Assignment Task: Tim Hayden's Last Vacation
In the four years since missing St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire's 70th home run in St. Louis's Busch Stadium in 1998, Tim Hayden had been toying with the ided of creating some sort of electronic device to let people attending a sports event enjoy the same sort of video and informational graphics that people who watch the game at home enioved. He even figured out the technology needed. He would use a PDA with Wi-Fi capabilities, "hardened" through its construction and tough case to be able to withstand liquids and the kind of rough handling you would expect among spectators at a sporting event. He would call it SkyBOX. In his spare time, he pursued the SkyBOX idea with sports managers, advertisers, computer people, and with everyone he met.
A tech-savvy marketing manager by trade, Tim knew what the user interface would look like. Having no budget for his part-time business, he had to talk friends into putting together a flash graphic of what his service would look like. He had also thought about how he could make money with SkyBOx, and how he could get the major sports leagues to support the product.
Meanwhile, he continued his day job as the director of marketing and sales for a local advertising firm. He knew to make SkvBOX work he would need to leave his employer, but he wasn't sure how to decide. He was making good money and liked his work, but he was also likely to get moved from straight salary to more of a commission basis to help grow the business. He had a girlfriend. A lifelong St. Louisan, he had an active social life with his friends. He was close to his family, and they lived nearby.
The moment of truth came during a vacation Tim and his parents took in the summer of 2002 to visit familv in Florida. Trading introductions around a pool, the man to Tim's right turned out to be the entrepreneur who founded the multimillion-dollar Val-Pak mailer business, Terry Loebel. Hearing about SkyBOX from Tim, Terry was relentless: "What's your business model?'I"What's in it for the league and teams?" "Are you the right person to carry this off?" Under the hot sun, beers in hand, Tim and Terry went back and forth. In the end, Terry gave Tim a look that said,
"You done good kid." A little while later, Terry left.
For the rest of the afternoon, Tim kept thinking, "I did it. I really did it!" He held his own and showed off his business well enough to impress a very successful entrepreneur. He knew his business, and he knew his stuff. Maybe he was ready to go for it full time.
Over dinner, he mentioned his experience to his parents-a corporate entrepreneur and a self-employed HR consultant.
Suddenly a raft of questions hit him he wasn't prepared for, questions like "What will you live on?" and "What about your girlfriend?" With a lot more difficulty than that afternoon, Tim started answering questions. As he got more into it, he felt maybe he was on top of the personal dimension of the prospect of going full time.
Case Discussion Questions:
Q1. People talk about entrepreneurs depending on luck. Tim saw Terry Loebel only that one time. Their conversation was one of the factors leading Tim to decide to go full time, starting his business as "Vivid Sky" with the initial product,
Q2. "SkyBOX." Was it luck on Tim's part? Was there anything Tim was doing to improve his luck?
Q3. Tim had concentrated on mastering the business and technology angles of the SkyBOX, but was slightly taken aback when asked about how his personal life would change if he went into entrepreneurship full time. If you were contemplating a full-time entrepreneurial career, what are some of the personal considerations you think might be important?
Q4. Why would Tim's employer's plan to change business directions make becoming a full-time entrepreneur more attractive?
Q5. Tim felt he needed to go full time to take the SkyBOX "to the next level." Can you think of ways he could have continued building up the SkyBOX while sticking with a part-time approach? What would have been the downfalls?