Of the many things that are great about Director Jackson’s classes is that he frequently brings in guest speakers to talk to his students. Previous guest speakers have talked about design thinking, intellectual property, startup finances, and, last night, there were two speakers who shared their experiences in launching businesses and disrupted their respective industries.
Sinan Kanatsiz
Sinan Kanatsiz talked about his experiences building the Internet Marketing Association (IMA), which is an organization that connects people around the topic of marketing on the internet. The big takeaway from Sinan’s talk was that relationships are valuable and while there are different ways to develop these relationships, Sinan’s preferred method of developing relationships is through making an impact.
Through the IMA, Sinan brings in amazing speakers to talk to his members and has his events in great locations. These speakers are frequently household names and his members are the people who are in charge of marketing for some of the largest and most impactful businesses in the world.
In addition to the IMA, Sinan has founded multiple other businesses and organizations (see his bio linked to above), but what stitches all of Sinan’s activities together is building relationships.
Kyle Kamrooz
Kyle Kamrooz is an entrepreneur whose family emigrated to the United States from Iran. Kyle is professionally driven, a compelling speaker, and was generous enough to take some time out of his busy day to come and talk to students about his experiences as an entrepreneur.
Kyle’s main thesis for his talk was to have a laser-like focus on what it is you’re trying to accomplish. Some people may end up not liking you, others will love you, it doesn’t matter, your focus needs to be on what is most important in your business.
Parting Thoughts
After Kyle’s talk ended, Sinan came back to the podium to briefly discuss the importance of not being afraid of making mistakes. If you’re making the same mistake over and over, that is bad, but it is also bad if you aren’t making any mistakes because that likely means that you aren’t learning or doing anything new or, quite frankly, important. That and relationships. Doing things for other people, companies, organizations for free is a fantastic way to build trust and to build relationships.
CSUF Entrepreneurship
We are dedicated to helping the next generation of entrepreneurs develop the skills that they need to compete locally and globally. The CSUF Entrepreneurship program does many things,