Brian Forth

Brian Forth

Entrepreneur and small business owner.

Brian came and talked to us about site crafting in 98. Site Crafting is a website and mobile application development company. Brian’s path to entrepreneur was different than others. He started out as a 5^th grade teacher. He ended up helping the students create websites for other teacher. Eventually his student’s parents started asking him to build websites for them.

Like other entrepreneurs his previous employment prepared him to run his own business. From those previous employments he learned how to treat customers and how not to treat employees. His company survived the dot com bust by being small enough to pick up the pieces that the larger firms could not afford to take. The key to his early success “We return phone calls”.

The key to his future success is to remove the cyclical model from the business. He is trying to move to more maintenance contracts instead of when they need it. They are going to buy it but anyway lets spread out the money. Another of his success is the mobile application side. His business is building websites that work. He used the mobile application that gets users information about vendors, where the vendors get in the application for free. The vendors see this and want a site that works as well as it does. This has given him a foot in the door to an industry that is very suspicious of outsiders. He has become the guy with the app.

Brian’s pointers for entrepreneurs

-          Setting precedent: The way you deal with things matters.

-          Everyone is a salesman good entrepreneurs see what needs to be sold to a person at that moment in time. Whether it is motivating someone to do a task that they might not have time for, or getting the bank to loan you money.

-          entrepreneurs do not have someone telling them what to work on.

-          It is a lonely group unless you meet with other entrepreneurs

-          Being a successful entrepreneur is about timing and a luck, being at the right place at the right time with the right solution.

Mission Statement and Vision

Mission Statement and Vision

Snowduty.com is Ski patrollers helping ski patrols. We are a provider of scheduling and geo-tracking of safety personnel.  Our mission is to help winter resorts be safer and more efficient. We do this through our mobile web application, which enables real-time location tracking and scheduling of ski patrollers.  Through better scheduling and coverage we can increase the safety of the clients and help lower the liability resorts face. Real-time coverage maps help resorts know areas that need to be covered rather than pencil and paper notes.  Our database provides an archive enabling resorts to look back on historical performance.  We are different than off the shelf scheduling software, in that we come to the resort and customize our solution to meet the site specific needs.   

Vision statement:

Ski patrollers helping ski patrols making resorts safer and clients happier.

Graham Evens: Entrepreneur and thinking skills

Graham Evens

Entrepreneur and thinking skills

Graham challenged us to think outside of the normal business strategy.  He talked about the success of good thinking skills, he talked of Ford hiring Alan Mulally and how when asked what he was going to do Alan responded with “I have to find out what I do not know”. He also told of another company that moved into the US grocery business and did market research but did not listen to the results. They went ahead and tried to give the consumers what they thought they were missing. This turned out to be a failure. Graham went on to get us thinking with the following points.

He gave us 3 things to think around:

- Know what you do not know

            Do not think that you know everything be able to learn

- Recognize challenges to your paradigm

Humans have a hard time including things that challenge what they believe to be true

- Five wrong ways of thinking – This one is by Edward de Bono you’ll have to look it up.

           

Graham gave us insight into how to present your business to potential investors:

He said there where 4 groups of investors

A.   Interested in my space

B.    Kind of in my space

C.    Might be in my space

D.   Not in my space at all

When looking for investors you want to start by pitching to the group that is not interested. If you fail the effect is minimal. This strategy also gives you opportunity to practice your presentation techniques and your business pitch.

Finally Graham talked about ways to think better:

- Brainstorming – reverse brainstorming

         How do you narrow down all of those ideas to ones that are useful?

- 2x2 Static matrices

         The idea is to break it up into four parts, these can help you to narrow your focus

- SWOT: strength, weakness opportunities, threats

Another matrix that lets you discuss these areas of your idea

- Morning pages

First thing in the morning get out everything that is in your head, then you can be

more focused (Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life)

by Anne Lemott

- Six thinking hats by Edward de Bono. Descriptions taken from Wikipedia

Information: (White) - considering purely what information is available, what are   

    the facts?

Emotions (Red) - intuitive or instinctive gut reactions or statements of emotional

    feeling (but not any justification)

Discernment (Black) - logic applied to identifying reasons to be cautious and

    conservative

Optimistic response (Yellow) - logic applied to identifying benefits, seeking

     harmony

Creativity (Green) - statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a

    thought goes

Business Planning

            The important thing is how you think about it. Do not be too optimistic.

5 Levels of crowd sourcing

5 Levels of crowd sourcing for Monkey-Boy Games: Middle School Adventures

This game is about getting back at the bullies and aliens that have infiltrated your school. Your job is to use the weapons at your disposal to identify them and take them out. Weapons are: Spit wad shooter, paperclip launcher, ball point pen gun.

Level 1: 1$ or more gets you our admiration and unending appreciation, but nothing tangible in return.

                   

Level 2: 10$ or more gets you the finished app before it is released, but nothing really tangible in return,

                     except our eternal gratitude and thanks.You also get a Sponsor badge in the forum and all

                     of the above.

Level 3: 25$ or more gets you all of the above and something tangible: one (1) piece of original artwork 

                     (6x9).  

Level 4: 50$ gets you all of the above and your image as one of the by-standers, the

                     artwork is of your character, and your name in the credits. You also get an invitation to be

                     a part of the Beta testers group. 

Level 5: 100$ and up gets you all of the above and your likeness as one of the targets (bullies), your

         name in the credits and our eternal gratitude. The artwork is of your character likeness.

         And you get to be a part of the Alpha testers group. 

John Demer: Financing your business

John Demer: Financing your business

John started with a goal: make boatloads of money

How do you do it? Own your own business. But not just any business it needs to be one that produces a product. John arrived at this point by learning as much as he could from the jobs that he worked at. He started out at a bank then a bonding company until he went into business with a friend and made the big money but that did not hold his attention. He stayed retired for 2 weeks then went into investing.  John Talked about having a plan: Why are you in business, tell the truth and focus on that goal. Have an exit strategy, how will you get out of the business. Once you have the plan and the strategy how are you going to finance it? Unless you are independently wealthy you are going to need money. Businesses grow in stages and financing needs to be thought of in terms of how do to get to the next stage. Your business is a pie how much are you willing to give up to make it happen. John advised us to link the outside funding to Objectives that you reach along the way.  Basic funding looks like this:

            -VC capital (visa capital)

            -Friends and family (based on their faith in you)

            -Angel investors

            -Venture Capital

            -Government grants + loans

John pointed out that this cycle is not linear (it is a cycle). The best investment is one that you do not have to give away equity. 

John focused on Angels and their part in the lifecycle.

Angels are people who have been in business and are at the point where they can invest what they have made. They are still looking for that thrill of being in the game.

Every community has an angel group even if it is not called that. You probably know of some and you do not realize it. Angel funding is the step after you have put in your money and your friends and family, and you need that next step.

How to get angel funding:

            -Apply to present at an angel meeting

            -Have a business plan

            -Financial statements

-Know the market valuation of your company and be prepared to defend why you

 think your company is worth what you think it is.

            -Be prepared