Archive for January 2007
In-Car Internet Service Debuts
TMCnet.com: Thought wireless internet availability made it easy to stay connected when in public? Now, Autonet Mobile is taking that to another level and turning your car into an internet-ready driving experience that keeps users connected while on the go, literally. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the company announced their new wireless [...]
Personalized Bobbleheads Find Their Niche
Associated Press: Ralph Trumbo is neither an athlete nor a celebrity. Nevertheless, he has a bobblehead likeness of himself sitting on his mantel. Bobbleheads, those shaky-headed 3-D caricatures, have jiggled free of their mass-produced roots of an earlier generation. Once merely featureless figures decked out in team colors and handed out on game day, they [...]
Inventor Creates Ping Pong For Three
Associated Press: Secil Boyd keeps dreaming up new ideas from remote control flying gadgets to new table games and even space-matter theories. “My mind doesn’t seem to turn off so easily,” the 53-year-old inventor joked at his Holualoa art gallery. Boyd has invented a type of three-player ping pong, TriPong uses an odd-shaped table at [...]
San Francisco Chronicle: Q: I just started an in-home business doing referrals and billing for caregivers. I have only two clients so far and need to keep working outside my home as an independent contractor to help with living expenses. My question is about my tax return. Should I combine my home business and contractor [...]
Entrepreneurs Get Jump Start With Micro-Loans
Orlando Sentinel: New and existing businesses in Lake and Sumter counties in Florida may benefit from a new “micro-loan” program for companies that need loans of less than $5,000 at the prime rate. The program, developed through a partnership between Lake-Sumter Community College’s Business Resources Center, Service Corps of Retired Executives and area banks, also [...]
BusinessWeek.com: Karl Murphy, president and co-owner of Carolina Auto Spa, a car wash and automotive detailer with two locations outside Raleigh, N.C., says his business depends on impulse decisions—no one makes an appointment to wash a car. So the company’s entire $4,000 to $5,000 monthly advertising budget is devoted to inspiring high-income prospects in the [...]
Springwise.com: New York’s Denim Therapy restores, rejuvenates and injects life into worn-out, tattered jeans. Playing on the fact that many consumers have an emotional attachment to their jeans, the service repairs jeans with unwanted holes, denim that’s worn, tattered or just plain falling apart. Using a unique reconstructive technique, Denim Therapy places existing denim fabric [...]
Loan Company Helps Immigrants Start Their Own Businesses
Fox12News.com: A Boise Idaho loan company is helping out new immigrants interested in opening up businesses in the Gem State. Micro Loan clients often don’t have much of a credit history and thus encounter problems when seeking traditional funds. The company’s loans range from 500 to 15,000 dollars. The Director of Micro Enterprise Training & [...]
Are Women Shortchanging Themselves?
GlobeandMail.com: ‘Equal pay for equal work.” Anyone who is familiar with the fight for pay equity knows that expression. While the issue is not yet resolved, women have come a long way in the fight for pay parity with men. But as more people start their own businesses, women have encountered a new gap. It [...]
13-Year-Old Creates Bubble Muffler
The Advocate: Thirteen-year-old Henry Clayton had a problem and some Bubble Wrap, and now he could win thousands of dollars. Henry, a student at St. Luke’s School in New Canaan, likes to play the drums. His family likes silence. When a school project challenged him to come up with a Bubble Wrap invention, Henry applied [...]
Entrepreneur Sees Cash Cow In Water Buffalo
Associated Press: Five or six years ago, David Muller, an entrepreneur who ran a Massachusetts company that pioneered laser eye surgery, was looking for a unique farming opportunity in Vermont when he stumbled upon the notion of milking water buffalo. “They’re easy to keep and cheap to feed,� Muller said. “For Vermont agriculture they seemed [...]
Web Site Aims To Help Women Seal Deal
Richmond Times-Dispatch: Women decide or in some way influence most of the car and truck purchases in the United States — more than 80 percent, according to some estimates. But talk to women about their auto-buying experience in showrooms, and you’ll find that many aren’t thrilled. Salespeople who ignore the woman when a man and [...]
Microbusinesses Find Huge Benefits In Outsourcing
USA Today: Fed up with rising labor costs, a new generation of entrepreneurs is launching millions of tiny companies differing from business in the past: They don’t want employees. The trend, building since the late 1990s, hit a milestone this year when the number of these microbusinesses reached 20 million — one for every six [...]
Colorado Woman Selling Snow on eBay
Associated Press: As if Colorado residents don’t have enough snow to dig out from, one resident is offering more for a price on eBay. Starting bids were holding steady Friday at 99 cents for snow from “Blizzard I and Blizzard II” being offered by Mary Walker. She and husband, Jim, got the idea for selling [...]
