Guest Speaker #3

Guest Speaker - Shadrach White 

Shadrach White is one of the most inspiring guest speakers that I got a chance to listen to. He presented to us his journey from a copier technician to a 100% owner of his company, CloudPWR. He asked this question at the beginning of the presentation, which one of us are in sales? In fact, every one of us is actually in sale because we all have something to sale such as an idea to a product. His first company is called Rucker Parker Basketball Gear which sold Jersey short. He was not just passionate about the basketball gear, also the stories behind it. So, his strategic moves were to honor an old-time basketball player whose family lives in Brooklyn, New York. The family was touched by his offer because no other companies had ever done that, they just took the name without any gratitude.

His story during the time of CloudPWR gave us lots of great advice. One of them was who should get paid first, and the importance of it on managing a company. Also, he mentioned about not being cheap while hiring a lawyer. Because for every million that you make, you will get a lawsuit from someone who's trying to get a piece of it. In order to make himself a 100% owner of the company, he must have been put a lot of effort while processing the workload carefully and being well prepared for the unfortunate. 

Guest Speaker #1

Guest Speaker - Erik Hanberg 

On Feb 7th, our class had a chance to listen and making questions to the first guest speaker of this quarter, Erik Hanberg. We had a prospect in the entrepreneurship through his experience. First, Erik showed us his work as a self-publisher and, the books that caught my eyes is the sci-fi trilogy. He surely did some research on the market about what kind of topics people looking forward to buying. He mostly works with Amazon and its site such as Audible to help his books reach out for more customers. On the other hand, I can tell that he really loves what he's doing and, I personally can't force myself to write books because of profits. Moreover, he talked about his podcast company which covers the Tacoma and Seattle area. It's a great place to learn about the local news and community activities in it. We also had a good look at his financial chart comparing his self-employed salary his employed salaries throughout a year looks like. In the end, it's a good start for us to hear someone who has lots of great experience in the entrepreneur business. 

Protecting Your Intellectual Property

Protecting Your Intellectual Property 

Having your own business idea and now what you want to do is to have the strategies on how to protect it from being snatched by the outsiders. For such big investors, stealing the business idea could seriously harm their reputation in the business world. However, we should not be careless. Instead, we are only highlighting the necessities while keeping them interested and not seeing it as a financial risk as we go through the business plan. It's worth notice to ask for your partners, your potential investors or whoever you discuss your business plan with to sign the non-disclosure agreement. Moreover, getting the legal patent if you feel confident and having the financial support to keep it under your name. You might need an attorney if you are not sure about the steps to apply for the patent or just simply ask them for legal advice or what to be concerned during the process. The file could be easily found at USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office.) Most important, we have to keep every document related to the business idea and managing the number of copies if you have ever planned to give to anyone. Protecting your Intellectual Property is crucial as it helps to tide the investors to your proposal and to get the most out of the deal.