Archive for December 2009
Bank Of America To Raise Small-Biz Loans
Reuters reports that the Bank of America Corp has pledged to loan an additional $5 billion to small businesses in 2010, after the top executives for the largest U.S. banks met U.S. President Barack Obama. Bank of America Chief Executive Ken Lewis pledged the bank will make at least $5 billion in additional loans to [...]
Mother & Daughter Team Get Into The Business Of Christmas
Naples Daily News: Based on their combined decor and business administrative expertise, a mother and daughter team has established a Christmas decor store just in time for season. Called Dash Away Dash Away, it is situated in the Marco Town Center next to Obsession women’s boutique. Heather Dill and her mom Susan decided to take [...]
New Business Has Your Bedding Needs Covered
Before you anyone can start their own business, they have to want it bad enough to work for it. That is exactly what Mary Shelton has learned as she works to get her new business off the ground. Since launching ComfortersandMore.com in June, Mary has worked hard to get the word out about her business [...]
Last week, we started a biz poll about the addition of tweet ‘comments’ and comments in general. Sixty-five percent of those responding said they NEVER read the comments. Twenty-nine percent said they read the comments, but never comment themselves and 6 percent said they always read the comments and sometimes add their own comments. Reader [...]
Game Developers Make More Than $1,000 A Month
Simple games based on Adobe’s Flash technology have multiplied like weeds in recent years, with an estimated 100,000 of them available on the web, mostly for free. But a significant number of Flash game developers have moved from amateurs to pros; a survey shows that one in five Flash developers make more than $1,000 a [...]
Niche Biz: Airport Napping Rooms
Tiny airport sleeping rooms — similar to the cubicles that Asian travelers use to catch a snooze in between flights — have arrived in America, reports USA Today. Atlanta, the world’s largest airport, opened five Minute Suites this month where tired passengers can doze for $30 an hour. The rooms — 7 feet by 8 [...]
Darryl Holland moves with purpose as he surveys the calm before the storm. It’s about 9:30 a.m. in early December, which means his company, Holiday LiteSource, will soon be abuzz with activity, reports The Avalanche-Journal. We’re always on the fly,” Holland said. That’s because Holiday LiteSource is a national player in the wholesale commercial holiday [...]
The ukulele, that four-stringed instrument that brings to mind kitschy Hawaiian grass-skirt performances and Tiny Tim, is suddenly hip, according to The NY Daily News. Roger Greenawalt credits the ukulele’s increased following to something he has dubbed the “Aloha Zen” effect. “It really transforms your mind,” says the 47-year-old, who first picked up the instrument [...]
Cheap & Simple Credit Card Processing
An entrepreneur may have the best product in the world, but if he or she doesn’t accept credit cards, it can be a problem. That’s something St. Louis glass artist Jim McKelvey learned the hard way, and it’s also why he was inspired to create Square, according to a report on trendspotter Springwise. Cofounded with [...]
YouTube Launches $5,000 Singing Contest
Who doesn’t love carolers? They show up at your door, sing a holiday favorite, and leave, imparting you with Christmas cheer. If caroling is your thing, but you’re not brave enough to bear the winter weather and go door-to-door, YouTube has a rewarding incentive for you to take your tunes to the Web and carol [...]
Cloth Diaper Boutique A Natural Fit For Mom
RocNow.com: The cloth diapers that Heather Holt sells at her new shop on Winton Road are a lot different from the plain white ones she wore as a baby. Safety pins have given way to Velcro or snaps. And this generation of baby bottoms is a lot more stylish. “You might have been able to [...]
Crazy Money Making Idea: Hauling Junk
After retiring from journalism, Lawrence Breer was looking for something to do and realized he had a pick-up truck that he could put to good use. So he started running ads in the local paper, offering his services to haul trash and junk from people’s garages, reports WalletPop. Breer says, “It turned into a bonanza.” [...]
Crazy Money Making Idea: Walking Advertisement
Dan Strong owns a business called StripWalker, which sounds dirty but isn’t. Starting January 1, for three hours a day, Strong will be walking along the Las Vegas Strip, wearing company’s T-shirts all day, and Twittering and texting about his experiences, all to promote his advertisers, reports WalletPop. It seems like a solid marketing idea. [...]
Crazy Money Making Idea: Playing A Patient
Betsy Hiebert is a wife, mom and grandmother in Manitoba, Canada. She holds several part-time jobs, but the oddest one is an acting gig (of sorts). Hiebert plays a patient at a teaching hospital, reports WalletPop. I’m given a script to follow,” says Hiebert. “I have to act as a patient with specific ailments, and [...]
Crazy Money Making Idea: Mystery Parker
Brian Hartley used to be a counterintelligence agent for the Army, now he’s going undercover — at parking garages in Boston, reports WalletPop. I get by, by undercover parking at garages in the greater Boston area and rating everything from the paint on the walls to the smell of the staircase to the cleanliness of [...]
Crazy Money Making Idea: Renting Storks
Not real storks, mind you. Rather, wooden or plastic stork signs alerting everyone that a baby’s just been born, reports WalletPop. Amy Stone, 40, never dreamed she’d find herself involved in such a quirky niche market, especially after her career as an executive for Federal Express, but the Memphis, Tenn. resident needed to do something [...]
Unique Products to Inspire and Amuse. Bacon Jelly Beans. Bacon, ’nuff said. Credit Card Lightbulb. You never know when you’ll need an idea! Hand-Cranked Penny-Dispenser. Turning the crank will yield one penny every 5.04 seconds, for $7.15 an hour (NY state minimum wage). Fried Egg Night Light. Will this give me crazy chicken nightmares? Photos [...]
As the Federal Reserve warns that it could be another five or six years before the job market returns to normal, determining if you’re unemployed and therefore eligible for unemployment benefits is probably going to affect many more people in the coming years. Determining whether or not you’re “unemployed” is tricky because of which jobless [...]
Shrewd Fliers Make Miles On Mint’s Mistake
According to The Wall Street Journal, A number of frequent flier fans took the Mint up on its offer of free shipping for bulk orders of coins. The fliers paid for their coins with charge cards that offered frequent flier mile rewards. When the coins arrived, the fliers took them directly to the bank to [...]
Fred Graduating From YouTube To Big Screen
Hollywood in recent years has raced to mine the Internet for raw talent capable of crossing over to traditional platforms like movies and television, the places where the real money is still made. Those efforts have largely failed, reports The New York Times. What works on the Web — rough-edged intimacy, quick bites — just [...]
Just Born, maker of the chick- and bunny-shaped marshmallow Easter treats called Peeps, is officially opening its first store devoted to well-known products, reports USA Today. The shop, at the National Harbor development near Washington, D.C., sells 850 Peeps products, including plush toys, clothing, china and a hand-blown glass Peep. “Our fans have asked us [...]
Skil Power Tools Seeks Innovative Products
Skil is seeking products that help do-it-yourselfers achieve project success in and around the house. For this search, Skil is interested in product innovations that solve a problem or address an unmet need. Skil will consider submissions for portable electronic power tools, bench top tools or even non-powered tools. Innovations should be geared toward mass [...]
Three Tax Strategies Small Businesses Can Do Now
The Wall Street Journal: Attention, small-business owners: it’s not too late to make some smart moves and slash your business’ 2009 taxes. To start with, some soon-to-expire tax breaks are too good to ignore if your operation is healthy enough to need and be able to pay for equipment and software. And there’s more. Here’s [...]
Are Entrepreneurs Born Or Are They Made?
CNNMoney.com: When Bill Gates’s children become adults, they’ll probably launch their own businesses. And not just because of their father’s example. Entrepreneurial tendencies — including the ability to recognize business opportunities — are heavily influenced by genetic factors, according to a study co-directed by Scott Shane, a professor of entrepreneurial studies at Case Western Reserve [...]
Inventor Eliminates Bedsores With New Hospital Bed
Southtown Star: About two years ago, David Jurus had what inventors call a flash of genius. The 73-year-old Oak Forest resident, who volunteers at a hospital, saw a patient he had befriended suffering terrible pain because of a common ailment – bedsores. So Jurus, who does home remodeling but really considers himself an inventor, went [...]
photo credit: Bruno. C. Those of you who have home offices definitely know how expensive your fixed costs to run that office can be. Granted, you can claim most of it on your taxes at the end of the year, but it’s still not enough of a savings. One really great way to save at [...]
Bout With Flu Puts Mom’s Business At Risk
CBC News: A single mother who recently realized her dream of opening a vegetarian restaurant could lose the business after a serious case of the flu. Liz Stanley opened Up the Road restaurant with the help of Momentum, a non-profit agency that helps low-income Calgarians get loans, manage money and start businesses. Opening a restaurant [...]
Small Bizs Are Finally Getting Into Facebook
American Express OPEN recently did a survey of 763 small business owners of companies with fewer than 100 employees and found that nearly 60 percent of their members feel challenged when finding innovative ways to market, but only 10 percent are even marketing through online social networks like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.com, according to a [...]
Renting a video from Redbox has always been cheap. The video rental company with the now ubiquitous red kiosks in supermarkets and other retailers charges $1 to pick up a disc, as long as you return it on time. But now one clever entrepreneur has figured out how to make it even cheaper, reports The [...]
Forbes has an interesting story about how much money you would save if you skipped Christmas. The single biggest category of Christmas spending is gifts. This year the National Retail Federation projects that spending on gifts will drop only slightly, after a dramatic decrease of over 30% during the 2008 holiday season. According to the [...]
Holiday Cards For Bacon Lovers Everywhere
Artist Mike Geno created a Christmas tree using only uncooked bacon strips, according to a story in The San Francisco Food Blog. The result is an eerily apt representation of the holiday perennial, with ribbons of fat filling in for strands of garland ? It’s even garnished with a tiny bacon star. Geno has committed [...]
Google Sues Work-At-Home Scammers
CNNMoney reports Google filed a lawsuit against Pacific WebWorks and other unnamed defendants for allegedly using the company’s name and colorful logo to promote fraudulent work-at-home money-making schemes. Thousands of people have been tricked into sending payment information and being charged hidden fees by questionable operations,” Google said in a blog post. The search engine [...]
GPS Collar Helps Owners Find Lost Pets
Trendspotter Springwise reports that GPS technology is enabling all kinds of new products and services on mobile devices, so why not on “mobile” entities of the four-footed kind? Pets, that is—many of whom have a tendency to roam at least as much as the average cellphone user. Enter SpotLight, a new solution that uses GPS [...]
Web Design Biz Gives Mom Balance
Firstcoastnews.com: When Melissa Rolli was laid off last December, she didn’t let it get her down. Instead, the mother of three young boys returned to school, and started her own business. Rolli, a student and mother who lives in Julington Creek, likes to bake and play with her three boys, who range in age from [...]
Parents Pay Less, Kids Play More With Educational Game Rentals
If you wanted to rent a game for your playstation or xbox, you never had to look much further than your local rental store. However, if you wanted to rent a game for your child’s v.smile, you were out of luck. That is, until now. Thanks to Jenny Scheidle and Christy Baker, the mom entrepreneurs [...]
Surrounded by shelves stocked with 180 different wooden train cars, Sandy Oliver boxes orders at Whittle Shortline Railroad in New London, Mo. (pop. 1,001). Then she stops and picks up a bright blue replica of The Little Engine That Could, reports American Profile. This is my favorite. I think it has personality,” says Oliver about [...]
According to a story at Fast Company, everything will soon be connected to the social net–we’ve said it before, but if you’re a social network denier then here’s proof positive: Now your tiny baby can status update too. The magic comes from Belgium’s Hasselt University and a course on mobile and pervasive computing–it was the [...]
Difference Between Fad and Trend
The Chicago Tribune has an interesting article about the difference between a fad and a trend. Zhu Zhu Pets are THE toy for Christmas. Every kid wants them. Cepia, the maker of Zhu Zhu Pets, is billing the toys as “the best alternatives to real live hamsters” because they “don’t poop, die or stink.” Stores [...]
A year ago, Glenn Beck’s semi-autobiographical novel, The Christmas Sweater, was atop USA TODAY‘s Best-Selling Books list and in the top 10 for three weeks. Now, it’s back on the list – and not just in its grown-up form. The Fox News host’s 284-page novel was No. 47 last week, and a new 40-page picture-book [...]
The New York Times has a story about a man with an interesting ‘job’. For the past 10 years, Jesus Leonardo has been cleaning up at an OTB parlor in Midtown Manhattan, cashing in, by his own count, nearly half a million dollars’ worth of discarded winning tickets from wagers on thoroughbred races across the [...]
Obama Offers Help for Small Bizs
In a speech on Tuesday, President Obama outlined proposals intended to promote job creation. They included incentives for small businesses to hire more workers, additional money to build roads and other construction projects and rebates for homeowners who invest in energy-saving weatherizing improvements, reports The New York Times. Obama did not put a price on [...]
Daughter Keeps Hand In Moms Biscotti
pennlive.com: When it came to divvying up baking duties in the family business, Putch & Buckie’s Baked Goods, Buckie always made the anise biscotti. The mother-daughter team of Dolores Sides, aka Buckie, and Sara Goulet, aka Putch, started their home-based Hershey business in 2003, using the family’s generations-old biscotti recipe. The unusual moniker came from [...]
Tips for Promoting a Small Business on a Budget
The following is a guest post from GreatStartups.com. photo credit: spiderpop With consumers tightening their purse strings, businesses are working overtime to attract customers and build a brand. Often times with a lean workforce, small business owners must be masters of self promotion to build a successful business. Here are five free or low cost [...]
The online marketplaces eBay and Amazon once seemed like surefire places to make extra money or to build an online retail business. It’s not quite so simple anymore, reports The New York Times. Identify product areas that interest you, and seek a niche. Rather than sell, say, digital cameras, you might sell a specialty tripod [...]
With the many items that can be customized today—from muesli to fabrics—the trend is still going strong. Case in point: Lip Balm Labz, a Canadian startup that lets consumers design their own lip balms, reports trendspotter Springwise. Customers can pick and choose from more than 20 tantalizing flavors to be mixed in their lip balm, [...]
What To Avoid In Your Mobile World
photo credit: jm3 Small businesses face enough challenges in the pursuit of success, and those that operate a mobile office have it even tougher. Why make avoidable missteps? Here are some mistakes to avoid in the virtual and mobile worlds: Not backing up your data. This is one of the most catastrophic mistakes a business [...]
photo credit: Omar Omar In today’s economy businesses, especially small businesses, need lending and it’s no surprise that banks are still leery of lending out huge sums of money to businesses on the off chance that they go under. I recently came across a great article located on Open Forum that offers some great alternatives to [...]
Microchip Wristband Becomes Theme Park Essential
Precision Dynamics Corp., a company that began making plastic hospital wristbands out of a Burbank garage more than 50 years ago, has become the nation’s top producer of a new microchip-enhanced wristband for amusement parks, concerts, resorts and gyms, reports The Los Angeles Times. The wristbands use the same technology as electronic tollbooths, security key [...]
Palm trees are ubiquitous in California and other states with a warm climate. Although they are beautiful trees, some homeowners find them to be a nuisance because they require routine maintenance when they get too large. The good news for these homeowners is that it is possible that their trees could be sold for hundreds [...]
According to a story on NJ.com, after nearly an hour of farewell kisses, Estelle Dansky planted one last smooch on Kobe. You be a good boy, okay?” the English teacher from Wanaque said as she placed her dog into waiting arms. “I’ll pick you up on Monday.” The two women are hardly friends. They connected [...]
