Dot.com to Dot.bomb

On the last lecture day of class, our instructor went through the detailed explanation of how the dot com boom benefited everyone, how its fall destroyed dreams, and the absolute insanity of the time period. The presentation was done utilizing toy dinosaurs, to represent the giant power these old companies had, and how due to their lack of insight was wiped out by the general shifting market climate.

The boom began in 1995, with the company Netscape being one of the most valuable companies in the world after going public in the same year. This was the start of many other webservices which was a up and new coming thing to the general public, and an untapped market ready to be utilized. In 1996 many other companies came to light, Yahoo! Amazon, among others.

1997 marked the beginning of the insanity in the online market. Many companies/businesses entered the public market, and what also came was the dominating force of AOL.1998-99 was the year many of these dominating companies obtained other small successful businesses, this is where things got very crazy for the market.

2000 - 2003 saw the inevitable bust of the market, and the downfall of some very big companies such as Exodus Communications, FreeZone, Luminant Worldwide, among a lot of others.2002-2003 things started to normalize again, with the reemergence of these once powerful companies, crawling their way out of certain demise that was seen too commonly for other companies of the time.

Through the bust we've come square back to the overwhelming development and creation of some very big tech companies such as Facebook, among other social media websites such as Youtube and the like.

John Dimmer, guest speaker

Recently we had the pleasure of having the company of  Mr. John Dimmer to speak to the classroom, John Dimmer is, similar to the many other guests we've encountered, an entrepreneur. He currently works at Airstream, where he's encountered great success in the Northwest, having store/dealerships all over the west area, and starting the first Airstream business in portland.

John originally worked with Andrew Fry at Free Range Media, where he handled most of the financing, that being his background. John would talk about certain aspects of the world of entrepreneurship and things that were done or needed to be done in order to maintain success. He mentioned how he was working to see how he can keep "golden handcuffs" on valuable workers, partners, and employees (good people they wanna keep).

John talks about how the source and amount of funding depends on where your business is in the life-cycle, and that once you're profitable, you're in control.

Grab as much market share as you can, as the benefits weights much more than the effort. People who come up being interested in purchasing a business would be wary because of debt and other such amounts. Crowd-sourcing is a great way to finance a company, and can identify both your market and get your company up and running. Most crowd-sourced company often offer an incentive to obtain funding from customers.

John states that "lots of things that happen in the legal system make no sense whatsoever, and that the funding world is pretty much "Fucked".

Amy Salin, Guest Speaker

Recently in our lecture Amy Salin came to talk to our class, Amy is the assistant director from the University of Washington's Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship; she came to talk about the steps us students and other potential individuals could take to making their business ideas come to fruition, and how they can get help with funding on them. She also discussed the student innovation competitions where people who present their ideas could have a chance of winning a cash prize to finance contestant's ideas; these contests include; Health innovation challenge: working to find innovations in health and healthcare. Environmental innovation challenge: finding ideas to soling environmental/cleantech problems. And of course; the UW business plan competition: which gives students the opportunity to experience creating a startup company, and introducing to potential beneficiaries; there is a $70,000 awarded to the best idea.

Among introducing these potential resources for business plans and startups, Amy gave advice to what is the best way to present your product, and the do's-and-don'ts of how your idea and plan should be created. She also mentioned that not only is their a potential of receiving funding for your business, but that you will be able to make connections and network with other individuals that may benefit your entrepreneurial pursuit in the future.

Mission Statement, Vision, and Mantra

Mission: To provide a welcoming, comfy environment where video game hobbyists can come to enjoy playing games, spending time with friends, attending events, and competing with other patrons.

Vision: Expanding the world of competitive gaming and esports to a wider audience in a local venue

Mantra: Everybody deserves to have the opportunity to do what they love; (in this case it's gaming)