Dot Com to Dot Bomb

It was quite interesting to hear how the rise of the web was started through someone who was actually apart of the dot com era. I think I would have liked to been apart of the dot com era and take part in the growth of the current dot com industry. I thought it was really funny when Andrew used the dinosaurs to explain how the race for consumers was going between companies like Yahoo, Genie and AOL it was a good way to stay entertained and you still got a lot of information from the presentation. It also brought back some memories of my first computer and what it was like to see the progression of technology over the last 30 years. I thought it was interesting to hear that companies were not only being bought up for millions of dollars but billions depending on how well the company was set up. It was funny to hear that a company was worth eleven million at one point and no one would buy the company but the next day the company was worth hundreds of millions. I could only hope that one day I can build a company and it will be successful enough to be worth millions of dollars, and as an exit strategy it would go to the public. I found this class to be very enlightening and I really liked the gust speakers and thought that they were very informative. I would also recommend for the next class you do the same presentation Dot Com to Dot Bomb with the dinosaurs.

Michele Armstrong from Vulcan Inc.

I thought it was really good that Michele came to our class it was a good chance to see what employers are looking for when they interview people. Michele talked about Vulcan and Paul Allen how the company wasn’t looking for new employees and how the company wasn’t really producing new types of software. She did however gave me ideas on how to present myself to employers and if I was to start a business how to look at interviewees and determine which ones would be the best fit for the company. Another great thing that Michele went over was looking at what the income should be for the industry your looking at, and that you should do research on the company you want to apply for and find out what the median annual earnings are so you know how much to expect. Michele also went over where to look for jobs she brought up a few good places to look for example Craigslist and Linkedin just to name a few. Then Michele went into employee handbooks and how important they are for the employer and the employee. The great thing about a handbook is you can use it to enforce the rules and refer back to it to see how to handle specific situations. I came to the conclusion from Michele’s speech that I will higher some one to higher and firing of my employees. Some one for HR that can know all the regulations and make sure that every one is obeying the rules of the company.

Derek Young from Exit133

This is the second time I have had the pleasure of listening to Derek The first time he spoke in class he was only working on Exit133. In just over a year Derek had opened up new opportunities for himself, it was interesting to hear how the economy had effected his business and how he needed to change his strategy. I think that is an important mindset to have if your having trouble with your business don’t just quit, if you really like what your doing then you will find a way to make the business work out. When Derek first started his presentation he went into a lot of detail about his past which was nice because you got to put a background story to why he is a entrepreneur. As it turns out he didn’t start Exit133 right out of college, Derek worked for REI for ten years before he was able to start his business.

When Derek went into how he received income I was intrigued to know more. What I got from what he said was a lot of the money he makes is not from Exit133 but from another business that is suite133 or a consulting business where he helps set up call centers. It would be hard for Derek to make an income off of Exit133 alone because he doesn’t charge a monthly fee to read the articles. Though he dose make a small income from the advertisements he has on Exit133 but the amount of money he makes off them is minimal. Really there is a problem with Exit133 and that is he is putting money out to the writers but he is not bringing in enough money to supplement his expenses. I think he should look to his other business of setting up call centers as his main business.

Though Derek does have a lot of donations for Exit133 supposedly dose supplement a lot of the expenses. If Derek is happy with how his businesses are running then he should do what ever he likes. I would like to start a business in the way future and I would hope that money is not the main driving factor. One thing I though was a little funny was Derek brought traffic to his website by accident it was because of Google and how it searched. Over all I enjoyed listing to Derek again and I hope that you bring him back in for another class. I don’t remember how many questions I had asked the guest speakers but it was a few.

The Gaming Market

In the past the gaming industry has flourished, ever since the first game hit the public market there were business geared towards the exportation of games. It started out as arcades. When the first console was released it allowed the possibility for a sequence of games to be made for the use of the general public. Currently there are a mass of game consoles available for the public. The game industry is considerably large enough to support new start up game development business. With the continuous release of new games to all of the consoles, it allowed a large market in the gaming industry with new ways to distribute new types of games. At the moment the newest platform for games is social networks such as FaceBook and MySpace. In the next three years there is going to be a new group of consumers in the past most of the games were targeted towards the youth, future games will be able to accommodate more experienced consumers. In the next five years I see an investment into interactive games that will work solely off of body manipulation in order to control the characters in the game. With a new way to interact with consoles there will be an even larger and complex market to be investigated and exploited. There are defiantly some major opportunities to explore in the gaming industry and the new markets will allow my business to grow and become more stable, there is defiantly an opportunity for a small business to such as G-LG to take part in the gaming industry especially because of the large consumer base.

Bruce Kendall, Board of Economic Development for Pierce County

Bruce was a very interesting I fond his initial topic quite entertaining I never really thought about all the mascots and how they really didn’t always make since. Then he went into the development of Tacoma which was interesting in its own way I am relatively new to Tacoma so it was nice to hear what people thought of the area and how it has chanced over the past couple of years and how they are trying to make the city even better. I think Tacoma is a great place and I think that to hear any kind of news on the growth is always a good topic. Bruce didn’t just go into the development of Tacoma and mascots but he also brought up aerospace engineering which is kind of funny because I almost was going to get my degree as a aerospace engineer but when I researched job opportunities in that field I found that the only way your going to get a job is when some one retires because its just a great job to have. I really have just been fascinated with air planes and space flight since I can remember and to hear a little information about it was a good change, I almost wanted to change my degree, but not really. I definitely like when we have a guest speaker it brings a great change of pace to the classroom and it definitely gives me a boost of energy to work hard so that I can excel in a job.

John Dimmer from FIRS Management

John was very interesting, he answered a lot of my questions about financing a business form the beginning to the end. Some of the things he said seemed self evident, such as when you are first starting the business, you need to be the initial investor. One thing I learned though was, use your family and friends as investors for your company at start up. John was able to give a lot of insight on the angel network, how they look at start up businesses and some of the reasons why they would reject a business. I found that part of his presentation very interesting. There was a lot of good information that John was able to pass on to the class I was very interested in everything he had to say and he seemed very knowledgeable on starting a business and what it takes to fund the business. There were a lot of companies that john had started and invested in. one of the main points that I liked about john was he started the Tacoma Angel network to help other businesses to grow and become successful. I think he went a good rout I plan on becoming a business investor after I had some experience in running a successful business. It seems like John really enjoyed helping other businesses grow.

Employee management

My business consists of two main people in the beginning a programmer and a graphics designer. My business will have almost no start up money so those two people will have to be the owners of the business so I don’t have to worry about paying an employee. For any specialty work such as concept art or story lines those will be done by the graphics designer. There will be opportunities for volunteer work, people who are looking to get there foot in the door on a small startup business. Other employees will not even be considered until there is a steady income of at least a million dollars. Then I would hire five more employees based on the needs of the company. I would look for someone in sales, artists for the design of the game, and another programmer. As the company grow I would add employees accordingly. There would be a lot of shared jobs in the beginning, the artist will have to take on sales and the programmer would have to think about funding and distribution of the product for example. In the first five years the company would consist of a skeleton crew the basics of what the company needs to stay afloat. The idea is to keep my overhead low and my income high with as little stress on the company and employees as possible. It would be a hard plan to follow but there is a lot of competition in the gaming market and for a startup company to survive it needs to find a competitive edge.