Matt Tolentino Presentation

Matt Tolentino really embodies what being an entrepreneur is.  Having founded and supported multiple ventures, he highlights the importance of understanding your market before committing to any business idea.  For example, Matt joined on to help an ad tech company where he helped them get their business moving in the right direction.  By doing this he also gained the understanding of how the business of ad tech works, and he has now started two separate companies in the ad tech space that focus on a newer type of advertising through drones and lights.  A very understated part of this though in his presentation, is that Matt has the knowledge and technical expertise to solve his own problems in his company.  For example, he reverse engineered a product he purchased to use for his advertising business.  Another important point that Matt discussed is choosing the right business partner.  He is able to have his hand in so many different businesses because he carefully who he starts these companies with.  Having reliable partners enables him to continue working on separate projects, as he knows that the company's visions and goals will stay on track.  He also greatly emphasized that he does not  like to take VC funding, or any funding that is not ‘free’.  For one of his companies, he is funded off of government grants and contracts.  His presentation was honestly rather inspiring seeing how he can manage all of these companies, and his eye for identifying places in the market that he can thrive.

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