South Sound Technology Conference

I got to attend the south sound technology conference last Friday and had a blast.  Unfortunately, I did not get to see too much due to my work schedule but I did get to see a few of our guest speakers and thank them again for speaking in our class.  I also got a free lunch, which was great!  I mean, who doesn't like free food and technology?

The main reason I was there was to do a poster session for my internship so I spent the majority of my time doing that.  It was a little boring but I was able to mingle with the other presenters and it turned out to be pretty fun.  There are a lot of people doing some really cool stuff with internships at our school and it makes me proud to say I am in the CS program.  I also got some good networking in and discussed some ideas about my business plan with some other students, to gauge and interest.  It is amazing how few people know that anyone could make money from YouTube, you don't have to be a big production company or whatever.

Guest Speaker: John Dimmer

The one and only John Dimmer spoke to us recently with a focus on funding and financials.  First off, within a few minutes of him speaking you could tell that he is passionate about business in general.  The man was made to be in business.  That being said he gave some great advice on how to go about looking for investors and what to expect while doing it.  He also broke down what the different kinds of investors are, like angels vs VCs and all that.

I don't believe that I will be looking for investors in my business but I may look to crowd-sourcing as a form of funding for some of my equipment that I would like.  John gave some useful info on crowd-sourcing and basically said, don't expect to get the ridiculous amounts you see on the news and stuff, but you could get 1-10k with a reasonable idea and presentation.

He also mentioned that there are some business plan competitions (locally, even!) that have a pretty good chance of getting you some funding if you are in need of some smaller funding, and since they usually cost you nothing you do not have much to lose.

Guest Speaker: Jim Kastama

Jim came in to speak to our class with a focus on innovation.  He had been a senator for many of the last few years and just recently began his own business.  He explained how innovation (the term at least) has been overused in the last few years and should really be thought of as problem solving.  This kind of thought was somewhat new to me.  I had always thought of innovation as being close to invention.

One of the major things he discussed was the importance of networking.  As with our previous guest speakers we get reminded again and again and again that in order to be a successful business owner networking is a crucial element.  He also mentioned something i had never heard of, the balance scorecard.  This is essentially an evaluation tool for a company to help keep their focus balanced.  I would love to use this in my own company and will research it.

Guest Speaker: Kendall

Something that I had not considered when I started thinking of my company was where we will be and will I want to stay there.  Mr. Kendall helped me realize the importance of business location.  His focus was local economy and expanded that same theory out into our nations economy.  Since I am not a 7-11 or something that sells good exclusively to my county/city I found this talk particular interesting.

I am looking to go into the business of selling a product online and would assume the vast majority of my sales would come from out of the state.  Would my business keeping its roots in Washington make it a better place? would it make it more desirable to other business? do I need Washington to make my business better? I have no idea.  I love where I live (which is why I live here) but a large focus of my business is outdoors and we all know the weather isn't that favorable for that kind of activity.  Of course, I could find the silver lining in this and try and use the weather to my advantage, since not many people are doing what I do in the rain maybe I will find some kind of untapped market!  I doubt it, but it is a thought....

The Technology Entrepreneur’s Guidebook

This guidebook proved to have quite a few useful tidbits of information.  It gave some great insight on starting up a tech business and being a beginner entrepreneur.  Some of the more eye opening parts of it were how few high tech business end up in an IPO and how long it takes for those companies to succeed.  I suppose I still had the idea that you can get big over night (maybe remnants of the dot-com boom) and that if you had a good idea you could get the business going and succeed.

I am not too sure I agree with the guidebook in some aspects, like the longevity thing.  Of course, I see the benefit of having a business model that holds up long term but I think I could argue that in today's technology market it is not a bad idea to have a "one and done" type product.  A quick example would be an app, spend like 2-5 years doing apps and by that time it could become the case that apps are like websites.  super easy to create and there are so many options for templates that anyone could do it and make it look relatively unique.

Since we cannot predict the market (as much as we think we can)  I don't think it is fair to say that a tech business can have a long term plan that doesn't need to adapt and change over time.

Guest Speaker: Graham

We had the pleasure of having Graham speak to us about building a business.  His focus was on how to develop a business model canvas.  We went through the process during a demonstration.  I was not familiar with this practice and was skeptical at first.  Once he explained its usefulness and we began filling it out I saw that it could be a very powerful tool for evaluating your business.

The part of the demonstration that I found most useful was evaluating where your money is coming from and where you cost is.  When you try and break that down it gives you a great sense of how difficult it will be to make significant profit.  I know it sounds simple but simply thinking about cost/revenue and actually trying to write down what it will be are two very different things.

He also gave some advice that really stuck with me, he said that everyone underestimates their cost and overestimates their profit.  That is something I will certainly keep in mind.

Guest Speaker: Erik Hanberg

Erik spoke about being an entrepreneur recently and gave a ton of great advice.  I felt like the most valuable info he gave was how he (and his wife) decide on whether or not to take a job.  He said they put it through a set of three questions, if the answer is yes for 2/3 then they go ahead and do it.  Those questions were:

1. Is it something you want to do? (will you enjoy doing it)
2. Will you be compensated how you want? (is the pay good)
3. Will it better your career? (will it improve the standing of the company)

He also had some good advice on how to deal with running a physical business vs an online one.  since I am considering both I found that particularly helpful.  It was also good to hear that I am not alone in my struggle with procrastination, haha.

Startup.com... Whoa!

This was a very interesting documentary, a real must see for anyone looking to start a business.  The biggest thing I took away from it was how relationships can change when you go into business with others, especially with friends.  I know that I am considering going into business with 2 of my friends (similar to the film, ha) and could see a lot of the problems that came up with them a potential problem for us.

Overall they seemed to adapt pretty well to how quickly they grew, so I believe there are some good lessons to be learned there.  Ultimately they could not keep up with the competition and deliver a solid (up to date) product and crumbled down into nothingness.  A good lesson in putting the right people in the right spots

Finally, what the heck was up with the break in?

3 Business Ideas

1.)  YouTube Media Group

    I like this idea for many reasons, the main one being that I already make a profit from posting YouTube videos.  There is very little up front cost on this project, since I already have camera equipment and editing software.  The idea would be to make a few different channels; fitness, gaming, math, programming, nature, extreme sports, music.  The basic plan for each is education.  The majority of videos that would be put up would be "How To" videos or reviews of products.  There is always a market out there for education the main issue will be how to make our videos better than the other ones that are already out there since there are a lot.

2.) Indoor Skate Park

    This is something I have always wanted to do.  This would be a labor of love with little (if any) profit.  The major pros that this idea has going for it is the competition.  The closest indoor skate park is in Bellevue, over an hour away from Olympia.  I have been skateboarding for most of my life and know I could set one up better than any I have seen, that includes the business model and actual layout of the skate park.Since there is a pretty large skateboarding community in Olympia Crowd-funding would be my obvious choice to get the project going.

3.) Fitness App with Unique Equipment

    I really like this idea and I think it would be really fun to develop and create.  The basic idea for the app is a video game that require you to exercise to level your character. Lets say you want an agile character like a rogue or archer or something, well then you better start running/biking/rowing (anything cardio).  If you want a warrior or tank? better start pumping that iron.  We would track all of their exercise through GPS or with a special weight that would have a motion sensor(or whatever it would take to track movement) embedded in it.  Funding for this could be the biggest issue.

Class Expectations

Before signing up for the class I had very few expectations.  I assumed we would maybe get some insight on building a website or starting the foundation for a company all of which would be based on a template out of some book.  After the first day of class, my expectations have certainly changed.  The professor's experience is much greater than I expected.  The man has truly been there and done that.

Do I think I have what it takes to build my own empire?  Maybe. One of my expectations is to gain the knowledge on how to begin the process.  I am hoping to learn some things that can not be easily found online about starting your own business.  I expect to learn some good information on funding, like dealing with investors and other alternative funding methods (crowd-funding/family/loans).  I am also expecting to get some feedback on why or why not my ideas are good/bad.

I am expecting to have a plan set in place for how to structure my company and how to move forward with starting it.  I want to have the model for the company finished and have the people I am interested in working with make a decision on whether or not they are on board. It would also be great if we had a couple different funding options/plans laid out by the end of the quarter.