Jesse Darley and Steve Latham are two engineers from Madison, Wisconsin who dreamed of starting a side business. They took the plunge after friends raved about the laser cut wooden wall display that holds bottle caps that Jesse made for his 6-year-old son Jasper.
Entrepreneurial Role Models:
Jesse’s Mum
When business started difficulties overcame:
“We soon discovered there was a website out there that was selling a copycat of our map, they just started knocking off our maps, within 3 months of starting our business we were both trying to ramp up a new manufacturer and trying to deal with the legal ramifications of stopping our old one from selling against us”…[Listen for More]
Favourite Books:
The Four-Minute Mile Book by Sir Roger BannisterFavourite Quote:
“If you wait for all of the lights to turn green before you drive across town you’ll never get there”
Recommended Online Resources:
Autodesk – builds software that helps people imagine, design and create a better world
Best Advice to Other Entrepreneurs:
“Starting something may be easier than you think, I kind of go back to our one week start up, we never thought it would be as easy as it was to get to that first sale but starting something that’s going to succeed is probably harder than you think, getting that exposure, getting people to share your product with their friends and figure out how to use the media, free media and paid media to drive sales is really a bigger challenge than we ever expected”…[Listen for More]
More About Jesse Darley:
Neil’s Quote at the Beginning:
“The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.” Edsger W. Dijkstra
Other Quotes From the Chat with Jesse Darley:
- “I think every time I come up with an idea I think it’s the best one until I wait for the next one to come out then that’s the best one, you’re often too close to it to know, get a lot of things on the table, try them out with friends and family, see if you can sell them if it’s cheap enough but I think don’t just go with your first idea, really go for a lot of quantity”
- “By definition planning is creating change, you have to adapt to things as they come up but at least you have a plan to keep moving forward”
- “Every morning in Africa a Gazelle wakes up, knows it must move faster than the lion or it will not survive, and every morning a lion wakes up and knows it must move faster than the slowest gazelle or it’ll starve, so it doesn’t matter if you’re the lion or the gazelle when the sun comes up you better be moving”
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