Archive for 2009
Montreal Gazette: There’s really no need for it, but North Americans now are in the habit of replacing their pillows every two or three years. Which suits Nino Saad just fine. Saad is the head of Les Accessoires Sleep Comfort Inc., a small family business that has found a niche making and stuffing pillows. Its [...]
Pioneer Woman, Internet And Publishing Sensation
The Los Angeles Times: Ree Drummond likes to call herself an accidental country girl and she considers herself something of an accidental cook. But there’s nothing accidental about the success she’s built combining those two. Drummond writes the Pioneer Woman blog and gets about 13 million page views a month, enough to spin off a [...]
Consumers Say “No” to Paid News Content
Website Magazine: Times are tough in the publishing world. And the news doesn’t seem to be getting any better. A new survey from PaidContent:UK and Harris Interactive polled nearly 1,200 UK readers and found that a scant five percent would consider paying for their “favorite” news site if it began charging for access. Close to [...]
Small Bizs See U.S. Economy Improving
Reuters: Many U.S. small businesses are optimistic about growth and see the economy improving in three to six months, according to a survey released on Friday. Four out of five small businesses are pursuing a moderate or aggressive growth strategy, expanding into new markets and producing more revenue among existing customers, according to the survey [...]
Build A Better Bulb For $10 Million
The New York Times: The ubiquitous but highly inefficient 60-watt light bulb badly needs a makeover. And it could be worth millions in government prize money — and more in government contracts — to the first company that figures out how to do it. Right now, that company could be Philips, the Dutch electronics giant. [...]
Fast Company: Just how far away can one get from the convenience of McDonald’s at any given time? Turns out, not very. Stephen von Worley at Weather Sealed set out to chart the urban sprawl of America by mapping the 13,000+ locations of McDonald’s across the lower 48 states. With the aid of Agg Data, [...]
Unique products to inspire and amuse. Shredder Scissors. You don’t even want to think about running with these. Underwear Repair Kits. You can blame the recession for this one. Bacon Belt. The neighborhood dogs will love you. Do My Back. When your Twitter followers drop to zero. > Photos by usefulthings.com/Trend Hunter/Perpetual Kid/HSN.
The Washington Post: Washington is about to be Dan Browned. The inciting incident is the release of “The Lost Symbol,” the third installment of Brown’s mondo-selling adventure zeitgeist, sequel to “Angels & Demons” and “The Da Vinci Code.” In “The Lost Symbol,” Langdon is back again, this time racing through Washington. What exactly he’ll be [...]
Inc. Magazine Lemonade Stand Winners
Inc.: Meet the next generation of entrepreneurs! This year’s contest winners proved that they have what it takes to run a successful business, from hours spent peddling lemonade on the beaches of New Hampshire to the elaborate details that went into constructing their lemonade stands.
Customizing Your Small Business Blog
photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com It has been said many times that even small businesses should have a website that includes a very well put together and active blog center. Your blog helps you to connect with your online community by allowing them to leave comments, ask question’s, and more. This is also a great [...]
Looking For A Job? Study Shakespeare
WalletPop: Soaring unemployment has plenty of people wondering how to improve their odds in today’s ultra-competitive job market — and do something constructive with all of their extra free time. The National Association of Colleges and Employers’ Job Outlook 2009 report found that among the traits that employers want the most in a job candidate, [...]
Balance Work And Personal Life
photo credit: hans s When we set out to start up our own business we do it with the belief that we will be able to spend more time with our family and those who mean the most to us. While it usually starts out that way, soon our business grows and begins to demand [...]
Not Your Average Jack-O’-Lantern
The News Tribune: It’s tough to miss Russ Leno, a 15-year institution at the Puyallup Fair. The 57-year-old mechanical engineer can usually be found dressed head to toe in black and orange, carving away at a giant pumpkin. Leno’s pumpkin sculptures hardly resemble the typical Halloween jack-o’-lantern. Rather than carving primitive eye and mouth holes [...]
Fast Company: Probably, many times you have thought about going back to your corporate job to help out with the family finances, right? It’s a hard decision to make when you financially need a two income household, but you want to be able to stay at home with your children and provide for them. Add [...]
WSJ: After years of catering to women, manufacturers are setting their sights on men. The new macho mattresses they’re introducing have “muscle-recovery properties” and cooling technology, on the theory that men are more likely to feel too hot in bed. The bed frames feature built-in TVs, iPod docking stations, wine coolers, safes and other guy-friendly [...]
Tongue Depressor Business Cards
This is a neat idea: “Open wide and say aahhh. Great. Now turn your head and letterpress some tongue depressor business cards. We just printed these for MCAD design undergrad Matt Van Ekeren. The cards are for his soon to launch website designthattalks.com The simplicity of the idea here is brilliant. The business card object [...]
What do you know about the toothpick industry? Here are a couple of links that might enlighten you: The Straight Dope: Toothpick manufacturers (most of them are in Maine) steam birch logs to make them easier to cut, then “veneer” them, which means they peel each log into a thin sheet, sort of like unrolling [...]
A Lovely Favor Brings Together Party Shopping And Planning
Party planning is a tough job, but someone has to do it. If that someone is going to be you, then you’ll want to have your hands on the best resources and the best products to choose from. A new website, A Lovely Favor, hopes to be your one stop party shop. Although it is [...]
Innovative Vending Solutions, the company behind Mobil-Tee-Vending, also has a baby product vending machine. Innovative Vending Solutions is looking for owners of our newest machine, the Baby Station. This machine is a technologically advanced vending machine that will dispense impulse baby products for parents/guardians on the go. The machine will dispense products such as diapers, [...]
How ‘Horrendous Failure’ Led To Rock Band
CNNMoney: Video game developer Harmonix just launched the wildly anticipated The Beatles: Rock Band, uniting one of the most popular video game franchises ever made with history’s biggest rock band. The collaboration is the work of a 320-employee company now owned by MTV. But it wasn’t so long ago that Harmonix’ founders — Alex Rigopulos [...]
Customised Cookies, Baked To Order
Springwise: Toronto’s Sweet Flour Bake Shop, lets patrons design their own baked treats and eat them fresh from the oven just two minutes later. More than 15,000 possible combinations face Sweet Flour customers, who begin by choosing the cookie dough base they’d like: original, peanut butter or oatmeal. From there they can choose from among [...]
Not Every Customer Is A Good One
photo credit: Mirko Macari I’m sure you have heard the timeless saying of “the customer is always right”, this usually implies that the customer is not necessarily right, however, you don’t want to loose them or create bad word of mouth advertising through them so you comply with their wishes. Entrepreneur.com: Of course, there’s a [...]
PioneerLocal.com: Jeff Niemiec just wants everyone to think pink. Toward that end Niemiec, owner of Pink Inc., turns out thousands of pink flamingos a year at his Morton Grove plant. They are the kind of plastic birds you can see decorating lawns across the country – pink plastic bodies, painted beaks and metal legs. Niemiec [...]
photo credit: orinrobertjohn The SBA needs a table that runs 37 pages plus footnotes just to define small business. via Jeff Cornwall who added: “This is just one small example why we don’t need government steering our economy and making decisions about economic winners and losers.”
Annoying Facebook People That You Don’t Want To Be Like
photo credit: Rennett Stowe The most annoying thing to me about Facebook is probably the endless quizzes I get invited to take and games I get asked to play. I’m kinda busy for all that. The “Mafia Wars” game seems to be particularly popular with people I know. I don’t know what it is exactly [...]
Ask Before You Redo Your Website
photo credit: Stuart Frisby If your contemplating taking the time and paying the money to have someone completely redo your whole website, there may be some thing’s that you should think about, consider, and ask before you give the final go ahead to redo everything. Redoing your website is a great idea, but it is [...]
Inc. Magazine Lemonade Stand Winners
Inc.: Meet the next generation of entrepreneurs! This year’s contest winners proved that they have what it takes to run a successful business, from hours spent peddling lemonade on the beaches of New Hampshire to the elaborate details that went into constructing their lemonade stands. Weekly Winner: Kamalani and Brayden Fielder, Ages 9 & 6, [...]
Has Your Work Taken Over Your Life?
photo credit: notsogoodphotography One of the interesting things about coaching is how much you learn about yourself in the process of working with clients. Many of the executives I coach are facing the same issues as me, albeit on a much larger scale: they are in a perpetual state of overload and stress from [...]
Entrepreneur: Losing is never fun. When you invest significant time and resources pursuing a deal and it falls through, it’s frustrating – and invariably causes some self-reflection. Here are 10 guidelines you can apply to your own loss analysis: 1. Interview internally and externally. 2. Choose an objective individual to conduct the interview. 3. Don’t [...]
photo credit: Mariano Kamp Open Forum: You rely on referral sources. Note I said “rely on.” Building a network of referral sources and having them recommend you to their friends and family, these are always good things. But relying on them is a big mistake. That’s because you pass control of your own destiny on [...]
Inventor’s Digest: Inventor Web sites are a way to get good information. The trick here is to be sure you have found a trustworthy site. The invention scammers often have slick, professional Web sites that lure unsuspecting novice inventors in with offers of free “invention kits.” This is information that is free on the USPTO [...]
A Look At Working From Home Through A WAHM Vetern
examiner.com: I’ve been working from my home for about nine months now, and still figuring out the ins and outs of this new situation. As it turns out, one of my neighbors has been working from home for over 12 years and has some great insight on how it works for her. Here is my [...]
Your Pro Kitchen Helps Food Entrepreneurs Get Their Business Cooking
Started by a mother/daughter team, Your Pro Kitchen offers Florida food entrepreneurs a chance to start their own professional food business. They also offer classes that will help you get your feet off the ground while you wait for your permit to be approved. Unfortunately they are limited to Florida at this time but hopefully [...]
Bits, Bytes & Bots Computer Adventures
Bits, Bytes & Bots Computer Adventures is a home based computer education business. You can run computer camps, teach classes in your school, offer new programming for your school, museum or recreation center, supplement your current child-oriented business with new programs and offer exciting birthday parties. Best of all, kids, parents and teachers love our [...]
Gadget Lab: Scott Amron, friend of Gadget Lab and serial-innovator, has come up with yet another why-didn’t-I-think-of-that invention: The rather painful sounding Split-Ring Key-Blank. The key blank, which can be taken to your locksmith and cut to fit your locks, incorporates its own keyring: Instead of a tiny hole, you get a more-or-less standard split-ring, [...]
Entrepreneur: In the beginning, there was the notion of just a single washable kilt. A loose, comfortable garment that, Steven Villegas says, “I could walk around naked in.” And because you couldn’t just go out and buy a man-skirt in those days, Villegas made one. And when he saw how nicely it fit him, he [...]
NYDailyNews: It was a business idea that seemed right for the times: taking a legendary dessert treat and making it nutritious. Since forming small but thriving People’s Pops in April, these Brooklyn entrepreneurs have barely kept up with demand. The company makes about 1,200 popsicles a week, up from 300. “Week after week we’ve pushed [...]
Inc.: From protective vests to synthetic dirt, a number of small companies play a big role in the world of horse racing. Horse racing is a dangerous sport, for both horses and humans. To protect jockeys who fall from their mounts, Santa Anita stretches this blue safety netting, made by Los Angeles — based Canvas [...]
Practical Small Business SEO And SEM Marketing Ideas
photo credit: rachaelvoorhees crowdSPRING is a small company (our team is 10 people). For a small company, efforts spent on one marketing initiative typically take away from other marketing initiatives. Entrepreneurs and small businesses often ask us about how we market – and especially about SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (paid search). Here are [...]
You Should Choose An Internal Successor
photo credit: notsogoodphotography When you have reached the point where you’re moving up in the company or moving to a better position at a different company, it is important who you choose as your successor. Many people wonder if they should choose someone within the company already or if they should look elsewhere. The answer [...]
Coloradoan.com: A local entrepreneur’s latest invention may sound like the latest must-have children’s toy this Christmas, but is making its mark on the gift wrapping industry. Liz Mrofka, president of the Fab Fob Company, LLC, invented the Fobbie, which is a small decorative circle that can be affixed to packages. In May, the Fobbie was [...]
New Government Rules on Garage Sales
Fox News: Americans who slap $1 price tags on their used possessions at garage sales or bazaar events risk being slapped with fines of up to $15 million, thanks to a new government campaign. The “Resale Round-up,” launched by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, enforces new limits on lead in children’s products and makes it [...]
photo credit: sunshinecity I recently read an article posted on Seth’s blog regarding business priority lists. It is shocking how some have one but they are short and incomplete, as well as some that do not even make priority lists all together. Maybe this is why many of us from day to day feel overwhelmed [...]
Milkmade is a membership-based ice cream company that hand-delivers fresh, homemade ice cream to New York City residents. Each month, members choose from a menu of five uniquely handcrafted flavors made with organic, locally sourced ingredients. Milkmade creates each batch with care and creativity to bring unique, seasonal, and darn tasty ice cream straight to [...]
Inc. Magazine Lemonade Stand Winners
Inc.: Meet the next generation of entrepreneurs! This year’s contest winners proved that they have what it takes to run a successful business, from hours spent peddling lemonade on the beaches of New Hampshire to the elaborate details that went into constructing their lemonade stands. Weekly Winner: Tommy Walters, Age 11, Silverdale, Washington Lemonade Stand: [...]
Leverage Google’s Free Tools To Find Niche
Orlando Internet Business Examiner: Finding the right niche is an important step as you plan and build your web site. You want a specific enough niche so that you don’t have a great deal of competition, but you also do not want too specific of a niche to where nobody knows it exists. First, let’s [...]
Small-Biz Owners Fret Over Large IRS Fines
The Wall Street Journal: Five years ago, car-wash owner Orman Wilson set up a pension plan for himself and six employees. For that, he may owe the IRS a $1.2 million tax penalty. Mr. Wilson, the owner of 19 coin-operated car washes in Houston, says he relied on four advisers, including a certified public accountant, [...]
North Can Mom Enjoys Best Of Both Worlds
Canada.com: Some people think it’s impossible to balance being a mom and a career woman — but Sandy Gerber is proving them wrong. The Delbrook mother of two is in the running to be the 2009 SavvyMom Mom Entrepreneur of the Year, an honour that she couldn’t be happier to have. “It’s really exciting for [...]
DateCheck: A PI in Your Pocket
Looking for someone to date but want to avoid the the deadbeats and criminals? A new iPhone application called DateCheck is like having a “private investigator in your pocket”. Today’s dating scene is tough to navigate, which is why Intelius developed DateCheck, a free mobile app that deciphers fact from fiction in the palm of [...]
Wow, how times have changed. In August 1993, the Chicago Sun Times ran an article about the T-Shirt business in which they said: The T-shirt business has always been one of the easiest small businesses to get into. Just about anyone with a few thousand dollars’ worth of equipment and a box of shirts can [...]
