Stanford Entrepreneur

Be Willing To Kill Your Idea

travis.kiefer — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 03:35:46 +0000

If you're like me, you love to come up with ideas. Inspiration strikes at any time and you immediately start to mentally construct the b-plan. What are my startup costs? What capital do I need to start this? What inventory will I need? What will be my distribution method? What will the company's name be? What is the target demographic? How much do I need to sell in order to break even? Who do I know that would fit great on this team? If you're not asking yourself these questions, you need to take your idea to the next level and start asking them! Not only do you have to ask all of these questions, write up your answers, run the numbers, and ask yourself whether or not you would be passionate enough about this idea, but also you have to ask yourself if this is feasible and worth your time.

ETL - Ken Wilcox

travis.kiefer — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 03:21:23 +0000

Today's speaker, Ken Wilcox, is probably one of the funniest and most personable entrepreneur we have had come to the class. He shares the story of his life in becoming an entrepreneur and provides some pretty amazing insight into why he made the decisions he made and the wide ranging impact of said decisions. You can listen to the original podcast here or check out the notes below.

ETL - B-Corporation

travis.kiefer — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 22:47:42 +0000

Today's entrepreneurs are Andrew Kassoy, Bart Houlahan, and Jay Coen Gilbert. They are thee founders of B-Corporation, a nonprofit that's looking to create a hybrid corporate system (like C-corporations and S-corporations) that bakes a social mission right into the Articles of Incorporation. It's a great idea and these guys have a lot of work ahead of them, but they definitely have an interesting story to tell. Here's the original podcast or read the notes below.

Social Entrepreneurship ASB - Elliot Brown

travis.kiefer — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 06:41:39 +0000

Class today was great because we had Elliot Brown of Springboard Forward talk to us. He had a very interesting story, which I will highlight below, and then for the last remaining portion we talked about "theories of change" - what they are, what they mean, and the impact they have. Overall a very good class, with a couple of lessons learned highlighted, and one of the better stories told about a nonprofit and their success.

Discovering Entrepreneurship - E-Week Kickoff!

travis.kiefer — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 03:15:49 +0000

So, the moment I have been waiting for all quarter - the Entrepreneurship Week Kickoff and world premiere of the movie "Imagine It!". The video is about entrepreneurship week last year at Stanford and did an absolutely FANTASTIC job at highlighting what entrepreneurship is all about and I highly recommend anyone interested in entrepreneurship to watch it. That said, here's a quick overview of what's happening throughout the week.

ETL - Mir Imran

travis.kiefer — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 01:37:00 +0000

For individuals interested in starting high tech companies that are related to biology, chemistry, etc., Mir Imran is your man. He has started a number of businesses focusing on the patents he has received and the application of these technologies. While I personally don't see myself following a similar path as an entrepreneur, it just goes to show the variety and variability in being an entrepreneur. You can listen to his speech here, or read the summary below.

Social Entrepreneurship ASB - Class Seven

travis.kiefer — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 05:02:57 +0000

Today's class wasn't extremely exciting or eventful. For the most part, we discussed how we could make class better, one weird item that was particular to each of us, the Innovation Tournament (main event of E-Week), and brainstorming. Because most of the stuff didn't have much practical value, I will discuss brainstorming in this post.

Discovering Entrepreneurship - Field Trip to Plug And Play

travis.kiefer — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 03:06:00 +0000

Today, for class, we went to Plug and Play Tech Center (PnP) for a field trip. For startups in the Silicon Valley area, this is a really cool place to go and get all the resources you need to get going. I have personally enjoyed the idea of an incubator since I lived in South [...]

ETL - Brett Crosby

travis.kiefer — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 02:40:41 +0000

Brett Crosby, today's speaker, was one of the most personable guys to come to ETL. Not only did he discuss his background in doing business and college stuff, but he also picked out the nuggets of wisdom he gained along the way. In a nutshell, Mr. Crosby started the web analytics company Urchin with his brother and a couple buddies from college which eventually was acquired by Google and is now known as Google Analytics. Also, here's the full clip if you're interested.

Social Entrepreneurship ASB - Class Six

travis.kiefer — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 05:30:22 +0000

Professor Tina Seelig, who I have mentioned before here and here, came to our class today. We spent the majority of the class period engaged in an activity designed by her, and I have to say it ranks in the top five of the most AMAZING classes at Stanford thus far. It was a phenomenal rush and I think I can spend at least twice as much time analyzing what happened in the activity than we actually spent on the activity. Here's an entry of how things progressed.