John Dimmer

John Dimmer's visit to our classroom was another blessing, and offered a lot more then just business advice. Mr. Dimmer talked about many different things about the life cycle of a business. This idea seemed very obvious but seeing it laid out in the graph he provided was very enlightening. According to the graph the life cycle of a business is the discovery, proof of concept, product design, product development, and finally manufacturing and delivery. The most interesting aspect of this was the product design as Mr. Dimmer broke down how you would come across funding from a start-up funding to seed-funding, angels, and lastly seed funding. The best part of this discussion was the importance of investing in people, but not just any people. Mr. Dimmer explained how it was important to invest in people that were in love with what they were doing. This immediately got me thinking about the old wise saying that you should never do business with friends, and this statement seemed to back up the statement. However, Mr. Dimmer also mentioned that this is not always the case and typically doing business with your friends is really not an issue. This statement resonated with me as it made sense, if you were going to embark on a difficult and long journey wouldn’t you rather embark on it with someone you have cultivated a friendship with instead of some random stranger you have just met? It is true that running a business is not easy and will require many sleepless nights and sacrifice before you start seeing the pay off, but in the end your friend is a lot more likely to stick with you through the hardships then a random person you have been told is good at business. This discussion we had with Mr. Dimmer has opened up my mind to considering starting a business with my friends. Often times we get stuck with the idea that our friends are only there to provide me with good times. But we are so quick to forget that our close friends are like family, and in some instances can be closer to you then your own family. This realization also comes with a saddening reality that just because someone is your friend shouldn’t mean you should just go into a business with him or her blindly, but instead really consider what he or she has to offer toward the business. I now realize starting a business requires much more then hard work and sacrifice but also, having the grit to being someone that can say no to things that would detract from your business even when coming from friends and family, and staying the course focused on your end goal.