Jim Kastana

Jim Kastana

One of last guest speaker was Jim Kastana, he focused on innovation and invention in entrepreneurship.

He first talked about his concept of IPZ, Innovation Partnership Zone. In this he mentioned emphasizing on people first and then structures and then on gathering the data.

His main focus was on innovation and how it is important to be a successful entrepreneur. He said Innovation is essentially creative and applications of technology in ways that are marketable and useful to consumers. Invention is creating something that in entirely new to the world. But invention can lead to innovation.

He gave us good examples to explain innovation. One of the examples was of the wine growing in the Pacific Northwest. He mentioned how Pacific Northwest had no vineyards and then they found out the weather conditions in Walla Walla was very close to that of Napa valley in France. So they decided to grow grapes for wine. It was an innovation because they discovered something that was in need in that particular area. It was something new for the region. So now what they got in Napa Vally can be produced and sold there too.  Now Walla Walla is one of the largest wine producers in the Unites States of America.

The next topic Jim discussed about was economic clusters. In economic clusters professionals group themselves and collaborate on the basis of their industry.  This was very interesting to know that how such professional make a relationship on the basis of their similar ideas and may be creating something new.

I really like the topics Jim Kastana discussed i.e. innovation and clusters. It liked his ideology; it definitely left a positive mark on my thoughts.

Brain Forth

Brain Forth

Brain forth talked and discussed about his entrepreneurial experience and also about his initial life journey before being an entrepreneur.

Before being an entrepreneur he was a teacher is a school where he uses to build WebPages and worked as a web designer for little kids. He then went into how left his teacher job and then into the real industry.

First he talked about his past jobs, his experience of working at Disney and software Development at Knowledge Universe Company. He talked about his past working experience helped him learn about good customer service. How important to prioritize their customers and treat them with respect.

Brain talked about how he was treated an employee in Knowledge Universe. He discusses that it wasn’t him but that company just didn’t treat their employee’s in a right way. He explains how the company sends him a letter where he got fired before the project was launched. It was sent to him too soon.

From his past experience he said that you can’t be always nice to your employees. Sometimes you need to make a line and get what you want from the employees. Just for the betterment for the company.

He also talked about some good insight about his business ideas. One of them was his exit strategy. He said his exit strategy was to sell his company to his employees because they are the one who helped build the company. Second he talked about ‘reality distortion field’. In this he explained how it is important to present things that you want to people just to get them to do what you want.

At the end he mentioned about the wine app that he developed. He talked about sometimes how taking risks can get you something that you never expected. So one should not be afraid to take chances.

Mission and Vision

Mission:

The goal of café Mid-O is to exceed the expectations of our customers by providing exquisite study lounge experience. The café Mid-O is designed and scheduled by taking in consideration of what a student and a working professional’s requirement of that extra time of the day, other than normal school/working hours to complete their goal. Our late closing hours, affordable food/drinks and free Wi-Fi is aimed to identify and deliver what our customers in lack their daily life.

Vision:

Our vision is to provide the community near University of Washington Tacoma a study lounge. Here students and working professionals can experience a perfect ambiance for their day’s extra work. 

Graham Evans

The discussion with our guest speaker Graham Evan; had a very fact based and practical approach to it. He started of talking about business marketing. Three points he mentioned in regards to marketing a product were:

-          Great product + Lousy Marketing = No money

-          Lousy Product + Great Marketing = Short Term money

-          Great Product + Great Marketing = Long Term money

With this he tried to explain the role of marketing in terms of a product. He supported this is some examples one of them were of a British Company.  He elaborates how British companies tried to set them up in USA but failed due to lack of market research. He highlighted the importance of marketing in a way of what your audience wants, and how it can lead to a big failure if not done right.

For an entrepreneur he suggested four ways to follow:

Know what you don’t know – Learning a process of life. I keep learning new things. Don’t think that you know everything.

Recognize Challenges to your Paradigm – One should recognize the challenges that might come in their endeavor and try to work through its way.

Five wrong ways of thinking.

Open Communication – Good communication with others always ends in good results. So communicating yourself well is an important aspect.

He then advised the students that how it’s beneficial to pitch for the investors who are not that interested. This way we can get good critic’s comments on your plan which might help present it better to the ones who are actually interested in it.

Last but not the least Graham talked about six ways to think, namely:

-          Brain storming/ reverse Brainstorming

-          2x2 Strategic matrices.

-          SWOT(Strength, Weakness, Opportunity and Threat)

-          Morning Pages

-          Six Hat Thinking

-          Business Plan.

Graham Evans discussion was one of the most unique discussions we had so far. He helped me think not only in a better entrepreneurial way but also in a non-traditional unique manner.

The Kick Starter Post

My business plan is not based on a phone application. My plan is to open a café for students. So if I had a kick starter campaign it would be based on the service we will provide on the interest level of the customer.

Tier 1:

Cost : $0.00

If you open up a customer account get the first item purchased free.

Tier 2:

Cost: $10

If you buy item worth $10 in one day total, get a 100 points added to your customer account.

Tier 3:

Cost: $50

Add/spend $ 50 in a week and get one food/drink item free the nest time.

Tier 4:

Cost: $100

Spend in 20 days. Get 400 points added to the customer account. Get one food/drink item free.

Tier 5:

Cost: $150

Spend $150/month minimum and get special offers available to you at the end of every month. An add up of 500 points to the fresh start of month.