Brian Forth

Brian Forth started off his lecture with answering an interesting question from Andrew, the question was, what is your opinion on firing employees? Brian answered by saying "The first employee and the last employee I fired were the hardest ones" meaning it is always difficult for him to fire an employee. This feeds into Brian's company culture. His company, sitecrafting.com is a web management/user research firm. Brian says that the most important thing to his company is company culture. He said by making sure his employees are happy, it would result in his business having success. After working at Costco where employee retention is through the roof, I noticed first hand how important it is to keep your employees happy. Interestingly enough, I recruited someone for my own company after telling them I want the people who are with me in the beginning to be there with me at the end.

Brian's entry into entrepreneurship was also interesting. He was always a curious guy and looked to create solutions rather than wait on someone to do it for him. As such, he fell into a technology head position at a private school. There he taught kids the basics of coding and would create websites for their parents companies. Brian story shows that opportunities are there to be seized, you just need to make sure you put yourself in the right position.