Brian Forth Presentation

Brian Forth is the founder of SiteCrafting, and he gave a great talk about culture and leadership.  Brian’s leadership style seemed very laid back.  He trusts his employees and puts forth the effort to keep them happy in the work environment.  He advocates for open communication with employees and collaboration.  This has helped Brian in retaining multiple long term employees over the years, some of whom have been with the company for more than a decade, which speaks to his effective leadership style.  He also builds strong business relationships to keep clients happy, and he understands the market in which he serves.  His insight was helpful in learning about what a good work environment should look like.  I can see this implemented in my business idea by having collaboration and communication with baristas, roasters, and trainers about coffee and courses.  By listening to employee feedback and the people who are interacting with customers on a daily basis, it would help with future business strategy.  I think this approach is great for empowering the employees to really feel as though they are a part of the team, and helps foster a positive working environment.  Additionally Brian’s approach to really understanding where his business fits into the market is important as well.  With the rise of companies like Squarespace and Wix, where users can build their own site, Brian focuses on businesses and helping develop a site that truly serves their needs.  He mentioned that for very small businesses, he’ll even direct them to a service like Wix.  I appreciated his presentation and the style of leadership that he has within his company.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Eric Hanberg's presentation

I enjoyed in Eric’s presentation that he talked about his successes and failures.  He started with talking about how he got his start in running a business with his time at the non-profit theater, before buying his own theater.  He mentioned that a lot of what he had learned had translated over well, and even though he had the experience, it still did not work out.  He admitted that it was in part due to it being harder to sell people on plays as opposed to movies, but there was still a lot that he had learned from the experience. I also thought it was interesting that he was selling/advertising a book that he had not even written yet.  By creating a site for the book and a waiting list he was able to gauge interest in running small non-profits before writing a book about his experiences.  I also liked that his presentation showed that entrepreneurship can be for small niches.  His book may not have mass audience appeal, but it still sells very well, espec...
Read more

3 Business Ideas

Here are three entrepreneurial ideas for a business. My first idea is a trash holder that can slot in underneath the seat of a car.  Many people will hang a plastic bag around the shifter in the car, but it can get in the way and be an inconvenience for the passenger.  Having a removable trash can that fits in a center console could work as well, but center console sizes and shapes vary a bit more than underneath a seat.  If it could be fitted on both sides of the vehicle to slide in and out, it would remain out of the way while also helping keep vehicles a bit cleaner. Second, is that there are many companies out there that do not know how to handle their data effectively, and what to do with it. One that comes to mind is financial institutions. They are often behind in technological trends, and medium to small businesses may not have a dedicated department set up to handle business intelligence and data processing.  This business would be a contract company that sp...
Read more

Business Idea Competitors

     When analyzing who and what my three competitors to my business would be, Starbucks is the first that comes to mind.  They are possibly the most recognizable coffee chain in the world, and they have locations globally.  There are at least 4 within a 10 minute drive of my house.  They offer convenience and consistency, which is hard to beat.  People like what they like, and if they know what they enjoy from starbucks, they can get it from any location with minimal variation.  They also have great branding and promotions, which adds another element of how they are tough to compete with.  Although they lack speciality roasts, minimal personal touch, and no learning element.      The 2nd that I thought of is Nespresso.  They offer easy to use coffee machines that lets their users make espresso at home with low effort.  Their product is impressive, and is a simple to use machine and capsule system that offers a decent...
Read more