Founders Speak at University Forum
Friday, November 04, 2005
Understanding the business of customers and diligently supporting the relationship cited in success
episode49 founders Ken Smith and Kurt Schaffer were the panelists at the 10th Annual Clarence E. Harris Entrepreneurial Forum at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga College of Business. The goal of the Forum is to provide an exchange between students, faculty, and entrepreneurs regarding the entrepreneurial process. The two hour session, attended by over 200 students, faculty and alumni covered 'Pitfalls in Entrepreneurial Startups - How to Avoid Them'".
"Attending to the relationship with each client at every step of the experience makes all the difference. We're hoping to influence these students and faculty to do this since we've heard from our customers that few firms genuinely practice this fundamental", said Ken Smith, managing partner and chief strategist, "We wanted to share the importance of paying attention to what is important to our customers - knowing how their businesses work".
In order to understand the context of the insights, many students inquired about episode49's business of serving the development needs of consumer services, political action, not for profit, and broadcasting and media firms.
"Like many technical firms, we could have easily become wrapped up in the technology and forget about the customer", said Kurt Schaffer, managing partner and chief architect, "We decided to build our processes around the customer right from the beginning. The result is that you become a trusted advisor. For our customers, they have us help them plan for their future digital development needs. We wanted this approach to relationships to be clearly understood".
"I'm not sure people realize what a contribution Ken and Kurt made to the university today by participating in this. You can't measure the depth of learning, the motivation, and the unique satisfaction that students get from hearing two incredibly smart, successful entrepreneurs tell their war stories....heck, I loved it...imagine what it does for a 21 year old with no experience?" said Dr. Diane Halstead, Professor of Entrepreneurship and moderator for the session.
The session was videotaped for use in future training.
