Craft Beer and the Lean Start-up Method

(http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2014/07/4-awesome-ted-talks-about-craft-beer.html)

As I was trying to decide what my Media Moments blog was going to cover, I decided to read through the Businessweek magazine I got in the mail last week to find some inspiration. I came across an article about craft beer, and realized it was a perfect topic for our class.  Craft beer has disrupted the worldwide beer market, creating a permanent revolution causing large corporations to begin to panic.  As overall beer sales have declined in the US over the past few years, craft brewing has been increasing.  In 2011, craft beer saw 13% growth, and according to Fortune magazine, although craft beer still only accounts for 6% of all beer sales, anyone in the business knows that craft beer will play a big part in the future of the beer industry. 

(Fortune Article: http://fortune.com/2012/11/15/big-beer-dresses-up-in-craft-brewers-clothing/)

So I personally love craft beer, and maybe that's the main reason I chose this for my blog post, but as I was watching a Ted Talks video of Sam Calagione (founder of Dogfish Head Brewery), I realized most breweries follow a Lean Start-up approach.  They start out as home brewers, making small batches of beer, and test it out on family and friends.  From there, they tweak their products until they have something they feel they can go to market with, and open up a brewery.  Sam Calagione and Dogfish head started in the early 90's, at a time when craft brewing was not a big thing.  Today they are one of the leading craft breweries and have paved the way for hundreds of craft brewers. 

Calagione started out making small batches of beer in his basement and tested them out on family and friends.  He would go to small beer festivals where other brewers thought he was crazy for using the ingredients he did.  Despite criticism, Calagione persevered, and opened up a small restaurant where he would brew small batches of beer to pair with the food.  He took inspiration from the craft brewing pioneers like Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada, and strove to make "off-centered ales for off-centered people." As the market for local and artisan food began to emerge, craft beer began to see it's chance for growth. Dogfish Head has become the largest craft brewery in the Mid-Atlantic, and stuck to their tradition of not following the status quo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAvE61JqkQs

(Ted Talks video with Sam Calagione)

(http://www.bostonmagazine.com/restaurants/blog/2013/02/07/dogfishhead_samcalagion/)

Another company making a big impact in the craft beer world today, is making it even easier for craft brewers to follow the Lean Start-up Approach.  Brew Hub, now located in Tampa, Florida with plans to expand to five regional locations, acts as what I think of as a craft beer incubator.  They have a facility where brewers can pay to come in and use all of their equipment including laboratories and brewing machinery to make batches of beer.  This way, brewers don't have to have all the expensive equipment needed to make large batches of beer, and they can test out their product on the market before committing to having their own facilities.  

Brew hub is majority owned by billionaire investor Ron Burkle’s private equity firm, Yucaipa Companies. The next location is set to open in St. Louis in 2016.  The St. Louis location and the Tampa location are expected to produce 75,000 barrels a year each. Brewers are locked in to 3- year contracts with Brew Hub, and they pay a negotiated rate per case for brewing.

(http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-09-18/brew-hub-helps-craft-beer-makers-expand-to-new-cities)

Questions for discussion:

What experience do you have with craft beer? Do you have a favorite brewery/beer?

How do you think other industries or start-ups can follow the Lean Start-up approach that craft brewers follow by starting out with small batches at home?

What do you think of the Brew Hub business model? Do you think they will help home brewers follow the Lean Start-up method to enter the market?

Do you think that the large corporations that are losing market share to craft breweries could use the Lean Start-up approach to try and win back some of the market?

Tim Ferris

Social Media Moment

Tim Ferris 

Tim Ferriss is mainly an American author but is also an entrepreneur and angel investor. He has published three successful books that have all make the New York Times bestseller list. He is an advisor to Facebook, Twitter, Shopify, Evernote, and Uber. His blog is home to over 1 million monthly readers. His podcast “The Tim Ferriss Show” is the number one business podcast in all of iTunes. He is a world record holder in tango, speaks over seven languages fluently, and was the 1999 Chinese kickboxing champion. 

Tim Ferriss’ book “The 4-Hour Workweek” is what he is best known for and will be the main focus of this blog post. The principles he outlines in this book are very similar to the principles Eric Reis points out in “The Lean Startup.” Tim learned these principles by applying them to his own startup BrainQuicken. Before applying these principles Tim was a typical workaholic working over 80 hours a week, chasing hundreds of clients, and occasionally sleeping for only a few hours under his desk before starting the next workday. Although he was making good money, Tim was miserable and new something had to change. 

The first step Tim took to change his lifestyle was to define the exact lifestyle he wanted. Several items on his list included a Aston Martin DB9, a “mini-retirement” to Buenos Aires, hire a personal assistant, and become fluent in Greek among other things. Using these goals he set a target monthly income to strive to, $2,000 a month for the DB9, $400 for the personal assistant, and $1,000 for the trip to Buenos Aires. Adding another 30% to the above to account for monthly expenses brought him to roughly $6,000 per month or $200 per day. Now that Tim’s dream was clearly defined he could properly define 2-3 critical mission tasks to do per day that will lead him to his dream.

Second step is to eliminate all the unnecessary clutter from your everyday life. Using Pareto’s Principle Tim defined the 20% of tasks that caused 80% of problems and unhappiness, the 20% of sources that produced 80% of Tim’s desired outcomes and happiness, and focused on the 20% of clients that produced 80% of the profits. Using this principle he found that out of his 120 wholesale clients, only 5 of them were producing 95% of the income. In other words he was spending 98% of his time chasing 115 clients. He realized he was working 9 to 5 because he felt he needed to be doing something, but that is not the goal, it is just the structure that most people use. The goal is to use your time most effectively not to fill your time with menial tasks. He eliminated multitasking all together to make sure he was completely focused on the task at hand. He made it a point to only check his email twice per day instead of 40 times per day. The tasks he would focus on were chosen by asking the question, “if this is the only thing I got done today, would I be satisfied with my day.” Only focus on the tasks that you would answer yes to this question and get them done first thing in the morning.

The third step Tim defines is automation. In other words, set up your business to run on “auto-pilot” through outsourcing and giving employees the freedom to solve problems on their own. Tim used sites like www.asksunday.com or www.yourmaninindia.com to find a reliable outsource team that costs $5-$8 an hour to process online orders and other personal tasks to give you more freedom. He calls this type of business a “muse” and its sole purpose is to produce passive monthly income to be used to pursue true passion projects. Although this is much more difficult than Tim let’s on, it is not impossible and he provides several successful case studies in his book and on his blog that give great examples of this type of business. (One of my favorite examples can be found here: http://fourhourworkweek.com/2011/09/12/engineering-a-muse-volume-4-case-studies-of-successful-cash-flow-businesses/)

The most important part about creating a muse is to choose your market before you choose your product. Filling demand is much more easier than creating demand. Find your market, define your customers, and create a product for them. You will also find it much easier if you are part of your target market because you will be creating a product for yourself. You will already have one customer, yourself. Tim goes into much more detail in his book if you are interested in the details of creating an automated business. 

The final step is the least applicable to this class because it is focused on liberating 9 to 5 employees from that type of lifestyle. It combines the first three steps into a strategy to prove to your boss that you can be more effective working a few hours a day in order to liberate yourself from traditional expectations. This section of the book tries to answer the question “what do you do with this free time?” This is the main theme of the book, that time is the most valuable asset we have, not money. Time allowed Tim to follow his dreams and his goal through this book is to move more and more time into your personal life in order to follow your dreams. I recommend this book to all of you and even if you don’t read it I hope you will check out his blog, http://fourhourworkweek.com/blog/ because it has a lot of valuable information for all entrepreneurs.

Questions:

What are 3 things that would define your dream lifestyle and what would your target monthly income (TMI) be?

What are the 20% of sources that are eating up 80% of your time?

What are the 20% of sources that are bringing you 80% of your excitement and happiness?

If you had a sizeable passive income that requires four hours of your time per week, what things would you do to fill the free time in your life?

Thank You

30 UNDER 30 - Technology (review)

30 UNDER 30  (link to full article below)
Forbes


     Last weekend I was browsing the web, in search of a good article, for my Social Media Moments blog idea. I decided to look at Forbes online and I stumbled across this article titled "30 Under 30." Some of you may recall, from Wednesday's class, when Professor Alvarado showed us the "Top 20 Under 20." This article highlights the top thirty entrepreneurs in fifteen different categories for a total of 450 top entrepreneurs under the age of thirty. These entrepreneurs specialize in finance, art, and technology, just to name a few. To stick to the theme of innovation I thought we could read about the top thirty entrepreneurs in the technology category.

     If you are confused on what to do, choose an entrepreneur from the article link below.  Find a short video highlighting that entrepreneur's expertise and write what you think about that entrepreneur and what they are doing. Be sure to connect your content to our course readings. Don't forget to make it personal, let the class know why you chose that specific entrepreneur. I am going to start by introducing my top pick and why I chose her. Please follow by introducing your entrepreneur and their story. Don't forget to view the other posts and comment on a peers top pick.


Here is the direct link to the technology category of the Forbes article "30 Under 30-Technology":
http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2014/30-under-30/technology.html



     My top pick was Tracy Chou, 26. I chose Tracy Chou because she is young but accomplished. Tracy Chou also embodies the skills of a modern innovator which are applied to her technological products for Pinterest. Tracy Chou turned down a job from the social media giant Facebook but  is a Software Engineer for the online site Pinterest. Chou obtained a B.S. in Electrical Engineering and an M.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University (http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2014/30-under-30/technology.html).

     According to themuse.com, a Pinterest website, "Tracy wrote the back-end-code underlying the Pinterest website and its mobile apps." Though Tracy pursued a degree in Electrical Engineering, she was never sure the field was for her until she took her first computer science courses. Tracy also completed internships with Facebook and Google before starting at Pinterest, (a social media outlet where people "pin" and discover new interests - https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=what+is+pinterest). Tracy begins her day at 9:30 a.m. with team meetings, where her and other engineers discuss updates on their projects. Spending time discussing technical decisions and how to design solutions consumes the remainder of Tracy's day along with recruiting and interviewing potential Pinterest colleagues. Tracy says, "There's a lot of opportunity ahead. It's a little bit frightening and exciting at the same time," (https://www.themuse.com/companies/pinterest/people/tracy). Be sure to check out this link to watch a few short videos of Tracy talking about her innovative tasks and what it's like to work for Pinterest.


If you are not familiar with Pinterest check out this brief Youtube video on what it does:

     Now you should have a better understanding of what Pinterest is and know a face behind the innovative technology, Tracy Chou. According to Eric Ries, and The Lean Startup Method: "4. Build Measure-Learn. The fundamental activity of a startup is to turn ideas into products, measure how customers respond, and then learn whether to pivot or persevere." I think Pinterest and Tracy Chou should persevere. Tracy Chou is truly innovative and proves it with the technical knowledge she applies to the programs she creates for Pinterest. Futuristic thinking is exactly what Tracy Chou encompasses. In order to execute more successful programs, being utilized by "pinner's,"  Tracy Chou should take Eric Ries' advice on taking leaps of faith, "The first step in understanding a new product or service is to figure out if it is fundamentally value-creating or value-destroying" (The Lean Startup, Eric Ries). By staying ahead of the competition with the innovative programs, created by the masterminds behind the scenes like Tracy Chou, I feel Pinterest is going to be around for a while with value-creating programs.


     Who was your top technology influenced entrepreneur under 30? Why? How do they fit in with the topics we have been covering in Practicum? Be sure to get your entrepreneur from the Forbes "30 Under 30-Technology" link above.

Thank you,
Alia Russell





Foley

Hello class,

My name is Derek Davies and this is my blog entry for class on September 10, 2014

For my blog entry, I chose to post about some entrepreneurs that are most likely unfamiliar to many of us. I believe that a lot can be learned from their experiences starting a business and own advice they have to give even if they are not millionaires as of yet. Many of the entrepreneurs that I discovered were off of the website www.entrepreneur.com and after reading an article pertaining to them, I conducted further research on Google.

The first person I would like to highlight is entrepreneur Brian Foley, founder of BuddyTruk. Foley is a great example of an innovator and someone that has had a great idea and actually went through with it. Foley, like many people was frustrated when he had to hire a truck to move his belongings, which he may not have been very experienced at driving this type of large vehicle. In his case he accidently hit another car while he was backing the truck up. It was then that Foley thought the world ought to have an application similar to Uber but instead you can hire a person with a truck to transport your belongings for you. I truly believe that many people have come up with the same great ideas at times when they were frustrated and wished that something was available to solve that particular problem. In this case, Foley was the actual one to get off of the couch and make it happen. That to me is the definition of an innovative entrepreneur.

How did he do it?

Foley received support and financial aid from family and friends but one in particular was a friend that is listed as the co-founder of the company. They started by working off of free wifi offered in coffee shops around the city and with the help of a blogger/social media expert. They marketed themselves using social media and offering a scholarship contest for the best photo during March Madness. Foley states, “The best way to drive traffic to your business is to offer something of value to your users.”

Were there any troubles?

Of course every company is going to have problems and make mistake, especially when starting out. BuddyTruk made the mistake of outsourcing their app development overseas where they ran into several bumps in the road. Every problem comes with a price so the company had to find more investors but out of sheer luck they found some developers who wanted to build the app in exchange for equity.

Some advice from Foley for aspiring entrepreneurs:

      1) Find like-minded people who can help you reach your goals

             2) Always trust your gut

             3) You have to jump

Foley’s third point agrees with what I said in the very beginning of my blog post. Foley stated that you become an entrepreneur once you actually take that leap and make everything you are talking about happen.

I have to say that Foley definitely does have the entrepreneurial mindset. Now you may ask yourself what is the entrepreneurial mindset? According to an article on www.entrepreneur.com , the mindset is composed of a two different factors. Of course I argue that there are many more here are the two listed.

             1) Recognize opportunity

             2) Innovate

I agree that recognizing opportunity is important. Yes you may hear or think of ideas that are risky but you have to ask yourself could it actually work? Recognizing opportunity also means see the need for a certain product or service and realizing that the public NEEDS it. To be innovative is an obvious one because every entrepreneur is going to have to innovate something. Some entrepreneurs can easily build off of the ideas of others and make them even more outstanding and unique which is a prime example of an innovator.

A prime example of an entrepreneur who recognized opportunity is Swift Key’s Founder, Jon Reynolds. Reynolds noticed a frustrated Blackberry user attempting to send a text message when he thought of his idea. Swiftkey is an application this allows the user to slide their finger across the screen to each letter and the software will pick up what you are trying to spell out.

Every time I wake up I instantly am thinking of new ideas for things and how to improve life. For others this may sound crazy but I really believe that is what an entrepreneurs mind is always doing. So many things outside the technology field have already been thought of but most of the time the people who have already invented these great ideas in their head have done nothing with them, which is a shame.

QUESTIONS:

1) What do you think makes an entrepreneur? Is it someone who just comes up with idea or someone who actually is a go-getter?

2) Are there any other entrepreneurs that you may know of that others may not? If so could you please share a brief summary of their advice or experience from an article for aspiring entrepreneurs?

3) If you were Foley, how else would you have marketed the business other than social media?

 Here is a video of what Foley believes an entrepreneur is:

http://vimeo.com/98077823

Links:

www.entrepreneur.com

http://vimeo.com/98077823

http://www.startupdynasty.com/brian-foley/

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/234299

Jeff Bezos

(b) Set out the innovation philosophies and approaches of futuristic thinkers

Since we just talked about Jeff Bezos and Amazon in class, I thought it'd make sense to talk about some of his innovative products, services, and philosophies.

Last week, I bought my little sister a birthday present and had it delivered the next day. I rented the textbooks I needed for class on Tuesday and got them delivered on Thursday. This weekend I read a few chapters of a textbook on my Kindle and watched a few episodes of the television show The Sopranos. I was able to do all these things through Amazon and the services it offers. I sound like a promotional advertisement for Amazon but the truth is Amazon has revolutionized the way we do things today. It has made everyday activities, like buying and selling items, easier to manage and faster to receive. We can also watch television shows, listen to music, and read books online at whatever time we'd like. Amazon.com is currently the world's largest internet company and one of the most successful companies today. With a company this successful, you can'y help but be envious of the person behind the idea.

Behind every successful venture, there is a person who's idea kicked it off. In 1994, Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com when internet use was rapidly growing. Amazon started off as an online bookstore and had a slow growth that didn't see its first profit until 2001. Where some people would be satisfied with Bezos' success with Amazon, Bezos is not. Bezos continues to create and create, for this reason he is a true innovative thinker and entrepreneur. 

A few of the more notable items from Amazon include the Amazon Kindle e-book readers and Kindle Fire tablets. However, in order to keep up with the competition, Amazon has recently come out with their own digital media player (Amazon Fire TV) and smartphone (Fire Phone). In a world obsessed with the latest trend, Amazon has to keep being innovative with its designs in order to stay in the game.

Amazon Fire Tv - April 2, 2014

"Amazon Fire TV is a tiny box that connect your HDTV to a world of online entertainment. With a huge selection of TV episodes and movies, voice search that actually works, plus exclusive features like ASAP and Amazon FreeTime, it's the easiest way to enjoy Netflix, Prime Instant Video, Hulu Plus, low-cost movie rentals, live and on demand sports, music, photos, and more."

Digital media players are becoming more and more popular and are slowly taking over traditional service providers like Cable TV and Satellite Television. A few consumer-electronic appliances have DMP functionally integrated in them, like DVD players, set-top boxes, video games consoles, and Smart TVs. It is predicted that in 2016, 100 million homes in North America and western Europe will own digital media players and television sets that blend traditional programs with Internet content. With the most popular DMP's including Roku, Google Chromecast, and Apple; Amazon knew they had to follow the trend if they wanted to stay in the competition.

Amazon Fire Phone - July 25, 2014

Following the success of the Kindle Fire tablet, Amazon designed and developed the Fire Phone. The phone includes the Dynamic Perspective feature, which gives the impression of depth and 3D; Mayday, the 24-hour customer service tool; X-ray, helps you identify and find information about media; and Firefly, a tool that automatically recognizes text, sounds, and objects

Unfortunately, so far the Fire Phone is not as successful as other Amazon products. With the Fire Phone being priced as the same as other leading smartphones, there isn't much of an advantage and people prefer to buy other smartphones that offer more than the Fire Phone.

Amazon Prime Air

"The goal of this new delivery system is to get packages into customers' hands in 30 minutes or less using unmanned aerial vehicles. Putting Prime Air into service will take some time, but we will be ready as soon as the FAA grants permission."

An innovative trend that is surely to change the way we conduct business in the future is the use of drones. Currently, the use of UAV technology is not yet legal in the United States but Amazon has started working on and testing the use of drones in indoor facilities or at overseas locations. Amazon is testing a range of capabilities including agility, flight duration and sense-and-avoid sensors. The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), represents the commercial drone industry in the U.S. and is behind Amazon to test drones for the use in the proposed Prime Air package delivery service.

Blue Origin

Besides owning Amazon and continuing to come out with new services for the company, he also founded Blue Origin in 2000. Blue Origin is a human spaceflight startup company that is developing technologies to enable private human access to space.

"We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment. Our touchstone will be readers, understanding what they care about and working backwards from there. I'm excited and optimistic about the opportunity for invention."

There are a couple of articles with Bezos giving advice and tips in being successful. One of the main reasons for Amazon's success is that they put the customer above everything else.

"Amazon keeps its customer satisfied. It provides good service in a timely manner. It makes consumers feel that they belong to something."

As we've heard over and over before, it's not enough to have a good product. No matter how amazing your product might be, if the customer doesn't like it, you won't be successful. You have to make sure it's what the customer wants and needs (Bezos' Advice). This ties in with his thoughts on innovation (Amazon's Innovation Philosophy).

"Innovation is not something you've done. Innovation definitely can be a goal, while invention can be seen as a component of the pursuit, the attempt to innovate."

Bezos believes one of the most important things for an entrepreneur is innovation and in order to achieve it, we must keep on creating, inventing, and reinventing. There will be times where no one will understand your idea but you have to find patience and be okay with failure in order succeed. 

Questions?

Whether you like Amazon or not, it is one of the most successful companies today. Would you have done anything differently?

Do you think Bezos should've stopped with the Amazon Fire Tv since the Amazon Fire Phone isn't doing so well?

Do you agree with Bezos' philosophy on making customers the priority? Or would you put supplies first?

Do you think Amazon has reached its prime with Amazon Prime Air? Or do you believe there can still be a lot of things done with Amazon?

If you were Jeff Bezos, in which direction would you go from here? Would you keep working on Amazon or would you spend more time on Blue Origin?