Sam Walton: Bargain Billionaire

Sam Walton was born March 19, 1918. A famous entrepenuer who grew up on a farm, and kept his roots as a farm boy even as America's richest entrepenuers of his time.
Growing up, he showed all signs of a great leader; being the team captain of many of the school's sports teams and even running a small courier buisness through highschool. His father was an oppurtunist buisnessman taht traveled town to town buying and selling properties for discount. Sam's admiration for his father and how he conducted buisness would create a model for his retail venture that would become wal-mart.

His reatil model was simple. Sam bought items at large and in bulk, and undercut the competitors in the area with lower profit margins. This would put his buisness and family in debt, at one point 2 million dollares of personal debt, but with the increasing customer buisness and franchise expansion was able to gain profits to excell in the market. By 1980 Wal-Mart had a revenue of 4 Billion dollars a year.

The Bobble Place

Todays episode of the shark tank featured a guy proposing a bobble head business. This business would take a picture of you and in a few weeks a bobble head would come back in your image. This business would be easily located in malls with a kiosk that would take you picture and let the customer pick a body. The business proposed was an untested spin off idea of the original business that was online, but offered the same service.But 'The Guy' offered no stake in his original business that was successful.

The sharks found this greedy, as 'The Guy' was offering no stake in his original business, and was asking for a 'handout' for an untested business. So, instead of making offers on the proposed business, they made offers on the original business, and wanted nothing to do with the proposed business. The offers put out were around $100,000 for about 20% in the business. At one point two of the sharks were ready to going half and half on a deal of $125,00 for 20%. 'The Guy' declined all offers as he was willing no stake in his original business.

If I we're in the position -of teh sharks, I would feel I would do the same thing. I mean, The guy essentialy was dangling his successful buisness infront of the sharks, but offered none of it, instead proposing a buisness wiht a huge amount of risk attached to it. In any case it would be a very risky investment for anyone. I would also agree that this guy was just being greedy. Instead of using his own profits to expand on his buisness, he didn't want to risk his own investment and thought the sharks could work that part of the deal.

Atomic Tea

On one episode of 'The Dragons Den', Jessica and Russel, two entrepenuers, had a product to pitch. Atomic Tea. A tasty little drink with one already successful outlet. Together, the two had already put $125,000 of their own money into the franchise, and we're looking for a litle help and some more money. Their original offer was $125,000 for 25%.

The sharks, having immediately liked the product, and the direction of the franchise, all wanted a bit in the franchise, but none we're willing to goto 25% for $125,00. Instead they all decided to split $150,000 for %50.1 stake in the franchise. Jessica and Russel took their offer.

I beleive this was a smart move on their part, as the decision was probably based on a bigger picture. Giving up a little of the buisness and income, for better growth of the franchise. Putting the franchise first instead of profits.

Seth Godin - Sliced Bread!

Safe is risky. This is what Seth Godin wanted to get across; That the old marketing complex does not work anymore. Theold marketing complex of making mass appealing products to the average person does not work anymore. The average person does not have enough time to consider marketing of products or different products of choice.
The only products that sell in todays world are products that spread by mouth. The only products that spread by mouth are the ones worth talking about. Remarkable Products (hence the word remarkable 'worth remarking about'). These are the ideas that sell. Ideas on the edge, that are not the norm that give people something worth talking about. Seth coins the term "ideas that spread, win".
Seth also points out how the two most popular veichles today are the Hummer and the mini convertable. The biggest and smallest car's. These 'different from the norm' veichles are what grabs peoples attention and has them talking.
He leaves the audience with 'Fringe is where the action is'. Telling the audience to look beyond the norm and try ideas and products that will grabs people attention, and have them talking.

Element Bars - Negotiation

1. Doesn't give up

2. Features and Benefits

3. First person to name a price loses

4.Force others to make an offer

5.Meet in the Middle.

Today we watched a great episode of 'shark tank'. There was a young entrepenuer trying to sell his buisness that makes customizable energy bars.

Immediatly 3 of the sharks dropped out of his offer, which was 150k for 15% equity. But when the sharks said they were out of the deal, Jonthan, the entrepenuer, wouldn't give up. He would recite the features and benefits of his products and what potential it had.

Since the price set by the entrepenuer was to high. He had the sharks offer a price. But the settled investment was met in between.

Wispots - Shark Tank

A man not only invested his time and effort into a company, but also his mortgage and kids college funds into the product of Wispots. The product itself was pretty much obsolete, being pointed by one investor, that anyone who was in need of this product would have already purchased a PDA. But there is still a lot to learn from this failed investment.

The basic failure of this entrepreneur was not entirely his fault. He built his idea from the ground up and was completely convinced of selling his product to a respectable investment price. But during the creation of this product, he failed to see his errors in judgement. like the market value of the product or what i was really worth. Most of this was contributed from lack of mentors or anyone other than himself to challenge his thinking.
Another mistake the investors noticed was this entrepreneur had put to much on the line. He was too desperate and foolish. He had put his mortgage on the line and his children's college fund on the line and needed to sell his product.

Two things of Importance.
1. A team of advisors is important for added perspective on business move and risks.
2. Having others finance the idea will give more lenience to you business and allow for more risks.

Mr. Todds Pies

A successful business owner of a local wholesale pie bakery went onto the shark tank. His business grossed about $850,000 a year with about 20% profit each fiscal year. This is what was selling on his business.

The sharks heard out his story, and what he was selling the business for; 460k for 10% of the company. But was eventually shot down and cornered to the last offer of 230k for 50%, which he took.

What I can take away from this, is the common situation of over-valuing your company. it is important to maintain and perspective on your company. If you over-value your company, you scare away potential investors, and seem too optimistic.

College Foxes Packing Boxes

During the last episode I watched of "The Shark Tank", there were two young entrepenuers who had started a very successful buisness 'College hunks moving junk'. They were on the show to try to sell their new spin-off buissness idea 'College Foxes Packing Boxes'. The investors wouldn't bite, figureing they all wanted a part off the 'College hunks moving junk', so they began making offers on the "Hunk's" instead of the "Foxes". The two young entrepenuers turned down there offers, as they did not have the intention to sell off their "Hunks" buisness.

In my opinion, These young entrepenuers were only on the show to sell off a half-baked idea that is a spin-off from an already successful buisness. A quick and easy buck for them to earn, while still keeping profits of an already successfull and proven buisness. Essentially selling off the buisness formula.
This is smart in the fact that they planned to use their proven formula to sell off a a similar

Steve Jobs Stanford Guest Speaker.

Steve jobs recently made a speech to young graduates of Stanford University. He outlined his success in sereveral areas and companies; such as Apple, Pixar Animations, and NeXT. But the most important point he was making was the journey that he took to come to this successful point in his life.

Steve was a college dropout. He had no idea what he wanted to do going through college and eventually dropped out thinking it was going nowhere. At the time steve wasn't sure what he loved, but he followed what he was interested in, such as typography, where he dropped into colege courses of interest. He realized this had no practical application, but that it was what he was interested in. Steve said looking back, his class oin typography is what resulted in the design of the personal computer to day, something that he never thought would have resulted, but in retrospect was in valuable for his success today.

There are three valuable points that steve tried to make across:
-Love what you do
-Follow your heart
-Live like it is your last day

Richard Branson

Richard Branson is a successful entrepreneur with over 200 businesses and a collective revenue of $25 Billion dollars a year. A keen understanding for business and markets, he is continually developing ideas and business models. He eclairs his company "virgin" a market shaking company. A company that usually enters pre-existing markets, and changes the dynamics with either quality service, good brand identity, new ideas of re-inventing the market, or all of the above.

Virgin has secured it's place as well established company all around the world, and is quickly identified with Richard Branson, the founder of all things virgin. Raised in London, Branson was a dyslexic high school dropout. But, his excel in sports and captain of the teams was a large boost in confidence he needed to begin his legacy.

There are a few things I can learn from Richard Branson and his success.
- Constantly taking on new business ventures, while playing it smart and thinking of the bigger picture. ( For instance, selling of parts of his company for revenue and keep virgin employment.)
- He runs his business with passion. (It is diffidently his life.)
- Success is detrimend by how long you can stick to it, learn from failures, and adapt.
- A business is made of people full or PASSION.