048 – The Value of Entrepreneurship with Kirk Bowman

 Get updates every week.
Subscribe in iTunes, YouTube, or Libsyn!

[In This Episode][Guest Bio][Additional Notes][Text Transcript]

In This Episode

How does a music teacher for a school district create a successful software business?   What is the connection between entrepreneurial thinking and great school performance?  How can farm work encourage a young man to become an entrepreneur?  Listen in for the wide ranging answers in today’s podcast!

Hey there, Innovation Nation!  Our guest today has a broad background with a distinct entrepreneurial thread.  Entrepreneurs are the reason we have iPhones, cars, planes, and most other modern conveniences.  They see a problem in the world and proceed to fix it.  I came across a great quote today about entrepreneurs from Nolan Bushnell.  He says,

“The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It’s as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.”

Nolan knows what he’s talking about because he’s done quite a few things including starting Atari and Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza.  He lives entrepreneurship and his son, Brent Bushnell who was on our podcast earlier this year, caught the same entrepreneurial bug, and we want to pass that same spark onto all the kids in our Inventor’s Bootcamp this summer.

If you think about many of the tech startup companies such as Apple, Google, Facebook, etc., they were started by passionate young entrepreneurs that caught the vision early.  We know how to fan those flames in our Inventor’s Bootcamp.  We introduce teens to technologies they never knew they could learn, and then set them loose to innovate.  Kevin is one of those teens.  He started by learning about 3D printing, and recently his mother told me that he’s begun taking all kinds of things apart at home just to see how they work!

Today our guest, Kirk Bowman, is from the great state of Texas, and he and I discuss the effects of entrepreneurial tendencies on his life trajectory.  He started his first business as a farm kid selling blackberries and now has a software company and is starting a consulting business focused on helping businesses properly price their products.  Join me for a fascinating discussion about how entrepreneurial thinking can shape your world.

About Kirk

In August 2009, Kirk was the advocate for hourly billing (the irony) for a panel discussion on estimating and billing at the FileMaker Developer Conference. Another developer on the panel was an advocate for value pricing. He said:

If you bill by the hour, there is an artificial limit on your income.

Kirk’s internal reaction was “Heck no!”

Kirk spent the next 3 months studying value pricing. Then in November, he made a public commitment on the FileMaker Talk podcast to switch from hourly billing to value pricing with MightyData, his software company. Then Kirk hired a value pricing consultant to help him make the switch.

His first value pricing proposal was for a custom healthcare application. After identifying the value that the project would create for the customer, Kirk doubled the price he would normally have charged and won the business.

Within 12 months, Kirk made the switch to value pricing with all of his customers. Their revenue increased by 56% the first year. The next year, his revenue increased by 79%. And, Kirk has never looked back.

What is the Purpose of an Education?

 “Formal education is to teach you how to learn, so that when you become responsible for your learning you can do it well.”  —Kirk Bowman

Additional Notes

Connect:

• Art of Value podcast: http://artofvalue.com/show/
• Twitter: @ArtOfValue
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artofvalue
• Websites: ArtOfValue.com, http://mightydata.com/

Full Text Transcript – Coming Soon!