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Printer-Friendly ModeIP3 founder advises students
Local tech businessman encourages entrepeneurship
April 3, 2006 —
SVSU welcomed a veteran of the IT software and services industry when Kennetth W. Kousky visited on Wednesday as part of the College of Business and Management's Executive Speaker Series.
Kousky presented lectures at 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. in the Rhea Miller Recital Hall titled "Inside the Dream - From Garage to IPO." Kousky is the founder, president, and chief executive officer of IP3, a private corporation that performs market research of information technology security. The company was founded in 2001 and is located in Saginaw.
In his introduction, Kousky told stories of using ball bearings for marbles as he described how to be a successful entrepreneur. He talked about historical events and how they affected the world in ways that often go unnoticed.
"Our lives centered and revolved around our cars ... now look what has happened," he said, referring to the loss of manufacturing revenue due to globalization.
He used his life experiences to urge students to raise the bar by challenging themselves with difficult classes.
"Getting A's isn't going to get you anywhere," he said. "You must be able to compete in a global economy."
He used the analogy of Rudolph Giuliani's strategy for cutting crime rates as mayor of New York City. He pointed to Giuliani's elimination of graffiti and solicitors as a method of preventing crime because it changed the culture. In order to have a successful college experience, students must change the culture by striving to go beyond the status quo.
Kousky described his first job experience at Southwestern Bell in which the company had monopolized the market, yet continued to spend enormous amounts of money on advertising.
The company was forced to justify their advertising costs because it led to higher consumer costs. Since there was no competition, the company's ethics were questioned. Kousky found that the company's statistics were flawed and the costs were not justified.
Kousky's second job at Soundolier was an important example because the company was forced to dramatically modify its business plan.
The company began losing jobs to Korea because Koreans were better educated. He said that the myth of cheap labor was typically cited as the reason for losing jobs oversees, but usually jobs are outsourced due to foreign workers being educated better.
Kousky's third job, at Cache Data Products (later Novell) is where he got his big break. The company revolutionized technology by allowing computers to network and read the same data. The company trained sales professionals to sell Local Area Networks (LAN), a product that was unknown to the public.
This work continued at the University of Washington, where he helped establish the Research Center in Data Communications, the first graduate program in data networking. He soon became CEO of Wave Technologies.
Kousky said the hardest part about being a young entrepreneur is that one's existence is unknown. The entrepreneur may have a good idea, but it takes good marketing and training to promote this idea to the public. His experience at marketing technology to the general public won him an Entrepreneur of the Year award in 1995.
More information on Kousky and IP3 can be found at www.ip3.com.