Mission Statement

CaptureCreatives Mission Statement:
"Get Creatives work, and Connect them with Clients who enjoy their Talents."

Teacher Fry

I learned more about Andrews upbringing this time, from the whole story. Learning about his upbringing and struggles helps his stories become more full circle. I was amazed at how independent he was, while also being adventurous and taking risks. If I were on my own I would try to just get by have go with a more stable or steady approach. I think a lot of his success has been contributed by his selling abilities. I am very far from his on that spectrum and would like to get better. I doubt myself quite often. I want to get better at story telling.

The .com bust seemed very risky bull-ish when investing. It was blind investing, sight-unseen. What really confused me were the stories of the venture capitalists. They are usually the one’s whom have seen and been through most cases when it comes to startups and running a business. Andrew shared that the Venture capitalists were making money from IPOs and then reinvesting in other IPOs. It was all for greed! They kept trying to compound their profits with quick buys and sells of .com companies to go to the market. Like they couldn’t stop. It had to have huge warnings that it would all come down at some point. The whole process was a fault in ethics and true value for the economy. It was a scheme that anyone could join. It was a bubble filled with stupidity, much like the housing bubble. All faulty deals being made.   

Shad the Consulting Man

Shad has been, by far my favorite speaker so far. He has gone down the avenue I want for myself. He has consulted, with custom software for improving government efficiency. Now, CloudPower is developing and selling broad software tailored to the Washington state government processes. Efficiency and business is what I am passionate about, and what I feel my calling is. I am going to see how far I can get with CloudPower. An internship there would be perfect and the question I asked in class was “when would you know if you have enough experience to consult?”, Shad’s advice was to work at a consulting company and gain experience through that. Since there are so many of them around, not a lot of people focused on consulting need to obtain knowledge in a position before consulting.

I am working with a Seattle consulting company on an internship for this summer, but it’s IT consulting. Being a CS Major, I don’t exactly fit the mold. My neighbor works for them and their HR is interested because of my previous internship. I wanted it to see how the business model of consulting works. Having Shad present has helped a lot.

I have always wanted to create custom software for companies, then off of that information build software products to sell. Shad said Consulting as a service owns no IP, and real return on investment happens when your company has IP to sell. It’s so cool that we had a speaker that I should follow, step by step. I really would like to learn more from Shad and CloudPower. 

John, the very bright Dimmer

I loved that he worked with his Dad. I technically don’t want to mix business and family ever… but I know my uncles and dad are going to be my mentors no matter what. They are the smartest, most successful men I know. I still don’t want to take money from them or have any financial stakes in my work, but they will be involved.

I loved hearing about the franchising he has worked with. Honda and roundtable. I remember watching the movie “Blindside”, and finding out that the rich, family Michael stays with owned a bunch of taco bells! Something no one really dreams about owning, but they made money and I’m guessing he just kept putting the earning into new restaurants. (If you can call Taco Bell a restaurant).

Car dealerships have always interested me. I love cars. There’s a family my dad works with who own a lot of dealerships themselves and they have done well with it. They also didn’t come from wealthy families so I always have wondered if they saved and got their first one and built from there.

I’m probably not as money hungry as others in this class. Well, for the sake of having money. When I was young and started to think about entrepreneurship, I just dreamed about houses and cars and vacations.

Now, being in school and looking for internships. I just want freedom. Freedom and that my efforts directly affect my worth and the the people around me I choose to work with. That’s what entrepreneurship means to me. John was very inspirational that was and made me excited about getting away from the norm of society.     

IcuP... protection

First, I would want to protect my Name/domain. CaptureCreatives would/is something special to me. I don’t know how much exactly it would cost. I would really only need to have a copyright. The Logo is something I could always switch up and my logo wouldn’t have anything to do with my revenue. The only time you need to protect your Logo/trademark is if you were to manufacture products of it or the company was large enough and you’d want to protect it while advertising.

I know you can protect code. I believe it is a patent that covers it and you can’t patent an algorithm. I would maybe try and protect some part of the experience that gives up a leg up on the competition.

It would be cool to have a trade secret that would be my own. I believe they are the coolest and most secure form of protection for a business. I don’t know if this would could as IP protection, but I would always set my ventures as an LLC. I like the separation between the business and myself/family. Ever since I learned about LLC and incorporating a business in Business 101 at highline, I’ve been obsessed with LLCs.

Before this class, I always would have been for the most protection possible. But the notion of only protecting it in court and cost of that makes a lot of sense. If it gets big enough to make sense to sue someone over it, then that’s when you should protect it.

Cost of Idea

There are multiple ways to charge for the service of CaptureCreatives.

1. There is the option of charging for a membership for the Creatives. I want to avoid that to not detour Creatives from signing up with the service.

2. I could charge the Hiring demographic for the service with a Membership (Which is a competitor’s method). But I want everyone to be able to hire a creative. From a Startup only wanting a logo design, or even the family who wants their pictures taken.

3. Charge by commission. I could charge the Hirer or the Creative a 10-15 percent commission for the connection/service. Now this is the way I want to lean. I don’t want to penalize the Creatives. So I’d like add a 10-15% commission on top of the service price charged by the Creative. I would need an intermedium way of charging and payments. I love Paypal, I need to figure out a way to charge through Paypal from Customer to Creative and add the commission. Also, how do I know they worked together and they could also be paid in cash (“under the table”)… this could be bad. How can I identify if someone a connection has worked together? I can’t charge per view or hit.

Starting out, I wouldn’t make much. Especially if everything is paid under the table… I want to stay afloat with ads. If I build enough of a customer base, Ads could be very useful for income. I would have at least one major market to advertise to; Creatives.      

Brian's Tac Software Talk

Brian is a successful, long-term entrepreneur. He has built an online software company that has adjusted to stay alive and thriving. His employees are also on a long-term base. When a lot of companies hire contract workers for the project and let them go for low overhead, Brian wants his employees to retire from the company. A very noble way of running a business and keeping a good relationship with your employees. I am very relationship oriented, and would like to have a team that I could keep and strengthen.

That being said, the long-term notion is the culture of the company. If the culture is threatened, he needs to enforce it and get things back on track. An employee was disturbing the culture by turning aggressive on the programmers. The employee could be disciplined. But with the difficult history between the employees and the hit to the morale, it was Brian’s decision to fire them. That was to not only get rid of the problem, but send a message about the true culture of the company.    

20 – 25 years for a software company is quite a long time. He would be a great contact for adaptation in the tech field. Adaptation while having long-term employees seems very hard. Except the higher up overseers. With the company’s services changing, the personnel and skills with have to change too… is that also why tech companies are going for contract workers? I think in adjusting times for a company, I’d like to lean on contract workers for the jobs only and not carry their salary.   

Connections = Opportunities

I enjoyed Eric’s talk about his life as an Entrepreneur. His story of running the Theater really resonated with me. He took processes that the previous manager would do himself, and he built a team that took care of the operations while he was now able to focus on the funding and donations for the theater. He found that if he then got someone to work with funding, if he was the owner/founder, he would have been able to sit back figure out ways to improve; or just allocate less time to the Theater and still receive substantial compensation for that time invested.

I definitely want to resort to the trying of something, even if it’s for free the first few times. I have always been for experience in what you are passionate about, no matter what form it takes. I have had a long time love for Photography, just like his example. I have always liked taking complex landscape photos that require an extra technique or post-processing skills like Photoshop. Recently, while on vacation, I took a picture of the rental we were staying in using both the techniques combined. I’ve always thought about using what I did for Architecture shots or more liking and sellable, Real-estate photos.    

Adventuring on your own appeals so much to me. I love how he said one thing has led to another. I feel like I never know what I exactly want to do. I think it is fitting and makes an awesome life if putting yourself out there in one thing, can open up so much more for you through connections and your own work.  

Three Tree

I used to want to invent something; come up with a new solution. Something that would sell itself. I’ve learned there is no such thing as a product selling itself: I grew up a very shy kid. I’ve been a part of a software/app product startup. The product was in a somewhat saturated market. There wasn’t a true, stable, professional app established but a lot of smaller ones. With tech startups it always feels like you have the sense someone else is doing the exact same thing by now. I don’t feel I would have the creativity or knowledge to discover a noteworthy tech product. But here are my three:

1. Business Consulting Service,   

For struggling businesses, or companies that want to get to the next level. Accounting, IT infrastructure, Custom software applications, Marketing/Advertising and Design. 

I have always enjoyed problem solving and make processes more efficient. I’d love to approach a business and pinpoint their weak spots, have those departments help them and see the business thrive despite their weaknesses and previous setbacks. I’d also like to do contract/project based outside work done by us. Having a business come to us for a Marketing or Advertising need. They would charge for the job instead of going to a Marketing firm as whole or bringing on marketing personnel for their company. Somewhere down the line, I’d like to have the capital to possibly buy struggling businesses we know we could fix and have a separate, sister company be a conglomerate of those purchases and running business. The purpose of this business would be to help bridge the struggling companies, or give businesses a leg up to the more efficient processes modern technology can offer.   

2. Operation Software with customization,

Not Generic Software, but not as expensive as custom software. Businesses will work with sales to select the right “Package”/custom configuration of features to suit their needs. There will be a base GUI and operations, while we will add premade features to the software to have a custom use. Subscription based usage and pricing?

3. 2D photos to VR 3D,

Software to turn normal 2D pictures into 3D VR enabled photos. The Focal length of the original picture will determine how “close”/zoomed in the VR viewer is to main center or content object. The image would stretch exponentially towards the edges.   

Time

Entrepreneurship. A topic I’ve had on my mind which seems like forever. I know my end job after I graduate will have to be different. Emotions and relationships are what drive me, I want to sink my teeth into what I’m working on and be rightfully emotionally attached to my work. I rather have highs and lows because, you’re either rejoicing or fighting. That’s kind of how I’ve always felt.

I know entrepreneur is a “sexy” word that gets a lot of attention from people dreaming about overnight successes and founders being worth millions/billions after IPOs. That used to be me, now I know that I am really attached to the emotions and the relationships which are large parts of what I know as, “the journey”. I now expect there to be lows and fully except them, that’s where you are tested and your truest self is shown.

I want to figure out if I can actually do this. I want to put together a sound business plan and go off of it. It would be awesome if you could look at a business plan and say, “This is where you will have issues… and if this happens you should resort to this plan B.” Knowledge of what to do in bad situations would be awesome. I’ve recently had some life changing situations come up, I know I’m getting closer to doing something on my own. I know I have talents and gifts; they don’t translate scholastically and if the workforce is similar, Entrepreneurship is a real option for me. It’s the Mars I might reach for.