Guest Speaker - Erik Hanberg

Erik Hanberg was our guest speaker on last Thursday. Erik has been hired by a non-profit organization as a general manager, fundraising and special programs. Then, he got a full time job at the Grand Cinema in Tacoma as a director. After having some experiences he decided to start his own businesses. He has started several businesses such as Side x Side (with his wife Mary, a graphic designer), the Horatio, Exit133, and Suite133… He is also an author who has 32000 books sold.

Mr. Hanberg shared his opinion that no one will come to you and say you should start a business. Thus, you must start on your own and you will end up with two things: the job you did not expect and unintended revenue. To emphasize this idea, he has provided the quote of Thomas Edison: “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work”.

About Erik’s adventure in publishing, he has published several fictional and nonprofit books since 2009 such as The Little of Gold, The Saints Go dying, The Lead Cloak… Mr. Hanberg has talked his great idea about how to observe the market need, which is he has created a website for people to read a partial of his book. The website allowed the potential readers order for the book, which is always “out of stock” because in reality it has never been printed out. All of this process helped him to identify the chance of success and then he can see the reaction of the market to his book and then he could make an appropriate action. I think this is a great idea of entrepreneurship.

As a business student, a lesson I have learned from this speech is always research carefully the market before performing any action into it. Moreover, I should start a business on my own whenever I am ready. This is a great and really helpful speech.