Guest Speaker - Jim Kastama

This Post was never written, since we did not have time in the quarter to hear form this speaker.

Dot.com to Dot.bomb

On Tuesday, March 8 Andrew Fry gave the class a presentation about what happened during the Dot.com to Dot.boom Era. Andrew explained that previous to the Technology bubble bursting there had been many and different kind of market bubbles, like the Tulip Bubble a long time ago, or housing market bubbles. 

In this presentation he used Dinosaurs to represent how the bubble came to be. The Dinosaurs were the big companies that thought they ruled the technology world because they were so big and their leadership was old and cocky. They used to think that the way they had always done business would continue to stay the same and that because they had stayed a float for quite a while that their business model worked.

Yet, one by one they perished. And the big hit that wiped most of them was when the World Wide Wave took speed and everyone started to go on the web services that would be free or lure the masses into trying new things that would be based on new business models. Indeed, only few of this dinosaurs survived and can still be found on the depths of the web such as Yahoo or AOL. 

One of the key points to take away from this presentation is that as people or companies age they need to continue doing their best to adapt to their ever evolving environment if they want to continue thriving in it. Otherwise new things and things that may seem weird or strange to them may take over for them. On the other hand, as opposed to the dinosaurs, we also have an option to just let go of those things and just enjoy the rest of our time on our own terms. 

In a short sentence, the main concept to remember is to be flexible and perceptive to changes that go around us so that we can continue to thrive and not perish. 

Guest Speaker - John Dimmer

John Dimmer

On Thursday, March 3 we had John dimmer come talk to our class. I found him to be very interesting as I wrote 8 pages, front and back, of notes of what he had to say to us. In general I found him very excited and eager to share with us what his experiences had been like and what he had learned throughout his journey as an entrepreneur in very specific areas. 

John graduated form Clover Park High School. He attended the University of Oregon, where he received a B.S. in Finance. He also played for their golf team during his first years in College. Soon after college he worked at Puget Sound Bank.

He knew from early on that he wanted to get jobs that would provide him with good experiences and opportunities so that one day he would be ready to start a business of his own.

In 1994 John and Andre Fry started Free Media Range, a web development firm in the Puget Sound area. In 1999, prior to the .com bubble burst, they sold the company to Luminant Worldwide Corp. And he retired on January of 2000. 

He said that after he was fully free from any connections to the company he had a lot of free time and wanted to spend it with friends playing golf but all of them were working on their regular jobs so he found himself bored many times. 

He decided to do something constructive with his time. He became an angel investor and soon was contacted by a friend to start a Honda dealer in the area. He mentioned that after about 11 years his and his partner's business heavily relied on the management experience of the manager of the Honda car dealer they had hired from early on. John says that in making a business successful "the key is in hiring the right people." He also says that "When you are running your company it is a 24/7 business."

John and his friend needed to find the "Golden Handcuffs" to use on their best employee, the manager of the car dealer so that they continue thriving on their business and not loose him to a competitor. This came in the form of opening another business down in Oregon. This time they would open a premium RV dealership in Portland, Oregon, and the manager of the Honda dealership would be given stock options on this new business. 

After that he discussed other things in class, such as how to fund your business and important things to consider while doing that. He is a very informative speaker and I would highly recommend him to anyone looking for advice on how to start your business.