Guest Speaker: Erik Hanberg

    Last week we had the pleasure of having a guest speaker Erik Hanberg come visit the class. Erik Hanberg is a local author and entrepreneur who has done many projects in his life. Among his accomplishments are working as the Director of the Grand Cinema at a young age, which inspired him to start the Horatio, a live theatre company. After that, he started self-publishing books, and works with his wife at Sidexside, a marketing consulting firm, as well as running and being elected to be on the parks board of Tacoma.
    He offered some advice to the class, in the form of the ideas, be a starter, and practice shipping. By be a starter, he meant in order to be successful, you must go for it. If you have a good idea, do it. By practice shipping, he meant practice finishing something. He said the best way to practice for the ups and downs of starting a business is to do something on your own, start to finish. Whether it is writing a book or learning something new or whatever, getting through the rough times gives you the experience and the motivation to get through the rough times starting a business.
    An interesting tidbit he shared with us was that there are two basic kinds of income. There is income that you get for doing labor, such as a job or a career, and there is income you get from making things, like writing a book. In the example of writing a book, there is a certain amount of time you have to work on it, but once you are finished, any sales of the book makes your time more and more valuable, as you are spending no more time on it, yet you are gaining rewards. Conversely, there is the labor income, which is simply paying you for your time. He made the point that even the highest paid lawyers are still essentially being paid for their time, whereas famous authors simply reap the rewards of their previous work.
    Having Erik speak to the class was an informative and interesting experience, in which I personally learned a lot about his perspective as an entrepreneur.

Guest Speaker: Derek Young

We had the good fortune to be able to have a guest speaker visit the class last week. Derek Young took time out of his schedule to come speak to the class about his life and the experiences he’s had as an entrepreneur, and for that we are grateful. Derek Young is an entrepreneur who has started many companies in the Tacoma area, including Tacoma Runners, Seasonal View, and Exit 133. He started making companies after he reached a stagnation point climbing the corporate ladder and felt the need to start something new. After ruminating on the decision he decided to quit his job and strike out in something new and started setting up companies. Fast forward a few years, and he does not regret his decision in the slightest.

               For Derek, starting companies seems to be almost second nature, as he is not risk-averse in the slightest. In his own words, he stated that he is the type of person who “jumps off of the cliff and then checks to see if he has a parachute.” His drive and determination, along with his ability to bring people together and get excited about an idea has proven to be a strong enough force to make companies successful.

               From his visit with us, I have taken away that passion and drive as well as keeping good friends who can do things that you are not able to do are very important parts of making a successful business. Having Derek come speak to us was a great opportunity, in which I personally learned a lot.

Business Ideas

Business Ideas:

1) A business that manufactures and sells a smart pill reminder/dispenser. Every day, people around the country have to take multiple pills at different times of the day with only the small writing on the pill bottle from the pharmacy to go on. As people get older especially, they get forgetful, and that can be dangerous if it is life-critical medication they need to take. My idea is to create a dispenser that can read a barcode generated by a pharmacy that contains how many pills to release and when to release them. The user simply scans the barcode and pours the pills into an empty slot in the dispenser. The dispenser would release the correct pill at whatever time of the day it’s needed, as well as remind the user to take it by playing a sound as well as lighting up as well as sending a notification to a smartphone.

2) A universal medical database. One of the most annoying things about medical records is that there are so many of them, and they come from different sources, and they are very important and useful to medical facilities and insurance companies. A business that creates a medical database that stores information about what surgeries you’ve had, what dental work you’ve had done, what shots you’ve had, what medications you’re allergic to, all of this is very important information, yet every time you go to a new hospital or clinic or anywhere else, you have to fill out all of the same questions over and over again. A database which stores all of the medical information about a person in a universal format would be hugely valuable.

3) A smart smoke detector with a clock incorporated in it so that it's "Change Me" beeps don't happen in the middle of the night, as well as being able to send a report of which alarm needs to have it's battery changed instead of having to hunt around the house for it.