Ep 023: “We want people 22-26 yrs old with 30 yrs experience” w/ Ken Arnold

Ken Arnold is a consultant, author, engineer, and professor at
San Diego State University, where he teaches a wide variety of
courses such as programming and embedded systems. Aside from
starting multiple companies in the past, he founded
HiTechEdventures.org, whose purpose is to connect motivated
students and potential employers, by providing work-for-hire
consulting services. Students have the opportunity to work on
client’s projects while they’re enrolled and working toward their
degree.


 
STRATEGIES USED TO FUND BUSINESS

When I first started as an entrepreneur, I hired my friends to do
consulting work for companies and bootstrapped the entire thing.
I paid them depending on the money I was getting from the
companies. At the time, the best jobs were going for $1-2 an hour
and they were getting $4 an hour. It was a win-win-win situation.
DESCRIBE A MOMENT WHEN YOU FELT LIKE GIVING UP

One of the biggest ones was when I had just jumped off and
started the business. The large company I had worked for had a
health plan. My son had become ill when he was born and had
substantial hospital bills. It turns out there was a limit on how
much the hospital paid out. All of the sudden the hospital gave
all the money back to the insurance company. The company said
they weren’t going to pay money that was over the limit, and I
was forced to spend tens of thousands of money to cover the cost.
That was all the money that I was going to spend on advertising
and all sorts of business stuff. Family first.
HUGE SUCCESS

My favorite success is the HiTechEdVentures program because it’s
something that I feel addresses a direct need and it solves a
problem so many of my students had. Good students are not able to
get jobs because they couldn’t even get an interview because they
didn’t have any paid experience to put on their resume. I feel
proud to start that because none of the people that have called
me back have said, “Ken, I couldn’t find a job or get an
interview.”
SUPERPOWER

I’d say my primary strength is simply that I try to be creative
in finding different solutions to problems that people have used
the standard solutions for.
KRYPTONITE

Bureaucracy, definitely. I’ve always had trouble with big
companies and big organizations. What really grinds my gears is
the bureaucreatic BS that prevents people from doing what
needs to be done.
IF YOU CAN HAVE ANY SUPERPOWER

If I had any superpower it would be to inform people widely of
really important things that they’re not aware of.
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