Today we had Shadrock White come into class and present to us, he is the CEO of Cloud Power. My first impression of him was very positive, it felt like he was the kind of person who was honest and knew what he wanted to do if that makes sense. He also seemed very confident in what he was saying and that made it easier for me to feel confident in his words, all around seemed like a really good person. A couple of the notable things I took away from his visit was the bootstrapping, strong network of people, and don't build wheels.
Bootstrapping is ideal for start up businesses as it helps the owner keep the majority of their shares and to give proof of concept. Shadrock gave told us that bootstrapping is when you go out and raise the evaluation of your company by getting the least amount of funding possible, and then when the money is only necessary do you seek out funding. Obviously, you always need funding when your first starting but the initial amount is very small compared to the actual funds needed when running. The problem is that once you get initial funding you loose more of the company and shares, and in the end have less money than what you could have had. By working with low amounts of money first you hold onto those shares and raise the value of the company, keeping that share money to yourself. This also has the benefit of providing a proof of concept to investors later on as it shows that you were able to have a successful business with a little amount of money, making it easier for them to invest in that business and you.
Networking is always important in business, but making good connection takes more work than just a button click. One thing that stood out from Shadrock than the other visits is that he talked about having a connection or friendship with his investors well before they actually invested in the business. Shadrock mentioned that this made it easier for lunches when talking to investors because it was like talking to a friend, not someone your trying to get money out of. Speaking of friends, making an investor a friend makes it easier as well to get investments. He talked about angle investors and how they look mostly at the person rather than the business, because they want good people like them to be successful and help people, not really to multiply their money. I really like this approach to investing because I feel the same way about getting money as Shadrock. I don't like getting money unless I feel I would need it or if I was actually able to make the investment grow and not loose their money.
The last note I got out about Shadrocks visit was that to not build wheels, use wheels. He talked about some technology they were building, the cloud applications and how the frame work they had built was similar to another product that had already been built. This made it easier to create and faster to build and they didn't have to reinvent anything. They could have started from scratch and the took the time to make something all by themselves but that doesn't make sense in terms of a business and programming structure. If it has been done before in a good way and you can use, then use it and don't waste time on it trying to get something you made work. Another example was that they use their AirLift technology to develop an in house program for management of their customers, again not use another service but their own already made code to make something new but on the same foundation.
Overall I enjoyed Shadrocks visit and what he had to say about business and how he got started . He felt like a good person and had a lot of useful tips on business and life.
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