Archive for November 2009
Becoming An Accidental Entrepreneur
Susan Baida at the Current Mom blog discusses her becoming an accidental entrepreneur. I wasn’t someone who always dreamed of being an entrepreneur. I was content in corporate America, building upon a 17-year career in brand marketing. I had an impressive resume including world-renowned companies such as Avon, Estee Lauder and Starwood Hotels. I enjoyed [...]
Biz Idea: Print Your Own Designs
TechCrunch reviews the website Infectious which you could use to start your own microbusiness. Infectious, a startup that makes high quality decals and skins that let you customize the look of your iPhone, car, laptop, skateboards, and more, is launching a new feature: one off prints of your own custom designs. Users will be able [...]
The biggest hassle with business cards is getting the contact information into your address book as fast as possible — that’s where Business Card Reader for the iPhone comes in, reports TechCrunch. Business Card Reader scans and “reads” the picture using ABBYY’s text recognition technology and enters the data into the iPhone or iPod touch [...]
There are plenty of Web apps that can help you make to-do lists, help you organize your tasks and personal projects, or help you build shopping lists, but not all of them give you the freedom to just start brainstorming and jotting down ideas as they come to you. AppScout reports that Wridea is a [...]
Kiva Hits $100 Million In Microloans
Proving that microloans can help to change the world one little bit at a time, Kiva.org hit a major milestone, TechCrunch reports. Since it’s founding four years ago, it has now made possible $100 million in microloans between individual lenders and entrepreneurs all around the world. The company has brought together 573,000 lenders (people like [...]
YODEL METER, 1925 An early version of American Idol? VENETIAN BLIND SUNGLASSES, 1950 It was a bad idea then, it’s a bad idea now. Sorry, Kanye. TV GLASSES, 1963 MUST see TV. DOG RESTRAINER, 1940 Yes, it’s so much easier to use than a leash. Photo by LIFE Magazine.
Last month, the Center for Women’s Business Research released a study which found that 28 percent, or an estimated 8 million, of all U.S. businesses were women-owned, reports The New York Times. The study also showed that those 8 million cross-industry businesses created or maintained 16 percent of the country’s jobs. However, only 4.2 percent [...]
Internet Use Won’t Cause Social Isolation
Although technology and the Internet have taken a beating in the past for potentially limiting people’s social interaction, a new study from the Pew Research Center has found that the opposite might be true, reports CNet News. According to a Pew Internet Personal Networks and Community survey, which polled 2,512 adults, the dawn of new [...]
In business, as in poker, sometimes you have to know when to fold ‘em. So says serial entrepreneur and blogger Eric Ries on GigaOM. Ries takes the lessons he’s learned from watching the World Series of Poker and explains how entrepreneurs and poker players share many of the same qualities. Namely, “Both rely on acting [...]
Tech entrepreneur Neil Patel shares some advice on his blog, QuickSprout, about the benefits of having a business partner, and how to find the right one. Patel, who admits he’s been through his share of partnerships, warns that the union can be as tumultuous as a marriage and recommends setting expectations for each partner on [...]
Google’s New E-Commerce Offering
Google’s ever-expanding product line just got even bigger thanks to its new Commerce Search, a search function tailored for retailers. The service, which incorporates Google’s search capabilities into your online store, carries a price tag of $50,000 a year according to TechCrunch, but Google says it’s worth it. Their claim is that faster search speed [...]
Mom Bakes Her Way Into The Beer Bread Business
Daily Times Herald: In the fall of 2004 a young mother in Sac City took the entrepreneurial plunge, turning her home bread and baking passion to a business, with a location just off U.S. Highway 20 and an ambitious marketing and sales schedule. Amanda Lynch, 32, a Sac City native and president and founder of [...]
Entrepreneur, Inventor, and Designer, All Rolled Into One
When that idea hits for the perfect invention some people might ignore it. However, an inventor will do something about it. To go from idea to final product takes a lot of work and a solid design. Bret Schaller, the founder of Schaller Industries, Inc and co-founder of Willow Creek Animal Hospital, understands the process [...]
How Build-a-Bear Invented A Bear Market
Founder Maxine Clark tells Fortune Small Business how she built Build-a-Bear Workshop into a $468 million business. Early in my career, Stanley Goodman, who was then CEO of May, said something that has stuck with me: “Retailing is entertainment, and when customers have fun, they spend more money.” I wasn’t sure what I wanted to [...]
It’s now easy to offer printable coupons on your Web site, thanks to OneMinuteCoupon reports Small Business Computing. It’s a simple service, and here’s how it works. First of all create a free account on the site, then create your coupon using the online editor — you can even include your own images in there [...]
Getting Leads By Speaking For Free!
photo credit: Domain Barnyard In sales we all know that quality leads are the key to our success, and we all are on the hunt for new ways to generate these quality leads in order to boost our sales numbers. I came across an interesting article located on Duct Tape Marketing that suggests speaking for [...]
Amazon Affiliate Links Now Post To Twitter
To members of its Amazon Associates program, Amazon.com is promoting Twitter integration for affiliate links writes Downloadsquad.com. People have been posting Amazon links to Twitter for just about as long as Twitter’s been around, but now it’s an insanely easy two-click process, using the toolbar on any product page. This is good news for Associates, [...]
To reduce the number of plastic water bottles that end up in landfills, consumers are encouraged to buy reusable bottles reports trendspotter Springwise. Since those can be bulky to carry along, a company in Thousand Oaks, California designed an alternative. Vapur is a reusable water bottle that flattens when empty. Like a regular bottle, it [...]
Small Business Computing has a great review of a free biz tool. If you currently use Google alerts as a research tool or to be notified whenever your business is mentioned online, then you’ll love FiltrBox.com. It’s kind of like Google Alerts on steroids. Now the downside to Google Alerts is that it only gives [...]
Healthcare Questions Answered Via Twitter
If Twitter can be used to track packages, publish school menus and crowdfund startups, why not help tackle the US healthcare crisis too, asks trendspotter Springwise. Cell phones are already changing the way healthcare is delivered in the developing world, after all, and now Twitter promises to transform the delivery of healthcare information for stateside [...]
Mother, Daughter Rebrand Their Toffee Business
azcentral.com: An old family recipe launched a successful home-based business for Donna Gabrilson a few years ago. Now Gabrilson and her daughter and business partner, Stacey Barnes, have embraced a new brand to grow their Scottsdale-based GoodyTwos Toffee Company. In 2004, the newly divorced Gabrilson wanted to make some extra money, so she began selling [...]
Fortune Small Business reports that Saul Griffith gets up to 30 e-mails a day from qualified scientists eager to work for him. He can’t afford to hire them, so he wants to inspire them to be entrepreneurs instead. Pithy articles about genius boys be damned,” says the 35-year-old Australian, thumping the table at a San [...]
Linkedin: The Secret To Success
For all the continual media frenzy over Facebook and Twitter, the most remarkable social networking story of all may well be LinkedIn, the global social network for business professionals founded by serial Silicon Valley entrepreneur Reid Hoffman in December 2002 reports The Telegraph. While the LinkedIn 50 million may pale in comparison with the Facebook [...]
Buy A Ring, Get A Free Honeymoon
Weddings are expensive. So are engagement rings and honeymoons and everything else peripherally associated with your nuptials so Valentine’s Jewelry, is trying to help you keep costs down writes WalletPop. The jeweler has teamed up with Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Lines to put together a really awesome offer. Customers who purchase engagement rings from [...]
For people who have either been forced out of their jobs or have always wished they could work for themselves, the idea of owning a small business, at first glance, may seem like a wish come true, an article in The Portland Business Journal explains. This is the point, however, when a beginning entrepreneur needs [...]
U.S. Companies Holding More Cash
U.S. companies hurt by the global credit crisis are continuing to hold more cash, even as the economy begins to show signs of improvement, The Wall Street Journal said, citing its analysis of company filings. In the second quarter, the 500 largest non-financial U.S. companies by total assets held about $994 billion in cash and [...]
Beware Of Startup-Biz Scammers
Eve Tahmincioglu at MSN Business has an interesting article about start-up business scammers. Just ask V.M. from the Austin, Texas, area. A longtime entrepreneur in the home-building industry, he had visions of launching his own online travel and health-care insurance business but ended up out nearly $5,000. He didn’t want his name used because he’s [...]
Meet 2009′s SavvyMom Mom Entrepreneur
MetroNews.ca: Shirley Broback, 34, was awarded the SavvyMom Mom Entrepreneur of the Year Award for her work as producer of the Vancouver Island Baby Fair and says her win proves that self-described regular women like her can make a big difference with big dreams and big effort. “It shows you don’t have to be a [...]
The following is a guest post by David Gash. When starting a new business, entrepreneurs invariably face the brutal moment when they realize something needs to be done and they just don’t know how to do it. We let dentists fix our teeth and mechanics fix our cars; so why do we expect that when [...]
photo credit: midiman 37Signals: Making money takes practice, just like playing the piano takes practice. No one expects anyone to be any good at the piano unless they’ve put in lots practice. Same with making money. The more you practice the better you get. Eventually making money is as easy for you as piano is [...]
A Spanish firm says it’s on track to take paying guests at the first ever hotel in outer space in 2012. A three-night stay at the Galactic Suite Space Resort will cost you about $4.4 million, but that includes an eight-week training course on a tropical island. At least 40 people have already made reservations. [...]
$5 and 2 Hours: How Much Could You Make?
If you had 5 dollars and 2 hours, how would you make as much money as possible? VentureBeat: There’s a classroom exercise that’s a part of the Stanford technology venture program hits its students with each year: If you had five dollars and two hours, what would you do to make as much money as [...]
What The Web Will Look Like In 5 Years
Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke at last week’s Gartner Symposium/ITxpo about what the web will look like in 5 years. ReadWriteWeb has highlights from Schmidt’s speech: • Five years from now the internet will be dominated by Chinese-language content. • Today’s teenagers are the model of how the web will work in five years – [...]
Homebizlist and Homebizlast are Probably Scams
I’ve been getting a lots of calls and emails about Homebizlist.com and Homebizlast.com today. Seems that someone is hacking Facebook accounts today and posting false status updates with links to these sites. Homebizlist.com and Homebizlast.com are almost certainly scams. If you have website, you can apply for Adsense for no cost at http://www.google.com/adsense If you [...]
iPhone App Created $1 Million in Sales
Mashable: More and more companies are creating iPhone applications as a way to reinforce branding and to gain new customers. Some companies are even seeing increased sales thanks to iPhone apps. One of those is the Pizza Hut app [iTunes link] for the iPhone and iPod touch, which has now generated more than $1 million [...]
cashURwheels is an Australian firm that serves as an online marketplace connecting drivers directly with companies interested in vehicle-based ads reports trendspotter Springwise. Whereas carvertising agencies ask drivers to register their vehicles in the hopes of eventually being one of the few selected to be part of a large campaign, cashURwheels connects drivers directly with [...]
Business Week: Dan Reynolds didn’t set out to become an entrepreneur. Instead, the full-time firefighter and former commercial truck salesman from suburban Chicago wanted to hire on with a big crime-scene cleanup company. But when he was treated rudely during his interview in early 2007, he vowed to found his own company as payback. His [...]
Which Trolls Are Lurking Under Your Business Bridges?
photo credit: Roshan V Just like in the fairy tale movies created by Disney, businesses also contain trolls that lurk under your bridges to other business adventures. These trolls can be seemingly harmless provided you don’t fall into their trap. However, if you slip and fall right into their hands, these trolls can prove to [...]
How To Set Your Business Hours
photo credit: zappowbang Some small businesses in rather small “mom and pop” type of towns have for a long time set hour’s of operation at the low end of the spectrum, having open times equalling a mere 10 or 12 hour’s per week. However, these businesses do state that if you call them they will [...]
Advertising Online This Holiday Season
photo credit: kevindooley Entrepreneur.com: Right now, the Internet accounts for one third of the typical media day for all U.S. adults. Consumers spend nearly four hours online daily according to a report from The Media Audit–that’s 32.5 percent of their media time compared to daily exposure to newspapers, radio, TV and outdoor advertising. The holiday [...]
How To Use Public Domain Content
Using public domain content as the basis for mashups is a growing trend, and one that is yielding a lot of great, original content. Brandon Mendelson over at Mashable.com takes a look at how public domain material is being re-purposed on the web and in print. Pride And Prejudice And Zombies Maybe you’re not feeling [...]
A Look Into The Business Of Interior Design
If you are creative and have a keen eye for design and patterns, you might also feel that the idea of starting an interior design business is a favorable one. While the passion might be there, it takes knowledge and skill to really get a business going. While I can’t help you acquire skill, I [...]
Fortune Small Business has an interesting story about a small sports glove maker that cracked the majors by building relationships with up-and-coming baseball players. Wilson. Rawlings. Easton. Big brands like these dominate the $132 million baseball glove industry, paying star players big bucks to wear their gear. Enter Vinci. For the past 12 years the [...]
If you run a small business and cannot afford CRM tools like Salesforce , MakeUseOf.com has a review of Timetonote. While it doesn’t boast of the advanced tools which paid solutions like Salesforce and Zoho offer, for a 100% free service it isn’t bad at all. You can track leads, communication and conversations with customers [...]
Kid Starts A Guide to Hamptons Stars
The New Yorker: Carter Glatt, a sixteen-year-old junior at the Horace Mann School, is lanky, with black hair and long eyelashes. He loves to play sports, especially football and tennis. He speaks in a slightly stiff, respectful manner that suggests that he’s used to conversing with adults. He carries a BlackBerry with a crack down [...]
SmallBusinessComputing.com says there are times in running a business when it’s useful to get feed back from people who give you an honest answer. You know how it is with friends and family. You’ll say, ‘What do you think of this,’ and they’ll say ‘Oh great, fantastic, wonderful, you’re a genius,’ when what they really [...]
Baking And Business Go Hand In Hand For Mom
Fort Worth Business Press: The crowd was thick as honey around Earlene Moore’s booth during the recent inaugural Downtown Farmers Market in Arlington. The owner-baker has a 12-year record of success with her baked goods business aptly named Breads & Moore. But on this day, the entrepreneur was surprised to find her products quickly sold [...]
Jennifer Walzer Was Young, Fearless And Fed Up
Jennifer Walzer was one of more than 90,000 employees and referred to only as a number; never by name. She was feeling overlooked, overworked and underappreciated before starting the successful data storage company Backup My Info!in 2002 reports Entrepreneur. Walzer decided to take her first leap of faith and launch her first business in 1998. [...]
Service Puts Teen Messages On Hold
Texting while driving is foolhardy behaviour, with studies showing it’s more dangerous than getting behind the wheel when you’re drunk. A US company is proposing a solution. TXTBlocker is a combination of phone software and online services that stops drivers from calling or texting while in motion reports The Brisbane Times. Parents supply their child [...]
Ubergizmo is reporting that the Air Board is a $14,000 personal hovercraft that will float 8″ above the ground at all times, reaching a maximum speed of 15 mph while running around and about for an hour or so on just 1.3 gallons of gas. A couple of levers on the steering bar ensures you [...]
