Archive for October 2009
What You Didn’t Know About Venture Capitalists
photo credit: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³ Today’s start-up environment is a world in which entrepreneurs must be self-sufficient. Entrepreneurs cannot rely on getting outside money. A recent interview was recently done with Mike Moritz who is quite possibly the most successful venture capitalist of his time. There were several great lessons given out during this interview regarding [...]
Teen Heads To National Invention Contest
The News Journal: Inventor Thomas Edison was in his 30s when he invented the phonograph and perfected the light bulb. So there is still plenty of time for 14-year-old Jason Liu to make a mark with his parabolic reflector — or whatever else he might come up with before he reaches a more mature age [...]
photo credit: mikebaird Forbes.com: Crushing economic pressure on your business, unrelenting competition, crazy work hours, downsizing, slashed budgets, uncertainty. Almost every organization has been trying to do more with less lately, and it’s taking a toll. Executives and middle managers alike are exhausted by their brutal schedules and the intense demands on them. Business leaders [...]
Mom-Friendly Exercise Routine Inspires Business
The Star Press: August Roberson is smiling a lot these days. Not only does she have more energy, but her spirits are running high. She attributes it to the healthy lifestyle she and her husband, Jason, are leading with their daughters, Jocelyn, 4, and Madelyn, 2. At the core of it is a new exercise [...]
Business Strives To Help New Parents Make Their Own Baby Website
When Ryan Sakai and his wife were expecting their first child they wanted to make a website for their son that they could use to help keep friends and family up to date. During that process a seed of inspiration was planted within them. What originally started as a simple website for their new baby [...]
The Wall Street Journal: To prepare for his first live national tour this fall, Guy Fieri sought advice about living on the road from members of AC/DC (“Take care of yourself, man,” was one band mate’s counsel) and rocker Sammy Hagar, who recommended voice coaching. Fieri is not a rock-band frontman, a pop star or [...]
Springwise: ThredUP, which uses a Netflix-like model with prepaid envelopes to help users swap the clothes they don’t wear for some they will. Currently focusing just on shirts, thredUP is free to join. Users begin by setting up a virtual closet to keep track of the clothes they’d like to exchange, using descriptions of the [...]
WalletPop: Can’t get enough of ABC’s new series Shark Tank? WalletPop interviewed Kevin O’Leary and Robert Herjavec on what happens behind the scenes of the show.
Women Visit Music Sites More Than Men
AppScout: It’s a battle of the sexes at Nielsen. On the heels of data that showed women flocking to celebrity and horoscope sites, Nielsen said that women also make up the majority of visitors to music sites. “Whether checking on rapper Fabolous’ health scare or Alicia Keys love life, women are far more likely to [...]
Cracked: It’s no surprise that one of most profitable companies ever would want to keep their formula a secret. Even with hundreds of imitators, Coke still dominates world-wide sales of caramel colored drinks. But doesn’t that stuff only have, like, four ingredients? Fizzy water, high fructose corn syrup, caffeine and Brown Dye #4? There isn’t [...]
Busy Mom Aims To Succeed With Cookies
The News-Times: A lifelong stress-relieving activity has made Rachel Tedeschi a hero with her family, especially her children and their friends. Now Tedischi hopes to cash in on that activity, making old-fashioned homemade cookies. Family and friends have been telling her for years that she should be selling her baked goods, but she just thought [...]
Will Google Eliminate Need For Small Biz Websites?
WebProNews: Google has people riled up with its latest local search effort Google Place Pages. Place Pages are a Google Maps feature, which serve the purpose of providing everything you want to know about a place (a city or a business) in one spot. For example, if you search for a specific restaurant, you should [...]
Just because you can get a patent doesn’t mean you should. Dad Saddle Patent awarded: 2002 Patent says: “A number of devices have been devised for carrying infants and young children. Such devices often are not appropriate or useful for carrying larger children. Nor are known conventional arrangements adapted to support a standing child.” Jacques [...]
Google Offers Easy Translation Service
CNET News: Google is offering Web publishers a free tool for providing translation services on their pages. Lots of big companies based outside the U.S. offer English-language versions of their Web site with a click of a button, but Google’s new service actually detects the home language of a visitor to your site and offers [...]
CNNMoney: Johnny Valdene and Travis Hollman were running a toy company that sold $6 million in marshmallow shooters every year. At a trade fair in New York City they saw an attendee collapsing from what looked like a heart attack. Paramedics later told them that the man had in fact suffered an anxiety attack — [...]
Twitter’s New Tweets For Small Biz
Inc.: Twitter is open for business. The social network isn’t charging anybody for anything yet, and isn’t making any money — apart from the $100 million in venture financing it recently raised. But the San Francisco, Calif., start up is headed in that direction, with plans to offer paid commercial accounts later this year. Over [...]
Website Magazine: Those in the real estate market and those interested in buying and selling domains might find this noteworthy. Domain registrar and hosting provider GoDaddy released some statistics that indicate a surge in the registration of domains named after street addresses. Comparing 2005 (the year the housing bubble burst) to last year, Go Daddy [...]
Selling Graves Near Dead Celebrities
Metro Lyrics: The price of grave-plots close to Michael Jackson’s tomb have already sky-rocketed since the King of Pop’s funeral. A sales rep at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, says plots around Jackson’s have already shot up by up to US$3,000 each. Forest Lawn had been selling the plots in the mausoleum for [...]
Mashable: Even though Microsoft has blasted us with advertising for their new search engine Bing, we still use Google. Wednesday, we asked how often you used Google. Over half, 55 percent said they last used Google 5 minutes ago, 18 percent said 1 hour ago, 24 percent said 1 day ago and an unbelieveable 3 [...]
Generating Word Of Mouth Advertising
photo credit: oskay We all know that in business one of the best forms of advertising is through word of mouth. Many people rely heavily on what friends, family members and other random people tell them regarding a business, if someone they know love a particular business they will almost definitely go there themselves, if [...]
The Not-So-Tiny Little T-Shirt Company
Don’t let their name fool you, the Tiny Little T-Shirt Co has placed their shirts in approximately 100 locations with some more in the works. However, that wasn’t always so. It was August of 2007 when they attended their first trade show and started selling their “Life.” t-shirts. Within a few short months it became [...]
A Look At The Mom Behind Organically Hatched
Examiner.com: Examiner: What is your business all about? Shaheen: We sell the best organic baby products including eco-friendly diapers, BPA free baby bottles and feeding accessories, bath and body products, organic clothing, toys and so much more! You can find us at: organicallyhatched.com Examiner: What is your favorite product that you make or sell and [...]
Sports Team Hires Own Reporter
The New York Times: If your business depends on free publicity from newspapers, what do you do when the papers can no longer afford to send reporters to cover you? In professional sports, the answer, increasingly, is hire your own. The Los Angeles Kings hockey team last week hired Rich Hammond, who had covered the [...]
From $0 To $170 Million In Three Years
Bloggingstocks.com: It was only three years ago that Aaron Patzer started Mint.com, a free web-based financial planning site. In his mid 20s, he encountered much skepticism. But, this was no problem for Aaron. He realized he could make a difference. And he certainly did. This week, he sold Mint.com for a cool $170 million to [...]
Inventor, Entrepreneur Becomes Successful On-Air Vendor
Hartford Courant: Christmas decorations are already up at the Miller house in Glastonbury as QVC, the popular TV shopping network, shoots footage that will air during the holiday shopping season. On Friday, the cameras focused on several novelty items designed by Garold Miller: a suction cup that secures holiday candles to the window and a [...]
Increase Your Productivity Working From Home
Noobpreneur: Ah – work at home. A dream that turns into reality to many, including me. The idea of working in your pajamas and work as you like (and how you like it) is intriguing. To me, working at home is freedom; working at home brings you more ‘power’ to control your life and money [...]
Small businesses often think that television advertising is too costly and cumbersome for them to use. But Google TV Ads changes all of that – we make it easy and affordable for you to make a TV ad, plan a campaign, and reach your customers through the power of television. Google TV Ads and SpotMixer [...]
New Web Privacy Rules May Cost e-Bizs
Inc.: Few people are aware of just how much personal information is collected from their daily web activity except for the online businesses that depend on that data, but Congress, however, may soon be stepping in to change that. According to a recent article by the Associated Press, Rep. Rick Boucher, D-V.a., chairman of the [...]
photo credit: bogenfreund The thought of actually sitting down and scheduling some lazy “do absolutely nothing” time probably seems very stupid as well as a waste of time. Entrepreneurs, especially those who are constantly on the go between their company and their families, really need to schedule some time to where they just sit back, [...]
Newbie Entrepreneur Creates Sled For Grown-Ups
CNNMoney: Steve Luhr worked in medical equipment sales but yearned to become an entrepreneur. When a rival firm bought out his employer in 2002, Luhr received eight months’ notice and the motivation to do his own thing. Luhr, who lives in Shelburne, Vt., enlisted Minneapolis product designer Bob Worrell to brainstorm on a sleek reimagining [...]
photo credit: wili_hybrid When you’re in a management position, especially if you’re new to that position, you often want to be so helpful and in tune with the rest of your team that you can actually make a few mistakes that end up pushing your team away from you or become counter productive. Below are [...]
Myths About Employee Incentive Programs
photo credit: alicepopkorn ( in and out ) I recently came across an article located on Open Forum that I can’t help but disagree with. It’s an article regarding the top 10 myths about offering employee incentive programs in your company, where they basically state that providing employee incentive programs is a bad idea. Even [...]
Seven Solopreneur Survival Tips
Inc.: Many solopreneurs feel the tug between personal obligations and their business. The question appears to be, how do we divide our time, become more productive, and let go of the guilt? There are ways to to achieve this. 1. Get things out of your head and onto paper; it helps to decrease your mental [...]
Fruit Crate Labels Are His Business
Colfax Record: It’s not often that you find your future in a box discarded behind the supermarket. But not much about Weimar historian, author and artist Pat Jacobsen’s career path has been typical. Jacobsen stumbled upon some boxes of old fruit crate labels in 1978, just as the young musician was moving into his first [...]
Web Hosting Tips For Start Ups
photo credit: Torley Understanding Marketing: The majority of small businesses realize the importance of having a solid Web presence that leaves a positive and lasting impression on customers. Many fear, though, that a professionally designed Web site will cost more than what’s in the budget. After all, it’s easy to look around and find lots [...]
Inc.: To reach the more technology-savvy audience of entrepreneurs, the Small Business Administration has partnered with the video sharing website YouTube to create a channel dedicated to posting informational videos. Launched last month, this channel debuted with a 60-second introduction to the administration, its programs and services. As of Monday, SBA’s channel boasted 141 subscribers, [...]
How To Spread Content No Matter What It Is
photo credit: svensonsan When doing any sort of writing, especially for business, the biggest and most important goal is for you to generate as much traffic to your content as you can. Businesses won’t make money off of this content without the proper traffic reading it, following it, and spreading the word about it to [...]
Use Of Exit Surveys To Improve Customer Retention
photo credit: henribergius Often times customers who are unhappy with the service they have received from a business will not tell the company about their bad experience nor will they go back to that company in the future. Instead, they move on to find another company that gives them the experience they want with the [...]
Bits, Bytes & Bots Makes Learning About Technology An Adventure
You might refer to it as camp or education but if your child enjoys working with technology, they will most likely just call it fun. Bits, Bytes, & Bots provides “FUNdamental Technology Education™” for children that want to have fun while learning. Tom Marx, the founder and CEO, had sent his own son off to [...]
While summer is over and the kids are back in school, it is never too early to start building up some ideas for how to survive next summer. The right idea might also help you combine time with your family, and a little side business for yourself. Over the summer one mom decided that her [...]
