Amy Salin

Last Thursday we had a guest speaker by the name of Amy Salin who is assistant director from the University of Washington's Burek Center for entrepreneurship and she came to talk with the class about a few different competitions that have to do with entrepreneurship. The first competition she talked about had to with business plans and was titled Business Plan Competition 2016. Essentially the competition is a huge learning experience for those who have a business idea and want to see if it can garner any traction by submitting their business plan and getting valuable feedback about it. The grand prize for this competition is funding to help get your venture off the ground and other finalists also get s small amount of funding for their venture as well. The other competitions she mentioned were the environmental and medical innovation challenges, which have the same structure, but fit different fields other than entrepreneurship.

Mission and Vision Statment

We here at Stumblebox seek to be the best of the best when it comes to monthly subscription boxes. By offering our customers high quality products and phenomenal customer service we want them to know that we genuinely care and that we'll take every effort to assure them of that. With each monthly subscription stumbler we here at Stumblebox hope to help our customers stumble into something new.

Logo, Company Name, and Product

My company's name is Stumblebox and our goal is to assist our customers "stumble" into something new with our monthly subscription boxes called "Stumblers". Essentially how it works is that the customer will choose from one of our preliminary topic boxes, which will include: Politics, Video Games, Geek/Nerd, and Technology. While the selection may seem limited we do plan to add more of a selection in terms of box choice, but these are our starting options. After the customer chooses their box they will get to set their price at anywhere from $25-$75 (in increments of $10). The benefit of this is that if the customer wants to spend more to get higher quality products they can choose to do so and if someone would like to go on the lower end they will still end up getting at least one or two items of value. Our guaranteed value for these boxes is $15 on top of the price paid and we are able to do this by purchasing certain items at a wholesale prices, which saves us money, but customers will still get their monies worth.

Brian Forth

Last week we had the pleasure of having a quest speaker by the name of Brian Forth who is responsible for creating a company by the name of SiteCrafting. One of the most impressive things I took away from Brian's talk with our class was how he started from humble beginnings as school teacher doing all of this website development work on the side to now owning a company that is based here in Tacoma. It was also interesting to hear the "wearing multiple hats" analogy put into practice when Brain talked about how he used to be in charge of everything until he realized that he needs to start hiring more people to do those things for him. The main examples he spoke of when referring to this were HR, accounting, and sales which are very important positions so it makes sense that he waited awhile before delegating them to others. Another part of his discussion that I found intriguing was how he views his company now as opposed to in its early stages where he was doing it on the side. I think it is a cool perspective to have in terms of entrepreneurship because he definitely took a major risk by starting this company, but the end result was definitely worth it.

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.

Guest Speaker Derek Young

Our guest speaker last Thursday was a man by the name of Derek Young who can most definitely be considered an entrepreneur. When asked about himself Young stated that he has a high aptitude for risk and will continuously take risks just to see what happens as the end result. I think that this is a crucial mindset for any aspiring entrepreneur due to the fact that starting your own business involves a large amount of risk. Young went on to further talk about his other business ventures such as the Tacoma Runner Club and his current surprising success, which is a tool that gathers a wide variety of information on a specific topic. Young did not intend for this tool to be sold because he made it for himself, but he now finds himself with a market full of individuals and companies that really want it and are willing to pay quite a bit to get it. One of the biggest things I took away from him speaking to our class was that rather than focus on the plan of your business just do it and learn as you go because you could end up sitting on a good idea for to long and by the time you finally act your time will have passed. As a whole is was really interesting hearing the perspective and views of someone who has been creating their own business' for awhile and becoming successful as a result. Whether it be a sports team management website or a online consulting company Derek Young has the ideal mindset for the world of entrepreneurship.

3 Business Ideas TINST 475

So after many days of brainstorming I believe I have finally come up with my three different business ideas.

1. "StumbleBox": As the ever growing trend of subscription boxes becomes more and more popular I think there should be a box that is custom tailored to what your interests are. The name "StumbleBox" is derived from the online procrastinating tool called "StumbleUpon" where users can select different interests and have sites randomly selected that may align with what they have chosen. The goal for this subscription box is to allow the users to custom pick what the box contains in terms of what interests them the most. Say the individual is more inclined towards PC gaming and Star Trek then they could simply enter those interests and have a box shipped to them containing items that pertain to their selections. When it comes to pricing the customer is allowed to choose how much they are willing to pay, but the quality of goods will be determined by the price they set.
2. "GameTest": Basically the customer will register through our site and we will pair them with upcoming usability studies for select game developers depending on their location and areas of interest/expertise. This allows them to essentially be beta testers, but for small independent game companies our services are affordable and will provide efficient bug/glitch testing for upcoming releases.
3. "Combo": All of your social media in one place. By combining popular apps like facebook, instagram, snapchat, twitter, and reddit in one place you'll never have to download all of their respective apps ever again. It may sound too good to be true, but our apps interface will allow you to access and fully utilize every app.