MoekoURAWA

In yesterday’s COMM101 lecture (4th November), I had the honour to meet 3 successful entrepreneurs and Sauder graduates; Paul Davidescu, Jenny Duffy and Tom Dobrzanski to learn about their journey of starting up a business. As someone who is thinking of pursing the entrepreneurship route, I was inspired by the alumni’s insightful career story. Since there is so much we can learn from there these people, I thought it will be appropriate to have a blog post dedicated to this lecture.

This post will briefly outline the valuable takeaways from each alumni, along with analysis with respect to business topics discussed in COMM101 lectures thus far.

Source: http://www.mytechguys.ca/web/images/stories/logo_sauder.jpg |Reflection summary of Sauder alumni talk

Paul Davidescu (Studied Marketing and International Business)

• Identify a gap in the market: Although Vancouver as a city has various amazing venues and things to enjoy in a night out, people perceived the city to lack in “social lubricants” only because many of the venues were not known by the market. The demand for higher standard of night-outs raised but no firms offered a system that really brought the two stakeholders together. These information could have only been identified by carrying out primary market researches (observation and interview). Paul’s was able to pinpoint the needs of the market by utilized the experience and skillsets gained from Marketing Co-op in Barcelona (Lionel Messi’s campaign) and working for the Vancity Buzz.

• Solve a problem and add value to peoples lives: Tangoo, an innovative, unique and differentiated app (ref. Porter’s Generic Strategies) benefitted from first-mover advantage, leading to market dominance to some extent. Paul also stressed that what you are doing is something you are insanely passionate about you are commit to solve the problem, essentially as a manager you are required to constantly consider the problem in the perspective of the customers.

Jenny Duffy (Studied Accounting)

• Embracing well-roundedness: Jenny is an extreme case of being versatile with her dual life as a facilitator for CPA, and a dance captain and a choreographer for the BC Lions. Still, she emphasised how her accounting and enterprise skill-sets obtained at Sauder became her asset, enabling her to effectively pitch her brand and style in board meetings and interviews. As a dancer, having versatility and flexibility in styles (sexy jazz, hip hop, contemporary) creates a competitive advantage over her competitors, allowing her to cater to a wider customer segment of the Business Model Canvas. In order to maintain her competitive edge, Jenny disclosed that training is an important aspect of improving her personal skills and the satisfying her contract.

Tom Dobrzanski (Studied Accounting and Finance)

• Become temporary experts: Tom pointed out that as an entrepreneur, you have to be committed to becoming a temporary expert in various areas unrelated to your specialism. From his own experience, he became a temporary expert of studio and landscape design, and negotiation. This personal development encourage individuals to become more compatible to the industry. Similarly, individuals can attain the higher levels of motivation and job satisfaction (esteem needs and self-actualisation) of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a result of job enrichment.

• View Threats as an Opportunities:
  [Threat 1 – Technical development] The introduction of Garageband made music recording accessible, increasing the popularity of home studios. However, introduction of this software influenced more local bands to form, which created a fertile environment as more people became interested in music. Since by then Tom’s capability was beyond the software, musician brought in their pre-composed Garageband files to Monarch to utilise their professional instruments and get professional feedback from the team. In fact, the change in the technological factor (PEST Analysis) clarified Monarch’s Value Proposition; to provide a professional output with a reasonable price by bridging the gap between home-studio and large studio. 
  [Threat 2 – Pirating music] This was an opportunity for Tom’s band, The Zolas to spreading of music as a means of marketing. Besides being low cost, this was an effective method to establish international presence and to increase his fan base, both contributing to the increase in the revenue from their secondary revenue streams (ie. the sales of merchandise).