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Entrepreneurial spirit takes root in Thomas Iwasaki '14

Franz Center

Business

Portland Magazine

Alumni

June 20, 2019

This article is part of a series of profiles of Entrepreneur Scholar alumni. University of Portland's Entrepreneur Scholars program is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2019.

Thomas Iwasaki

Class of 2014 Major: Finance

The Project

Thomas IwasakiA Bluetooth speaker, customizable with imagery or designs of your choice.

The Why

I had been building speakers for fun, and when I looked at the market, I wasn’t especially excited by all the uniform black, silver, and compact Bluetooth speakers available. I wanted to create a music product as expressive as a music collection.

From There

I pursued cost and design for manufacture with a local audio engineer but stopped short of a product launch. Instead, I ended up joining a local technology startup as an early employee (via an E-Scholars connection).

Lessons

You need to expose your ideas to improve them. Feedback from users, the market, or whoever you can get to weigh in will test, strengthen, and validate your idea.

The Value of Research

I was having a hard time finding pants that fit properly, so I set up a fake website offering to “copy your favorite pants” as a test to see if others were facing the same problems as I was. There was some interest mostly in denim jeans. When I moved into conversations with denim folks, I learned that promising an exact fit in denim isn’t really possible. And prices were going to be a couple hundred dollars per pair. The idea has been shelved. I watched closely as Japanese retailer Zozo also ran into trouble with this idea recently.

Superpower

I run without coffee.

Weakness

Office snacks.

Now

I recently moved on from Nike to co-create a new company, Usonia. We’re helping businesses use their data to grow in smart and effective ways. We’re moving and shaking!

PHOTO: Adam Guggenheim