Eric Henberg

Today we had guest speaker Eric Henberg, he is a writer, marketing person, nonprofit and entrepreneur. He talked about two basic things that every entrepreneur should keep in mind. One is the emotional labor part of the business and other is working for money.

Emotional labor: there are a number of things that go in a start up emotionally. There are times you can’t get your hands on any work at all. And there are others when there is too much work to handle.  Eric mentioned this amazing quote from Thomas A. Edison

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

In other words, working hard is important when comes to entrepreneurship. You have to get up and handle the situation and complications. You have to get up and make the phone calls that you need to make. You have to get up and send an email or phone call that you don’t want to do. Another quote Which Eric mentioned that goes along the same line is from Seth Godin

“But the new laziness has nothing to do with physical labor and everything to do with fear. If you're not going to make those sales calls or invent that innovation or push that insight, you're not avoiding it because you need physical rest. You're hiding out because you're afraid of expending emotional labor.”

Working for money: to explain it further, get paid for what you did, don’t undersell your abilities. He mentioned the three question criteria we should use when receiving a job.

1)      Do we want the job?

2)      Does it pay what you want it to pay?

3)      Will it help my career?

The piece of advice for any starting up entrepreneur is: enjoy your work because rewards are uncertain, be willing to fail, build networking, waste less time (on TV etc), and the last one get more done in night/morning/lunch. The last BIG piece of advice is: do it get it done, learn and move on to next.

Movie review – Startup.com

Main characters: Kenneth Austin, kaleil Isaza Tuzman, Tom Herman

Plot: it takes place in the New York City for most of the time but it moves from one big city to another during the initial period, when they were looking for investors. 

Background: it is a documentary film that chronicles the dot-com era. The movie revolves around the startup of govWorks in years 1999-2000, when internet bubble was busting.

Summary:  it starts with Tuzman leaving his job at Goldman Sachs and joining with Herman fulltime to start a new business.  Tuzman and Herman dedicate all their time to the govWorks.com, on the other hand Kenneth keeps his day job.  In the beginning the movie shows the struggle they go through, sleeping very little and going to many potential investors. The young entrepreneurs go through a lot of emotional labor trying to convince the investors to invest in their idea. First few investors were their own families. They eventually find some investors and ride the roller coaster ride. The company starts slowly with small group of people and co-ceo as Harman and Tuzman.  Eventually, govWorks gets bigger and bigger, it reaches the TV, media, news and even to the president.  Austin sells his part to Tom and Kaleil, once the company gets to a stable stage.

The movie goes through different aspects of Tuzman and Harman's life. Dora, Tusman’s girlfriend appears multiple times in the movie. She gives the movie the perspective from a partner of an entrepreneur’s point of view.

When the company becomes huge, they start to have issues in the IT department. The IT department is mostly run by Harman, so he talks to Tuzman. This conflict separates the two best friends that got this idea rolling in the first place. After then breaking apart, the company slowly loses its momentum and falls apart. In this movie you can see firsthand the highs and lows of an entrepreneur’s life.  It also clearly showcase’s the personality, abilities, hard work, persistence that is required to be in this field. 

Three Visions

First vision: my first vision is to open an interpretation and translation company online. The website can help all the people with diverse backgrounds have a better communication besides their language. The reason I want to do this is to help all people or businesses make sense of departments that are complex and ambiguous. It can also help companies expand, be effective and be efficient. It can include other languages and better communication within a language.

Second vision: My second choice is to have an online boutique of traditional wear, which can include new, old and used clothing. It can also have a department of renting all the trends. I would do this due to the high demand of traditional were. To give an example, Indian traditional wear is a big part of Indian people lifestyle, even after them moving to many different countries.  Due to the huge population being in different countries, the convenience is big selling point.

Third vision: my third vision is to open a business consultant service. It can cover from accounting, taxes to all the way to finance consultations. It can also help entrepreneurs do the market research and make a business plan. It can help people with their personal finances to helping big companies be more financial responsible. I would like to do that due to all the experience i have and passion for the trade. I think it is very successful idea due to the society’s need to be more financial responsible in an unstable economy we are experiencing.

Expectations from the Class

I am expecting a number of things from TINST 475, such as combination of technology and business. I am also looking forward to listening more from professor and guests about their experiences. This is a little different kind of class for me, as I do not think of myself as an entrepreneur kind of person. I am from a very uncertainty avoidance community.  I like clear cut thing, not a big fan of roller coaster rides that entrepreneurs like.

First thing first, I am very excited about the professor’s background of entrepreneurship. Additionally, the guest speakers are successful entrepreneurs from their own industry. They say the only good way to learn is from real mistakes, real experience, and real life disappointments.  There are two ways to do that, either try it all by yourself OR listen to others mistakes and learn from them.  This opportunity is a huge.

Secondly, the combination of technology with the entrepreneurship is becoming big in reality. We see YouTube, blogs, etc. used more and more by entrepreneurs as part of starting out or establishes them. Also, being in business school I have seen a lot of bits and pieces of business plans. I am also excited to do one from start to end (combine marketing, finance, etc.).

Finally, I am looking forward to establishing the confidence to say that I might be not that bad at it. I will be able to better control my fear factor about the trade. I definitely expect to gain more confidence once I see the business plan and feel that it is tool to avoid uncertainty. Maybe I will learn that roller coaster ride can be fun once in a while if not every time. Maybe!