The Good Business Blog

Dot.com to Dot.bomb is all about the internet bubble created in the 90s through all of the hype of online businesses. So many companies were created with the intention of doing their business online. Some of these big companies were represented by dinosaurs racing, as they were slow and struggled to adapt to changes. We saw an explosion in the value of these companies and the people who started them, but they were all in the bubble. Programmers wanted to be payed huge money due to their demand. People went from millionaires to broke as soon as it burst. Programmers were suddenly not in demand, and had no where to work.

I'm starting a small mobile application development company focused on creating powerful apps for people with particular needs that aren't met by the majority of apps that are out there. I couldn't find what I was looking for, so I'm starting with an app to help myself and others with similar interests. It's a platform for people to build, share, and even sell training programs in a format that is designed for mobile use, since most solutions that exist are things like excel sheets and PDFs. It's a great tool for trainees and coaches. We get our revenue from sales made through the app. The app will be launching late this year.

Deciding on how much to charge for me feels like a bit of a balancing act, which I suppose product pricing always is. My first product, my program builder app for strength athletes or enthusiasts, is somewhat unique in its functionality but it is not without a lot of competition. There are literally hundreds if not thousands of existing fitness apps on the app store, and many of them are simply free with ads, or entirely free for the simpler ones that the developer decided wasn’t worth charging people for. The competition is important here, because with there being so many free options, charging for the product up front may be detrimental to my applications success in the market. If I were to charge up front for the app, my initial thought is that the price would have to be very low, $0.99 perhaps. There are ways of producing income from the app without charging up front too of course, such as advertisements within the app, charging for removing the ads, or simply asking for donation

Stephanie runs a coffee shop that I walk by every single day on campus, Metro Coffee. This was a very fun talk to hear for me because there was something different about hearing from someone whose business I have seen prior to this class. It also feels more relatable because it’s a relatively small operation and I honestly don’t see myself trying to run a very large company, at least not any time soon. Stephanie took over the coffee shop when the previous owner unfortunately became unable to run the business due to cancer. She said that much of what she learned was simply from doing the job, rather than from school or elsewhere. She also received financial help from her mother which apparently ended rather poorly and damaged their relationship, which like John Dimmer mentioned can be a side effect of getting financial support for your business from friends and family. One small thing that she mentioned that I found interesting, although expected, was that the business they do through

John Dimmer is apparently one of the most successful businessmen that Andrew Fry knows, which is saying quite a lot given the fact that we have met many of his friends now and none of them strike me as being particularly unsuccessful. The sheer number of businesses that he has been involved in is simply staggering. I can’t recall all of the businesses that he listed, but there were many that went unmentioned. The variety was quite interesting. One of the businesses was a distillery or something similar, which is quite different than the Airstream RV dealers that he owns. He also owns a Honda dealership. Overall just a very impressive person, I can’t even wrap my head around doing so many different things. He had a lot to say about funding a new business, and what that whole process looks like from the early stages all the way to the endgame. It all starts with self-funding and getting loans from friends and family. From there you can get investments from angels and angel groups. The

Eric Hanberg had a slightly different story to tell compared to many of our other speakers so far. He has had success writing books, in particular for people that are running small non-profit organizations. He himself ran one and decided to make a guide for others to follow. He explained how he took advantage of Amazon and the internet in general to sell his work without having to go through a traditional publisher. Selling his books through Amazon takes care of that. To bring in customers, he pays for online advertising regularly which has worked out quite well for him. He also discovered through this that his book often sold in small bunches, usually a copy for every member on the board of a non-profit. So he saw that as an opportunity to write another book with that idea in mind, tailoring to what they would be looking for. His wife has also found success in working for herself, I believe doing graphic design commissions if my memory is correct. He also showed us a fantastic quote