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!