The Lean Startup

The week has been a stressful but fulfilling one.  First, I'm grateful for modern medicine.  We spent most of the last weekend in doctor's offices and the ER twice as our oldest son had a blood infection of strep and went septic.  I'm so glad we have modern medicine and he is now doing well.

The rest of the week I have been able to work on my new small business trying to raise over $100 to help other in need.  I have now shifted from doing custom t-shirts to doing custom vinyl stickers and logos.  This will make my overhead much lower and be able to customize either without having the cost of different size and color shirts.

I was also able to listen to a great video called The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.  In this small clip, he talks about what he calls the small dollhouse myth.  In this myth, people think that startups and small businesses should just be smaller versions of big companies, and this just isn't true.  He focuses on being lean and making sure we are efficient in making, what he calls, pivots, in our companies.  I feel I did just that when pivoting from shirts to stickers and logos.  It was an important move in my company without having to deal with things like a marketing division or talk to R&D.

Creativity

In my business class this week we focus on creativity and the creative process.  How as a manager, business owner, or entrepreneur can we help foster creativity in those we work with and lead?  In one of our videos we watched this week, Marissa Mayer of Google talked about how if we foster an environment of ideas in our businesses, ideas can come from anywhere.  It doesn’t always have to be top down.  Bringing together those with different backgrounds and expertise can help with this creative processes.  No matter what business we are in, ideas are still important and can help keep the business afloat for years to come.  Things change, and we need to be ready with new ideas, products, and services to stay ahead.

Also, I’m pretty sure I have narrowed down my business idea for the $100 challenge. I was thinking of doing baseball training, but instead, I’m going to do some custom shirts and go from there.  I plan on focusing on local events and sports related apparel.  I will start small and reinvest in inventory as money comes in.  I plan on getting to the $100 pretty easy, but hope to get well beyond that so I can really benefit others and help those in need.

A New Beginning

Well, here I am again.  It is a new semester at BYU-Idaho and I have started a few new courses.  One of those is Business 283.  In this class, I have been asked to keep this online journal/blog.  I'm excited for this opportunity to continue sharing my experiences and insights.  I'm really looking forward to some excellent projects in this class including the $100 challenge.  In this project, I need to make a new company with a maximum of $20 seed money and after all is said and done make at least $100 profit. The other great part of this is that my profits will all be donated to someone in need through the site Kiva.org.  This is a great chance to learn and give back.

I have also really enjoyed this weeks' lessons on finding good business blogs.  I have decided to follow the blog,  The Entrepreneurial Mind  I hope following it will help give me insight and ideas for my own career and businesses. I know that as I explore new ideas and learn lessons from other business owners, it will help me in my passions and pursuits.

This week I also learned about Corey Bell.  He is a man who saw how his life wasn't going to get him to the place he wanted to be in 15-20 years.  So instead of feeling down and defeated, he decided to do something about it.  It pushed him into being an entrepreneur and work for himself.  I loved his attitude about always doing his best and never using the word can't.  When challenges come, we must find a way to overcome!