Day 3 of my learning at Global Entrepreneurial Experience
It was another packed day for us, and a lot of learning. I am slowly putting together the pieces of the puzzle. The day kick started with an interaction with the founder of Kickstarter, Yancey Strickler. What a timing! I later learned that timing has to be perfect too for a product or idea to be successful.
Kickstarter is a company worth millions of dollars that focuses mainly on new companies and entrepreneurs. It is a global resource that allows users to donate money to different fundraisers on the website. This allows for companies to receive the funding it needs to get started. Companies like Peleton were started on Kickstarter. You can even fund movies on the website. Many movies produced by legendary director Spike Lee were funded on Kickstarter. Yancey Strickler is one of the founders, and he is also an author. He talked about how he got to where he is. The most important point was to never let what others say get to your head. Always keep trying.
Next, Jessica Gonzalez, founder of InCharged, VendX, and Lux-UVC talked to us. She told us as an entrepreneur you must be open to all ideas no matter how stupid they might sound. She also said to be positive, but never too positive. Being too positive can really help, but being way too positive and confident might lead to you making some really bad choices. You might think that everything is going all right when it is really going in the exact opposite direction. Her final message was to never take advantage of your customers. You should make your customers trust you.
Dr. Sunita Kumar was our next speaker. Dr. Sunita Kumar is, obviously, a doctor. She designed MRI machines that look nicer and are much more advanced. One of the main problems with MRI scanners are people are scared of them. They all look big and imposing. Dr. Kumar is working on making them smaller and more friendly. She talked about the perfect team, or how she likes to call it, a squad. She said the perfect squad consists of your one main partner and a group of smaller associates to help you. Your main partner should be someone who can counteract your bad qualities. If you are impatient for example, your main partner should be someone who is patient. This balances out your team. Your group of smaller associates should be people who you look to for advice when needed. Your teammates should always be smarter than you, or there would be no point in having a team.
Chieh Huang is the CEO and co-founder of box.com. Box.com is an online retailer almost like Amazon, that has around 400 employees around the United States. It is headquartered in New York City. Box.com received approximately 160 million dollars in revenue last year. The topic of discussion was innovation. He told us the importance of always making a successful product, make it so that no one has ever seen anything like it before. He also said to make sure that when making your product, think of a problem that you really want to be solved. Then create your product to solve that problem. That will guarantee that your product is innovative. After you get your first draft, keep making changes and testing it until it is perfect. If you follow these steps, then you will get an extremely innovative product.
Finally, we had a great sesssion with Lisa Skeete Tatum. Lisa is the founder and CEO of Landit. Landit is a technology platform pointed toward making a working environment more diverse. She is also focusing on making sure there are more women in the work force. She said to be successful, you should plan ahead. You need to plan how you are going to make your product, and how to successfully push your product out to consumers. She also said to make sure there are no defects in your product before releasing it. Finally she said that your plan for your product needs to be revised many times. Test your product out to consumers and ask what they think of it, and what they think will need to be fixed on it . Then take their suggestions and make it better. That is the key to a great product.
Today I learned how to be a better entrepreneur. I learned to not let any ideas go by you without a thought. I understood for any business, you need a team you can rely on. For a product to be successful, the product has to be as innovative as possible. It should be something that the customer has never seen before. Finally you should always plan ahead, and to also listen to your customers feedback. Hope you enjoyed reading this blog on the Day 3 of the Global Entrepreneurial Experience(GEE).
NytroMind 