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.
Thursday, March 17, 2016
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
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".
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".
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
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.
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)
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)
Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Logo, Company Name, and Product
Company Name: Démon
this is the initial design/sketch:
Product: Game/console free-play and Internet LAN business which can be used as venue for game tournament and events, private rooms and overnight reservations available.
Prices: Hourly Rates: $6
3 Hours: $13
20$ Day Pass
----------------------
Weekly rate:
50$ (35$ w/ membership)
----------------------
Membership:
25$ for 1 year.
----------------------
Group Rates:
9-14 people: 40$/ hour, 2 hour minimum
15+ people: 50$/ hour, 2 hour minimum
----------------------
All night rentals for up to 6 people
Room Rental: 175$/night + hourly rates
For bigger venues, quote and availability required
considerations for having snacks available to purchase/etc. (maybe even WEED????)
Estimated sales for 1 quarter (3months): 650 people (with roughly 5+ hours of time purchased).
Logo: The logo features a creature called the baphomet, drawn in something of a cartoonish style, no correlation with religious organizations, logo and theme was picked out of novelty.
(improvements may be made in the future.)
Thursday, February 4, 2016
Brian Forth, Guest Speaker
Brian Forth is the founder and president of the company: "Sitecrafting", which focuses on receiving commissions for developing websites for its customers.
Brian started this kind of business when he was a teacher, teaching kids how to create their own websites, some of their parents to an extent had business which also could have benefited from having a website, and so would work for these student's parents to earn money. He first made a product to help teachers learn the internet, it was called "Teacher Universe".
Brian stated that everything that happened to him growing up, which includes the disciplines he learned along the way, prepared him for his career as president of a company. He warns not to get too comfortable when things are going good, and not to get too anxious when things aren't going as planned.
Lot of works from his company have been commissioned from big corporations such as:
-Dreamworks
-Warner Bros.
-Sony
-Disney.
The site employees about 35 people, and the company is constantly evolving. Brian himself talks about how he's always thinking of the company, and the need to have an outlet away from your company to keep your mind at ease, and not so worried and anxious all the time.
Brian also talked about another company idea he had; Gearlab - a user testing facility. separate company within sitecrafting. HI - testing for User interaction within prototyping.
Brian started this kind of business when he was a teacher, teaching kids how to create their own websites, some of their parents to an extent had business which also could have benefited from having a website, and so would work for these student's parents to earn money. He first made a product to help teachers learn the internet, it was called "Teacher Universe".
Brian stated that everything that happened to him growing up, which includes the disciplines he learned along the way, prepared him for his career as president of a company. He warns not to get too comfortable when things are going good, and not to get too anxious when things aren't going as planned.
Lot of works from his company have been commissioned from big corporations such as:
-Dreamworks
-Warner Bros.
-Sony
-Disney.
The site employees about 35 people, and the company is constantly evolving. Brian himself talks about how he's always thinking of the company, and the need to have an outlet away from your company to keep your mind at ease, and not so worried and anxious all the time.
Brian also talked about another company idea he had; Gearlab - a user testing facility. separate company within sitecrafting. HI - testing for User interaction within prototyping.
Thursday, January 28, 2016
Erik Hanberg, Guest Speaker
While us the class had the chance to see and hear from an active entrepreneur (aside from our own instructor, of course), we got to also meet Mr. Erik Hanberg. Erik's take on things seem widely different than Derek Young's, Hanberg had more meaning behind his ventures, he had ideas and creations and passions that he wanted to make a living on, and he told us about his journey to sell his ideas from starting a theater company to selling his own written novels as ebooks. Hanberg made the point to tell us how important shipping a product is, getting an idea out the door and making it known to the world. He also talked about some advice to share about making a living off your biggest hobbies or passions, counting the benefits you have from being well practiced and/or very interested in something.
Hanberg embarked this quote upon the class: "The new laziness has nothing to do with physical labor and everything to do with fear. If you're not going to make sales calls or invent that innovation or push that insight, you're not avoiding it because you need physical rest.. you're hiding out because you're afraid of expending emotional labor".
I believe what Mr. Hanberg was trying to say was that most of the reluctance to do what we have to do lies in how we perceive the labor to be, not at all requiring real physical work but more of a mental headache, and we feel if a job were to cause us such headache and stress it's best to forget about it and not even bother, it's a fear of not doing well in something you think is going to be difficult, and then beating yourself up about it when you haven't bothered to take the first steps to try this new thing you always wanted to do.
This resonates with me somewhat on a personal level, I had a good talk with Mr. Hanberg after his presentation on how I myself can get that kind of motivation; his answer was simple and I 110% agree with it: You just gotta do it. You. You have to put in the time and effort if you want your efforts to bear fruit, you have to find when and where you can work on something, and complete it from start to finish, whether it be a book, a movie, etc.
Mr. Hanberg also has started/been apart of some companies and businesses, these include:
- Side x Side: his current full time job
- The Horatio: a theater company, ran out of money
- Exit133: a company started and ran by Derek Young
- Suite133: gave this company back to his partners.
Hanberg embarked this quote upon the class: "The new laziness has nothing to do with physical labor and everything to do with fear. If you're not going to make sales calls or invent that innovation or push that insight, you're not avoiding it because you need physical rest.. you're hiding out because you're afraid of expending emotional labor".
I believe what Mr. Hanberg was trying to say was that most of the reluctance to do what we have to do lies in how we perceive the labor to be, not at all requiring real physical work but more of a mental headache, and we feel if a job were to cause us such headache and stress it's best to forget about it and not even bother, it's a fear of not doing well in something you think is going to be difficult, and then beating yourself up about it when you haven't bothered to take the first steps to try this new thing you always wanted to do.
This resonates with me somewhat on a personal level, I had a good talk with Mr. Hanberg after his presentation on how I myself can get that kind of motivation; his answer was simple and I 110% agree with it: You just gotta do it. You. You have to put in the time and effort if you want your efforts to bear fruit, you have to find when and where you can work on something, and complete it from start to finish, whether it be a book, a movie, etc.
Mr. Hanberg also has started/been apart of some companies and businesses, these include:
- Side x Side: his current full time job
- The Horatio: a theater company, ran out of money
- Exit133: a company started and ran by Derek Young
- Suite133: gave this company back to his partners.
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