I have nothing but great words for the Center for Entrepreneurship. The program was phenomenal and was played a substantial role in my self-growth as the entrepreneur that I am today.
Shortly after graduating in 2011, like all my peers, I was in search of what to do and pondered on what career path I was going to take. During my college career, I struggled between deciding what major to commit to. I jumped from Business Administration to Marketing and then to Finance; all of which I never felt fulfilled in. It wasn’t until I stumbled into my business counselor’s office and discovered the Entrepreneur Major that I subconsciously coveted.
In between juggling a full-time workload of school, I have always been very active in diving into the workplace for experience. I have always been into fashion and have held internships from different spectrums of the industry. I did sales at a fashion buying agency, then at a small independent fashion brand in downtown Los Angeles, a fashion PR company and then as an intern to an established fashion stylist.
At each one of my positions, I was able to excel greatly and make substantial impressions because of the knowledge I had gained while working on the consulting projects and the course work at CSUF. I was able to contribute ideas and solutions to problems that I have worked on with small business owners from our consulting projects. These consulting projects gave me a hands on approach and challenged me to seek more than what was shown. It taught me the most valuable lesson of all: what the essence of an entrepreneurial spirit is.
I am currently a co-founder and co-owner of Shop D&J, an online women’s retailer specializing in street chic fashion apparel and accessories. We launched in December 2012 and have slowly been progressing and expanding as we are fulfilling a niche and manifesting a permanent and respectable place in this industry. I feel so blessed and grateful for the opportunity and the support thus far.
I owe a lot of what I know and what I have done on my own to the Center for Entrepreneurship. They gave me the tools to be able to pave my own path and follow my dreams. Everything I learned has been my guiding foundation as I set forth on this journey to push this company to a level where it becomes a positive and influential impact to girls all around world.
Next Wednesday, May 29th, we will be celebrating the end of another successful school year and you are invited (and by “you” I mean those of “you” who are connected with the CSUF Entrepreneurship Program in some way or another). For more information please read below:
What are the best industries to target for new ventures or employment? I get asked them question a lot and typically respond that it may be best to target growing (hopefully thriving) industries. Examples include:
Candy: Even during a recession, people still buy candy.It’s cheap and a comfort food.Companies like Tootsie Pops and Snickers launched during the Depression of the 1930s.
iPhone apps: This is an industry that Steve Jobs predicted will grow even larger.iPhone applications can be customized for practically any interest or consumer need.Browse Apple’s App Store to get an idea of the sheer number and variety of iPhone applications out there and the potential for niche marketing.There are apps for children’s books, photo storing, music, games, politics, fitness, money management, fertility tracking, and more.
Healthcare: The healthcare system in the United States is the middle of some big changes.A great industry to be involved is creating new (and improving old) healthcare technology.Home health care is also likely to be huge in the coming decades, as Baby Boomers retire.
Self-improvement: We are in the middle of a health and fitness revolution.People are turning to self-help books and seminars, yoga and other forms of exercise, and more.
Education: Technical and trade schools are options people are turning to when they are laid off or can’t find a job in the first place.Continuing education is likely to be a larger industry in the future, when people are expected to learn, re-learn, and “un-learn” skills quickly in order to adapt to a fast-paced information age.
Other industries to watch are fast-casual dining, green construction, energy, niche consulting, repair services, and corporate event planning (i.e. conferences and workshops).
With that said, here are some industries that you might want to avoid:
Traditional photofinishing/developing: the internet and programs like Instagram have made this industry practically obsolete.
Recordable media like CDs and DVDs: Again, the internet plays a large role here.People stream movies and listen to music online, especially members of the younger generation.
Newspapers / magazines: This may seem like an obvious one, since you are reading this online.People are increasingly turning to the internet for their news (and pretty much everything else).
Other industries to avoid include telecom networking equipment manufacturing, live theater, tobacco,, synthetic fiber manufacturing, and hardware manufacturing.
In conclusion, seek out opportunities in industries that are growing, not fading away.Avoid employment or investment opportunities in industries that are stuck in the past.By that I mean industries that are making products or offering services that will simply be obsolete in a number of years.
John Bradley Jackson
Director, Center for Entrepreneurship
jjackson@fulleton.edu
About a year ago we first brought you the story of Diana Ho and her boutique clothing company: Diana Ho Designs. Instead of going into a written explanation of what it is she set out to do I’ll just post a couple of pictures.
Diana Ho Designs Making art of shoes was the original intention for Diana and what she created was truly stunning.
Making art out of a pair of Vans shoes is impressive but it wasn’t enough to make Diana Ho Designs successful.
As you can tell from the above pictures Diana definitely has artistic ability and the shoes that she was making were pieces of art. Unfortunately, it proved rather difficult for her to make a business out of this. Once she realized that making artsy shoes wasn’t going to be enough for her business she went ahead and made a change to her business; that would be called a “pivot” in our parlance.
A pivot isn’t something too difficult to grasp in the abstract as a pivot is nothing more than a fundamental change in a part of the business’ strategy. In this case, Diana made the pivot away from selling expensive shoes to selling more economical jewelry. Pivots, however, can be difficult to implement in the real world. Why? One of the reasons why is because a pivot represents a change in vision and, as is the case with most small businesses, the person(s) who started the business is/are the one(s) with the vision and for better or worse they have an attachment to that particular vision. Making a pivot to them might represent some kind of failure on their part because why would you make changes unless you had been wrong about something?
Fortunately, Diana isn’t in that group of stubborn entrepreneur who will go down with the vision (so to speak). She made some changes to her business model and is realizing the success she initially sought out. Here’s more of the story as retold by Dr. Atul Teckchandani:
Ho’s success as an entrepreneur has hinged on her ability to master the pivot. Her desire was to create a firm that offered products allowing people to express their uniqueness through their fashion. She called her firm Diana Ho Designs and initially started off selling customized shoes, which she would hand paint based on the customer’s specifications. When that didn’t go as well as expected, she pivoted to offering a seasonal collection of hand-painted shoes. While these shoes are still available for purchase, Ho realized that her primary audience was interested in more affordable ways to show off their uniqueness.
So she pivoted again and offered jewelry. And in selling her own line of jewelry, Ho has found a hit. Diana Ho Designs is currently available at Boutique Carolina in Berkeley, Taxi CDC in Los Angeles and online at www.dianahodesigns.com.
Diana Ho Designs’ Jewelry
The article written by Dr. Teckchandani goes on to talk a great deal about the benefits Ms. Ho derived from participating in the CSUF Entrepreneurship Program and is well worth the read just for that reason. It also goes into more depth about the entrepreneurial process that Diana had to go through in making her business a success.
Assist with developing marketing strategies for promoting programs and services
Assist in the execution of marketing initiatives for small business clients – including electronic newsletters, social media, direct mail, website, PR, events, etc.
Assist with other tasks as assigned
Qualifications:
Self-starter; able to work well without constant direction and meet assigned deadlines
Exceptionally direct oral and written communication skills
Amazing attention to detail
Strong computer skills – including willingness to learn existing client content management platforms (e.g. createsend.com and WrodPress)
Skills to be Developed:
Enhance written and oral communication skills
Learn about practical marketing strategies
Be part of portfolio-worthy work
Ideal opportunity for someone who may want to be an entrepreneur
Time Commitment:
Approximately 15-20 hours a week until you graduate/get a full time job
Ideally, looking for someone who would be interested in working for us for 12 months
Flexible around holidays, breaks and finals
Office is in Corona (off 91 Fwy and Maple St) – some work may be completed from home
Compensation: $12 per hour
Starting Date: Mid-June
To Apply: Submit a cover letter and resume via email to danielle@supplypatriot.com
Leadership is one of the most underrated factors in a business’ success. In our experience, entrepreneurs are willing to buy dozens of books about leadership but they are unwilling to go the extra step needed to thoughtfully craft a leadership strategy for their business.
Please view the following video that features one of our many happy Leadership Student Consulting clients.
Our recruiting seasons center around our Spring and Fall Semesters. If you have any questions, comments or inquiries about our program please contact our Case Coordinator, Ms. Charlesetta Medina, either at cymedina@fullerton.edu or (657) 278-8243. She is very passionate about this program and will happily answer all of your questions. If she is not immediately available please leave her a message with your contact information and she will get back to you as soon as possible.
After months of hard work by our student entrepreneurs we have a winner! But before we get ahead of ourselves here let us first talk about the Finals.
It was a morning event and, unlike the first CSUF Business Plan Competition Finals, we had good weather, which was nice. The three finalists – Synova Life Sciences, NixFix Chasers and The Edge – were all in top form during their presentations and each team impressed our judges and the crowd. It was a close competition (very close actually) and in the end Synova Life Sciences won the day with NixFix Chasers taking second place and The Edge third.
(Watch this video summary of the event for some more depth about the Finals)
Synova Receiving 1st Place Award From L to R: Thomas Flores, Bryan Trivedi, Cesar Enchante, John Chi & John Bradley Jackson
This competition is a rigorous event that forces all entrants to address the important aspects that face every new business such as:
How will you market this business?
Who are your customers?
Who is on your team and what holes do you need to fill in your founding team?
What is the competitive landscape?
How much funding do you need to successfully launch this business?
How will your company fair financially over the coming three years?
NixFix Receiving 2nd Place Award From L to R: Nick Ajluni & John Bradley Jackson
And so on with these probing questions which elicit much more circumspect plans from our students. These are the kinds of questions that every entrepreneur must face while launching a business and being able to put forth these questions to students before they take their first steps on this journey is invaluable to their growth as a student entrepreneur.
What is really impressive about many of the plans that we saw during this competition is that they are in the process of launching these businesses or will soon launch them (included in this group are all three finalists). Of course, some of the student entrepreneurs won’t end up launching their ideas but some will, which is what is important.
The Edge Receiving 3rd Place Award From L to R: Mayra Figueroa & John Bradley Jackson
In the future we plan on doing some posts on the individual teams that participated in this competition so make sure to check back from time to time.
You are all invited to the CSUF Business Plan Competition 2013 Finals
Who: All Students are welcome – an Opportunity Drawing will be held for all students in attendance, prizes include: iPad Mini, Angels Tickets, concert tickets, lodging at a resort and more (student ID must be shown in order to enter Opportunity Drawing)
Faculty, alumni, staff and everyone else who is a friend of entrepreneurship is welcomed to this event as well (sorry, you will not be eligible for those wonderful prizes however)
What: CSUF Business Plan Competition Finals. The Top 3 CSUF teams will present their business concepts to a panel of distinguished judges and one team will be crowned the winner.
When: this Wednesday, April 17 from 9:30am to noon
Dr. Michael Ames is a Professor Emeritus at CSUF, Chairman of the Board for the Center for Entrepreneurship and aids many different organizations, both inside and outside the university, in advancing our free enterprise system. We have been fortunate enough to have him create a series of blog posts about the Guiding Principles for Mihaylo College’s Entrepreneurship program. Here is the twentieth (and final) post in this series.
This blog post is the twentieth and final post in a series about Mihaylo Entrepreneurship’s Fifteen Guiding Principles. Blog # 20 concludes a Principle-by-Principle review with a discussion of Principle Fifteen: Strive for Success. In this blog, we discuss what it means to strive, how striving relates to courage and persistence, and to our strengths and weaknesses.
Strive for Success – Produce results that create value to realize your full potential and find fulfillment in your work. Success is within you; it’s up to you to bring it out. Success comes from making the effort to become the best of which you are capable. Strive to improve a little each day, eventually big things will occur. Lasting success is not the big, quick improvement. Rather, it results from small improvements one day at a time. Success is not perfection. One can never reach perfection. Nevertheless, perfection is the goal.
“Strive” is the key word in Principle 15. It has five definitions: “To struggle in opposition,” “To contend,” “To fight vigorously,” “To make great efforts,” and “To devote serious effort or energy.” Most people feel they are principled. Many consciously adopt guiding principles. Yet, few fulfill their success potential. Why?
In our view, the answer is that most of us do not strive consistently. We imagine success. We dream about how pleasant it will be when we are successful. We read about success and feel inspired by Carol Dweck’s discussion of growth mindsets or JohnWooden’s description of how to achieve competitive greatness. We may even plan pathways to success in our personal and professional lives. Sometimes, we act to carry out our plans. However, even when we act, we often move forward timidly, retreating at the first mishap, rather than learning from the experience and trying again. Most of us do not strive consistently.
Striving implies courage and persistence. It requires resolute effort to improve by long hours of determined practice and learning from many “failures.” One cannot permit fear of failure to prevent effort.
Many years ago, David Eisenman told a story from early in his career about one of his students (who we will call Chris). David is the founder of the Mardan School in Irvine, California. Mardan is a therapeutic school. It combines a rigorous academic curriculum with therapeutic supports, social skills instruction, and necessary interventions as part of the regular school day.
Chris’ parents took Chris to a tennis match and the next day, Chris approached David overflowing with excitement about the experience. “I want to be a tennis champion!” Chris exclaimed. David, sadly and carefully explained to Chris that learning to play tennis would be extremely difficult. David recommended that Chris try alternative sports where he could employ his strengths. Armed with David’s coaching, Chris headed toward the school gym with a determined look in his eye. (Due to a physiological condition, Chris’ medical doctors reported that Chris had very limited hand-eye coordination. Chris could not do many things most of us take for granted, like hitting a ball with a racket. The normal nerve connections simply were not there.)
Months later, Chris knocked on the door of David’s office. On entering, beaming with pride, Chris held up a sports trophy. “I won!” Chris said. “Congratulations. What Sport?” David asked cheerfully. “Tennis,” Chris replied.
David will never forget the lesson he learned from Chris. Never assume failure. Striving can lead to success. Courage and persistence often allow us to strengthen alternative connections within us that allow us to magnify and redeploy our strengths. Through striving we learn to overcome or work around obstacles, ranging from internal weaknesses to external threats.
Another great example of someone overcoming adversity can be seen in the video below.
Nineteen hundred years ago, Epictetus said, “First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” Often striving is extremely difficult. For example, as entrepreneurs, whether we want to or not, we must lead to succeed. Like Chris, the tennis player, successful entrepreneurs are not perfect. However, they must strive to become exceptional leaders. They do so, not by focusing 100% on correcting their leadership weaknesses, but by developing their unique and profound strengths. Chris, the tennis player, had a choice. Chris could try to correct a big weakness. For example, the physiological inability to hit the ball like normal people. Or, Chris could strive to develop strengths to win matches. Chris chose winning by working around a “fatal” weakness.
As entrepreneurs, striving develops our leadership strengths. We each strive in our own way, but the result of our striving often has marked, positive impact on bottom-line results and employee performance. In their 2012 book, How to Be Exceptional: Drive Leadership Success by Magnifying Your Strengths (New York: McGraw Hill) John Zenger, Joseph Folkman, Robert Sherwin and Barbara Steel emphasize strengths. Their emphasis is based on their research. In their words, “Our decision to emphasize the development of strengths is based on [three] factors. First, the… data show that regardless of how much effort people spend on correcting weaknesses, it will only bring them to a certain midpoint on the overall measure of effectiveness. Second… our preoccupation with fixing weaknesses causes managers to focus on asking people to improve capabilities based solely on the fact that they are weaknesses, rather than their importance to the success of an individual. [Third,] oftentimes capabilities that will make a person eminently successful are things we already do fairly well, but when these capabilities are improved, they would lead to dramatically more success.” (p.39)
According Folkman et al, there are four benefits of building on strengths:
“1. People are more motivated when they work on their strengths. It will come as no surprise that when people work on something they enjoy, they are more willing to invest time and effort into improvement.
“2. Those who worked on their strengths were more successful in their change efforts, and that substantially increased their overall leadership effectiveness.
“3.Change in outcomes – such as employee commitment, intention to stay, highly committed employees, total sales, and performance ratings – followed improvements in leadership effectiveness.
“4. Such improvement provides incentive and motivation for further development.” (p.89)
Think about a competition that you want to win. Are you worried that you might not qualify for entry? Try anyway! You cannot finish until you start. Give yourself permission to succeed. Step forward, strive, and earn success.
This blog post is the twentieth and final post in a series about Mihaylo Entrepreneurship’s Fifteen Guiding Principles. Blog # 20 concludes a Principle-by-Principle review with a discussion of Principle Fifteen: Strive for Success. In this blog, we discuss what it means to strive, how striving relates to courage and persistence, and to our strengths and weaknesses.
Dr. Michael Ames is a Professor Emeritus at CSUF, Chairman of the Board for the Center for Entrepreneurship and aids many different organizations, both inside and outside the university, in advancing our free enterprise system. We have been fortunate enough to have him create a series of blog posts about the Guiding Principles for Mihaylo College’s Entrepreneurship program. Here is the nineteenth post in this series.
This blog post is the nineteenth in a series about Mihaylo Entrepreneurship’s Fifteen Guiding Principles. Blog # 19 continues a Principle-by-Principle review with a discussion of Principle Fourteen: Walk the Talk. In this blog, we explore the truth contained in an old Persian proverb. We draw on the work of three authors and we ask five questions about your willingness to walk the talk. We end by offering two practical resources that will help you build your ventures. The next and final blog in the series will discuss our final Guiding Principle to explain why it is an essential part of the list.
Walk the Talk – Lead by example. Strive to stay true to your values in every action and communication. Use this yardstick: never say or do anything that you would not want your grandchildren to learn about when they come of age.
“Thinking well is wise; planning well, wiser; but doing well is the wisest and best of all.”
Persian proverb
In this post we will first ask: “Why is doing well the wisest and best of all?” We will draw on the work of three authors to explore this topic. Next, we will ask you five questions about your willingness to walk the talk. We end by offering you two practical resources that will help you build your ventures.
To begin to answer this important question, first consider how the above proverb applies to executives in established firms. Today, as throughout history, too many top level leaders overvalue strategy while undervaluing the importance of innovation and execution. This miscalculation leads to the failure of many C-level executives. As an entrepreneur, you can learn from their mistakes. Eric Beaudan argues in his 2012 book, Creative Execution: What Great leaders Do to Unleash Bold Thinking and Innovation, that “…inevitably, an organization’s success hinges not on the strength of its strategy, but on its leaders’ ability to craft a realistic view of how the strategy will be implemented, and to empower their people to get engaged in its execution in a meaningful way…. What CEOs and executives get paid to do is not to lay out a vision and objectives, and then watch their troops perform from the top of the hill.” ((Mississauga, Ontario: John Wiley & Sons Canada, Ltd.) p. 6.)
Of practical interest to entrepreneurs founding new ventures, Beaudan argues that creative execution requires five essential ingredients: (1) A simple, unambiguous strategy, (2) Candid dialogue with your team about the strategy and its implementation, (3) Clear roles and accountabilities that drive individual and team performance, (4) Bold action that puts the strategy into play, and, in our view, perhaps the most important of all (5) Your Visible Leadership to cement individual commitments to what your team needs to get done. Without your visible commitment, “…the wheels of Creative Execution will spin out of control or take their own separate directions. Visible leadership is required to maintain a common focus, set the pace, keep track of execution successes or failures, and create a positive culture centered on learning and outcomes.” (p. 11)
Larry Bossidy adds another perspective from the executive suite that has implications for entrepreneurs striving to learn how to do well. In 2002, he published Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done (New York: Crown Business). At the time, Bossidy was Chairman and former CEO of Honeywell International, with a career-long string of C-level positions to his credit. In his view, “Every great leader has had an instinct for execution. He has said, in effect, ‘Unless I can make this plan happen, it’s not going to matter.’ Too many high level thinkers are articulate conceptualizers and they are very good at grasping strategies and explaining them. This, they know, is what it takes to get ahead. They aren’t interested in the ‘how’ of getting things done: that’s for somebody else to think about.” (p. 35). “… [T]he intelligent, articulate conceptualizers don’t necessarily understand how to execute. Many don’t realize what needs to be done to convert a vision into specific tasks, because their high level thinking is too broad. They don’t follow through and get things done; the details bore them. They don’t crystallize thought or anticipate roadblocks. They don’t know how to pick people for their organizations who can execute. Their lack of engagement deprives them of the sound judgment about people that comes only through practice.” (p.36)
In his 2010 book, Staying Power: Six Enduring Principles for Managing Strategy and Innovation in an Uncertain World, Michael A. Cusumano’s third principle is “Capabilities, Not Just Strategy” (New York: Oxford University Press, Inc.) “Managers should focus not simply on formulating strategy or a vision of the future (that is, deciding what to do) but equally on building distinctive organizational capabilities and operational skills (that is, how to do things) that rise above common practice (that is, what most firms do). Distinctive capabilities center on people, processes, and accumulated knowledge that reflect a deep understanding of the business and the technology, and how they are changing. Deep capabilities, combined with strategy, enable the firm to offer superior products and services as well as exploit foreseen and unforeseen opportunities for innovation and business development.” (p. 114)
Take time now to distill the good advice contained in the above comments. For example, is success your choice? If you want it, can you make it happen? Are you willing to do more than just think about it and plan it? Are you willing to learn what you need to know to get things done? Are you willing to do what you have to do to succeed?
If you are willing to walk the talk, we offer you two practical resources to help.
First, Captain D. Michael Abrashoff (USN ret.) published a national bestseller in 2002 that remains a favorite of many leadership coaches. Abrashoof walks the talk. His book is a practical, how to guide on doing Beaudan’s visible leadership. (It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy (New York: Business Plus)
Second, “The Goya Effect,” is a classic, short film on how to manage by walking around. The 1975 film is hard to find but if you go here there is an option to get it sent to CSUF’s Pollack Library; it’s a long shot but it might work. In case you get lucky, we will not give away the plot. Here, we will share the advice street-wise managers give to the protagonist in the film, who is not unlike many entrepreneurs we know. Do not, “overemphasize systems and figures. They are valuable for forward planning, but do not reveal what is happening now.” Frequently walk around the workplace. Look for “things happening that should not be, and also for things that are not noticed simply because they are always there.” “…It is a question of noticing what is happening at the sharp end and then finding out why.” (“Meeting Guide for the ‘Goya Effect’” (London: Rank Organisation Short Films Group) p.8) As you do this, it is important to read the “…signals that people give both consciously and unconsciously.” It is also important to remember “…that the question of signals works both ways, and [you]… must learn to give the right signals to [your]… people.” (p. 9)
As you walk around the workplace, do six things to give the right signals:
“First – have a reason for being there. The more you’re there the more reasons you will have. But to start with, find a reason or you will be self-conscious and behave like a visiting V. I. P.
“Second – what you do is as important as what you say. For instance: stand alongside people, don’t confront them across their work, and be interested, really interested. The more interested you are, the more you will engage other people’s interest, and the more they’ll respond.
“Third – look and listen; really look and listen consciously. It’s hard work; at first you have to keep reminding yourself to make the effort, but after a while it becomes second nature.
“Fourth – Don’t cross examine people. Ask for help, get them to explain things, then they talk their own way, more freely; and when you make notes it should be what they want you to remember – make your own notes afterwards.
“Fifth – Talk about work. That is all you will have in common to start with. You won’t win their trust by asking about Grannie’s lumbago, you will win it by caring about them in their jobs, and in time that will earn you the right to their personal confidences.
“Sixth – And above all: follow through. If someone has an idea you can act on do so and tell them how it’s going. If you can’t act on it, tell them why not.” (pp. 9-10).
This blog post is the nineteenth in a series about Mihaylo Entrepreneurship’s Fifteen Guiding Principles. Blog # 19 continues a Principle-by-Principle review with a discussion of Principle Fourteen: Walk the Talk. In this blog, we explore the truth contained in an Old Persian proverb. We draw on the work of three authors and we ask five questions about your willingness to walk the talk. We end by offering two practical resources that will help you build your ventures. The next and final blog in the series will discuss our final Guiding Principle to explain why it is an essential part of the list.
Next Wednesday, May 29th, we will be celebrating the end of another successful school year and you are invited (and by “you” I mean those of “you” who are connected with the CSUF Entrepreneurship Program in some way or another). For more information please read below:
