UBC Entrepreneurs

I have been working with a team at The University of  British Columbia in forming and launching a first of its kind program in entrepreneurship.

Open to all UBC students and, eventually, all members of the UBC family, “entrepreneurship@UBC” will provide student entrepreneurs with time (workshops, fireside chats, mentorship), talent (for credit courses in entrepreneurship, venture investing and company building) and, most interestingly, treasure (an equity fund created specifically to fund UBC student companies).

While I’ll write more on entrepreneurship@UBC later, this post is about a new student led company called “Clinicbook”.  Clinicbook, founded by UBC Applied Sciences undergraduate students Robin McFee and Winnie Lai, is a web-based tool for medical clinics to publish their waiting times in real-time.  So, when a patient is looking for a walk-in clinic they can now visit www.clinicbook.ca, locate nearby clinics and, most importantly, determine waiting times updated in real-time.

I have enjoyed getting to know Robin and Winnie as they have gone through the formation of this company. I have been wholly impressed.  I have watched as these founders:

(1) Identified a market pain both for the doctors, their administrative and front office staff and, indeed, patients.

(2) Recruited a team to help them create Clinicbook’s current beta.

(3) Undertook business development and landed over sixty clinics and several major pharmacies as clients (before launch, no less!)

(4) Revised the product based on input from advisors, customers and clinics, and

(5) Launched their beta this week.

I have no doubt that Clinicbook has found a very interesting market space.  I just hope Robin and Winnie will come back and mentor some UBC students once they’ve sold Clinicbook and retired!

And for a bit of fun

I hope that regular readers of this blog will allow this indulgence.

We own a one year old Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier named Cobalt (“Coby”).  We don’t often come across other Wheaten Terriers, so when we do it’s lots of fun for our dog and for us too.

This video is of Coby playing with three other Wheatens on our beautiful British Columbia coast.

Irish eyes are smiling

Those of you who follow Canadian politics will remember the Mulroney/Reagan rendition of “When Irish Eyes are Smiling”, the Chretien “fisticuff” and George W. Bush’s less than flattering proclivity for breaking into dance.

This weekend Canada’s current Prime Minister took part in an impromptu performance at the National Arts Centre’s annual gala with Yo Yo Ma.  You can see the video here:

I think this was a masterstroke on the part of Harper’s handlers.  Here in Canada Prime Minister Harper is viewed as a bit distant, cold and calculating.  This performance, an admirable one, shows his human side.  It also won’t hurt with Canada’s arts community.

Enjoy!

Unconventional entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is something people often relate only to business.  While my career has been in business, I am of the view that entrepreneurship can appear anywhere.

One such non-conventional story of entrepreneurship relates to a friend of mine who gave up a corporate job to join her then fiance on a human powered trip around the world.

Julie Angus (nee Wafaei) of www.angusadventures.com joined Colin in 2005 on the first human powered circumnavigation.  Julie and Colin walked, ran and rode bikes across Asia/Russia/Western Europe and then launched themselves into the Atlantic Ocean.  Julie became the first woman to successfully transit the Atlantic in a rowboat and concluded her journey in Vancouver on bike in 2006.

Entrepreneurship involves risk, managing with scarce resources and bouncing back from adversity while always believing in and driving toward an ultimate goal.  Julie and Colin exemplify skills necessary for leading an early stage business.

I strongly encourage you to visit her blog at http://angusadventures.com/blog/ and check them out during one of their road shows.

Canada’s big chance

This piece appears in the August 27th issue of MacLean’s magazine:

http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/08/27/our-big-chance/

Canada’s economy is a small fraction of the size of America’s and we’re less productive, but prudent fiscal management has put us in a relatively good position going forward.  Mulroney’s much maligned GST and Paul Martin’s careful management of federal government finances contributed to our strength today.  It’s going to be up to Harper to ensure this isn’t squandered.

Free enterprise, international economies, ballooning deficits

These matters are very topical for our political and free enterprise leaders.  President Obama, Prime Minister Harper, Prime Minister Brown and other leaders are facing tremendous economic challenges.

While one may think these are matters isolated to 2009 and beyond, you may be interested in taking a few minutes to watch this excerpt from the 1980 Republican leadership debate between George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.

As we now all know, Reagan went on to defeat Bush and then Carter to become president.  President Reagan embarked on a terrific agenda of tax cutting and free enterprise policies.  They worked.

One can only hope that President Obama, presiding over one of the largest increases of government in history, reviews his history lessons and takes a second look at the direction he has selected.

A simple lesson in socialism

I received this note from a good friend and thought it was worth sharing. I don’t know the original source.

Subject: Socialism

Lesson An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. The Class agreed!

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D!

No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward and shares it with those not earning it, no one will try or want to succeed.

It just doesn’t get any simpler than this.

Finding your passion and entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs take risks and then organize and manage new enterprises (often businesses).  Regular readers of my blog know that I have been looking for my next business opportunity for several years.  I haven’t found it yet (but stay tuned) so in the interim I have to live vicariously through my friends and acquaintances.

One such person is a Vancouver entrepreneur named Robert Zalaudek.  I’ve known Robert since his undergraduate university days when he owned various coin operated vending machines.  Recently, after practicing as a professional technology recruiter, Robert took a risk, left his firm and followed his passion (read Hedgehog entry by clicking here) by starting a company to distribute the European designed and manufactured Sit Fit.

I’ve known Robert a long time and if I were to list his passions (not including family and friends) I would include tennis, general physical fitness and wine.  This evolving story is a true one in entrepreneurship.  Robert decided he wanted to start a business, sought out a product, defined a business model, approached the manufacturer (in Germany, no less), proposed various structures and went through many rounds of discussions before landing on his current deal.  If memory serves me correctly, then establishing his business has taken about six months.

This is just the beginning for Robert and Build Your Core.  I have no doubt that he is going to have great business success.  Check out Robert’s company website at www.buildyourcore.com and, even better, buy his core building Sit Fit product.  I’m sitting on one now and can attest to its effectiveness!

BC Ferries Customer Service

Founded in 1960 BC Ferries has become one of the world’s largest ferry operators growing from two ships and terminals to 36 vessels and 47 ports of call.

In 2003 the provincial Liberal government spun BC Ferries into a separate independent commercial entity that operates under the Coastal Ferry Act with an executive team that reports to private sector board of directors.

The current CEO, David Hahn, joined the corporation as its CEO in 2003 and since then has assembled and led a team that has, in my opinion, made great strides forward in improving the customer experience with BC Ferries.

Now, with a company that employs 4,700 people, carries 8 million cars and 21 million people annually there is undoubtedly going to be imperfections.  Obviously it’s best to do a great job and minimize problems, but it’s more how a company reacts to and handles problems that differentiates it from other organizations.

Last Sunday afternoon I was returning to Vancouver through Departure Bay in Nanaimo and had a less than stellar experience.  So, while waiting in the ferry lineup I thought I’d email the company’s CEO (I know the email naming convention at the company) and tell him, in real time, about my experience.  I don’t know him and have never met him, so there’s no reason why my name appearing in his inbox would get his attention.

Pleasingly, he replied within twenty minutes (at 5:42pm on a Sunday, no less), apologized for my experience, offered an explanation and, more importantly, copied the relevant vice president and director level management in order to raise the issue with them and work toward solutions.

I haven’t heard back from either the VP or director on how they’re going to solve this problem, but I was, nonetheless, very pleased with their response.  This is clearly a CEO who cares about the company he is running and its paying customers.

If you’re interested in the email thread then let me know and I’ll forward it to you.

Sarah Palin

I have had a long standing interest in following US politics and I found the 2008 US election to be one of the most exciting.  While I don’t agree with much of the tonic President Obama is administering to the current economic illness, I think the two choices American’s had for president in 2008 were both exceptional candidates.

When Senator McCain announced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his nominee for vice president I was surprised.  She wasn’t someone on any list of prospects I had seen.  At the time I described that decision as McCain’s Hail Mary pass for the election.  As we now know this didn’t pay off for him.

The position of US vice president is important primarly because the occupant of that office becomes president in the event that the incumbent becomes incapacitated.  The vice president is also a member of the legislative branch of government in his or her capacity as president of the Senate.  The Senate’s president casts the deciding vote in the event of a tie.

If I were a betting man I’d predict that John McCain will be alive in November 2012 – which means that, barring a catastrophe, it would have been highly doubtful that a VP Sarah Palin would haved needed to be called upon to replace McCain.  Nonetheless, she would still have been ” a heart beat away from the presidency.”

The more I learn about her, the more pleased that she isn’t today’s vice president.  Now she may over time become well equipped for the job of president, but she’s got a lot of work to do between now and then.  This Vanity Fair article, which was linked form a recent Wall Street Journal on Palin, does a pretty good job of describing Palin, a bit of her history and, most concerning, her character.

Vanity Fair is not gospel when it comes to politics.  So I take the writer’s comments with a grain of salt.  Nonetheless, it’s a worthwhile read if you’re interested in the free world’s leadership.

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/sarah-palin200908