Entrepreneurship Discussion

I went to the Entrepreneurs Panel Discussion and I was most interested by Joseph Hyman’s story. He started out doing things around the UMBC campus as student. First running a hair cuttery business, then helping build and design the Performing Arts building, the green roof and the Patapsco dorms. He then went on to from a business with a couple of his friends at UMBC and other universities in designing a portable coffee maker, a design that they entirely made on their own. They tried to get it crowd funded at first but failed horribly, not coming even close to half of their goal.

From there he focused on their deign and in making it more of their brand look, something iconic and only their own. In a sense he worked on their project management skills between the first crowd funding and the second, making the coffee maker seem more appealing to the customer as well as improving it’s workings from just a prototype to a finished and ready sell product. From then they relaunched their crowdfunding and got their goal and more.

I was most interested by Hyman’s story because he started out by just doing small things here and there for professors and built his knowledge of design and invention from designing and building campus buildings. It shines a light that there are so many resources around campus to build upon your knowledge and also make a name for yourself. He is an artist but also an innovator and inventor. Using his knowledge of design and engineering from classes and using it to create a product but he also used his knowledge of management skills from projects to improve his company and his product.