Archive for 2004
Careful Buying A Vitamin Website
SharpMoney: “How do you not make money on the internet? Just send this guy $35 for the priviledge of selling his vitamins for him. If the vitamins were that great, wouldn’t Don Lapre be selling them himself? Or at least offering an affiliate program you don’t have to pay to participate in? It’s obvious Mr.Lapre’s [...]
PayPal Wars: Battles with eBay, the Media, the Mafia, and the Rest of Planet Earth
Amazon: “While every Silicon Valley startup can count on fierce competition, this candid insider’s account reveals that sometimes that’s the least of an entrepreneur’s worries! When PayPal launched its online payment service and set out to overhaul the world’s currency markets, it survived the dot-com bust and weathered a competitive struggle with the auction giant [...]
Business Week: “Once upon a time, venture capitalists defined success in the companies they backed as an eventual initial public offering. No longer. In today’s world of churning and uncertain stock markets, an IPO is the exception, not the rule, for most fast-growing private companies. Increasingly, venture capitalists invest in companies with the expectation that [...]
How 3 Entrepreneurs Triumphed on eBay
Entrepreneur: “Where do eBay entrepreneurs get the ideas for their businesses? What is it really like to run an eBay business day-to-day? While eBay entrepreneurs may follow different routes to success, they all have one factor in common: eBay has transformed their lives in ways they wouldn’t have dreamed possible when they first launched their [...]
University Business Plan Competition Circuit
Entrepreneur: Entrepreneurship is alive and well in our nation’s universities. Just take a look at the growing list of business plan competitions that are hosted (at no small cost) by leading universities nationwide. Graduate students—not just MBA students, but student scientists, engineers, medical doctors and others—spend hundreds of hours preparing business plans and presentations in [...]
Many Veterans Become Entrepreneurs
Law & Entrepreneurship News: “The Office of Advocacy has released a study entitled Entrepreneurship and Business Ownership in the Veteran Population, which shows that 22% of American veterans are either purchasing or starting a new business or are considering doing such. According to the study, more than 1/3 veteran small business owners have gained skills [...]
Google Answers hosts an interesting discussion of the economics of coffeehouse wifi in: How much money can I make if I install a wifi hotspot in my cafe?
New York Post: “Leave it to Manhattan moms to milk motherhood for profits. Call them ‘mompreneurs’ — a new breed of educated career women who give up high-powered jobs to stay at home, raise kids — and still turn a profit.” via Fast Company Now.
Startup Journal: To get your new venture off to a good start, here’s a list of common mistakes to avoid when seeking financing: Not raising enough capital. Risking everything you own. Failing to keep good records.
Why U.S. Contracts For Small Businesses Go to Big Companies
The Wall Street Journal: As part of the government’s efforts to help entrepreneurs get a slice of the lucrative federal contract market, this contract had been set aside for bidding by small businesses only. The size standard for “small” differs by industry and contract; for instance, a firm bidding on a telecommunications award can sometimes [...]
→ eaglerider.com EagleRider pioneered the Harley-Davidson rental and motorcycle guided tour business in 1992. Today, they are the world’s largest motorcycle tourism company specializing in Motorcycle rentals, ATV rentals, Dirt Bike rentals and Watercraft rentals. EagleRider is the most recognized brand in the motorcycle rental and touring industry “REV-UP” your dealership revenues and profits with [...]
How and Where to Print your Projects
Chuck Green: Interested in a prescription for total confusion about the printing process? Look under “printers” in a phone directory. You are likely to find a storefront shop with a copier and four employees listed next to a business with 150 employees and a multimillion-dollar printing press as big as a house. And to maximize [...]
Rural America Entrepreneurship
Anita Campbell: “Entrepreneurship is more prevalent in rural America, compared with urban areas. One-fifth of the U.S. workforce in rural areas and small towns is self-employed. Entrepreneurship is a key part of the fabric of rural life in this country. In cities a much smaller percentage of the overall workforce is self-employed.”
More Pre-Adolescent Entrepreneurs
More Preadolescent Entrepreneurs Following up on my earlier post about getting your kids started as entrepreneurs, here are two fathers that are preparing their daughters for a life outside the cubicle: Chris O’Donnell: It is my distinct pleasure to announce the launch of Horseshues.com – your source for unique and personalized gifts created from recycled [...]
Entrepreneur: Knowing who you are and what gets you excited (and bores you to tears) will help you reach your goals. Nothing can derail a growth plan more than discomfort and procrastination—it’s simply human nature to procrastinate over things that cause discomfort. And there are dozens of daily business requirements that every business owner detests. [...]
The Military Needs Lighter Batteries
In a great post about business opportunities in the defense sector, iProceed mentions the military’s need for a lighter battery: “Battery power is still inadequate (too much weight and too little power). A lot of opportunities exist in providing lightweight sources of power to the military.” Heck, if you developed a smaller and lighter battery [...]
This week’s Carnival of the Capitalists is up at Incite.
→ miracleautopainting.com Miracle Auto Painting & Body Repair has been developing and refining innovative auto painting and body repair methods and techniques since 1953. With today’s higher prices, motorists have even greater economic incentive to keep their vehicles longer and to maintain them using Miracle’s services. While recent automobile sales figures are growing, many cars [...]
→ kidstagefranchise.com KidStage® is a complete “Performing Arts Learning Center” using ordinary classrooms as their “theatre” in which they teach children self-expression and creativity, as well as give them confidence through their participation in theatrical productions. With overcrowded schools, over-worked teachers and tight school budgets, the extra time and effort needed to help students is [...]
Jan Wong’s Ideas from China: In Tianjin, a city of 13 million people, traffic lights display red or green signals in a rectangle that rhythmically shrinks down as the time remaining evaporates. In Beijing, some traffic lights offer a countdown clock for both green and red signals. During a red light, you know whether you [...]
Fabio Rojas: I’ve recently been reading about the work of Felix Gonzales-Torres, an artist in the 1990′s who made a big splash in the art world. Like many artists, he really loathed the art world and the system of galleries, museums and universities but he ultimatey realized you have to deal with the world of [...]
BloggerCon Thanks to Dave Winer
Dave, Thanks for putting together such a wonderful conference. It was my first BloggerCon and I met loads of interesting people. My life is richer for attending and I hope that you put together another one soon. I know that sometimes members of the blogosphere don’t seem to appreciate everything you’ve done to get us [...]
Entrepreneur Blog: “Is there a new market you could be targeting your product to if you made a slight modification to it? That’s what Wheat Montana Farms did. Targeting empty nesters, singles and other small households, the Helena, Montana, company is marketing half-sized loaves of bread with eight slices and two heels. The half-loaves have [...]
Why to Go to Work for Yourself
Chuck Huckaby: “Could it be that if there were fewer taxes, fewer barriers to business ownership, fewer regulations, that people would actually have more money to enjoy?”
Introducing Your Kids to Entrepreneurship
Bob Shaver taught his daughter about entrepreneurship by helping her start a business when she was 8 years old. How are you helping to prepare the next generation of entrepreneurs?
I’m at BloggerCon and will be posting some notes about it in this entry. This is my first time sitting in an Aeron chair. I don’t see the point. Lots of Macs. Maybe 75%. Lots of convention photos are popping up on Flickr. I’m in the “Newbies” session with Rebecca MacKinnon right now. Lots of [...]
Small Business Innovative Research Program
NY Times: For high-technology entrepreneurs, there is another source of financing that can be as generous as it is little known: grants from the federal government’s Small Business Innovative Research Program. The biggest fund, by far, is run by the Defense Department, which parcels out some $1 billion a year to independent companies with fewer [...]
This Saturday, November 6, 2004, the third BloggerCon will be held at Stanford Law School in Palo Alto, CA. I’ll be there. Anyone else planning to attend and like to meet up?
Business Owner’s Toolkit: For tax purposes, the LLC is treated as a sole proprietorship when there is one owner and as a general partnership when there are two or more owners. Neither the sole proprietorship nor the general partnership is a taxpaying entity. They are termed “pass-through entities,” or conduits. The owners report their share [...]
Women Owned Startups Outnumber Men Owned Businesses
San Diego Source: “The face of the American small business community is changing. A recent study by the National Association for the Self-Employed shows that startups of women-owned businesses outnumbered new men-owned businesses by nearly a 2-1 ratio in 2003.”
Guy Kawasaki has got to be one of the kings of the entrepreneurial soundbyte. Check these out: On finding financing for your great idea: “Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.” On sales: “When in doubt, always get sales. At the end of the day, sales fix everything. I’d rather deal with the stresses that explosive [...]
Zen Entrepreneurship: Walking the Path of the Career Warrior
An Amazon Reviewer: “Zen Entrepreneurship can be read on different levels. On one level is the happy story of Riz, the young computer grad, dreaming of a business of his own. He serendipitously found his way into a meditation class and a new way of life, while building an idea into a multi-million dollar company. [...]
Myths About Financing Your Company
Small Business CEO: “Perhaps no issue is dearer to the hearts and minds of today’s entrepreneurs than the issue of money – in all its forms, but most particularly in money that is raised for the company. For the first- time entrepreneur, there is no greater gift and no greater curse than raising money to [...]
Small Business Owners Would Do it All Over Again
Anita Campbell: “Small business owners in the U.S. are pretty happy with their lot. The overwhelming majority of small business owners (86%) say they would do it all over again if given the choice to own a business. That is according to a recent Gallup/Wells Fargo survey of U.S. small business owners, as noted by [...]
Entrepreneur: “Complacency is the enemy of small-business success. If you’re not continually asking your best prospects and customers for their business, you can be sure your competitors are. Set up and monitor an ongoing marketing program that reaches out to your past customers and new prospects year-round. The key to success is to have a [...]
Ryan Allis: First of all, if you are on a tight budget, be ever mindful that the last thing you need is overhead. Don’t put the cart before the horse. Find a product. There are products out there. Look through the classifieds. There are people out there who have wonderful products but do not know [...]
The New Silicon Valley Entrepreneur
Always On: “To be sure, the entrepreneurs starting companies today are not like the ones we saw, and now ridicule, in the late 90s. But they are also not like the ones we saw in the 80s and early 90s. We are not going back to an earlier breed of entrepreneur. If you are an [...]
I Started A Blog and Flipped It
I sold the Diet Blog today. I didn’t get the $15,000 Jeremy did for his blog, but I haven’t even posted to the site in nearly 6 months. If you want to sell a site, I thoroughly recommend Sedo. I received nearly thirty respectable offers in the month that I had the site listed as [...]
Gladys Edmunds: In the ’60s I ran my growing travel business from home. I worked overtime to make sure that none of my neighbors, clients and especially my landlord would catch me. My security efforts failed. One day my landlord called me with her voice disguised and pretended to be a customer looking for a [...]
If You’re Clueless about Starting Your Own Business
An Amazon Reviewer: “I obtained a copy of ‘Clueless’ from the library, along with several other books on starting a small business. ‘Clueless’ was the only book I read from cover to end over the Christmas holiday season. The book is well-structured and filled with ample information from developing a business plan to marketing your [...]
Payless Car Rental System, Inc.
→ paylesscarrental.com Payless Car Rental is a privately held company and is part of the Avalon Global Group of companies. Founded in 1971, Payless offers the lowest available car rental rates on all vehicles! While many of the major car rental companies focus on buying back franchise agreements to open more corporate stores, Payless® continues [...]
The Regional Economist: Observers comparing the U.S. economy with the economies of other countries often note that Americans seem to be much more willing to become entrepreneurs. Indeed, a recent survey found that more than 70 percent of adult Americans would prefer being an entrepreneur to working for someone else.1 In contrast, the same survey [...]
Tom Waugh wrote: I’m an aspiring entrepreneur. I have a lot of ideas as far as inventions go and I’ve researched every aspect of the ideas. The problem is that I have no idea how to get any of them off the ground. I know about business planning and all but I’ve tried to contact [...]
Getting Your Startup Paperwork in Order
Entrepreneur: “Entrepreneurs aren’t known for being lazy, but most entrepreneurs I know are notoriously lazy about doing legal paperwork. But there’s no place for laziness when it comes to getting licenses and permits for your business. It might seem like an insignificant detail or a waste of money, but it’s necessary. This article provides some [...]
Atlanta Business Chronicle: “I’m sure you’d agree that most people don’t call a plumber when they’re just thinking about a little work. Most people don’t call an electrician when they are just wondering about their electrical system. Most of us call these people when we need help fast.” More accurately, most of us ONLY call [...]
Startup Journal: Approximately 750,000 Americans live and work out of travel trailers, truck campers or motor homes, says Greg Robus, editor of Workamper News, a 74,000-circulation publication based in Heber Springs, Ark. “Quite a few of our readers are what we call workampreneuers,” Mr. Robus says. “They either take a business that they already have [...]
Finders Keepers, Founders Weepers
Paul Allen: “I have heard that Ray Noorda (Novell fame) used to say, Finders Keepers, Founders Weepers to indicate that most of the time inventors and entrepreneurs don’t end up with much. Business savvy investors and later stage business managers can often clean up for themselves, leaving entrepreneurs with nothing but the pride of knowing [...]
Computer World: “Bloggers who write anything negative or defamatory about a corporation or an individual are opening themselves and their companies up to the possibility of libel suits, says David Carr, an attorney and partner at London-based consulting firm Big Blog Co.” I’ve already experience this first hand. A month or so ago, I received [...]
