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.