Archive for October 2009
J.C.Reid over at The Houston Press food blog has put together a list of the top five creepiest Halloween candies. 5. Spooky Nerds 4. Gummy Body Parts 3.Zit Poppers 2. Box Of Boogers 1. Scab-A-Roni What’s your favorites? Have a fun and safe Halloween! Photos by Houston Press.
The Dallas Morning News has an interesting look at the sweet dilemma of the day after Halloween. If there’s one thing worse than running out of candy on Halloween, it’s having too much when it’s over.It’s bad for your kids’ health, their teeth and the teachers who have to calm down candy-crazed kids the next [...]
Fans Encouraged To Dress-Up Like Billy Mays For Halloween
Billy Mays III admits it sounds a bit odd; a guy who unexpectedly lost his dad just four months ago starting an online contest encouraging people to dress like his departed father for Halloween, reports TampaBay.com. He has asked fans to email a photo of of themselves dressed like his famous pitchman father, infomercial king [...]
Ed Moody carved his first pumpkin at age 6. He is now one of the premier pumpkin carvers in America reports The Chicago Sun Times. Moody has carved 23 giant pumpkins — weighing more than 200 pounds — that sit in his front yard. It is a Halloween Stonehenge. Around this time of year, Moody’s [...]
Teen Entrepreneur Scares Up Biz
Jordan Renda has always loved Halloween, not so much for the trick-or-treating, but for the opportunity to scare family, friends and now, complete strangers. The Jacksonville Business Journal reports the 16-year-old Creekside High School junior and now Haunted Productions LLC president is experiencing his first year in the professional haunted house industry as the creator [...]
Mompreneurs Take School Lunches To A Whole New Level
OrlandoSentinel.com: David’s lunch — and those of many of his classmates — are no ordinary school lunches. Instead, these lunches are the creations of two Orlando moms who grew tired of the parade of processed foods their kids were eating — and decided to do something about it. The result was a small business with [...]
The Daily Mail reports that Japanese designers Yuri Suzuki and Masa Kimura built a real-life breakfast machine. The impressive device can prepare everything from omelettes to freshly-squeezed orange juice, and can even spread butter and jam onto toast. It will also grind coffee beans before brewing them. Photo by Platform 21.
Discovering Secrets Of ‘Pocket’ Communities
Patrick Matthews has an interesting look at work-at-home dads. Working out of a home office can feel pretty solitary. With the kids at school and the wife out teaching, it’s just me, my computer and the dogs. So I take every opportunity I can to get out of the office. I’m not complaining. On the [...]
Inventor Sells Five Million Luminous Balloons
news:lite tv is reporting that James Halliburton originally pitched his water-buoy idea – an auto-inflating, strengthened and illuminated balloon that would be attached to items which could be accidentally dropped in water. But he found success after he saw children playing with his invention and adapted the idea into the ‘Illoom balloon’ essentially a ballon [...]
So much of life has to do with making connections. A meeting in the summer of 2008 between Westport’s Kevin Carroll, his daughter, Claire, and Norwalk game inventor Mary Ellroy has resulted in a fast-paced game called “Pickles to Penguins,” where participants shout similarities between objects as dissimilar as a sea conch and a cupcake [...]
Turn Design-on-Demand Into Profits
Three years ago, twenty-somethings Peter Crawfurd and Michael Yang were would-be web entrepreneurs in search of a business idea writes Entrepreneur. Their top criteria: something they could start with limited funds, and something with big potential to scale. Avid consumers of tailored dress shirts, they decided to capitalize on their knowledge of custom-made clothing and [...]
US Small Bizs Lack Cybersecurity Awareness
Reuters reports that according to the 2009 National Small Business Cybersecurity Study, small business owners’ cybersecurity policies and actions are not adequate enough to ensure the safety of their employees, intellectual property and customer data. The study, co-sponsored by the National Cyber Security Alliance and Symantec, as part of this year’s National Cyber Security Awareness [...]
Is Telecommuting Here to Stay?
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that more Americans are ditching office camaraderie and regular work hours for the chance to work from home in pajamas or while sipping lattes at their favorite coffee shops. The American Time Use Survey, which measures the amount of time people spend doing various activities like work, childcare and [...]
Shore News Today: In January, with her youngest child approaching a year old, Jennifer Auer figured it was time to get back to work. She found the perfect opportunity through a friend of a friend – a Cape May County woman looking to sell her business, which uses costumed characters to bring alive make believe [...]
Mail That Caters To Kids With A Side Of Education
Sher-Lee’s kids were intrigued by the idea of receiving mail but, unfortunately, they almost never received any. Inspired by their interest, Sherri-Lee formulated a business that would deliver postcards to those kids who loved to receive mail.
Selling Health Tips To Globe Trotters
Fortune Small Business has an interesting article about dispensing advice and vaccines for world travelers. While running health services at the University of Baltimore in the early 1990s, Fran Lessans met a law student who was petrified about the prospect of attending her mother-in-law’s funeral in Ghana. The young woman had visited the country once [...]
Good idea or not? Photo by GoGorillamedia.
In the two years since he lost his job as a cook, Kevin Boudreau has learned the subtle art of how to ask strangers for money. But now, with winter approaching and an aversion to shelters, the homeless man with the grizzled goatee and skull tattoos covering both arms needs more than spare change reports [...]
Inventor Turns Discarded Coconut Shells Into Clothing
More than 60 clothing companies, including well known brands like Adidas, Eddie Bauer and Dockers, are using a material designed by a Colorado company which employs coconut shells to create clothes that dry faster, smell better and save energy while laundering reports 9News.com. It may sound crazy, but Boulder-based Cocona actually uses carbon from left [...]
If you happen to be on Pike Street In New York’s Chinatown between now and November 14th, you might catch a glimpse of “R-O-B” the bricklaying robot building a 7,000 brick “Infinite Loop” sculpture along a pedestrian island so reports gadget blog Gizmodo. Designed by Fabio Gramazio and Matthias Kohler, the Infinite Loop has been [...]
About.com reports that the baby boomer generation is so large that it encompasses a whole range of life events. One of the larger subsets of the boomer demographic is those who are currently dealing with aged parents or soon to be about to. Many baby boomers feel incapable of dealing with their parents’ problems themselves. [...]
Include A Personal Touch On Your Website
photo credit: Noah Sussman It’s not personal–it’s business. A mantra heard by business people through the years, but when it comes to our business websites, it’s more personal than business. Living online today is social, and that means personal. To attract customers and keep them, you need to think about the social touches that can [...]
Small Bizs Ready To Hire Again
Small Business Startup News reports that a new survey of hiring expectations brings good news for small business owners looking for signs to expand again – about 44 percent of small businesses say they plan to hire new employees in the next year. The Intuit Payroll survey finds small business owners expressing greater confidence in [...]
photo credit: linh.ngân I recently came across an article on Entrepreneur.com regarding how important employee reviews are to your company and I couldn’t agree with more. Employee reviews today are more important now then they ever have been before with such a huge pool of unemployed people out there. Your annual reviews serve several purposes [...]
Youngsters No Longer Need License to Sell Lemonade
photo credit: evmaroon Tulare Advance-Register: Young Tulare entrepreneurs wanting to operate stands selling homemade lemonade or other beverages won’t have to pay for a business license, but there are rules. For example, they can only do business on school holidays and vacation time, Friday after school and weekends. Those are two of the 10 requirements [...]
On Monday we asked readers what their guess was for how many minutes are spent on Facebook daily? 17 per cent said 75 million, 43 per cent guessed 100 million, 30 per cent 8 billion and 10 per cent selected 15 billion. More than 8 billion minutes are spent on Facebook every day, Facebook executive [...]
Mum’s The Word For Canada’s New Business Owners
thestar.com: Throw a load of clothes in the washer. Put new pricing and client testimonials on website. Pay the hydro bill. Submit final proposal. Pick up the kids from school. Schedule conference call with new customer. Make dinner. Sound like a typical laundry list from a busy mom’s `to do’ list? It is … except [...]
The Creation of the Day Care Industry
photo credit: n0seblunt The Tennessean: Has the recession made you an accidental entrepreneur? Not sure how to pick the right business to start? Business opportunities are most often the result of major changes in the economy, society, our culture or technology. These changes create customers who have new unmet needs. For example, when women entered [...]
What is a Minimum Viable Product?
Is your product too complicated? Maybe your company should sell the minimum viable product it can? What is an MVP? The product with just the necessary features to get money and feedback from early adopters. The minimum viable product (MVP) is often an ad on Google. Or a PowerPoint slide. Or a dialog box. Or [...]
You know the saying: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’” A Las Vegas woman found out the hard way just how much the government does to keep itself in business: Delinda Epstein, 51, was living in a townhouse in the swanky Las [...]
BusinessWeek reports that more than half of all U.S. businesses are based at home. These companies often are dismissed as quaint hobbyist ventures, but new research suggests that’s a mistake. An estimated 6.6 million home-based enterprises provide at least half of their owners’ household income. Together these “homepreneurs” employ one in 10 private-sector workers, and [...]
Social Media Marketing Tips For Small Businesses
photo credit: Damien Basile Many of us in business know how important social media marketing is to our company, however, what most of us don’t know is how to go about it. We look at this concept and view it as complicated, confusing and time consuming but social media marketing can actually be quite easy [...]
Boomer Trends: Furry Little Critters
About.com reports that dogs and cats aren’t just pets any more; they’re treasured members of the family. Remember the old days when dogs slept in dog houses? Not in boomer households. Baby boomer pets eat, sleep and do things with their people. They watch TV, they get dressed up, they have their own friends and [...]
Declaration of (Financial) Independence
We’ve all heard of the man who bought a $4 painting at a garage sale, found an original copy of the Declaration of Independence inside, and sold it for $2.4 million. A once-in-a-lifetime story, right? Not so much, actually. Mental Floss reports that Michael Sparks was visiting a Nashville thrift store, where he bought a [...]
Real-Life Lessons From Shark Tank
Experts say there are real lessons for an entrepreneur to learn from the ABC reality show Shark Tank, in which entrepreneurs vie for venture capital, reports Entrepreneur.com. “If you’re an entrepreneur who’s planning on going in front of investors, this is a show you should start watching,” says Melissa Krinzman, managing director of the business [...]
Fast Company has an interesting article about Douwe Egberts, the market leader in tea and coffee, that has unveiled its conceptual BeMoved vending machine, which promises to elevate human-coffee interaction “to a higher level.” Literally. As in, you have to jump for your java. Okay, to be fair, that feature, part of an interactive game [...]
Mark Stevens at Entrepreneur magazine says instead of saying ‘thank you,’ show customers some real appreciation by giving them your time. You may be confusing the idea of celebrating your customers with fawning over them. But I have something else in mind. Something like actually paying attention to them: caring, thinking, dreaming and wondering enough [...]
CBS News reports that small business could feel the most pain from the H1N1 flu virus. In Boston, the Port Authority is training extra workers to operate snowplows – following concern regular drivers will get sick. And in Malibu, Calif., one restaurant is giving its employees vitamins and wiping down every door knob every two [...]
Insurance A Must For Home Bizs
Operating a small business from home can free entrepreneurs from the costs of leasing space and commuting. But too many of them may shortchange themselves when it comes to buying insurance, writes The Desert Sun. A recent survey commissioned by the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (IIABA) found that nearly 60 percent of [...]
Moms Take A Leap With Food Business
MyCentralJersey.com: The blip in the economy didn’t stop two friends — Pinky Kaur and Charan Singh — from plunging into the restaurant business and opening a Panchero’s Mexican Grill on Sept. 15. Singh, a former human resource specialist and stay-at-home-mom, and Kaur, an advertising representative for IndiaPost newspaper, have been friends for more than four [...]
A Profitable Opportunity In Concrete Coatings
If you’re not afraid of a little hard work, an opportunity to make money through concrete coatings might be in your future. With the help of Tim Tuohy, the founder of Concrete Coatings of Georgia, many contractors have been able to find the materials they need to perform the job and the training required to [...]
Social Networking Do’s and Don’ts
The following is a guest post by Veronica Fielding. As the unemployment rate rises, people are turning to social networking sites to make important business connections. Many recruiters post vacancies and search for passive candidates on LinkedIn. Facebook, one of the best-known social media sites on the Internet today, has become a valuable way of [...]
Did Sears Just Win Online Book Biz?
Fast Company: Last week, Wal-Mart cut the price of some popular new books to just $10, a slice of over 60%. Not willing to be out-done on home turf, Amazon matched them. Wal-Mart went down to $9. Amazon went to $8.99. Target jumped in tardily at $8.99. Then Sears jaunted into the battle and dropped [...]
The following is a guest post by Robert Tuchman. Service is more than just putting your hand out for a handshake. It’s making sure your customer will shake hands again and will introduce you to the other people to shake hands with. It is not something that needs to be obtained on an intellectual level, [...]
This looks interesting: LaunchYourLine.com released a new website today aimed at empowering entrepreneurs to start their own line of any number of products. With plenty of people starting new businesses in today’s challenging economy, LaunchYourLine.com is designed specifically for enterprising businesspeople who have dreamed of owning more than just their own business but establishing a [...]
Help Wanted: Charmin Ambassador
The Village Voice reports that Charmin (the toilet paper company) is holding auditions on Nov. 5 for “five super-fun, enthusiastic people” who “really, really enjoy going to the bathroom” to serve as Times Square Toilet Ambassadors from Thanksgiving through Christmas. Their job, which will pay $10k for five weeks, is to entertain people who are [...]
Boomer Trends: Before It’s Gone
About.com has an interesting article about baby boomer trends and how to profit from them. One of the big baby boomer trends is the compulsion to see it/do it before it can’t be seen or done anymore. The Great Wall, the Great Barrier Reef, Venice – boomers feel a need to visit places, species and [...]
Startup Makes Beer In A Way Others Don’t
The Akron Beacon Journal reports that when Matt and Kathy Chappel decided to open the Indigo Imp Brewery in Cleveland, they wanted their beer to stand apart. So they opted for an unusual beer-making process — at least for U.S. brewers. They use open fermentation, which exposes the soon-to-be beer to the air and means [...]
Hatching New Ideas All The Time
Ask Cindi Witker what she does for a living and you could get a different answer every time. Business First reports that the 59-year-old entrepreneur runs a marketing business that specializes in medical companies, does event planning, launched a medical job Web site in September and has operated a media consulting service. Witker, whose rapid-fire [...]
Break Bad Habits, Make More Money
Maybe you’re thinking you’d boost business if you exhibited greater confidence, assertiveness or agility, or made clearer, faster decisions, or weren’t so irritable. No question, there’s plenty of upside to making some adjustments so writes Fortune Small Business. But changing an ingrained pattern, whether behavioral or emotional, is one of life’s greatest challenges. Entrepreneurs like [...]
