Dot.com to Dot.bomb

The Dot.com to Dot.bomb presentation was great. It showed how all of these companies were growing and becoming powerful but in the end only a few survived. Some of the many companies mentioned were AOL, CompuServ, Prodigy, Spry and Yahoo.com. Yahoo.com is currently worth around 40 billion dollars and it was born during the dot.com era. We learned that big companies were buying out the small companies and if the small companies wouldn’t sell themselves they would most likely get crushed. Andrew Fry used dinosaurs to portray this whole story, with the tyrannosaurus as Yahoo.com. It started late but ended up on top by the end of the dot.com bubble burst. We saw that companies started making alliances and joining up just so they could stay in the game and move forward. Examples of such companies were Yahoo.com with Broadcast and AOL with Time Warner. Other companies that didn’t make it throughout the years were Friendster, FreeZone, and Luminant Worldwide either because of competition or personal problems within the companies. In Friendster’s case, it was taken out by MySpace which in return got taken out by Facebook.

I feel that it is very important for a tech company to stay upgraded at all times because once they start falling behind they end up getting crushed. They need to have and be working on the latest technology to stay relevant. Tech companies should also know when it’s time to quit while they can. If a bigger company is ready to buy them out, they should sell themselves. If not, then they become history and forgotten. 

Guest Speaker Graham Evans

On February 12, 2015 we had a guest speaker come to class named Graham Evans. He talked about and showed us what aspects we should take a look at in order to really understand what our business will be about. I really liked the business model canvas that he drew on the board. The group work that we did for the non-profit organization was really helpful for me because now I can use it to do more analysis on my own business. Furthermore, with the business plan canvas we got to see the different viewpoints and ideas that the non-profit could use in order to focus on its tasks. The business model canvas contained 9 critical sections which were: key partners, key activities, key resources, value propositions, customer relationships, channels, customer segments, cost structure, and revenue streams. We saw that many of the things listed in the business model canvas actually overlapped each other. In our example with the non-profit organization, we saw that school assemblies were a great key activity as well as a channel.

Before Mr. Evans presentation, I was having a really hard time structuring and figuring out what I really need for my business. After the presentation, I felt a lot more confident about actually starting on writing my business plan. I feel that the business plan canvas strengthens my ideas and gives me focus. After I have filled out my business plan canvas, I feel that I will be able to answer any necessary questions someone might have for my business.

Guest Speaker John Dimmer

On February 10, 2015, we had a guest speaker come to our class named John Dimmer. He is a close friend of Andrew Fry since high school. He came to educate us about funding for businesses in the real world.  For the first half of the class, Mr. Dimmer talked about his background. He told us about all the experiences and knowledge he has gained ever since he first started working for the Puget Sound Bank. Since he’s had a hand in many successful businesses, he is a great person to obtain information from for novices like me. I know next to nothing about how funding works or even financial stuff but after his presentation, I feel a lot more confident about the options that I have to fund a business. I believe that any person that is an investor for a new business is taking huge risk of not ever seeing their money again, however, Mr. Dimmer seems to be very successful in choosing the right companies to fund.

Some of the experiences that he shared were that he opened a Honda dealership, 4 Airstream dealerships, and at one point even being an owner of a tech company called Free Range Media with Andrew Fry. He went into great detail about the financial stuff with the Honda dealership and the Airstream dealerships. On the side, Mr. Dimmer has funded at least 50 companies as of right now.

I think this presentation/guest speaker was the best one that we’ve had so far. I learned a lot from him. I hope he comes back again one more time this quarter to answer a few more questions that students might have. 

Guest Speaker Amy Sallin

On February 5, 2015 we had a guest speaker come to our class named Amy Sallin. She is an Assistant Director and Business Plan Competition (BPC) Program Manager at the University of Washington. She came to inform us about the BPC that gets held every year at UW Seattle and how it works. She gave us a brochure which had very helpful information for the people that do intend on joining the competition. Furthermore, she talked about how to join, who could join, how much funding a team could win, etc. The BPC has been going on for 18 years now. It’s designed to promote student start-up ideas and venture creation by bringing students and judges from the entrepreneurial community in a multi-stage, real world challenge. There is no fee to join the competition. There are requirements to join the competition though, such as there needs to be at least one student from the state of Washington per team, if not more. In addition, people that aren’t students can join the competition but need to have one Washington State student on their team. A team needs to submit a 5-7 page executive summary. There is a screening process with judges who look at 7 criteria’s. Students can use resources that UW Seattle provides such as advisory from attorneys, industry leaders, etc. There is a grand price of $25,000 as well as other funding. I believe Amy Sallin stated that the BPC has awarded about $1.6 million in prize money since it first started. One thing that she said that I really liked was that, an investor will usually invest in an “A team” with a “C idea” rather than a “C team” with an “A idea”.