eric’s story of beginning several things is alike mine to some extent. I did web crafting and several other things, which could be a good beginning. Instead, I did not think to bring it to that level to start organized business and get money out of it as much as fun (because I liked what I did).l

Eric inspired me to follow my dream and be ready to go through tough times before getting success. I believe that to be an entrepreneur I need to have a strong spirit and be strongly motivated and determined to continue in rough environment.

Like professor Fry said, an entrepreneur also needs to have luck. Good luck everyone!

1,000,000 Dollar Business Plans

Small apps business

1.       An application for delivery things like coffee or pizza or anything else to a person.

-          A person wants coffee/pizza. He/she places an order using his/her phone app (no voice call). The coffee/pizza shop delivers the coffee/pizza to the person based on the phone’s exact geo location (let’s suppose technology allows locate the phone’s geo location pretty accurately).

Most of nowadays similar apps allow ordering things online or finding closest store or places. My app would allow people to place orders (coffee for example) with one or two presses of a button and have the coffee delivered to them based on their location, without the person having to call and tell where he/she is. The closest coffee shop would handle the request and deliver the coffee.

2.       There are several solutions for accounting people such as QuickBooks, Peachtree and other. These are great apps, but no one of them has all the things an accounting person needs in just one app. I will create a cross platform app that would combine all these accounting apps features in just one app. In addition, I will set up a server and create a network for accounting people – chats, forums, video conferencing, etc.

3.       Order a software or a phone app. Create personalized software. I will write relatively small software for anybody who needs one. You use a personal computer; I will offer personal software for your personal computer.  There are millions of free and not free apps nowadays. Mostly, it is easy to find apps for general purpose because someone thought of it already and wrote one. My company will take orders mostly from ordinary people (not companies) to write tiny apps to solve everyday tasks. For example, if one needs a small app to do some calculation that he/she is doing a lot; we can do it for cheap. I will set up a website where people would place orders (contact us) and explain what they need. Some of the software orders may result in big projects and great software that people really need.