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.