Sean Smith's Blog

On November 28th, the UBC Commerce class had the pleasure of hearing from two innovative, hardworking entrepreneurs Janice Cheam and Wade Larson. Janice talked about her experience and the product that she successfully launched in which they sell digital meters that indicate the consumption levels of energy along with the cost regarded to the amount of energy used; her company was called Energy Aware. Wade than told us about his business known as Earthcaste, a high definition video platform on earth from outer-space! Both entrepreneurs shared with us the process from imagination to innovation and then ultimately selling and spreading their product all over.

  It was really eye opening to see successful entrepreneurs. What really stuck out to me was the sacrifice and risk involved in starting a business. To start a firm, money is required and they mentioned using money through family members and possibly angel loans and It really hit me that their is huge risk, you must pay this money back and Investing huge amounts of money for something that could be a complete bust is a scary thought. Not only is the financial sacrifice high, but when you think about the time involved that could have been spent working somewhere else, the opportunity cost of starting a business is also tremendously high! Risk brings a lot of fear, but understanding risk and realizing the importance of taking risks is fundamental to a entrepreneur. I’m finally understanding the phrase, “No guts, no glory.”