The class of November 9th was definitely one of my favourite Comm 101 classes as we had the opportunity to hear two graduates from Sauder speak about pursuing their dreams of starting a company. These entrepreneurs spoke of the risks and hard work associated with establishing a company. After hearing Jenice Cheam’s story of the challenges she had to tackle, I realized that anyone’s dreams can come true with plenty of hard work.
Energy Aware is a company that was founded in 2005 by Jenice Cheam. Her companies product is a PowerTab, which is a user-friendly monitoring device that can be stored in houses. Through the use of her product, individuals can determine how much energy they are using in their household and also how much energy they can save by turning off a light, or un-plugging an appliance.
Her presentation was very inspiring as she put so much money and work into establishing Energy Aware. Jenice stated sometimes she couldn’t even afford to eat, and that she had to tutor english for a couple of hours in order to buy something she needed.
After hearing her presentation, it is unfortunate that Jenice cannot sell her products to individual households, but only to companies because there is a loss of potential revenue. The advantage of selling to companies is that they buy in bulk so when Jenice’s company makes a deal with an energy supplier, this means her company will be able sell a large amount of her products.
In conclusion, differentiating yourself, and being able to differentiate your products in the market from other companies is crucial, and thus leads to success. Although I may not establish my own company, her presentation made me realize that each and every graduate from Sauder can do something important in the future.
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