Motivation

One of the things I mentioned in my last post is that you need to be motivated. So I decided I will enlighten you as to what it is that motivates me. The reason I started my own business is because at the early age of 8 my father had his had caught in a machine at the US post office and became permanently disabled. He had RSD or Reflex sympathetic dystrophy and is never able to work again due to lack of use of his arm and the pain medication he is on every day. He had undergone 8 major operation to try to stop the pain that he experiences every day. My mother who had the task of raising me and my two sisters, one older one younger, now had to remain at home and take care of my father as well. I had to grow up and go out to work at an early age and learn how to do things that not all 8 year olds experienced. Than if that wasn't enough in 2002 my father had a brain tumor explode in his head and had to have emergency brain surgery which the doctors said they would be unable to save him. So at the age of 16 I sat there and said goodbye to my father. 12 hours later he came out of surgery with no scares and no complications; doctors couldn't explain it! So now my father takes about 25 pills a day at the young age of 49 in order to make it through each day.
So some people look at me and try to figure out where I get my drive from? What it is that makes me never give up no matter what situation I'm facing? What it is in me that makes me look at life a little differently than your average 22 year old kid? And I look at them and smile and sum it up in two words "My Parents". For two people who met at the age of 14 to stay together through all the adversity they have faced; who have never attended college, to get their three kids to Boston College and the other two to Fordham University and to still be together today. To have had to sacrifice so much that they can't even afford to have own home of their own but instead rent a house, that's all the motivation I believe one needs.
As far as my company goes, my goal is to use all the money I receive to help out my parents. To set them up as well as I can and try to enable them to start to live life as I feel they should. I would like to use this company to make them financially sound so that maybe they can start to live life a little.
That's were my motivation comes from.

Do I have what it takes to start my own business?

This post is suppose to talk about if I feel I have what it takes to start my own company. I'm fortunate enough to have already been able to start my own company so I can confidently say yes.
Starting your own business is all about taking a risk. It is a fact that 85% of all people attempting to start a business fail. At the beginning of my sophomore year I took a chance at starting my own T-shirt business. The business went well for about 8 months but after that I had a hard time finding new clients. I had been surviving on the Fordham community which went well but due to being a full time student and athlete I had little time to expend my business, so I had to stop. About a year ago I wondered into the food industry and started a pretzel company based on a secret recipe that has been in my family for generations. Knowing I had a great product I dove in head first with the attitude that I had nothing to lose.
In order to be successful you need to take risk, be motivated, not be afraid of people closing doors in your face and believe in what your selling. I walked into several establishments placed y product on the table and said let your customers try this, if they don't like it throw my card in the trash, if they do than give me a call and we'll do business. I've been fortunate to have had every establishment I've entered call me interested in my product. I am still in the early stages of things but feel confident that I will be able to continue to establish a market for my product and hopefully be successful.

John McLughlin's Digital music opinion

I liked John's post about the affect that the iPod has had on him and would even go as far as saying the I'm sure most of society would agree. It's funny to think how quick our society is evolving and fast we are coming up with all these new technological discoveries. The question I'd like to ask is if the cassette tape replaced the record, and the CD the cassette tape, now the iPod is replacing the CD, how long will the iPod be around?

Digital Music

When it comes to digital music I don't know what to think. The cost of music today is in my opinion way to high. I am not a person that has ever gone out and bought the newest CD. I'd rather list to whatever is on the radio. In our world today the Internet has made it so easy to listen to music or download music for Free! Although we have all heard that it is wrong to "steal" music there are numerous people who still do it.
Now that we are in the iPod era "stealing" music is even more popular. Who is going to pay $1 per song to put on their iPod when you can get the same songs for free? We're talking several hundreds of dollars to put the music you want on your iPod. I think if someone could come up with a way of bundling the song packages at a more reasonable price than you might find more people purchasing song instead of "stealing" them.