Archive for March 2007
Inventor Has 350 Ideas On Market
OC Register: Every inventor has a thousand ideas. But it’s the rare one who has 350 of his ideas actually on the market. Meet Zlatko Zadro, president of Zadro Products. After careers selling large computers and refurbishing real estate, Zadro decided in 1983 to try marketing one of his inventions. The result is an international [...]
Yahoo Finance: You probably remember that guy or gal from college who roamed the dormitory halls, the parking lot, and the bleachers before every big game hawking snarky and ironic T-shirts. John Anton was one such guy. “In 1985, while I was a student at Arizona State University it happened that my fraternity was having [...]
Startup Journal: In its search for growth, eBay Inc. is starting to go after teenagers’ wallets, teaming with social-networking sites to lure younger customers. The San Jose, Calif., online auctioneer is working on launching a feature for visitors to social-networking company Bebo Inc., which caters largely to teenagers. The idea is, Bebo users would be [...]
Rhonda Abrams at The Passionate Entrepreneur: Once you start your own business, the advice pours in from all sides: Your sister has a great idea for a marketing campaign. Your brother thinks you should get a franchise. Your father wants you to be tougher on your employees. And your mother, who’s worried about you, suggests [...]
Springwise: Flying with infants brings an end to travelling light, as a baby’s essentials quickly add up to excess baggage. Tinytotsaway.com aims to ease the strain, by letting parents order all of their child’s necessities online and have them delivered to their destination. The British company not only helps with the extra baggage issue, but [...]
KOMO-TV: It sounds like a super hero, but it’s the “Roboflagger.” Drive up to a construction zone, and you may worry about delays – but flaggers worry about you. “My fear is the guy who’s driving down the road, eating a hamburger and reading the newspaper and not paying any attention,” said Denise Smith, a [...]
Whiz Kids: America’s Next Business Tycoons
Inc.: 17-year-old Jake Fisher and Weina Scott, who met via an online message board, started their business in June 2005. Switchpod is a podcasting hosting service that provides both free and premium accounts. You can create a podcast with their technology, upload it to Switchpod and be podcasting to the world in a matter of [...]
eCommerce-Guide: One day in the early 1990′s Diana Duyser of Hollywood, Fla. made herself a grilled- cheese sandwich. Then she gazed down at the brown skillet marks on the bread: “I saw a face looking up at me; it was the Virgin Mary staring back. I was in total shock,” she later told reporters. Diana [...]
Growth Spurt in the Small-Business Economy
Entrepreneur: 2007 is off to a good start for the small-business economy, according to the February 2007 SurePayroll Small Business Scorecard, an economic indicator that tracks the health of U.S. small businesses. In February, the SurePayroll Hiring Index increased 39 points, ending the month at 10,511 and marking the third consecutive month of hiring growth. [...]
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I’m excited to announce that we’ve partnered with Federated Media Publishing to help sell some of our display advertising. To help them better focus their efforts, please take a moment and fill out their brief survey. Thank you!
I’m excited to announce that we’ve partnered with Federated Media Publishing to help sell some of our display advertising. To help them better focus their efforts, please take a moment and fill out their brief survey. Thank you!
This week’s Carnival of the Capitalists is up at Bizosphere.com.
Niche Biz: Rounding Up Shopping Carts
Arizona Business Gazette: Despite alert store personnel, sophisticated anti-theft systems and other precautions, shopping carts seem to have lives of their own, disappearing like magic from Valley retailers. Enter Tom Martinet, whose company, Arizona Cart Retrieval, operates every day of the year except Christmas to locate and return the carts to area businesses. “I knew [...]
Yahoo Finance: Barbara Kavovit — better known as Barbara K — has turned what began as a niche home-improvement business into a mini-empire that now includes a line of fashionable, female-friendly tools available through retailers like Target, two best-selling books and, most recently, an online show. One day I heard my mom talking to some [...]
Kristin Edelhauser at Entrepreneur Daily: If you’re looking for a cheaper, faster way to market your product, why not tap into the increasing number of blogging moms? Overall, as a hot demographic, moms spend more than $2 trillion a year, so they definitely have the purchasing power. BlogHer counts more than 400 family and mom-related [...]
Niche Biz: Green Weddings Magazine
Springwise: Founded by Meghan Meyers, a former editor for Family Circle and sustainable travel writer, Portovert is the first and only magazine for eco-savvy brides and grooms. The magazine offers advice for making sustainable wedding choices. Currently available only online, the publication’s first issue came out just last month and offers a wide array of [...]
11-Year-Old Entrepreneur Starts Pet Food Biz
Inc.: Shay Hammond started her business when she was 11 years old. She got her idea from a dog bone cookbook she found while on vacation. She wanted to make dog treats for her dog Pancake, so she did. “He really liked them and I thought, “Wow this could really end up being something huge!” [...]
Mac: An Ideal Computer for Small Business
ComputerWorld: Historically, Macs and small business aren’t often associated with each other. Yet smaller firms seem to be one of the markets Apple is targeting with Mac OS X Leopard Server. Leopard Server’s new Server Preferences interface is designed primarily for small businesses, which often need some of the features of a server but don’t [...]
Credit Cards: A Small-Business Financing Tool
Eric Rosenfeld at eVenturing: When I launched my own firm, Adaptive Consulting Partners LLC, or ACP, a systems-integration and professional-services company, I immediately did what many entrepreneurs do to secure financing: I approached local commercial banks for the $50,000 needed to cover costs during the first year. Just as typically, perhaps, I was turned down. [...]
eCommerce-Guide: Brooks Lambert, who runs TheBeerbelly.com as president of Under Development Inc., is also someone who might have been viewed by some as having a less-than-perfect business model for his venture. But — after the press picked up on his contraption and he got 1 million hits to his fledgling site, as well as about [...]
Entrepreneur Creates Biz From 20-year Old Movie
eCommerce-Guide: For Stephen Clark, the man behind bttf.com, passion is what fuels his “Back to the Future” site, which he confesses with a chuckle, is successful despite being based on a movie series over 20-years-old. Clark, who has a full-time day job at a nearby university, went online in 1995, though the site’s genesis was [...]
Ten Things NOT to Name Your Business
BusyMom.net: Having recently returned from a Florida vacation, the land of boutiques, and, roadside businesses, I deem myself worthy of judging these places by their names. Some words used in business names just bring certain connotations to mind, and, it can be enough to make me not go inside and shop. Anyway, my list of [...]
Tracking Your Goals With Ben Franklin
zenhabits: A number of people have posted about Ben Franklin’s virtues, which is one of the coolest ideas for tracking your habits. I created a simple spreadsheet for tracking my habits and goals, from exercise to quitting caffeine to my morning routine to my debt and savings goals. Now, I have a weekly schedule worked [...]
CertaPro Painters is a full service painting company servicing both residential and commercial customers with superior interior, exterior and specialty painting services (e.g. faux finishes). They are dedicated to providing the highest quality painting work with the best possible service to their customers. If you are looking for the opportunity to run your own multi-million [...]
Online Media Daily: Advertising on podcasts, dubbed “Podvertising,” will remain a niche channel through 2011–albeit a $400 million niche. That’s according to new research from eMarketer, which predicts a fivefold podvertising spending increase from $80 million last year to $400 million by 2011. The growth projection is even more dramatic if compared to the mere [...]
zen habits: Achieving goals is not a matter of having “discipline”. It’s a matter of motivating yourself, and keeping your focus on your goal. Follow these hacks, or any combination of them that works for you, and you should have the motivation and focus you need. 5. Visualize your goal clearly, on a daily basis, [...]
Unusual Business Ideas That Work: New Yorkers who have a hard time keeping track of personal items now have one less thing to worry about. For a modest annual fee, NewYourKey keeps copies of keys in a secure storage facility and can deliver them right away if customers find themselves locked out. Keys lost in [...]
Life of an Internet Entrepreneur: The folks over at FaxZero don’t think you should have to pay to send faxes, and offer free (ad supported) faxes from your computer in a one-page form. Faxes can be sent to any U.S. phone number (Puerto Rico included). You can type in text to fax or you can [...]
NetBusinessBlog: With all the talk about the best ways to build backlinks, getting recognized by other bloggers, and “tips & tricks� for promoting your own blog, it’s easy to forget about one of the simplest and most effective ways of marketing yourself: being friendly. 1. Introduce Yourself & Your Blog. 2. Make Friends via MyBlogLog. [...]
