John Dimmer

great speaker who knows a lot about the money. He's from local, used to work at pugetsound bank and ended up running his own business. John spent great amount of his time explaining what Angel Investment is. It was very informative.

Angel Investors are most likely a retired business man/woman who has great interest for new born companies. Angels looking forward to get 10x of their investments after certain amount of time, so being smart money player is very important to keep your company in your hand.

In order to protect and keep the company under your control, there must be your own money invested into the company. If you believe the company will be successful, then keep most of the company to yours.

There were couple great quotes from John that challenged and inspired me. One was "Don't underestimate the others." Everyone can be better than you, allowing yourselves to be opened to suggestions and ideas always benefit you in the long run. Don't be like "oh, I am better than you at this and that," rather be "oh your better at this, would you teach me?" This attitude opens up various doors for you to succeed.

John Goodman!

I enjoyed her lecture very much. Thank you to Prof. Andrew Fry for bring her in.

There were many good points and ideas made by her through out the speech that opened my mind up a bit on what a business is.

My favorite quote was, "Your word, your bond" This just said everything in my opinion that a business man need. There is a traditional Korean saying as follows, "A word of man worth thousands of gold" what a great quote!

Another great idea was that we should not, never ever, set our goal to be rich. As I heard this I was like "huh?" but it made all sense when she went on and talked about her point. The passion is the key to the success. If we don't trust of enjoy what we are doing, we are losing our game! Imagine doing something that you hate and there are many people who are very good at it... Man I would just drop whatever I am doing to get rid of the stresses.

Setting a goal of a business is very important. Define the business in terms of what I want to accomplish is the key of success.

Also, seek help from who have done it. Be shameless to ask something! "There is no stupid questions" is the quote that most people ignore, not forget, very often because of the shame.

Setting a agreement within core member is also important issue. Everyone can be a good partner until they hit the wall of money issues. Also set up a exit strategy. Do I want this business to be my family owned business? or sell it when the value goes up? or keep it just for whatever? Think about that!

Strength and Weakness

As to start a business it is very important to consider what is my pros and cons. Knowing my capability will guide me to either hire a professional to do a job or achieve it by myself. Well, here is the list of my strengths and weaknesses.

Strength:

1) Majoring in Computer Science: This skill allows me to code up applications or programs that I might need for my business. This will save tons of money since hiring programmer costs a lot of money.

2) Inherited Korean culture: This is more of a social connection strength of mine. Depending on what my business is focusing, I can bring funds or professionals that is well suited for Koreans. For example, if I am interested in A.I. builder, I might hire some Korean pro-gamers to test my A.I.

3) Leadership experiences: I've served as president and core member of various organizations. Experiencing various leadership position taught me not to be scared in public speaking. I, most of the time, try to carry the conversation within the group. I have great sense of leading people to focus on the tasks while having meeting in order to prevent wasting time.

4) Very optimistic: My integrated characteristic works great with business since I am very optimistic about what I am doing. This means I am passionate on my tasks. Optimistic means I am not realistic. I know where to put my energy and focuses.

Weakness:

1) ESL (English As Second Language): I've been in the states since I was 8th grader. That's about ten years now. Even though it has been awhile, my accent and fluency in English is not as perfect as native speakers. This is trouble for me if I get a position of business man where I have to meet people and make a contraction.

2) Fast, Fast, and Faster!: I live in 21st century and most of my generation suffers from this as well. I like tasks that gives me the feedbacks or reactions right away. As programmer, I can see the result right away as I am building a program. This is trouble for me since a business takes time to build up.

3) I am not a risk taker: I like things that are safe and well-known. Investing on something that is vague or takes too much risk to be successful... well I hate them. Of course, as a business owner, it is important to reduce as much risk as possible, but sometimes there must be a risk taking in order to make some good amount of money. I cannot do that...

4) Lack of interest in particular subjects: better phrase will be.. "I have no interest in something that I don't care" Sometimes there are times where we need to show some interests on new things, but I don't show that interest very often. This characteristic of mine goes well with not taking risks...