01/12/2018
7
Today concludes the end to the first week of our trip! Although we still have two days in Seattle, time is already beginning to fly by!
Today, we started the morning with our first actual startup of the trip, Tignis, which is looking to reduce the amount of coal burned by nearly 10%! We met with John Hurlocker, who is one of the founders of this company of about 7 people, and he told us his backstory, including being a VP at VMWare, and how he decided to turn to this project with some of his closest friends. He has just hired some new employees with backgrounds varying between astrophysics degrees, and one person who never got a 4 year degree. It was interesting to hear various aspects about business models, seed investments, venture capitalism, and angels (which give their own money to support companies they believe in). I learned about the lean startup, which involves pitching the idea of a product to a prospective customer or investor, before that product is actually made.
I feel I learned an even greater amount from the three (fresh) employees, who just joined this company in the recent past. They discussed the openness and relaxation of being part of a much smaller company, not feeling the pressure of meeting a quota, and getting to experience the growth and management of every part of the company (not just one piece of the puzzle, within the confides of a small team, segregated from the operations of the rest of the company). They talked about interview questions (how many trees are there in the state of Oregon?), and the real test behind those kinds of questions. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing what they liked and didn't like about their past jobs or interests that led them here, and about the steep learning curve they've had to experience.
Once we finished meeting with them, I went with some others from my group to a place called Tat's delicatessen for lunch! This was another remarkable sandwich shop, inspired by east coast foods such as hoagies. I ordered a 12-inch chicken Parmesan sub that was out of this world! it was huge, and layered with melted cheese! It was almost too much food, but it definitely hit the spot.
From there, we walked back to our condos, where I gave my book report to the rest of the group! I talked about the "One-Minute Insights" found within my book and what I found to like or dislike about the book. I then led 6 discussion questions related to the book or to concepts covered in the book. It seemed to get us engaged about some in-depth perspectives on entrepreneurship.
Well that's it for today! There may be a break in my posting over the weekend, but I look to come back with a few more pictures that define my stay in Seattle before our Monday departure for the San Francisco bay area!
Erik Nelson
No comments:
Post a Comment