Grafitti Removal Service

A franchise was offered to the sharks in one episode of the Shark Tank. It was a graffiti removal business, which operated out of a single truck per operation, and used a secret chemical which would be used by the business.

The offer from the Paul, the business owner, was $350,000 for 15% equity in the company. Kevin O'leary immediately made him an offer of $350,000 for 110% because of how young the business was.

Two high offers where made for 75% of the business, but both we're rejected by Paul, knowing that the business had more potential than that. Those offers would also make Paul an employee of his own business and not a sole owner.

I believe this episode was a good example of the sharks jumping the gun, and underestimating a company. If they had looked at the company honestly, I believe they would see the potential in it and offer a reasonable investment.

Souls Calling

Gena Cotria appeared on the shark tank proposing her buisness for investment. Her buisness was a gift and accessory line of products aimed at having a positive impact in the world. She was asking for $150,000 for 25%.

Gena was quickly shot down by the sharks when she said that she had invested $100,000 into the buisness, but have only made $18,000 in profit last year alone.

Instead of investing in Gena's buisness, the sharks all decided to add their word of advice. Kevin told her that her emotions should not be a force behind a buisness, and that her buisness is worth nothing because "numbers never lie." There was a consensus between the sharks, all beleiving that she should let the buisness go.

Jump Forward

Today we watched an episode of sharktank. Two entrepreneurs where selling their high school football social network site for 15% for $150,000. The end offer was $600,000 for 50% because two of the sharks wanted in and they believed that the company needed more money to succeed.

I liked this episode becaused it showed the value investors will have in a company with a good idea. Two of the sharks fought over the company, and began to raise eachother for the invsting in the company. Eventually they both saw that working against eachother, one of them would have to pay more than they should. So they asked the entrepenuers to leave and agreed on a 50-50 deal in company.

I beleive this was a good deal on all sides because the entrepenuers had gained much more than they went in asking for, and both of the investors shared 50% of the company with half as much money.

SHARK TANK - Mr. Poncho and the Uroclub

A young couple from New York introduced their product on the Skark Tank. A little designer pocket that acted as a case for ipods and phones, and a little coil for your headphones to not get tangled. The product was immediately shot down by the sharks, as the idea was not very new and unique and really had no potential for a business. I agree with the sharks, as if I, myself, wouldn't buy the product, I would not invest in it.

The second entrepreneur was a urologist / Golfer who was marketing a product by himself for golfers. The idea was a club that you could discreetly pee into to relieve yourself on the golf course. Although most of the sharks saw it as a novelty item with no real potential, one shark, and avid golfer, bought the product for 25,000 for 70% of the product. This was a good deal on both sides I believe.

Eric Van Maren - Guest Speaker

Last week we had Eric Van Maren, of Van Maren inc. come into class and speak. He was a graduate of Sardis in 1971, him and his brother started is business from debt, today they have built over 18,000 homes and many other facilities in the Fraser valley and the states. He started his speech saying, he has been preparing for his speech his whole life, and also stated from the beginning that "not everyone is suited to be an entrepreneur."

Eric had also gave 7 key attributes he believes all entrepreneurs should have.
1. Work Hard - Be prepared to work harder than your employees
2. Be passionate about what you choose to do - Love what you do.
3. Learn from your mistakes
4. Guard your reputation - you spend a life time building your reputation.
5. Select good partners - use mentors, ask for help
6. Hire smart employee's.
7. Stick with what you are good at.


He also quoted donald rumsfeld during the Gulf War as an important approach to entrepenuership.
"there are known knowns, ther are known unknowns, But there is also unknown unknowns"
Which Eric explained is a way of planning for the future and being prepared for things we know will come, and things we wont see coming.

Google

Google was a market creating companies. While there were search engines available like google, it was google that was able to create a profitable market from it and build it's entrepreneurial style type. Founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, their goal was to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" and they believe that their company is bridging the gap between people in the world.
The way google conducts work is also what makes the company succeed. Their company headquarters is very relaxed. There is a starbucks in the building, and lots of leisure activities like pool tables and it's own gym for staff. The staff is also encouraged to spend some of their time taking onprojects their interested in. These projects resulted in some of google's most successul launches like Gmail and Google News.
Google also innovated the market in other ways. Instead of charging for new services, they are all free. In this way no new competitor can get a competitive edge on price. They are also monopolizing the market in many ways by putting their name with every new product to come out. With the success of the iphone, google partnered up with Apple offered it services to iphone users.
Google can be considered a niche company, and an existing market entering company. For instance, when Map Quest first started to create a market, Google quickly responded with Google Maps, a free application. But, Google also created new online markets with launches of Google News and Gmail.
Today, google is still considered relativly young company. But, Google has changed the way in which people now connect and has an even larger impact on how we use the internet today.

Blue Ocean Strategy

The Blue Ocean strategy explains many different things about businesses such as what happens when businesses directly compete against each other, Teaches you how to build new businesses where none existed, this is all great information to know if you really want to make a successful business.
When businesses directly compete with each other everything becomes over crowded, so all the businesses eventually suffer from reduced market share, growth and profit which is why its a good idea to differentiate your self from other businesses. Instead of copying already successful businesses you should work on creating a business that stands out from the rest which is what the Blue Ocean strategy is all about and explains to you. Some examples of Blue Ocean Businesses are Cell Phones and Biotechnology, these companies never existed 30 years ago but now are some of the largest companies today.
When creating a business you should always focus on the overall view of the business and not at the stats, if you focus on the stats you will start to loose what you where going for at the beginning and you will start to see your business quickly change.
You should try and focus on potential costumers instead of focusing on your already current customers. If you want to make your company grow you should focus on getting more potential customers.
The four "Get the Strategic Sequence Right" steps are:
1: Why should anyone buy your product?
2: Is it fairly priced to appeal to a large audience?
3: Can you create it at the right cost to create a profit?
4: Are there any impediments to discourage the market from accepting your product?These four steps are crucial to follow when creating a new business or product as just having something fancy will not make you successful, you got to make sure you are doing things right when promoting your product and when selling your product, because even if it's the best in the market no one will purchase it if you over price it.

A company that i feel is Blue Ocean Strategy company is Apple, I feel Apple is a Blue Ocean company because they are always producing new ideas for products, for example the iPod, iPhone both of these are great examples of what makes Apple unique from their competitors, for the iPod they where the first to create a small device that can play videos you can watch, the iPhone allows people to easily call friends, play games, surf the web and tons of other great things. Those are only just two products from apple that they created to be different from other companies. I feel Apple is a great company that comes up with new and great ideas that other companies soon start to copy

Ken Robinson - Creativity in schools

Children are creative
creativity is held back by being wrong
we grow out of creativity
all school have same heichrchy of classes: Math, English, Science
purpose of edication to produce university proffessors
over population, degrees arnt worth anything
intellegence is dynamic, brain is interactive which produces creativity
rethink the capabillity of the mind
see our creativity for the ho
pe that it is.
educated out of being creative.
Fear of being wrong holds back creativity.

Ken Robinson spoke a TED conference this year, and titled his talk 'creativity in schools'.
Ken spoke about education and how we should rethink the system. He explained that the way education is set up, the highest acheivement would be to become a professor. This makes no room for the arts like dancing, msuic, and art. The education system favours left minded people, who get praise and move along in the system, while artists and dancers can be demonized as being bi-polar or just fidgety.
Ken points out that all children are creative. This is mostly from the fact that they are not afraid of being wrong or rejection of their ideas. But as children grow older, they taught what is right and wrong, and thus, limiting their scope for creativness. Ken beleive that people dont grow into being creative, but they are grown out of being creative with the education system used today.

What I tihnk is most important to take out of this talk from Ken is to not be afraid to be creative and make mistakes. To pursue different things like a child would, and have a child like curiosity for different things.( To approach different things like a child would)