Rush Hour Outdoor Invited to Speak on Entrepreneurship Panel for UCLA MBA Students

Posted on January 23, 2011 by jeffblake

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – February 23, 2010

Jeff Blake, founder and CEO of Rush Hour Outdoor, was honored to be one of three young entrepreneurs invited to speak to MBA students in the UCLA Anderson School of Management. Jeff, along with ElephantDrive CEO Michael Fisher and Mixergy founder Andrew Warner, sat on a panel for the Anderson School’s annual Entrepreneurship week. Each entrepreneur spoke about the formation of their business, some of theirchallenges and successes, and answered questions from an audience of 200 future entrepreneurs.

Jeff Blake founded Rush Hour Outdoor as an alternative, or perhaps a solution, to overpriced outdoor advertising media such as billboards. Rush Hourr Outdoor lets commuters advertise for you by placing your ads on the personal vehicles of commuters who live, work and play in your target markets. Blake, who himself recently received his MBA from the George Washington University, spoke to the aspiring entrepreneurs about the experience of starting a company from scratch. Blake had a “eureka” moment as an undergraduate when he realized that the highways are filledwith unused ad space, and was astounded that this concept had not already been executed. Realizing the unmet need, Jeff founded Rush Hourr Outdoor in February of 2008. While discussing the pros and cons of “bootstrapping,” that is, self-funding an entrepreneurial venture, Jeff expressed to the students the importance of Beta-testing your processes.He mused, “Think about your new business, especially a brand new product or service, as similar to an unknown garage band. You’re not going to sell a lot of records right away. Sometimes, you need to give the music away and see what comes back.” Jeff explained that a huge breakthrough came from offering his unique service at cost in exchange for data and feedback from the clients. You can visit the company’s website at www.altavert.com.

ElephantDrive, a cloud storage provider, was founded in 2005 to meet the explosive demand for inexpensive, secure, and highly available online backup and storage. A case study on the company can be found here

Andrew Warner founded Mixergy to provide a space where business owners could learn from first-hand interviews with the greatest minds inbusiness. Warner started a successful online business in his 20′s, andin his own words, “This is the site I wish I had.” More information isavailable at blog.mixergy.com

www.anderson.ucla.edu/x19573.xml

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.