Spa Utopia - Levi Giesbrecht

Levi Gisbrecht didn't graduate high school or recieve a degree in college. Levi made it clear that if you have a partner you have to make sure that you can comporate affectively together. Also, Levi believed in his idea and stuck to it. He had passion, he didnt want to just keep on working for his fathers business, he wanted to make his own business and he went out and did just that. After listening to his speech I have learned these three main ponts are esstential in a sucessful business. -Make a good partner choice, it needs to be someone you can get work done with -Be passsionate and love what you do

-Find a way to be the best and stand out from your competitiors

Martha Stewart

Martha Stewart..so what?
Martha Steward helped revolutionize the way typical house hold things were done with her creativity. People never ever thought to do such everyday things so differently but Martha Stewart did. Everything from gardening to setting up dinner tables and decorating the house Martha did in her own way and eventually she became a huge success because of her determination and her urge to always make things perfect, but at the same time, with the cost of her success came happiness she started to loss connection with her family and eventually that lead to a divorce. Later in life Martha Stewart also served jail time. So main lesson learnt her, don't let work consume you and your personal life. A balance is necessary or else you will be consumed by what you do.

Canadas Top 100

Company Logos:

Company 1 - B.C Hyrdo:
a) Some things that make this place a great place to work are...
- helps employess prepare for retirement with a generous contributions to a defined benefit pension plan, and a phased-in retirement work option
-manages a technologist-in-training program for candidates in the engineering, operations and electrical systems maintenance and repair fields
-host in-house apprenticeship programs for graduates from a wide variety of technical fields
-offer maternity leave top-up benefits to employees who are new mothers (to 85% of salary for 17 weeks)

c) BC Hydro generates and distributes electricity to residents in B.C. The Provinicial Crown corportation is one of Canada's largest public utilities, operating 30 hydroelectric facilities (which produce 80 percent of the province's electricity), two gas-fired thermal plants and one combustion fuel turbine station. In addition to its primary offices in Vancouver and Burnaby, BC Hydro has offices and facilities located in communities across the province.

Company 2 - Agrium:
a) Some things that make this place a great place to work are:
- operates a well-established succession management program that focuses on developing management talent from within
- supports employees taking courses at outside institutions with generous tuition subsidies, covering 100% of course fees (to $3000 each year)
- gives employees 3 weeks of vacation to start, increasing it to four weeks after just two years with the company
- manages a popular engineer-in-training program designed to expose young engineering employees to a wide variety of engineering disciplines
-provides fully-paid health coverage for retired employees (with no age limit)
-offers subsidized memberships to an onsite fitness facility to employees and their families
-is located adjacent to Fish Creek Provincial Park, where employees can take a break from a busy day and spend a little time with nature

c) Agrium Inc. is a leading North American wholesale producer and marketer of nitrogen, phosphate, potash and sulphur-based fertilizers. Founded as Cominco Fertilizers Ltd. in 1931, Agrium Inc. manages retail and wholesale business units across North America. Their retail operations supply fertilizer, crop protection products, seed and ssociated merchandise to customer through more than 900 retail centres, distribution centres and terminals in the United States, Canada, Chile and Argentina. The company also produces and markets fertilizers internatioinally through production facilities in North America, South America, Europe and the Middle East. In addition, Agrium recently established a new research and technology unit, responsible for developing environmentally-friendly, controlled-release fertilizer and associated products for the agricultural horticulture, and consumer lawn and garden markets.

Company 3 - B.C.L.C (British Columbia Lottery Corporation):
a) things that make this place a great place to work are:
- offers employees generous financial benefits, including defined benefit pension plan contributions and year-end bonuses
-has a flexible health benefits plan that includes fully-paid health coverage for retired employees (with no age limit)
-provides parental leave top-up benefits to new mothers (to 85% of salary for 17 weeks) and new fathers (to 85% of salary for 12 weeks)
-offers parental leave top-up benefits to employees who are adoptive parents (to 85% of salary for 17 weeks)
-supports ongoing employee career development, with full tuition subsidies for job-related courses at outside development, with full tuition subsidies for job-related courses at outside institutions (with no annual maximum)
-promotes employee wellness with free memberships to an onsite fitness facility, secure bicycle parking, and healthy cafeteria menu options

c) BCLC is responsible for managing and regulating lotteries, casions, community gaming and e-gaming activites within the province. Established in 1985, the BCLC began as a lottery regulation company and today has evolved into a diverse gaming entertainment management company. The corporation works on behalf of the Government of British Columbia and today works with a variety of private-sector business partners, including 4,000 lottery ticket retailers, 15 casinos, 13 bingo halls, 14 community gaming centres and 2 racetrack casinos.

Ovrville Redenbacher

Orville Clarence Redenbacher was an American businessman most often associated with the brand of popcorn that bears his name. Redenbacher was born in Brazil, Indiana, and grew up on his family's farm where he sometimes sold popcorn in wesley town from a roadside stand. As he grew up he eventually graduated from Brazil High School in 1924 and was in the top 5% of his class. He attended Purdue University, joining the agriculture-oriented Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity and the Purdue All-American Marching Band. He graduated with a degree in agronomy in 1928 and spent most of his life in the agriculture industry, serving as a Vigo County Farm Burea extension agent in Terre Haute, Indiana, and at Princeton Farms in Princeton, Indiana. In childhood, he joined the 4-H club, and developed an obsession with developing the perfect popcorn. He earned a small fortune in fertilizer, but in his spare time, he indulged in his obsession. In 1951, he and partner Charlie Bowman bought the George F. Chester and Son seed corn plant near Valparaiso, Indiana. Naming the company "Chester Hybrids" they tried tens of thousands of hybrid strains of popcorn before achieving sucess. Redenbacher and Bowman initially named the hybrid "RedBow" but were advised by an advertising agency to use the name Orville Redenbacher to market the corn. They adopted the advice, launching their gourmet opopping corn in 1970, and Orville was suddenly everywhere.

Famous Entrepreneurs

Estee Lauder: was the American co-founder with her husband Joseph Lauder, of Estee Lauder Companies, a pioneering cosmetics company. She was born Josephine Esther Mentzer in Corona, Queens, New York, the duaghter of a Hungarian mother and aCzechosolvak father. She was the only woman on TIME magazine's 1998 list of the 20 most influential business geniuses of the 20th century. She was the recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S Business Hall of Fame in 1998.

The Fishers: Founded december 1969, first opened in San Fransico, the next store was opened in 1970 in San Hose. Have started five wentures, Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Athletica and Piper line. 3,465 stores joined RED campain in 2006. Had strengths such as high fashionably clothing at reasonable prices.

Tina Seelig

The two points that I choose to discuss in this blog are:
1. The Harder you work the luckier you get
2. Don't Burn your bridges

The reason I choose these two points is because I really took these two in the most out of all the points and I believe they are extremely important in not only business but also in life. First off, the harder you work the luckier you get is a statement that I couldnt agree with more because people who are considered lucky are lucky for a reason just as Tina Seelig said in her speech "the lucky people are lucky because they made themselves lucky". Lucky people are people who put themselves in the position to be lucky such as getting themselves into the position where they are most likely to get an oppurnity and also they are ready more for oppurtunities than unlucky people even when they don't expect them. Secondly, don't burn your bridges is another really important point that Tina brought up. This point is so important because the more connections you have the better and also if you burn your bridges with someone eventually there will be some point where you could have ether used their help in something or even needed a favour and they won't be there for you therefore making as much connections as you can and not ruining any of those connections is extremely important.

Ray Kroc. Mc'D's

Ray Albert Kroc was an american business man who took over (at the time) small scale Mcdonald's Corporation franchise in 1954 and built it into the most successful fast food operation in the world. He dedicated his life to his work and made the company into a huge success. Ray Kroc completely revolutionized fast food as we know it today. Ray Kroc cut down service times to a mere minimum and people were amazed by how fast they could sit down and have a full meal. Although Ray Kroc was a very successful man and turned Mcdonald's into the biggest food industry success story in history there were also many mistakes Ray Kroc made in his life and many don't view his life as "good". Ray Kroc had married twice and was not very truthful to his wives ether. He never made time for his kids and wife because he was always completely consumed in work and therefore couldn't be two places at the same time. After divorcing his first marraige he soon tried to marry a already married woman but was rejected and although this deeply hurt him it was not long before he purposed to another woman named Jane Green even though he confessed that his heart was still with the woman who had rejected him.

Fighting Back Against Shopper's Guilt

Today's economy has lead to people feeling "shopper's guilt" and "luxury shame" which has caused a problem for many luxury brands. How do we fight back against this? Here are some tactics being used by the many companies trying to solve this problem.

Three Main Tatics:

- The Internet/Online Shopping: having your product avaliable throughout the internet is are very effective way to avoid shopper's guilt because people don't feel as guilty when they are purchasing luxury products over the internet because it is much more personal; you are the only one that knows you are buying the products. Online shopping allows you to purchase the luxury brands and products that you want while having the privacy of being in your own home.

- Charity: Having money being donated to charity whenever one of your products are purchased is another way to help get passed shopper's guilt. When people know that their money is being given to a charity it makes them feel alot better about buying the luxury brand because they know their money is going to a good cause.

- Novel Shopping Experience: opening up pop-up stores in malls and other new locations is another method of helping avoid shopper's guilt. If people are surprised by new luxury stores that they didn't know existed they are often tempted to go inside and look and by just seeing it by surprise they don't get the chance to avoid it in the first place.

Graffiti Removal Service

Paul Watts came to the sharks with the offer of 350k for 15% equity of his company. Paul Watt's company is a Graffiti Removal Service (GNS) which is a completely mobile graffiti removal service. Paul Watts used a special chemical to easily remove the graffiti from a stop sign to show the sharks how easy it was for him to remove graffiti, but the sharks immediatley jumped on him by asking if he owned the product which no he didn't. They questioned whether other people could simply get the product and how his franchise would work if other people could just start their own business doing the same thing. Also, Paul Watt overvalued his company hugely, his offer ment that he believed his company was worth over 2 million dollars which at the time defintly was not.

Soul's Calling Inc.

Gina Cotroneo from Dallas presented to the sharks her company Soul's Calling which is a company that creates and markets a "fashion-with-a-purpose" accessory and gift line. She wanted 150k for 25% equity of her company but the problem was over a 5 year period her sales have only been 18k. These numbers were way too low for the sharks and therefore none of the sharks were in. All of the sharks offered her free advice though, Kevin O stated that "numbers never lie" and that people should never let emotion get in the way of business and that she should let it go. The overall basic message was that Gina should stop proceeding with her dream of this business because realistically it was not working.

Jump Forward

Brian Duggan and Adam McCombs are two business entrepreneurs that run a company calls Jump Forward. Jump Forward is an online system that allows high school athletes and their parents to create detailed profiles and market themselves to college coaches. They also created a Blackberry application, that allows coaches to negotiate the difficult rules on contacting high school athletes. If these rules are broken it could lead to large fines for the universities. The colleges pay a subscription fee and so far 30 different schools assigned up, and they have 60,000 students who've created profiles, for free. Kevin O was the first to bite, with an offer of $200,000 for 20% of the business. Robert quickly offered $300,000 for 35%. After asking entrepreneurs to step out of the tank Robert and Kevin came to an agreement, and offered $400,000 for 50% of the business. Brain and Adam rejected the deal which lead to Robert offering $500,000 for 50%, when it looked like they wouldn't accept that he offered $600,000 for 50%. Brian countered with $750,000 for 50% or 300,000 for 25%. Robert and Kevin were unwilling to budge from the $600,000 offer, just when it looked like the deal was going to fall aparat Brain and Adam said Done and accepted the deal.

Mr.Poncho and URO club

Mr.Poncho:

Sandy Hyun and Roman Pietrs purposed the business Mr.Poncho which is a protective cover for MP3 players, with the way to keep your headphones from getting tangled. They were looking for $50,000 for 25% stake in the business. The business is two years old and last year had sales of $35,000, the protective case is patent pending, but the innovative cop is just a re-purpose patent. This means that somebody else owns the only innovative or interesting part of this business. Also, the competition of the business they were going in was huge. Their are tons of different businesses putting out different types of cases, and plastic covers. No sharks were willing to invest in the business and the young entreprenuers left empy handed.

UROclub:

Dr.Floyd Seskin was a urologist and an avid golfer, who purposed his business called UROClub which was a product that allowed men to urinate into a hollow club that looks like a seven iron. The doctor had sold 3000 units last year and had sales of $70,000. This was not enough to convince most of The Sharks and one by one The Sharks dropped out. All expect for Kevin H who offered $25,000 for 70%, Dr.Seskin was looking for a business experience and not moeny so he accepted the offer.

The Bobble Place

Jeff Wolsky was an entreprenuer who ran successful online business selling custom-made bobblehead dolls, but the business he purposed to the sharks was a business called The Bobble Place which was a kiosk system that sold these custom bobble heads Customers would provide a picture of themselves and pick out the body for their bobblehead. Then the bobble head would be custom-made by Jeff's already existing business, The Bobble Place is a seperate business from his wildly successful online business. Jeff was looking for $75 000 for a 15% equity in his business.

Seven Keys to Success - Eric Van Maren

1. The value of hard work
- be prepared to work harder then your employees

2. Be passionate...love what you do

3. Make mistakes and learn from it
- don't make hasty decisions

4. Guard your reputation
- you spend a lifetime building a reputation but you can lose it quickly

5. Networking. Build your network.
- 5000 names in his contact
- use your contacts, ask for help

6. Hire smart people

7. Partnerships
- what does your partner bring to the table

*Known Knowns - lumber cost
*Unknown Known - snow removal
*Unknown Unknowns - CRISIS - exit strategies

Creativity

Education is ment to take us into this future that we can't grasp because the future is so unpredictable but in order to survive we need creativity. Creativity now, is as important in education as literacy. Kids aren't afraid to be wrong because they don't care. All children are born artists but grow out of creativity rather than growing into it. Kids as they become adults began to become afraid of being wrong because of the education system which teachs kids that being wrong is bad but the truth is if people aren't willing to be wrong then they will never come up with anything original. In schools throughout the world, the education system is built in the same hierarchy where math, sciences, humanities and all of those core subjects are at the top and subjects such as art, music, and dance are all at the bottom. The arts are at the bottom of the hierarchy of education. The education system has formed are minds in a sense to not be creative and we should critically re-think how the education system works and how intelligence is viewed.

Sam Walton (founder of wal-mart) Notes

which company would you choose?

between the two companies; the grill charm company and the bobble head company I would choose the grill charm company without a doubt. I not only liked the idea of the grill charm company more but I also liked the entreprenuer more as well. The entrepreneur of the bobble head company was only offering equity for the new un-tested company he was wanting to start, not his main online company that is already greating lots of profit. The entreprenuer wanted the sharks to give him 75'000 dollars for something that had no real proof that it would be succesful and also wouldnt share any of his other company with them for insurance on their money. The man was greedy and also wasnt very professional, when asked by the sharks what his profits were, he couldnt give them a hard answer, only price ranges. First impressions are very important and who you are going into business with is very important as well which is mainly why I would not go into business with the bobble head company entreprenuer. I would have made a deal with the grill charm company because I really liked the idea as well as the entreprenuer. She was very determined and passionate about her idea and didn't ask overvalue her company. You could tell that she wanted to expand and was willing to give up some to gain in terms of her idea growing as a company. Giving what the sharks offered, I would have probably offered about 75'000 dollars for 30% of her company or tried to get in on a deal with one of the sharks because I really believe that the product is a good product and would want to get in on it.

Blue Ocean Strategy

Six key statements:

1. reconstruct market boundries

2. focus on the big picture, not the numbers

3. reach beyond existing demand

4. get the strategic sequence right

5. overcome key organizational hurdles

6. build execution into strategy

Two companies that I would consider to be Blue Ocean companies are

Seth Godin on Sliced Bread

Seth Godin starts of by talking about sliced bread and how it took 15 years to catch on due to bad advertising. The way people use to advertise was known as "the T.V industrail complex". The way this idea worked was that you buy some ads which gets more distribution which sells more products which gets more money. This cycle continues to go in a circle, but in fact was cancelled because it was proven to not be effective. Advertisers usually target the mass majority of average people; the people in the middle of the curve, when in fact they should try and target the curve of people (the fringe) who are obessed with their product or service because they will listen and hopefully tell their freinds thus the word will spread. Another major point Seth Godin made was that Design is free when you get to scale and the people who come up with remarkable things are people who find a way to make design work for them. Also, being safe is risky and being very good is bad because both of these are boring and people don't notice boring things therefore they won't notice you or your business.

Pitching Element Bars

Element Bars is a company that makes personalized energy bars. The entrepreneur - Jonathans -intial offer to the sharks was 150 k for 15% equity. Even after the first Shark is out the entreprenuer doesnt give up and still answers his doubts and questions then he follows with telling the sharks about his features and benefits. Daymond (one of the sharks) makes the comment "the first person to name a price losses" which means basically that you shouldnt put up a number first because you need to see what others are willing to pay for first. Johnathan put up to big of a number for the amount of equity he was asking for, but when Daymond was about to decline he let them know that he was willing to neogatiate which in turn lead to Daymond offering 150 k for 75% equity of his company and Kevin H offering 150 k for 100% equity and a 4 % royalty to Jonathan. Jonathan considered the offer but wasn't willing to give up that much equity and countered to Daymonds offer with 20% equity; Daymond refused and was out. Jonathan was left with one shark (Kevin H) whose offer was still up, Johnathan told him that he was not willing to make the deal because he wasnt able to give up all that equity he told him that he wasnt willing to go over 50%. Kevin H countered with the same offer but for only 35%, Johanthan countered again saying that he was only willing to give up 25%. Kevin H gave him his final offer meeting halfway at 30% equity, Johanthan then accepted the deal.

Some Key Negotiation Skills Johanthan used:

1. Doesn't give up - explain counter offer

2. features/ benefits

3. first person to name a price losses

4. Force others to make offer

5. meet in the middle