Archive for March 2005
A prime piece of nonsensical Ebay advice is to “go to garage sales and flea markets”, said Sydney Johnston: You’ve probably seen that one a lot, right? But they’re not the same kind of source. A flea market is populated by folks who are at least semi-professional, if not full time, in their respective product [...]
Dana Blankenhorn on the need for entrepreneurs to come in and figure how to make money off all the new technology being created for free: In the open source world we’re creating new technologies, techniques and choices faster than we can monetize them. The challenge is to find ways to bring in enough advertising, sponsorship, [...]
The Entrepreneur As An American Hero
Walter Williams: “Whenever the profit incentive is missing, the probability that people’s wants can be safely ignored is the greatest. If a poll were taken asking people which services they are most satisfied with and which they are most dissatisfied with, for-profit organizations (supermarkets, computer companies and video stores) would dominate the first list while [...]
The Entrepreneurial Mind: I remind entrepreneurs to keep a few things in mind regarding exits: The first offer is rarely the one that works. Don’t get too excited and don’t spend the money until it is actually in the bank. Half of all business sales that actually make it to closing actually complete the sale, [...]
Starting on a Shoestring : Building a Business Without a Bankroll
Amazon: “This bestselling guide has shown thousands how to start a business with little or no money down If you’ve dreamed of starting your own business, but felt discouraged by a lack of start-up money, Starting on a Shoestring is exactly the book you need. Now in a new edition that reflects the business climate [...]
Studying Startups by Starting One
Business Week: “A course at Boise State University ditches theory and business-plan contests to give budding entrepreneurs some real-world experience.”
A Success Unexpected In Common Hours
Henry David Thoreau: “I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” from Rob Hyndman.
How to Win a Place on Grocery Store Shelves Without A Marketing Budget
Wall Street Journal: “We decided on petite shells to differentiate ourselves from the elbow-shaped macaroni, and all-natural cheddar,” she says. The couple took to the streets, knocked on supermarket doors, and engaged in what she calls guerrilla marketing. “We had no marketing budget but we did have product,” Ms. Withey says, “so we were going [...]
Bootstrapping: The Secret to Entrepreneurial Success
Greg Gianforte: How do you launch a successful high-tech business? If you ask the typical MBA, they’ll give the same answer. Write a comprehensive in-depth business plan, take it to investors to secure a healthy initial round of funding, recruit the heaviest heavyweights you can, and start the PR machine cranking. But, of course, they’d [...]
Franchisors Outperform Nonfranchise Firms
Newswise: Franchisors create more value and perform better financially than their nonfranchise competitors, according to a new study released by The William Rosenberg International Center of Franchising at the University of New Hampshire Whittemore School of Business and Economics. The study, “Does Franchising Create Value? An Analysis Of The Financial Performance Of U.S. Public Restaurant [...]
→ doggydreamsgroomobile.com PR Newswire: This new Franchise has tapped into the huge pet industry market by developing the Doggy Dreams Groomobile, a high tech grooming shop on wheels which is driven to the customer’s home. It boasts its own water tank, hot and cold running water, doggy hair dryers for hand fluff drying and the [...]
Hit & Run: “In what appears to be a significant change in the taxing landscape for long-distance telecommuters — those who work for a company legally based in a state other then the one they live in — the state of New York says it can tax all the income earned by anyone from companies [...]
Harvard Entrepreneur Finds Niche Cleaning Dorms
Heavy Lifting: At Harvard, a kid has started a maid service for dorm rooms. This New York Times article describes the anxiety that some people have about the service. Sweathshop wages? Immigrant labor? Nope. Some people can afford the cleaning service and others cannot. This, it is argued, creates a stratification of dorm students into [...]
Part two of this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists is up at The Mobile Technology Weblog.
→ knowtheboss.com BOSS provides a free directory and referral service for more than a hundred different business-to-business products and services. In each a geographic area, they exclusively represent only one business per category, so there is no internal overlap. BOSS then actively seeks out new and expanding businesses and provides free consultations where they can [...]
The first episode of Alex Bellinger’s SmallBizPod, the small business podcast, is now online. Podcasting is a web-based broadcast medium. Audio files are made available online in a way that allows software to automatically detect the availability of new files, and download the files for listening at the user’s convenience.
NFIB: “More often than not, the entrepreneurs who could stand to gain the most from taking a two-week vacation are often the ones who can’t bear to be away from their business for more than two days. If you’re having trouble breaking away for that leisurely trip to the Bahamas or to your brother’s lakefront [...]
Managing Risk In A New Venture
Jay Ebben: “No business is a sure thing, but much of the uncertainty can be resolved through analysis of three of its sources: the market, the operational model, and the financial model. Market risk is a result of many factors, including whether the market is large enough to support your business, whether the market is [...]
Combating Your Homebased Loneliness
Entrepreneur: “If your work isn’t bringing you into direct contact with clients or colleagues on a regular basis, you may be more affected than you know. How can you tell if a lack of human interaction is putting a crimp in your style? Some typical indications of being overly isolated are irritability, loss of energy [...]
The first half of this week’s Carnival of the Capitalists is up at The Mobile Technology Weblog. The second half will be posted on Wednesday.
Top 10 Home Businesses with Rapid Break-Even Time
PowerHomeBiz: Business Plan Writer Event or Meeting Planner Public Relations Computer Repair Medical Transcriptionist Carpet Cleaner Financial Planner Image Consultant Personal Chef Real Estate Appraiser via Linda Riley.
Work-at-Home Scams Spread Quickly Online
Washington Post: As the Internet has made working from home easier for more people, it has also led to thousands of people falling prey to work-at-home schemes that can rake in millions for the companies running them, according to federal and state regulators. “If you are home because you are raising children or you’re disabled [...]
Starting A Dry Cleaning Business
Startup Journal: It’s not an easy business for a start-up, asserts Jon Meijer, vice president of membership for the International Fabricare Institute, based in Silver Spring, Md., the leading trade group for dry-cleaners. These business owners cope with long hours and slim margins. People don’t wear fancy dry-clean-only clothes as much as they did in [...]
→ completegarage.com If you have always wanted to start and operate your own business, and have an interest in improving the living spaces of beautiful homes, you should consider franchise opportunities with The Complete Garage®. The Complete Garage® boasts the industries most innovative product offerings allowing you to give your future customers the “complete” garage [...]
→ closetandstorageconcepts.com Closet & Storage Concepts is a home organization and storage products company headquartered in Southern New Jersey. Founded in 1987, the company has enjoyed over a decade of growth, serving customers in every part of their home by designing, manufacturing and installing custom closet and storage organizing systems. Start today to build your [...]
Determining the Size of Your Home Office
Real-Estate-Owner.com: The IRS states that you can use any “reasonable” method to determine the business percentage. The two commonly used methods for figuring the percentage are: Divide the area (length multiplied by the width) used for business by the total area of your home. Example: You determine you have a home office that is 200 [...]
Claiming Your Home Office Deductions
Kansas.com: If you’re a home-based business owner, your best friends this tax season may be IRS Publications 535 and 587. The first publication lists all of the rules for deducting business expenses. The second focuses exclusively on laws regarding the business use of your home. Tax breaks are available for home-based businesses, but filers need [...]
Success Dependent on Clarity and Focus
Steve Pavlina: “Bunker Hunt, a man who rose from a bankrupt cotton farmer in the 1930s to a multi-billionaire when he died in the 1970s, was once asked during a TV interview what advice he could give to others who wanted to be financially successful. He responded by saying that it’s not terribly difficult to [...]
Over-Preparing and Doing Nothing
I remember many times when I spent all day setting up an elaborate set of toys and then having to put them all away for bed without having “played” at all. Of course, I realize now that I enjoyed the planning, construction and layout far more than I realized then.
The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
Amazon: “Kawasaki (Rules for Revolutionaries) draws upon his dual background as an evangelist for Apple’s Macintosh computer and as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist in this how-to for launching any type of business project. Each chapter begins with “GIST” (“great ideas for starting things”), covering a variety of facets to consider, from identifying your customer [...]
Lessons of Successful Entrepreneurs
HBS Working Knowledge: If he were starting up a new business today, said David Fialkow, managing director of General Catalyst Partners, he would first employ the “earnest young man routine” to get an interview with an old guy in business who could explain the ins and outs of the industry. “Keep your hand out of [...]
6 Questions for Evaluating an MLM
MLM Blog: Do you understand the compensation plan or is it confusing? Would you buy the products for the retail price or are they too expensive? Are the start up fees reasonable and is their value added to the start up? Is the training included, or is training something you have to pay extra for? [...]
Andrew Spires: I am a casting producer with RDF Media. We are currently casting a new business based show. Briefly, the show is a business competition where three teams — composed of two entrepreneurs and one self-made, established millionaire — will start a company and compete to see who can make the most money in [...]
Determining How Much to Charge
The Entrepreneurial Mind: “There is a good article at NFIB on pricing strategies for new businesses. It offers a simple approach that helps take some of the guess work out of pricing. Do your homework of what the market is charging. Make sure that what you charge covers all of your costs, including overhead. An [...]
How to Form An LLC in Five Simple Steps
Scott Allen of About.com put together a brief overview of the steps required to form an LLC. Though the actual process will vary slightly from state to state, the process is very straight forward: Obtain a copy of your state’s LLC Articles of Organization form Choose a name for your business that complies with your [...]
Things Your Probably Won’t Have Any Control Of, If Buy A Franchises
IndyStar: Franchisers typically limit how franchisees conduct business, and these controls may restrict your ability to exercise your own judgment. The following are examples. Site approval Many franchisers pre- approve sites for stores. This may increase the likelihood that your store will attract customers. The franchiser, however, may not approve the site you want. One [...]
Are Bad Habits Hurting Your Small Business?
Entrepreneur: If you’re like most entrepreneurs, you probably have at least one habit you’d like to change or get rid of forever. Perhaps you waste too much time watching TV, procrastinate when it comes to marketing your business or fail to update your financial records in a timely manner. As entrepreneurs, we have the freedom [...]
Employees Working Out of Your Home
Small Business Trends: One in four U.S. small businesses with employees works out of the business owner’s home. This information comes from a 2004 poll by the National Federation of Independent Businesses. Note that we’re talking here about small businesses with employees, not single-person small businesses. That’s the surprising part. Virtually all of the businesses [...]
This week’s Carnival of the Capitalists is up at Beyond the Brand.
→ boosterjuice.com Booster Juice’s concept is geared to the active lifestyles of the public. Smoothies are ideal as meals on the run, power breakfasts, energy enhancers, workout snacks and afternoon treats. It’s no wonder why the juice and smoothie bar sector is growing at an annual rate of 30% while the fast food sector is [...]
Josh Kaufman: The blogosphere consensus seems to be that getting an MBA is valuable for the following things: Networking and meeting other business-savvy people. This can lead to valuable career opportunties if leveraged effectively. Changing careers. My friend BobG put it best: “The MBA is mainly a big dating service/screener for HR recruiters,” and it [...]
Franchise Owner’s Hard Work Determine Early Success
Franchise Doctor: More critical than how “hot” the market segment may be is how much you’ll love your work. In franchise systems where the owner invests less than $250,000 to get started, the owner usually carries 80% of the burden for the company’s early success on his or her shoulders. Enjoying your Job Description in [...]
Quicken.cm: Most people who work from home use their home address for both personal and business mail. “If you have letterhead, business cards, and marketing materials that are of high quality and are well designed, your home address should pose no problem,” Zelinsky asserts. “I think post office addresses are a dead giveaway that the [...]
Drakeview: Inc.com has a brief article on Unemployment Doesn’t Translate to Self-employment. The idea of self-employment is enticing to many, but most find themselves better off with finding employment within the areas they are trained for or have experience. It is not until later in life, after a corporate career in most cases, that many [...]
Tell the Hypothetical MBAs to Get Lost
Brent Simmons on why he doesn’t develop software for Windows: One of the joys of running your own business is that you can tell the hypothetical MBAs to hypothetically get lost. Life’s too short. I want to work on things I like working on. That excludes Windows. That’s why I’m in business for myself — [...]
The 30 Book MBA in Entrepreneurship
OverMatter: “As inspired by Seth’s Blog: Part of the 30?, a modest suggestion of 30 books to get you pointed in the right direction for an MBA in Entrepreneurship…”
Michael Brooks of The Small Biz Games: “The Small Biz Games recognizes and honors micro small and home based businesses with cash awards, public recognition, and positive exposure. Enter Free through March 15, 2005. $2000 for first place in each of eight events, 1000 for second in each event and $500 for third place in [...]
How to Forecast Growth at a Startup
Entrepreneur: Forecasting business revenue and expenses during the startup stage is really more art than science. Many entrepreneurs complain that building forecasts with any degree of accuracy takes a lot of time–time that could be spent selling rather than planning. But few investors will put money in your business if you’re unable to provide a [...]
Par-Ones Hole-In-One Insurance
→ parones.com Par Ace, LLC has developed a comprehensive line of innovative hole-in-one insurance products and is seeking distributor arrangements as the exclusive marketing company for Indian Harbor Insurance Company and Sky Insurance. The underwriters, whose combined assets exceed $50 billion, have paid out over $5 million in hole-in-one prize money to date. This unique [...]
BizzBangBuzz: “This index from the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh lists types of small businesses and a corresponding sample business plan, profile or book about the business with sources provided after each entry.”
