Guest Speaker - Erik Hanberg

     Erik Hanberg came and spoke to us in class last Thursday. Like from Derek's presentation, I learned a great deal about the life of an entrepreneurship. Erik has experience in nonprofits, business, and government. He was elected on the Metro Parks of Tacoma. Erik's diverse background reminds me of how diverse I want to be in my career. I have interests in law, finance, and technology. I have to find a job/business that helps me experience all of these interests.

    One of the things that Erik said was something that I've heard many times in life was that it's better to finish something than to start that. He also said that when running a business, if you lose passion or have no excitement about it, that would be the time to leave. I forgot to ask him but I wanted to hear his perspective on how you balance these two ideas. What if you're about to launch/ship but you lose interest or you're in the middle of process of developing the idea. What my compromise was when pursuing an idea/having thoughts about do so, jot down why you want to pursue the idea - mini business plan - is there a market. is your product unique. And if that convinces you, take a shot at it and see what happens. You can always learn from failure.

    Another thing that Erik said was to know your audience. What I took away was that when I start a business, I will pay a lot of attention of attention to product forums. I would want my future business to be customer centric.