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Pearls of Wisdom From a Young Entrepreneur

11/17/2010

8 Comments

 
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This is Entrepreneurial Week at Marquette and in conjunction with that our Emerging Media guest speaker tonight was Justin Beck, co-founder and CEO of PerBlue, a profitable small business building mobile and social games in Madison, Wis. The company site says Beck is a passional software entrepreneur who began programming at age 12, graduated from the University of Wisconsin, where he studied computer engineering and computer science.

Beck, who is unquestionably mature beyond his 23 years, offered more pearls of wisdom that can be shared here. Right off the bat, he told us, our goal should be productize our value. Then we won't be bound by how much time we have on this earth, but instead we would bound only by how much we can distribute it.

Explaining why he is willing to move from company to company if he feels it's right: "We all want really good first days. ... But what's really important is to have really great last days." He doesn't condone work-a-holicism. "The real key is when you work lots of hours you cannot do really cool stuff." He added that you can make a lot more money by choosing to do the right things instead of choosing to do a lot of things. For example, he said, computer/software behemoth Apple doesn't rush to produce more products faster than CEO Steve Jobs can truly focus on.

More wisdom from Beck: When you take over a new company, the first day you should spend doing technical support or customer service so you can get a really good feel on customer feedback and customer complaints. Fire the customers who are the most work but the least profitable. Dream customers require the least attention but produce the most revenue. And with respect to the next five years, he said: billions of smartphones will be sold instead of hundreds of millions of mobile phones; social is not a platform but an idea of how to do things; and journalism will learn a different business model that is not based on advertising. (Let's hope so!)

One last thing, he said – don't get married or too attached to a company. Amen to that! 
8 Comments
Mark Strotman
1/20/2011 10:22:52 am

I wonder what he meant by "a different business modeal that is not based on advertising." Any ideas?

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Joshua Arter
1/23/2011 07:39:10 am

@Mark Strotman Possibly trying to build up by word of mouth?

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Jodi Denk
1/24/2011 09:13:10 am

I like his philosophy-don't be a workaholic and if you work really long hours, you miss out on really cool stuff. Great words to live by. This guys sounds like a really cool speaker!

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Elizabeth Heebink link
1/24/2011 11:20:56 am

I'm wondering what he meant when he said, "...our goal should be to prioritize our value." What do you guys think?

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Trey
1/24/2011 01:07:19 pm

Beck is another example of how the use of online capabilities in the field of journalism can allow for young people to make a major impact. The availabilty of the internet to people of all ages is starting to give birth to a new generation of online journalists that can shape the face of the proffesion's future

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Ashley De La Torre
1/24/2011 01:33:34 pm

Now we have more young people coming up with successful ways to communicate and navigate through this new digital world we live in. Beck is perfect example.

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Jon M
1/24/2011 11:59:39 pm

What I liked most was this quote "We all want really good first days. ... But what's really important is to have really great last days." I believe that this is so true. Yes it's good to have a great first day, but your lasting impression is what happens in your last days.

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Liz McGovern
9/1/2011 04:35:09 am

I like the idea of journalism not being built by advertising. However, I am not really sure how that is an attainable reality. I would be interested to hear more of his idea on the future of journalism and social networking.

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