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Entrepreneurs share strategies
By Julie Cronk
Published:
Thursday, February 20, 2003
Media Credit: Blair Schlichte
Ken Maddux from the Harold Anderson Entrepreneurial Center speaks to students on how to start your own business.
Have you ever thought about building something from the ground up that could impact your life forever? Have you ever dreamed of creating a lasting image of yourself to people everywhere?
Well, that is what three SCSU students and one alumni accomplished and are now looked upon by the student body as true entrepreneurs. They shared their experiences with other SCSU students on Tuesday.
SCSU students Rob and Ryan Weber, Jenny Nies and former SCSU student Jay Johnson told hopeful would-be entrepreneurs about their own ups and downs of starting a new business.
Nies, the Webers and Johnson were three of the first five "Minnesota Collegiate Entrepreneur of the Year" award winners and all were from SCSU. The idea of bringing these award winners to SCSU campus came from the Career Development Council and the outcome was more than they could have ever expected.
"We are very pleased with how many students showed up," said Career Development Council President Jenna Palan. "The number expected was around 40 people and there was close to 90 that came."
Each had unique and very different business concepts, but all managed to carry one very similar trait: determination for success.
The most recent winner, Jenny Nies, was awarded in 2002 for her Aqua Clear business. Nies and her partner started this company in 1996. The concept behind Aqua Clear is cleaning fish tanks, installing the tanks, housing fish and growing coral.
Nies and her partner also are starting to work with local contractors and construction companies to form business agreements towards using her company's fish tanks in details in their new developed buildings. Nies hopes to become a strong, less outsourced company. Her Aqua Clear business continues to expand.
The next winners are Rob and Ryan Weber who were awarded this honor in 2000. Both still attend SCSU, but are currently running their online business, Freeze.com, full time. Their business deals with the online promotions that maintain relationships with advertisers and Web page holders.
They consider themselves as the online industry equivalent to stock brokers. The Weber brothers started out as focusing on selling memberships online for certain downloads and also licensing certain content. Now, they are sticking to what works best for them: being brokers.
The first winner, Jay Johnson, was given this prestigious award in 1999 when he introduced Veteran. Johnson's product was created after he was permanently paralyzed from a car accident in 1989. In 1992, after becoming extremely frustrated with the limited accessibility, Johnson came up with the idea of a standing wheelchair.
His product would make it easier for people in wheel chairs to move around similar to the way others do. Upon creating his product, Johnson wanted to combine the design and engineering to create a unique, superior product unlike the rest. His determination for fundraising, developing and implementing has landed him an amazing product that he believes will surpass all other competitors.
Despite the different concepts and ideas that were conjured up to create such businesses, all of these SCSU students brought more than just their stories to the campus. They gave hope to future entrepreneurs and students alike. These people gave the students a firsthand look at what determination can do.
"Each panelist had something unique and informing to add about their experiences as entrepreneurs and what it took to get where they are today," said Josh Pauletic, SCSU student and future entrepreneur.
With success, there were many obstacles along the way.
"There were a lot of highs and lows," Johnson said. "The challenge was just keeping the door open and generating sales through it all."
Each winner talked about how there can be days that everything seems to be working well, while there are other days that nothing is going correctly at all. For every business, sales or even profits are obstacles in themselves and can challenge a company.
"When going into business, you must not only decide how that business is going to be run, but also how you are going to go out of business," said Ken Maddux, executive director of the Anderson Entrepreneurial Center.
Even though starting a business may sound exciting, there are challenges that must be dealt with regardless of the products or services sold.
There is always the possibility that the company is going to go out of business and Maddux stressed that each entrepreneur be aware of the consequences.
Despite the dark side of creating a new business, the main focus that all award winners stated was to have clear, distinct goals and go straight for those goals. No idea is too little or impossible, as long as one stays focused.
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