The Speakers Have the Floor

On the third week of classes, the first series of speakers stopped by our class to talk about “Start-up Companies 101;” or at least, that’s the topic that I perceived the most. I was blown away by Kurtis, Josh, Ben, and Sean not only because of their creativity, but also their perseverance in this industry regardless of their monetary success.

I really enjoyed listening to Ben and Sean recount their experiences especially because they graduated from the APOC class and started so many business ventures that actually came into fruition. For example, when Ben started to explain his “5-second-movies” idea, my face lit up with excitement and I was more than intrigued. It was extremely fascinating to hear from the person who started that company, because my friends and I watched those videos on repeat from YouTube. The videos never get old and each time it’s still funny despite knowing the ending. My personally favorites stem from The Lion King, Titanic, and The Lord of the Rings. I even found myself bragging to my friends, asking them “Guess who I met today?” And their shocked reaction was exactly what I anticipated. To top it all off, knowing that he funded these videos out-of-pocket for a while and invested so much personal effort is truly inspiring. You can tell that passion is key.

Also, when Kurtis was explaining what it takes to be a great CEO, I told my friends that you have to live and breathe your company 24/7. If you don’t shamelessly make a plug for your website at every chance or meeting, you will lose so many great opportunities that someone could have benefitted from. It’s almost a scary –yet fascinating— thought to think that if I create a start-up website, the CEO position will automatically fall on me.

Sean’s Jewish dating site is also really impressive. In fact, I find myself talking about what I learned in class to my peers more often than I anticipated. I tried to explain that I learned from Kurtis that advertisements should not be someone’s main source of revenue because that steady stream is less dependable than actual subscriptions. It is extremely smart that the Jewish dating site charges subscription fees not only per month, but in blocks at a time – therefore, three months can be covered in one click! I hadn’t really thought of that before, because I thought advertisements were a sure way of receiving revenue.

When Karen and Clint asked the question, “If you could create your own website again, would you do it differently?” I really respected Sean when he said he prefers having his small, niche community. To me, that showed that he cared more about personal interaction, rather than succumbing to selfish, monetary motives. I can see how large, multi-faceted companies such as Facebook and Myspace can be extremely lucrative, but very risky in terms of liability.

I cannot stress how much information I learned from these speakers. I often think that personal experiences and learning from their mistakes definitely trump lectures because they directly apply to our current status as business-venture students. I’m so excited to see what’s coming next!