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.