Archive for January 2009
SodaHead.com Wants To Know What Questions Are “Bubbling In Your Head”
If you took the time to write down every thought that bubbled up in your head, how long would the list be by the end of the day? Stepping out of the bounds of a traditional social network, SodaHead.com is asking everyone a very important question, “What’s Bubbling in your head?” As the brainchild of [...]
Bedford Mom Uses Family Business As Creative Fundraser For Music Program
Bedford News: A love of music and sheep farming has added up to an unusual fundraiser, New Hampshire-style, for Bedford High School’s music department. Donna Ferranti was the only one of four children to move away from the Rollinsford sheep farm where they grew up. Her parents still live there, and her sister and two [...]
Bizymoms' New E-course Teaches How To Work With Freelancers And Contractors
PR-Inside.com: Bizymoms has recently announced the launch of yet another business helping e-course ‘How to work with Freelancers and Contractors’. This e-course gives a basic look at whom freelancers and contractors are. In addition, there are some tips on how to make sure that a business owner hires the most appropriate and best freelancer/contractor out [...]
Yesterday we talked about how the USPS is hurting from the decrease in mail volume. Companies that sell add-on services for the postal system must be hurting too. Pitney Bowes is offering their Personal Post postage meter for only $15 per month. This is at least half what it used to rent for last year [...]
photo credit: DownTown Pictures Staying focused on the good during difficult times is by far the hardest and most challenging part of doing business today. But you have to remember that the the one person who must concentrate on staying focused is you! If you lead, your people will follow. Your staff members can waste [...]
Internet Entrepreneur Starter Kit
Red Ferret: The Internet Entrepreneur Starter Kit is a package of 50 different Archie McPhee novelty items in a ready to sell format. The pack value is apparently $2,600.00, but you, sir, can have it for the bargain basement price of just $399.95. These are new and mint condition products still in their original packaging, [...]
Online Ad Prices Continue To Fall
The Wall Street Journal: The Internet advertising market, like all markets, responds to changes in supply and demand. In the current recession, demand for advertising is likely to decrease. At the same time, supply of online inventory, page views, is continuing to increase. Social networks and other social media sites in particular are creating masses [...]
Inventor Gets Smart About Shoe Phone
The Australian: In the days of modern cellular technology, the idea of having an Agent 86-style phone inside a shoe might not seem particularly advanced. But Paul Gardner-Stephen, who first developed his device as an amateur theatre prop, insists there are practical and technological advantages. It seems the shoe phone might offer extended battery life [...]
What Does Your Business Card Say About You?
photo credit: thp365 For the size and cost of a business card, it is the most powerful part of your marketing strategy for your business. If your card conveys the proper message and picture, you can achieve great things with it, but if choose the wrong message you’ll be surprised at how much it can [...]
The Muskegon Chronicle: West Michigan inventors say they’re flourishing, with new products set to hit the market by year’s end while others already have reached impressive milestones. That’s good news in an economy where even large traditional industries like automotive and newspapers have had to do their share of reinventing themselves. Some financial experts believe [...]
photo credit: papalars Have you noticed the signs along the highway advertising cheaply-priced metal storage containers? Have you ever wondered what those are and where they came from? Nearly every product imported into this country is transported via a ship in a metal shipping container. Once the ship arrives in port, the containers are removed [...]
Get Back On Track By Starting Your Own Biz
Daily Camera: Last year is not going to be remembered as a banner year in the financial realm for most people. So what can be done to recoup the losses and get back on track financially? What investment typically provides both a high return and control? The answer is business ownership! Business ownership is seen [...]
DollarFlyers Are Stealing The Spotlight From Traditional Business Cards
Take your idea of the traditional business card and forget about it. While many business cards get set aside or tossed, DollarFlyers are made to attract attention. With the appearance of either a $5, $20 or $100 bill, these business card flyers look and feel like real money. They aren’t printed on just any paper, [...]
Book Review: 75 Green Businesses You Can Start to Make Money and Make A Difference
Glenn Croston, Ph.D. has written the first in what will undoubtedly be a large genre of books: eco-friendly business ideas. I received a copy of his new book75 Green Businesses You Can Start to Make Money and Make A Difference last week and just finished reading through all 328 pages. Although I don’t live an [...]
What’s Bad for the Post Office Is Good for Postal Entrepreneurs
photo credit: SC Fiasco Facing a potential $6 billion shortfall this year, the U.S. Postal Service has asked Congress to allow it to cut one day of mail delivery and it wouldn’t necessarily be Saturday! In fact, they’re proposing to suspend mail delivery on, of all things, Tuesday. What’s next, no mail delivery in months [...]
photo credit: Hamed Parham Media exposure is one of the best ways of generating attention on your business. Just imagine all the people watching a story about your business on the local news, or hearing something on the radio as they drive to work, or reading about it in the newspaper over breakfast. Pamela Slim [...]
Mom, Churchgoer and Sex Toy Lady?
gloveandmail.com: Patty Brisben is a churchgoing mother of four who has made millions selling sex toys at private in-home gatherings not unlike Tupperware parties. On Super Bowl Sunday, Ms. Brisben will star in Mother Knows Sex, a TLC reality show about Pure Romance, her Cincinnati-based family business that now employs 30,000 consultants across the United [...]
Local Magazine Portrays Ambitious 'Mompreneurs'
Calgary Herald: Kathryn Bechthold first published a 16-page Mompreneur Magazine in June 2006 that was distributed in a few grocery stores in Calgary. Today, the business has a national scope with distribution to more than 50,000 readers. “I wanted to start a business where I could work from home (with a small baby) so I [...]
Are You A Humpty-Dumpty Entrepreneur?
Forbes.com: Just because you’re smart, confident and hardworking doesn’t mean you should run a business. People tell me all the time, “I know I could be a successful entrepreneur but for this one problem”–meaning some specific psychological tick or hang-up. My deflection, which I’ve honed over the years: “Sorry, but I cannot help you.” Then [...]
CNBC: For whatever reason, there aren’t many restrooms on the golf course. And, when you get to a certain age, you really can’t wait 18 holes. Dr. Floyd Seskin, a urologist in the Miami area, said guys used to come in all the time telling him how they would hit their ball in the woods [...]
The Wall Street Journal: For a long time the U.S. dominated overall Internet usage. In the past couple of years this situation has changed. China passed the U.S. as the country with the most internet users this year. Top sites like Yahoo, MSN, Facebook and MySpace all have more users internationally than in the US. [...]
Springwise: It’s probably safe to say that most consumers would like to make their lives more “green,” but the devil lies in the details. Green Home Makeover, which is offered for US $99 is part of the service, one of Green Irene’s local eco-consultants will spend 60 to 90 minutes walking through a consumer’s home [...]
Entrepreneurship is Like Basketball
photo credit: *sean Tim Berry thinks that being an entrepreneur is like playing basketball and makes a good analogy: Jumping viewpoints, like from short- to long-term in an instant, mixing those viewpoints together. That’s like dribbling, keeping your eyes up while managing the ball at your feet.
Inc.: As pink slips pile up nationwide, hiring may seem like a risky – or downright foolish – move for employers. Yet, according to many career counseling experts, if you can afford to, now is a great time to augment your staff. “A lot of great people have been laid off through no fault of [...]
Inventor Hopes To “Hook-Set” Fishermen With His Updated Version Of The Tip-Up
Anyone who has gone ice fishing will likely recognize a tip-up flag system when they see it. If a fish nibbles, the flag pops up to alert the fisherman and the rest is history. However, the Hook-Set Tip-Up will not only alert someone to a fish bite but it will help set the hook and [...]
Ten Sleep, Wyoming: Internet Hub
photo credit: Birdfreak.com Even though I live in a small town with only a small tourist-based economy, with the internet you’re never too remote to start a business. Ten Sleep, Wyoming, population 350, is just as wired as anywhere else and is home to a new business that is teaching English to South Koreans. Eleutian [...]
photo credit: RedGlow82 The key to success in a small business is to focus on your niche to the exclusion of all else. Too often, small business owners want to ne all things to all people, especially at the beginning when revenue is small and a potential clients asks if you can do something for [...]
photo credit: pasotraspaso When I was a kid, my mother and most of my friend’s mothers worked outside of the home. My wife’s mother, on the other hand was a housewife. In those days, women who stayed home often supplemented the household income by making and selling crafts and tasty treats. Today stay at home [...]
photo credit: SqueakyMarmot There are proper way to cut costs in your business, because believe it or not, certain cuts are worse than no cuts at all. When cutting costs and looking the difficult choice of letting some people go, make sure your making the right choice for the better of the company. Rather then [...]
KSN.com: In just days a new federal law goes into effect, which will virtually shut down the craft industry. The law, aimed at protecting children, requires all items for kids, including those made by local artisans, be tested for lead. The problem is that those tests are expensive and it’s sparked a class action lawsuit [...]
Stay-At-Home Mom Utilizes Free Time To Lead Internet Startup To Record Sales
PR Web: Castle Ink’s CEO, Lauren Elward, is not your typical housewife. A mom by day, teacher by trade, and entrepreneur by night, there’s nothing typical about her. Five years ago Elward, when not creating lesson plans for the high school English classes that she was teaching, started to brainstorm and draw up business plans [...]
Toilet Paper is Not Recession Proof?
photo credit: powerbooktrance There are some things that you just assume are recession proof. Toilet paper seems like something that people just need to continue buying regardless. I mean, it’s not like people are going to use yesterday newspaper, right? Or are they? Advertising Age is reporting that sales of toilet paper are down 5.5% [...]
Inc.: Matt Rutledge launched Woot.com based on a simple concept: The site would sell only one product a day until the inventory ran out or the clock struck midnight, whichever came first. Rutledge saw it as a way to unload overstocked merchandise from his Dallas-based wholesale consumer electronics business. From the start, the site prided [...]
Trading Real Money For Virtual Goods
The Wall Street Journal: In Asia people have been paying real money for virtual goods for years. It is the primary business model for games and Internet companies in China and Korea, far more important that advertising. We’re starting to see similar behavior in the U.S., also led here by online games and social networks. [...]
Entrepreneur Finds Frozen Niche
Bradenton Herald: When Kate Grayson moved to town in the summer of 2004, she didn’t have many people in her career circle with whom to network. The area was flush with Realtors and mortgage brokers feeding on the frenzy of the housing boom. Grayson, on the other hand, was the operator of a cryogenic repository. [...]
5 Trends Affecting Female-Run Bizs
Inc.: 1. Major advances in Technology and Communication. 58% of women CEOs of million dollar companies consider technology as vital to the company’s survival, both as a means of production as well as communication. 2. Importance of Self-branding. Acquiring clients is as much about selling yourself as it is about selling your product. Nowadays, with [...]
SCORE: 1. The first thing to do with a new idea is to get a patent. 2. If my product has not been on the market before, I can patent it. 3. Having a patent stops others from copying or imitating my product. 4. Getting a patent is something I can do quickly, at low [...]
At first shrinkwrapping might not seem like a very profitable business, until you consider where those services are used most. Shrinkwrapping has been used on boats, RV’s, industrial equipment, freight, and that’s only the beginning. It is an important tool that is utilized often, whether it is for shipping or storage. With at least 17 [...]
Take Credit Card Payments by iPhone!
ProcessAway is a charge card terminal for the iPhone and iPod Touch that uses the Authorize.net payment processing gateway. ProcessAway is your complete mobile processing solution for accepting credit card payments both in and out of the office. Swap meets, street fairs, antique shows, mobile detailing, on-site consultants, handymen.. the list is endless on who [...]
Expert: Now’s the Time to Be an Author
Is your industry getting killed with all the changes that are happening right now? We know people in real estate, banking and construction are running out the door in search of new opportunities. Here’s another one you may not hear as much about – publishing. Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and Harper Collins are laying staff [...]
Moxdog Brings New Life To Town Of Raymond Web Site
Seacoastonline.com: A local businesswoman with a reputation for bringing her clients’ Internet aspirations to life has brought a new look to the town’s Web site. Web surfers may have noticed over the past few weeks that the town’s site, once dominated with shades of nondescript beige and containing some links that went nowhere, now features [...]
Mompreneur Didn't Let Age Get In The Way Of Chasing Her Dream
MSNBC: Amy Kossoff Smith didn’t let age get in the way of chasing her dream to write about motherhood. In this essay, “Stumbling into Cyberspace,” excerpted from the book “Knowing Pains,” Smith writes about learning how to use the Internet to start her business. My fingers raced across the keyboard, and my heart pounded as [...]
photo credit: furryscaly Starting a business is risky, but not as risky as you think. The oft-stated fact that 90% of startups fail within their first year is an urban myth. OnStartups thinks, and Dane agrees, that now is the time to start that business — just forget about the venture capital. Here are some [...]
Best Businesses to Start in a Recession?
photo credit: Conor Lawless Financial analysis company Sageworks has released a study that ranks industries by their net profit margin in 2008. The study only tracked privately held companies. The top ten most profitable industries in 2008 were: Offices of dentists Accounting, tax preparation, bookkeeping and payroll services Legal services Offices of other health practitioners [...]
Voice Mail from Google: Coming Soon
I thought it was dead, but it appears that Google’s telephone answering web application Grand Central is alive after all. It’s taken a year to merge the GrandCentral servers with Google’s, but they’re nearly done, and a 2.0 version is imminent says New York Times tech columnist David Pouge.
The Wall Street Journal: Even in a recession, people will still want to be entertained. The Great Depression saw resilience and even growth in movie ticket sales as one of the cheapest ways for people to entertain themselves. As this economy tightens through 2009, we’ll find growing numbers of “time rich-cash poor” consumers seeking today’s [...]
Kits Help Patients Fight Off Hospital Germs
Springwise: Although hospital superbugs may be infamous, we haven’t yet seen a branded, integral B2C approach to their prevention. Sold and marketed to consumers instead of to health institutions, PatientPak is a collection of antimicrobial and other hygiene items for those planning a hospital visit. Its aim: to kill 99.99% of bugs, including nasties such [...]
An eighth grade Canadian boy has invented a plastic decal that will stop birds from flying into windows. The decal is painted ultraviolet, a color that is invisible to humans, but very visible to birds. It’s like putting a big stop sign in the middle of the window, ” Charlie Sobcov on CBC Radio. 500 [...]
Telegraph.co.uk: Every day 38-year-old Laytoyia Housley logs into UpDown’s site from her home in Florida and spends two hours trading stocks and shares. “Act fast, invest smart and do not get emotional,” she preaches, giving her best impression of a ruthless Wall Street whiz kid. This year, she’s made close to a 1,500 per cent [...]
New Way to Market Weightlifting
photo credit: ericmcgregor A London gym called Gymbox has come up with a new gimmick to differentiate itself from the competition: instead of lifting weights, you can lift humans. Wearing Lycra catsuits which label their weight, they sit on specially adapted machines and shout words of encouragement. The “dumbbells” include two dwarfs – 32-year-old Arti [...]
