Entrepreneurness

Things are finally becoming clearer, a little more into focus each day. I'll give some information that I've learned this week that is very important if you end up doing any of this stuff. Patents and Trademarks Patents are a way to obtain an offensive (and expensive) stance on a utility, design, or plant invention that you may have. There are other ways to protect an invention... like a trade secret, but if your end product is meant to end up in the hands of consumers, it can most likely be reverse engineered. For example, if you are inventing a new bike, and do not file a patent within one year of your first sale or introduction to the public, anyone can create the same bike by "reverse engineering" to figure out how its made, and then sell it. The Coke formulation is a trade secret, but has worked this way because of the large amount of ingredients used and specified process to produce. However, if Coke had filed a patent for their formulation, their recipe an...

Do you have the "So, I have an Idea, now what?" syndrome? I've heard this a lot, and all I can respond is there is no easy answer for that. I bet then you've also heard the saying that an idea is a dime a dozen. I know some people consider it "easy" to come up with an idea, though I think it's less trivial to come up with a good idea. In my world a good idea is not just one thought, it is a stream of consciousness built from a problem, followed by a logical solution that is well supported against all sides of argument. Unfortunately, most of us are not Major Nelson with Jeannie besides us to blink us a finished product. In order for our dreams and ideas to become a reality, it does take time. There are many carefully set up ploys that will quickly get other companies rich. I don't know of a single company that is out there to get you rich. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. From what I've heard, the resources advertised on TV like ...

Being an entrepreneur is definitely not a job of quick rewards. If you are thinking of starting a company, or being your boss, and expect things to happen at a snap of a finger, you'll be disappointed. But, if you are willing to be persistent, stubborn, and combine some naiveness with passion, you may just have a shot. I've been at this thing seriously for 7 months now. In that time I've taken classes, networked, gotten familiar with the area and what it has to offer, familiarized myself with Stanford, and have taken action with my projects. I feel that I've been setting up my chessboard. I'm getting all my pieces set up so when I really start playing I'll be prepared for any obstacles my opponent throws my way. I've researched and inquired about everything from the patenting process to funding, technical development to marketing. It's less costly and timely to learn from other people's mistakes then making my own. As a result of doing a large...

On February 26th 2009 and October 10 2008, I blogged about the bits of fate that brought me out to California that involved IDEO and Tom Kelley's book, " The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm ". Then I mentioned how I found out about Tom Kelley speaking, and had the opportunity to meet him. And how I ran into David Kelley, and had the opportunity to meet him. Yesterday I had lunch with an IDEO employee whom I met through a mutual friend. I met her in Palo Alto and we decided to eat at a local Thai restaurant. The host shows us to our seats, a very small two person booth, right next to one other small two person booth, that is nicely tucked away in a corner of the restaurant. After 10 minutes of sitting down and talking about IDEO and what had brought me out to California...the host seats two people in the booth right next to us. I moved my backpack for the person who would be sharing a bench with me. To my... di...

You may have heard much talk about living a sustainable life in terms of the world and environment. That is a very great thing... and something I believe in. But, that is not what I'll be talking about here. I love the book "The Little Prince", so we'll pull that in as an example. In the story the little prince lives on a small planet in which not much goes on, and not much grows except the occasional bothersome baobob. And if you don't know what a baobob is, I think it's time for you to take some time and google it. Because baobobs do have the capacity to rip apart any planet, and therefore should be deemed very important by any such standard. So, back to my point. The little prince saw a little bud come up, and watched it to see if it was a baobob, or something else. He had the patience enough to watch the small bud turn into a rose, the very first and only one on his small and unique planet. He took great care of his rose, would water it, talk to it...

October 5, 2008 I wrote the post: ANOTHER BIT OF FATE! :-) . That post told of a series of events that lead me to the website of a Stanford lecture that let me hear Tom Kelley of IDEO lecture, and let me meet with him at the end. Well, I had read about Stanford's d.school (design school) online, and I was interested to explore it. It seemed like a university version of IDEO, because it was founded by David Kelley (Founder of IDEO) himself. I've been checking out the d.school online periodically, and since I was already planning on checking out the startup job fair on campus on Tuesday I figured it would also be a good opportunity to finally step foot in the d.school. I walked in and asked the receptionist if it was fine to walk around and check it out, and referenced David Kelley and IDEO, and she nonchalantly also mentioned that he happened to be sitting right behind me. I took the opportunity to talk with him and told him of my IDEO inspired journey out to California, i...

US Airways On January 4th, I wrote an entry titled: US Airways- Short term vs Long term decisions , talking about how on a recent US Airways flight I had been charged for water on a 6 hour cross continental domestic flight. My stance was that it was a horrible move for the airline to demand money for water on a cramped flight where there was no readily accessible drinking water. Especially when customers had each paid good money for their flight, and had all of the time in the world to complain to each other during the time in the air. Well, it seems like US Airways have finally gotten the message and have changed their ways. They were hoping the other airlines would follow suite and also decide to charge for drinks, when they didn't, they alone were crouching in the corner in shame. I think if they had thought about their decision a little more before becoming so money hungry they would have avoided the disaster, but I guess better late than never! US Airways won't char...