Guest Speaker Ron Kornfeld

On Wednesday we had a guest speaker named Rob Kornfeld. He talked to us about business plans. His presentation was on his 5 step program to business plans. He is the author of the template in which we will base our business plans on. He knew his material very well it seemed like he’s an expert on this stuff (he is). The part that most stood out to me was when he said “Any brilliant business plan can be explained in a tweet”. I think what he is trying to say with that is you just have to be concise and not fill the plan up with useless garbage. Another main point I found is prepare your business plan for a specific audience. If you’re showing the plan to engineers, make it more technical, if you’re showing it off to a financial institution, make sure to have the finance section in detail. Overall, I thought Mr. Kornfeld gave a professional presentation, was very informative.

Five business ideas

1. Corporate Virtualization. This business would own high performance servers that can be rented out to companies who can't afford to upgrade their computers. Instead they can rent server space and run virtual computers on their current computers, which simulate faster hardware.


2. Only textbooks. A website only for trading and selling textbooks, operated like ebay where the user is responsible for shipping.

3. Iphone/Ipod touch developers. A business that would build Iphone/Ipod touch applications for a customer or company.

4. PC parts truck. Much like a Snap-On tool truck, this PC parts truck would deliver parts, in a van.

5. An online service for setting up golf course tee times. Most courses don't offer this service, I think it would help golfers out when planning for a tee time.

Entrepreneurship

The 3 page chapter on Entrepreneurship in the Technology Entrepreneur's Guidebook was a good intro as to what it is to be an entrepreneur. It's almost intimidating, the chapter explains how entrepreneurs do not have it easy. The chapter said "60 percent of high tech companies that are funded by VCs go bankrupt" that is alot of failed businesses. It just shows entrepreneurs have to be very prepared when they want to start up a business or product.