Geoff Jamieson

Shamshir Jessa Case

Shamshir has a very limited vision for the business. He starts off very well talking about the teachings of entrepreneurship classes he had taken; things such as idea generation, ability to critique opportunities and how to overcome problems and come up with creative solutions. The concerning thing is that the things he learned in class don’t seem to translate into his real life business skills.

In a venture project (Opportunity Identification Course) they created a web-based textbook exchange introducing buyers and sellers, but notes that they were having trouble seeing where the revenue was going to come from. Shamshir and Ken have created an almost identical business model but instead it is an exchange between truck drivers and contractors, and Shamshir still doesn’t seem certain where his revenue will come from. You can have the greatest idea of all time but if you don’t know how to generate revenues from it, it’s worthless.

In my opinion Shamshir has a couple different options that he should be thinking about to generate income.

1. The truck/contractor business

There is potential in this business I believe but it must be executed correctly if Shamshir ever hopes to makes profits. Besides even generating profit Shamshir is extremely carless when handing out equity in his business. He must also think about liquidity, because he might not see any profits from this business in a couple years (should reinvest the money to better scale).

1. Civil engineering job in Calgary

After he graduated he could start a job as a civil engineer making $14.4hr (I assume this is just the starting first year rate) that totals $42,000 annual income.

1. Possibly becoming a professor in project management

He mentions that he learned from a professor that made $600/hour “to give his clients common-sense advice about project management. If Shamshir feels that this would be so easy and something he could add value in, he should look into the opportunity more because $600/hour is not a bad gig.

His market research also seems like it is lacking, and the most common answer he received was that it would undermine all of the work that truckers had done developing special relationships with contractors. In this situation Shamshir should be looking to either modify his idea a bit or know that he is targeting his service to a particular niche or truckers. It seemed he did very little searching to find out how much people would be willing to spend on his service, which resulted in a very poor revenue model made up from thin air.

Lastly, his motivations seem to not follow the business. “Although he wasn’t all that concerned about making money in the first year he wanted the company to do well enough so that he could jump in full time on graduation”- this seems like a complete lack of commitment, and an opportunity that must be taken advantage of soon. The case also mentions that Shamshir would be working 40 hours a week at his internship until end of April and from May through Mid July he would be working 12 hour days with 21 days on and one day off. “It is a critical time for this launch and I won’t be available”, this seems careless because he knows that it is crucial yet does nothing about it. He says he will be able to make phone calls during his days spent baby sitting… this is a huge red flag. If Shamshir wants to continue this business he should not be doing an internship or babysitting, he should be completely focused on problems regarding the business.

There are a couple ethical issues that are at play in this case. Shamshir signed a contractual arrangement agreeing that any knowledge created while working for the company would be the property of the company. Shamshir’s whole idea was created from information discovered about the company’s operations; therefore he is breaking that contract. Another obvious ethical issue is the conflict of interest between Shamshir and Ken; Shamshir would still be supervising Ken’s work while they were starting a company together. When Shamshir went to the person who gave him the placement, and that person said he didn’t see a problem because Shamshir had no real signing authority and was only a student. This is an issue; just because he is a student doesn’t make it right. Shamshir has a serious internship placement and performs a critical role as a supervisor of operations. Afterwards several shady suggestions were brought up by Shamshir’s teammates in his entrepreneurship about making Ken a private shareholder (even though Ken holds the most equity in the company), and then decided that Ken shouldn’t contact the contractors and when he calls the truck drivers he will lie to them and say he works for Southrock Ltd. and won’t mention any affiliation with the company.