Archive for June 2009
Pizza Butler: Reducing Pizza’s Footprint
Necessity really is the mother of invention. Do you wish you could fit more tables in your pizza restaurant but are held hostage by the size of the pizza tray? The owner of Formaggios Pizzeria Restaurant in Tampa, Florida was, until he came up with the idea for the Pizza Butler. Here’s his story: Six [...]
Make Money With Free iPhone Apps
How does someone make money from free iPhone applications? Yesterday, they relied on using the free version as a trial version or advertising for the paid version of their application. Starting today, though, developers can monetize their free apps directly with Google AdSense for Mobile Applications. Here’s the story of one developer:
DailyCamera.com: On any weekend, you’re likely to find Bridget Lane baking cookies. But her cookies are a little more complex than the average chocolate chip treat and not just because they’re gluten free. Lane’s cookies got their start in a special situation and have grown into a business designed to nourish those in special situations. [...]
Students’ Inventions Help The Disabled
Las Vegas Sun: A glue-gun base became an invaluable welding tool, a pool ladder became a support stand and a wooden disc became new hope for disabled cowboys. Those are just a few examples of the creative responses 25 Touro University students seeking master’s degrees in occupational therapy came up with when charged to invent [...]
Fortune Small Business: A year ago Kris Drey couldn’t care less about Twitter. With 13 years of Web site experience, Drey is no technophobe. He serves as vice president of product marketing at Fliqz, an online video-hosting service with 20 employees in Emeryville, Calif. But when he first skimmed Twitter, the popular micromessaging service launched [...]
Mompreneurs Raise Money For Avon Walk
Alameda Sun: The “chicks” of Chicks-n-chickens, a mom-based Alameda business, are raising money to fight Breast Cancer. Darcy Novo Albrecht, “Chief Chick,” and Jennifer Ashdown, “Vice Chick,” will be teaming up to participate in this year’s San Francisco Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. As part of their fundraising efforts, the two Alameda moms will hold [...]
Mommies Who Shop Offers A Shopping And Socializing Experience For Women
The Boston Globe: As Gloucester native Ann Andrew recalls, it didn’t take much for her to dream up Mommies Who Shop, the series of suburban shopping events and “play dates” for mothers that she launched two years ago. A former director of merchandising at the now-defunct Sigrid Olsen who’d left her job in 2004 to [...]
Low-Cost Marketing Ideas For Your New Biz
Entrepreneur’s StartUps: You’ve got a great idea and a plan to turn it into a business. Now all you need are customers–and to get them, you need to spread the word about what you’re doing. One problem: Your marketing budget makes your grade school allowance look like a princely sum. Get Profiled In 2007, when [...]
Worcester Business Journal: Ah, the joys of working from home. No battling the rush hour traffic. No rushed lunch breaks. No crammed workspaces surrounded by sterile, gray cubicle walls. Sounds like a worker’s paradise, doesn’t it? Be advised, it may not be as easy as you think. The following advice, provided by Linda Novey-White, a [...]
You Can Have Your Chew Toy And Sell It Too With Best Buddies
Strictly for dogs and dog lovers, Best Buddies is like no other pet store. From free doggie ice cream day to a pet photo studio, they work hard to set themselves apart from the competition. For the pet loving entrepreneur, their unique business also comes as a franchise opportunity. Tell us a little about Best [...]
2009 Boost Your Business Contest
There’s not a lot of time left to enter Forbes’ 2009 “Boost Your Business” Contest. If you’re interested, you’d better get cracking. Forbes.com, home page for the world’s business leaders, invites entrepreneurs to enter its third annual “Boost Your Business” small business contest. Contestants can now submit their entries at www.forbes.com/byb. In the first round [...]
Boy Creates Creature That Eats Plastic
photo credit: Jim Doran Keep and eye on this, there’s either a real opportunity here in a few years, or a monster movie in the making. Mother Nature Network: It’s not your average science fair when the 16-year-old winner manages to solve a global waste crisis. But such was the case at May’s Canadian Science [...]
The Death Of The Corner Pharmacy
CNNMoney.com: Each morning that he unlocks the doors of Cottage Pharmacy, owner Ken Villani fights a losing battle. Revenue at his Woodbury, N.Y., store has been dropping for months. But unlike at other retail establishments, sales at his pharmacy may not rebound in tandem with consumer confidence. That’s because more and more of Villani’s customers [...]
Physorg.com: The study by Sara Mednick, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego and the VA San Diego Healthcare System, and first author Denise Cai, graduate student in the UC San Diego Department of Psychology, shows that REM directly enhances creative processing more than any other sleep or wake state. “We found that [...]
Moms Scrambling To Make Some Extra Money
TheLedger.com: In an unusual twist, many moms are finding themselves in a new scenario: seeking work-at-home arrangements driven not by flexibility – think soccer practices and piano recitals – but as the best option to supplement family income. With a surge in male breadwinners out of work, mothers are selling jewelry out of their kitchens, [...]
The Columbus Dispatch: In an unusual twist, many moms are finding themselves in a new scenario: seeking work-at-home arrangements driven not by flexibility — think soccer practices and piano recitals — but as the best option to supplement family income. With a surge in male breadwinners out of work, mothers are selling jewelry out of [...]
The Real Scoop On Grants For Small Bizs
The Houston Chronicle: You’ve heard the adage that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is? That definitely applies in the world of government grants. The government just does not give out money to open a “regular” business like a restaurant, bookstore or car wash, with no obligation to pay the money [...]
Free Small Town Business Marketing Books
SmallTownMarketing.com is giving away two marketing and advertising books for small town business owners.
Legal Quirk Lets Anyone Sue Over Patents
Associated Press: Look carefully at the lid to your coffee cup or the handle of your disposable razor. A recent ruling on an obscure, century-old statute has opened the door for people familiar with the finer points of patent law to sue companies that stamp their products with expired patent numbers. A couple of sharp-eyed [...]
Intro to Server Virtualization
photo credit: Ronnie Garcia It’s not my usual fare, but my latest article, Introduction to Server Virtualization, is up on Mid-Market Innovators. Here’s a snippet: A typical data center contains many servers. Traditionally, since hardware was cheap and applications were complex, many administrators installed one application per server. Though this provided their applications with security [...]
PeoplePond Helps You Corral Your Online Identity Into One Source
PeoplePond understands the networking individual. Through SEO (search engine optimization), they help their members take better control of their online identities. They help train search engines to rank the most relevant information higher in the search while also guiding prospects to a place where they can find all the information they need about you, instead [...]
A reader wrote: Good afternoon, Are you able to tell if these two websites below are online home business scams? It sounds too good to be true. I am skeptical about these three websites. www.dailyjobstribune.com/jobs/?t202id=12539&t202kw=work%20at%20home dailytribunes.com/finance/?c1=12&c2=72&c3=132&c4=0 rs971.speedypaycheck.com/?pubid=23829 Thank you in advance! Right now I don’t have a job. Currently, I am looking for an online [...]
Find Your Loved Ones After a Disaster: WeAreSafeAndSound.com
Just in time for the start of hurricane season comes a new business called We Are Safe And Sound. It is a electronic lost and found bulletin board for families. Families pre-register for the site and receive a login ID, password and voicemail box number. If, unfortunately, they’re involved in a disaster like a hurricane, [...]
How To Take Better Photos of Your Product
photo credit: Jesse757 A new post up on Dgital Photography School offers four tips for improving the photographs you use on your online store. They are: Turn Off the Flash Remove Distracting Elements Utilize Simple Staging. Employ Creative Use of Depth of Field to Highlight Product Detail
photo credit: Christmas w/a K As business owners we face a number of challenges on a daily basis. Some are small no big deal challenges and others require a great deal of time and attention in order to overcome them. Many of us find ourselves at a loss when it comes to defining our challenges. [...]
Entrepreneurs Take Second Jobs To Stay Afloat
The Wall Street Journal: Small-business owners who are struggling to keep their companies afloat are doing anything they can to ride the recession, even taking on second jobs. For Darren Hammond, co-owner of Chile Blossoms, a Concord, Calif., importer of peonies from Chile, the winter was particularly harsh as clients stopped paying or fell behind [...]
Proven Headlines That Sell Like Hotcakes
photo credit: faeryboots In business when entering into marketing and advertising, every business owners dream is to strike their prospects with attention getting headlines, content, pictures and more. Below are some suggestions on proven awesome headline formulas that are sure to sell like crazy, recently found on Copyblogger. Put it out there plainly and simply. [...]
Free Pop-Up Space For Small Creative Bizs
Springwise: This summer, KiosKiosk will be offering a small kiosk space to start ups selling ceramics, art, fashion and other creative products. At no cost to its temporary tenants. Creative organizations, businesses or individuals ready to trade simply send in their details and explain why they’re a good candidate to fill the space. KiosKiosk’s founders [...]
photo credit: Mzelle Biscotte Email marketing is all about customer retention. It’s about building stronger relationships with customers who already know you and decided that, yes, they want to keep hearing from you. They want to stay up to date on what you’re doing, they want to hear about new products, they want to hear [...]
Inventive Online Resources For Inventors
CNET News: I received an e-mail asking if I had ever taken a look at sites and services for inventors. I hadn’t. And judging by the size of those sites’ communities, I’m guessing that most other folks haven’t, either. Below are some of the neatest resources designed specifically for inventors. • Incuby is an online [...]
Myths About Employee Motivation
photo credit: lumaxart Recently Entrepreneur.com posted an article regarding what truly motivates your employees in a down economy that i don’t necessarily think is true for everyone. While they state that money sure does motivate your employees in today’s economy, they are more suggesting that the recognition you give your employees motivates them more than money. [...]
Win $25,000 To Grow Your Biz On eBay
Business Wire: eBay launched the eBay Sellers Challenge, a unique initiative with a simple goal: empower and inspire entrepreneurs to grow existing businesses – or start new ones – on eBay. The Sellers Challenge asks entrepreneurs to answer a simple question: “How would you use $25,000 to grow – or start – an eBay business?” [...]
Why Your Business Needs A Coach
photo credit: timsamoff If you haven’t yet hired a coach or didn’t have a good experience with one, my hope is that the following will encourage you to consider why a coach would be beneficial to you and your business. Hiring a coach for your business offers a very supportive environment for you and your [...]
Biz Poll: Free Software or Web Applications
Do You Use Free Software or Web Applications To Run Your Biz? Yes No View Results Please share your favorites in the comments section.
Mom Finds Way To Make Money In Slow Economy
KoloTV.com: Jennifer Dugas worked full time before her son was born. Since then, she’s been lucky to stay home while her husband works, but lately, the reality he could lose his job has forced their family to be creative in finding other ways to make money. That’s where B’s Purses came to the rescue. Jennifer [...]
North Texans Find Work-From-Home Job Success
CBS11TV.com: How would you like to get paid for working at home? Some North Texas moms have found successful work-at-home opportunities that are making money. But, there are other offers you should avoid. Joni Brock, of McKinney, enjoys being a stay-at-home mom. Recently, though, she says she felt the need to go back to work. [...]
Extraordinary Decks That Make A Statement
DECKStraordinaire is a Michigan-based company that designs and builds decks with flair. They are now offering a bizop that is perfect for someone who’s never built anything.
Tips On Creating Your Business Website
photo credit: Bull3t Today in business it is very important to have a business website, one that really speaks highly of you and your company, one that resembles your company well and intrigues the prospects visiting the site. I recently found an article on SmallBizBee with what i think are some really great tips on creating [...]
photo credit: ArtemFinland Most people often times do not like to discuss their finances, especially if they are not doing very well at the moment. It’s because most people actually don’t know how to handle their finances correctly which is what gets them into trouble, and more over, they sure don’t want to be scolded [...]
Why Should You Use Twitter For Business?
photo credit: elliottcable With all of the rising new technology and Internet applications for ones business, many owners are asking themselves why they need these services such as Twitter. Twitter helps run your business smoother in so many different ways that ultimately make your life simpler. With Twitter you can gain more exposure, and lets [...]
photo credit: andyp uk Many business owners today have some sort of a blog regarding their business online. However, most of them don’t even realize all of the hidden benefits that blogging has for their business. Duct Tape Marketing recently posted an article regarding some of the benefits to blogging that you may have never even [...]
The Top Most Creative People In Web Business
photo credit: Sister72 I recently stumbled upon a very interesting post located on FastCompany listing the top most creative people in the web business. Some on the list i never would have even thought about until i saw them there towards the top. Reed Hastings-The CEO of Netflix. He has got to be doing something right [...]
What Triggers You To Be Audited?
photo credit: joebeone Many people doing their own taxes worry about being audited for making a mistake or claiming too much. I know i do every time i file them myself. Even small business owners often times file their own taxes through Turbo Tax online and worry if something will come back to haunt them. [...]
‘Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed’ Inventor Dies
USA TODAY: John Joseph Houghtaling, the inventor of the “Magic Fingers Vibrating Bed,” which brought weary travelers 15 minutes of “tingling relaxation and ease” for a quarter in hotel rooms across America, has died. He was 92. During its heyday in the 1960s and ’70s, Magic Fingers was a pop culture icon. In a 1963 [...]
Signs That Your Business May Be In Danger
photo credit: tttallis In business there are many signs to look for that indicate how healthy or not your business is. SmallBizBee has ten of them, and what to do to fix them. Here are the first five: Sign #1 You don’t know you unique selling proposition (USP) Sign #2 You have to play with [...]
Forbes: Even in a recession, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office keeps busy. Since 1996, the annual number of patent filings has jumped 130% to 485,000 last year. But what some consider innovation, others might call a boondoggle–especially given the prohibitive costs of papering a patent. In the best-case scenario (where an application gets stamped, [...]
photo credit: TheTruthAboutMortgage.com Writing valuable content-rich articles for your target market and submitting them to article directories and other publishers is one of the best ways to market your business, become known as an expert in your field, and add subscribers to your list. As stated on Solo Entrepreneur this week. One of the most [...]
UnderstandingMarketing.com: If your small business has a hot story that you know would be appealing to a producer or reporter at a television station – local or national – you can call them up and pitch them. And you’ll quickly realize that if you haven’t done your homework on that particular reporter at that station [...]
Great Resources For Beginner Bloggers
photo credit: evhead When contemplating starting a new blog, you may not know what to write, how much to write, what to put on the site other than the posts and more. I recently came across an article on The Mogul Mom that had some tips for beginner blogger that i think can really come [...]
The New York Times: Just when you think that there are no new ideas for a business here comes one. Students (and, it should be noted, reporters) with a deadline hanging over their head have a deviously brilliant new delaying tactic. Paying someone to write the paper for you would be clearly dishonorable, but Corrupted-files.com [...]
