Written by Prof. Kenneth Ninomiya
The Forward Motion Business Show with Prof. Ken and Professor Paul A. Marino is back live streaming on YouTube from United International College. The first guest on Show #15 live stream on October 26, 2021, was Kadie Black from Kristi’s House in Miami.
Kristi House is dedicated to eradicating child abuse and child sex trafficking – working nationally on solutions and locally to heal child victims. They operate the only Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) in Miami-Dade County and are responsible for coordinating child victims’ legal, medical, and social services needs. Kristi House was founded in 1995 as a private, not-for-profit organization to provide an integrated solution for families navigating the complex services involved in the healing process. The Center is nationally recognized for its evidence-based, therapeutic expertise in treating child trauma. All services are free of charge to child victims and their families.
Kadie shared insights and expressed the importance of community support and how local businesses can support our women and kids for abused and sex-trafficked individuals at their shelter. Kadie also explained the Kristi House’s Project GOLD, the first and longest-running program in Miami-Dade County dedicated to child sex trafficking—providing the only Drop-In Center in South Florida exclusively for underage girls overcoming trafficking. At the Drop-In Center, girls receive restorative services, including case management, therapy, advocacy, transportation, and educational and recreational enrichment. Visit them to learn more and contribute at KristiHouse.org.
Prof. Ken and Professor Paul also discuss the recent failure of Quibi after only seven short months of operation. Quibi’s business model was to provide video content exclusively for the phone. Quibi stands for a “Quick Bite” because their video content would be no longer than 10 minutes.
Executive Meg Whitman led the start-up company. She took eBay to a multibillion-dollar company and turned them into what they are today, and holds degrees from Harvard and Princeton. Executive Jeffrey Katzenberg from DreamWorks fame, who created many successful shows and movies such as Shrek and The Lion King also led the start-up. The two of them together were a pretty amazing executive team which allowed them to raise $1.7 Billion to get the company started. To launch in the Spring of 2020, they took out an ad during the 2020 Super Bowl and the 2020 Oscars before the service was even available.
The concept lasted about seven months and became a rapid failure. The idea was to stream a 5 to 10-minute video to people standing around or waiting for something to happen. Quibi was hoping to take users away from Instagram and Facebook.
I immediately subscribed to the service because it sounded great and used a remarkable technology that allowed you to watch the video in portrait mode or horizontal mode on your phone. They also had a ton of content creators and big names, but the content was not that good.
Even though $1.7 Billion is a lot of money, it wasn’t enough. Their biggest competitor Netflix spends about $15 billion a year to generate new shows. Quibi also didn’t have a library of older content for viewers to watch. For example, Netflix has all the older TV shows, and Disney has older movies. So, it’s not just the new stuff that wasn’t good, but they didn’t have any older content to fill in the gaps.
Quibi also learned that most users preferred to get short-form video content for Free on competitors’ YouTube site, so people dropped it when they started to charge for the subscription. But the real nail in their coffin was the untimely launch in April 2020, just as Covid was shutting us all down. So, if the idea was to have people watch a video when you’re standing around waiting in line waiting for the bus or waiting for the subway, it didn’t work because no one was waiting around in line. We were all locked in our houses watching Netflix. It’s hard to predict bad timing when launching a business, so that is an unexpected turn. Still, they underestimated their competition, misread their target market, and didn’t have enough money to compete. These are the lessons any business can learn from.
This Forward Motion broadcast also discussed the book The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. This was a timely discussion for all of us coming through the Covid pandemic. The book covers five essential principles to maintain a positive attitude. These were to believe in yourself, give and take care of others, you shouldn’t face your problems on your own, your attitude will affect your thoughts, and the basic concept of don’t worry, be happy!
I think that we all need to be happy and not worry
about the small stuff. During Covid, it was only natural to feel worried, insecure, depressed, or just simply down. It’s reasonable to worry about your finances and health, but it creates more unhappiness and can ev
en exasperate illness. Worrying is a bad habit that can be switched, and your mind can be trained to re-evaluate things from a different perspective. Breaking the habit of worrying is easy if you can believe that it is possible to move on and not let it consume you daily. The best thing I do is imagine a worry-free life and that “this too shall pass.” It sounds easier than it is, and most people struggle with this concept, even me, at times. The goal should be a worry-free life, and then you can start to enjoy the power of positive thinking.
Join Professor Ken and Professor Paul for the next Forward Motion Business Show Live Stream from United International College on Tuesday, November 30, 2020, at 6:15 PM EST.
Below are helpful links from this broadcast:
Kristi House – https://kristihouse.org/
United International College: https://www.uinternational.edu/
The Forward Motion Business Show: https://www.theforwardmotionbusinessshow.com/
YouTube Channel for The Forward Motion Business Show: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiBJ22vZ002KQ–bQoeqXjg
YouTube Channel for United International College: https://www.youtube.com/c/UnitedInternationalCollege
Professor Ken: https://www.profken.us/
#ProfKenUS #Kristihouse #ForwardMotion #ForwardMotionBusinessShow #UIC
For further information, contact United International College at (954) 607-4344.