Erik Hanberg

Last Thursday our guest speaker was Erik Hanberg and he brought some very new perspectives on what it means to be an entrepreneur. Erik spoke of his initial experience with entrepreneurship, which involved a theater that he volunteered at where he was then promoted to becoming the theater's manager. Erik talked about the experience being very stressful, but eye-opening in the sense that it got him thinking about how to make something that would be self sufficient and not involve him always being there. From this theater venture he then branched off to create his own theater, which failed, but was still a great experience for him. He currently is managing a graphic design company that he and his wifed cofounded and that is currently his major focus while being a member of the Tacoma Parks Board. The biggest thing I took away from Erik Hanberg's discussion with the class was the whole mentality of "shipping" and how basically you are not going to get anywhere until you actually out whatever it is you are doing out there. This can be seen with the example of Erik writing and self publishing his books. It really rings true that you are not going to learn until you actually do it, which I feel really is a foundation for entrepreneurship.