Lew McMurran: Lobbyist!?! One of THOSE people!

Lew McMurran starts out by identifying himself as a registered lobbyist.  Which this day and age carries a stigma about as appealing as being an ex-con.  People just assume you're some kind of sleazy, lying, manipulating, scheming, corporate pawn.  Which, as it turns out, a student even asked McMurran how he feels about calling himself a lobbyist, to my amusement.  He, however, took it very seriously and claimed to be an honest, straight shooting, regular Joe, who isn't involved with any of the lobbying that generally garners such disrespect from society.   McMurran explained how he worked for the banking industry for a while, then the King County Council, and public utilities district.  Eventually he started the WA Software Alliance which changed its name to the WA Technology Industry Association.  The company is a nonprofit organization 501.C-6 and currently has about 11 employees.  They offer a number of Business Services, events and programs as well as advocacy and lobbying.  Currently there are 600 member companies associated with WTIA and membership is as simple as paying a sum of money relative to the number of employees your company has.  McMurran offered some advice for students, apparently the same advice he tells his high school & college age children, “JOB stands for Just Over Broke – try to create your own business and employee yourself.”  From my perspective however, the job I have has helped me far exceed “just over broke” and the corporation I work for has all the pay, benefits and growth I need.

Jeff Goodwin: Business Life Cycle

Jeff Goodwin has always been an entrepreneur - starting when he was a teenager trying to start his own business washing roofs for people.  Goodwin actually rented a washer and began recruiting clients.  As with all businesses things were slow getting started, but eventually Goodwin was making enough money to buy his own washer, and increase his profit margins within his company.  (I don’t know much about roofing, but I was under the impression you’re not supposed to hit shingles with a pressure washer?  Perhaps I’m wrong…)  Goowdin went to Washington State University and earned a degree in business although he took several technology related electives.  Goodwin decided to continue taking night courses learning various programming languages such as 4tran and cobal and put those skills to use while working for Boeing.   Goodwin spent some time as an assembly programmer and eventually landed a position at IBM.  By this point Goodwin was spawning his own business ideas but a company as large as IBM apparently wasn’t interested in what Goodwin had to offer.  The long and short of it is, Goodwin left, started his own business and became relatively successful.  Unfortunately he became stuck between a rock and a hard place and decided to sell his company to Cisco.  Part of the sale contract included Goodwin running the business for a few more years, which he did, then finally moved back to WA.    Goodwin currently is the president of Goodwin Attorney Services in Tacoma and seems quite content.  Goodwin is an example of how an entrepreneur can start young with ideas and motivation, then get the required skills through education and on the job experience, then start and run a successful company to eventually sell and exit.  He kind of represents the entrepreneur life cycle in a nutshell.

Dr. Lynnette Claire

Dr. Lynnette Claire came to class and spoke to students about entrepreneurship and her experiences during her career.  Dr. Claire was awarded a B.A. in English from the University of California and her first job was writing articles for a magazine centered on Horticulture.   Dr. Claire passed on an opportunity to move to Boston MA to continue work with the horticulture magazine company and instead decided to peruse her options in the greater Puget Sound area.  Dr. Claire started her own company called Simply Seafood magazine using her learning’s while working for the Horticulture magazine.  Claire began working with small businesses as a part time coordinator and helped those companies develop and expand their networks.  Dr. Claire also helped expand several other ventures and realized her passion for business.  At this point she decided to pursue higher education and returned to school at the University of Puget Sound – attaining masters and eventually a doctorate of philosophy from this school.  (Personal note, my wife received her undergraduate degree from UPS – but her PhD from University of Missouri – completely unrelated field though; plant insect and microbial biology)  After finishing school Dr. Claire became interested in teaching and took a position at UPS where she continues to teach.  On the side she is also working in Tacoma to establish an entrepreneurs network in the hopes of helping future entrepreneurs in the area get their careers started.  This type of network could be critical for many new entrepreneurs because many new comers have plenty of good ideas  but lack the experience and connections to bring their ideas to fruition. 

Mickey Mouse Protection Act

STOP: Read the United States Constitution, if you haven't ever - I highly recommend it. 

You might find Article I Section 8 Clause 8 interesting, allow me to quote it here:
    "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;"

It is critical to note that the idea of a copyright or patent is to secure only a limited period of protection.  The keyword here is ‘limited’.  I'd like to share my opinion on why current trends in copyright law are anti-competitive, unconstitutional, and sniffling artistic and economic progress.

First, consider that a limit for a copyright was originally established when the first copyright laws were drafted.  Henceforth modifying that duration with a "Copyright Extension" act will set LEGAL precedence to extend the duration.  Thus, future extensions are now legal via precedence of previous extensions.  As such extending indefinitely is legal and constitutional.  This is a direct contradiction with the United States constitution and also a logical fallacy.  We should not be extending the copyright duration simply because it has been legally extended in the past, those past decisions were as unconstitutional as future ones.

Second, consider patents.  The limit applies to patents and copyrights, yet copyright extensions wildly outpace patent extensions.  Why is that?  It seems to me that certain individuals (Disney, Sonny Bonno) are spending huge quantities of money to lobby for extensions that serve their purpose.  This is interesting because the US Constitution is supposed to provide laws that serve the public, not Disney.  There is no real positive benefit to the US Public by extending copyright protection further.

Third, proponents believe extending copyrights will encourage progress in the arts because artists will have to create original work instead of modifying existing work; this belief is actually quite wrong.  Take technology for example, it is obvious that innovation is faster and vastly more effective than invention.  In fact, imagine a world where innovation was illegal, only invention.  If only the inventor of a technology could innovate on it, you wouldn’t be reading this blog on the internet, let alone on a PC Computer, unless Bell Laboratories were innovative enough to develop every piece of technology in the US that uses a transistor.  That’s right; the very first bipolar point-contact transistor was invented by a couple nerds working for AT&T.  If innovation was illegal, there would be no Intel, no IBM, no AMD, no Microsoft, and no progress.  Sure, there would be some new inventions we don’t have today… but at what cost?

Indefinite copyrights clobber innovation, stifle advancement, and undermine the constitution.   It’s not about “Fairness” or “Sticking it to the man” it’s about (something that may seem equally as arbitrary, yet profoundly more important) the spirit of the United States Constitution and enforcing the philosophies of the founding fathers.

I could discuss this for days… but fellow students probably didn’t read this far anyways…

AOL: Ahead of their time, and Failing

We're all familiar with America On Line (AOL) and if you're like me, you enjoyed the free coasters they sent in the mail (AOL trial CDROMs) back in the 90's. AOL is an interesting story for me, because I grew up hearing about it, and also hating it. AOL started in the 80's with an online video game service where you could pay a subscription and download video games directly to your Atari console. That business however wasn't working, for a number of reasons, and AOL moved to an Online Internet Service provide, a rather bloated, bug ridden, sluggish, and annoying ISP to boot. That said, at one time AOL had over 30 million subscribers (in 2001) with stock valued over $226 Billion (with a B) and is noted as one of the founding innovators of the internet, bringing it to the mainstream masses relatively effectively. That success was short lived as AOL's software and services became less desirable, and in 2006 the company dwindled to 10% of its former glory with stock valued at only $20 Billion and a subscriber base of less than 4.4 million. Today AOL has delt with acquisitions and mergers, and is struggling to find adequate management to lead the company along a successful path to cash.

I'm writing about AOL because they were very much ahead of their time, but have been unable to really find sustainable market to keep themselves afloat. In the 1980's their company was providing down-loadable game content directly to your console, years ahead of similar services such as Steam. Yet Steam is a high successful company and business is booming for them. Namely because they came around the time broadband and PC games were really gaining momentum and the service they provided is sustainable, and very useful especially as internet speeds increase. AOL's founder also wanted to provide a server where users could buy music on demand, but the idea was rejected by Warner Brothers. Which is interesting because iTunes today, is an incredibly successful company. Again, AOL was a little premature with the idea, but once MP3 players hit it big, and broadband made music online viable, that market was ripe.

Sometimes being ahead of your time can lead to incredible success, but not always, it is possible to be too far ahead of the times, and alienate your customers, or worse, your investors.  (Look at the idiot to the left for a perfect example of what being too far ahead of your time can look like to potential customers)  If the people who will fund your venture and the people who will pay for your product cannot see how your product fits in to the world you will fail. It could be the most profound and innovative idea, yet you will find no success in that endeavor simply because the market isn't ready for your product. There is a special moment when a market is very ripe with potential customers, yet free of stiff competition, and spotting when that market is at its critical mass and having the epiphany required to harvest that fruit is very rare yet extremely rewarding. It kills me when I see a business who sells a product that's so obvious I can't imagine how I didn't think of it, and at the same time I can't imagine how the world existed without it. When you see those companies, you know they'll be successful, and when you see companies like AOL, you know they will eventually fail.

Startup.com (and Shutdown.com apparently)

Startup.com is a documentary of the extraordinary rise and fall of a company during the mid-late 1990's while the newly developing internet was flooding the market with new industry and investors were pouring out money hand over fist without necessarily fully understanding the internet and these new dot com businesses. The documentary follows the major business developments of GovWorks.com through the eyes of its three original founders (although primarily through Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman's perspective as the third founder is largely absent from the film and eventually bought out of the organization). Long story short, the three founders invested relatively small amounts of personal assets (maybe $20k each) and with the company kicking off around 8 employees their growth to over 233 employees and investments skyrocketing over $70 million they found themselves outclass and outgunned in a market with competitors producing superior products, and experienced management and leadership causing significant internal destabilization leading to an eventual demise of the company.

Tom Herman & Kaleil Isaza Tuzman

The two remaining founders declared bankruptcy in 2001 noting assets of $8 million and liabilities of around $40 million, the CEO's basically getting nothing. It seemed Tuzman was capable of securing the finances for the company but Herman was clearly not qualified to run the technical aspects of the company which may have ultimately led to the demise of GovWorks.com. In the end, the friendship between high school friends Tom and Kaleil was clearly scarred, possibly festering a resentment between the two for the rest of their lives, the business was a failure and collapsed, and hundreds of people lost their jobs.

On the bright side, Dora got a dog.

John Dimmer: Want Money? Ask This Guy.



John Dimmer (holding Bowl) recieving the Pete Lyons Award.

John Dimmer provided students with an interesting lecture about how students from humble college educated backgrounds can go into the world, excel, innovate, and decimate the competition and end up in a position where our biggest problem in life is being retired in our 30's. But hey, with all that time, why not take the exuberant amounts of money we have, and start investing in others, as an Angel Investor, since it takes money to make money, why not make some more! Dimmer's story is fascinating, and his success from what I can tell, is largely due to his intelligent presence, and diligent work ethic. Dimmer provided students with a map that illustrates the phases of a new company's development adjacent to the phases of a new companies finances and funding. As one might expect the initial sources of income are from the founders, followed by friends and family, then angel investors, VC's, etc, until finally an IPO is made. Although the majority of new companies never reach an IPO, they are still quite successful without it. Dimmer's lecture focused primarily on securing funding for your company, and the different avenue's you'll have to take to do so. His experiences with his own ventures gave students some insight on identifying their audience when considering approaching VC's or Angel investors. After meeting him, if I were to seriously consider starting my own business, I would almost certainly seek him out for counsel, and perhaps depending on where my business was heading, and if I were lucky, he could be an investor in my company.