John Dimmer

Well unfortunately I missed the lecture, but, I did go through several of the blogs to kind of get the feeling for what was covered.I went ahead and found the article "how to Negotiate a Term Sheet" online and read it. One point that I found to be very important in the article was the issue of reverse vesting. When you talk in class you've mentioned that you want to see how much money the entreprenuer is investing in his/her own business.You've basically have said "put your money where your mouth is" to people you've dealt with in putting together". I agree that if an entreprenuer wants to go to venture capitolists for money that it's not unreasonable for the VC to expect some risk from the founder and to want to keep him involved in the company for the long haul by keeping the thing that is close to his heart..his/her money!! Another issue that comes to my mind is the risk the company is taking when going to a VC. It seems that the owner stands to lose a lot of control when he gets in bed with these guys, and it also seems that for all the time it takes to finally get money out of them...isn't worth the hastle. I guess if it takes months to get a contract signed and nothing gets done in August or December, I wonder why someone would want to "kiss that much ass" when your company is already functional without them.

Jon Goodman

I can't believe she's 70+ years old... she's got the energy of a 20yr old!!! I thought she was the best speaker so far. I never really thought that an entreprenuer wasn't in it for the money until she talked about the CEO of Costco and Steve Jobbs. I guess it didn't click until she talked about it. I've heard it before but I took it with a grain of salt. I don't know what she meant with the business plan idea of not using templates. I think the other speaker conviced me that a structured business plan was a must... so I'll go with him.
I thought she had very useful advise starting with the feasability analysis. I thought there were two keys in this one was fear of failure and analysis paralysis that struck me the most. I also didn't know that there were veteran enteprenuers that would be willing to offer advise and time for a hope of compensation once the business was profitable. I like the idea of getting seasoned professionals involved in the business itself. another idea that she had was to take 20% of your gross wages to save enough money to start a business plus the idea of learning a job that you might want to start a business in. I also like the way she broke down the nine year cutting edge business plan where it's three years of growth three years of plateau and three years of decline and making sure you get out before the decline.

Strengths and Weaknesses

1) I know the construction industry
2) I know how to program
3) I know how to estimate fireproofing
4) I know how to read blueprints
5) I know how to communicate with architects
6) I have a friend who is currently bidding projects and can help me out in learning other areas of construction bidding
7) I know how to B.S. my way into getting bid results
8) I know how to get information from product reps
9) My previous boss was an entreprenuer and can be very helpful
10) I can usually find people who are experts in their trade

1) I'm lazy, I've been told by many that I'll get others to do the work I don't like to do
2) I procrastinate at times, like now I'm writing this blog at the last minute
3) I can get angry
4) I get hyper when I get behind and everyone around me gets to enjoy the stress
5) I can get bossy
6) I'm gruff