Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Guest Speaker - Robert Coons

      Our second guest speaker of the quarter was a man named Robert Coons who is the co-founder and CEO of Scout Military Discounts. Scout is a company that offers users of their mobile application a chance to see whether a place has military discounts and what kind of discounts they provide. Also they can check whether or not the user is eligible for the discounts depending on your rank and years of service, which I personally did not know was a factor and just thought if you served you get any military discount. My lack of knowledge aside the initial impression I had from Robert was that he was very hardworking and he was passionate about his services. He talked the majority of the time about his company, he first talked about how it all began for him and ultimately went all the way to what he wants in the future and where he wants to take the company going forward. For example he talked about how he manually has to call businesses and figure out exactly what kind of military discounts they provide. In the future however, he would like it so that others can input the data themselves with a way of checking legitimacy.

      Robert also talked about the database that his company has created and how this database could be their primary attraction if looking to sell. Lastly the thing I most appreciated him for taking the time to discuss was advertisements and how they work. He explained to us that his company uses advertisements and that is a source of income for them, but he explained how there are different types of ads, there are the ones that just show up and you get paid little money, but they are not required to be clicked on for the company to pay. There are also clickable ones, but you don't get paid unless the users click on them, however you get paid a lot more money than the others. As someone getting their degree in Computer Science I have to admit I never really done research on digital advertising and I aspire to create my own mobile application one day so the insight to the topic really helped. Overall I enjoyed having Robert Coons as a guest speaker he sounds like a very busy guy so it was nice for him to take time out to come and talk to us. Hope to see him again one day!

Monday, January 22, 2018

Guest Speaker - Erik Hanberg

          Our first guest speaker of the quarter was a man named Erik Hanberg, local author and entrepreneur. Everything began for him at around 2004-2005 when he was working at a movie theater and thought to himself "I can run this place". This is where he started his presentation explaining where and why he chose to be a entrepreneur. Next he began to talk about pay scales and he drew a picture on the board of two different lines on a graph, one was increasing more than the other and it was representing the difference between "normal jobs" which are things that most people go to school for comparing them to thing such as athletes, actors, entrepreneurs, etc. The big difference between the two lines were that the ceiling was pretty much fixed on normal jobs, while the other one had no ceiling, this is one of the things that really stuck out to me. Being in school and pursuing a job with the lower income ceiling made me realize that the only way to make a lot of money without being a gifted athlete or musician is to be an entrepreneur.

          Erik went on to tell us hows he's an author and that he publishes his own books using tools on the internet. He hasn't made a ridiculous amount of money from doing this, however he says he enjoys it and wants to continue doing it. He has wrote multiple books including a Sci-Fi trilogy which he said he enjoys writing the most. Also Erik showed us graph of his income from different sources and this stuck out to me the most, because having incomes coming from different areas means that not each one has to be a huge income and the more you have the safer it ends up being for the reason that if one thing doesn't workout you still have 3 others to support you for the time being. Erik really solidified this in my head that pretty much thats what being an entrepreneur is all about and I enjoyed that. Overall Erik Hanberg was very inspirational, coming from not much and creating a lot out of himself is respectable and taking the time out of his day to share this with us was very nice of the man. It was a pleasure meeting him and I hope our paths cross again one day.

Monday, January 15, 2018

My Business Plans

Let's get right into it, my top 3 Business Plan ideas in no particular order.

     Firstly a business idea that I have been wanting to pursue for some time is essentially a water bottle that acts similar to a Fitbit. So essentially it will keep track of how much water the person intakes and with this physical water bottle comes a mobile application so that users can keep track of records dating back to the initial purchase and use of the product. Dehydration is a problem in some peoples lives and people who want to pursue a healthier lifestyle might find this a simpler option since they would not have to count the water themselves and it would all be counted and collected in one area.

     My second business idea I have not put as much thought into, nevertheless I believe it could be decent considering how much of our lives we like tracked. This is more of a gag gift that could be purchased, but it could be interesting. It's a umbrella that keeps track of how much water it sheltered you from. Again not much thought has been put into it, but could be fun to use.

     Lastly this is something that I also have thought about for a good amount of time now. I wanted to create a USB drive that has a screen on it, so that you could see exactly what is stored on it without having to plug it into a computer. It could just be charged by having it plugged into a computer so there wouldn't be too many extra parts to it. So these are my 3 Business Plan ideas, I might have a different idea that I would pursue over these in the future, however for now, these are my top 3 and my most favorable ones.

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

What I want out of TINST 475

Hello world, let me start off by saying who I am and then get to what I want out of my TINST 475 class. As of today's date of 1/9/2018, I am 21 years of age and will be be graduating from University of Washington Tacoma with a Bachelors in Computer Science! It's very exciting for me especially being as young as I am, however during recent times I've had time to reflect on my experiences and also what exactly I want out of life itself. Ever since I was young I was never afraid of working hard in order to get what I wanted, the actual process made achieving my goal that much sweeter, and with my degree it is no different. Mentally I tend to overthink, and this is one of my major weaknesses and I always feel what I do is never enough, which can be considered a strength or weakness, to me it has made life a lot harder. With this in mind and my future thinking nature i'm already considering what I will do 5 years after graduating. I see myself working for others, but what I truly desire out of life is to be successful, wealthy, and being able to work for myself and not someone else. As being a first generation college student in my family I have been driven by this mindset my whole life it's solidified in my head that I must do this in order to live a full and prosperous life for myself and my family. So how does this apply to TINST 475? I want this class to give me the opportunity and resources I need education wise in order to start something that could be successful. I want to absorb as much information from every speaker and my instructor so that I can make something of myself. The only thing I am certain about is that i'm living now and one day I wont, and I will not waste my time while I am here, I want to do big things and I want this class to be the start.