Guest Speaker - Erick Hanberg

    Erick Hanberg came to speak with the TINST 475 class about his experience as an entrepreneur on Thursday, January 21, 2016 at UW Tacoma.  Erick's life experience was really interesting to me. After working for many non-profits, Erick landed a full time job as the director of the Grand Cinema in Tacoma. Through that experience he developed many of his entrepreneurial skills. He learned how to approach that point on which the business almost runs by itself or with minimal effort. This led him to believe in himself and decide to start his own business. Some of the projects he started were:

•        Side X Side
•        The Horatio
•         Exit 133
•         Suite 133

    He currently is working on Side X Side with his wife as well as selling books he wrote. He has always been inclined to writing in all kinds of forms and his interest in many subject make him a curious and well-rounded character. His graduated with a Bachelors of Arts in English and through this he developed a better skill writing for his audiences. Through writing books he learned and provides the wise advice that if you want to sell a product you must first practice to start and finish one. He says shipping is supper important. Along with figuring who your product’s audience is and how to reach them. 

He says a good strategy to reach out to your possible future customers would be to make a website and project what your idea is and how they could benefit from it. Then you could ask them to provide you with their email address so that you could reach them once you are done or ready to release your product. You could use this website and advertise it on social media or other websites to test and see if you get an audience and how large that audience is.

Erick motivated me to pursue my dream of possibly writing a book and to keep things simple, to look for wats in which I can do something with things and tools I know.