Archive for January 2010
The Intuit Small Business blog is reporting that the main reason a growing number of hobbyists are turning their passions into businesses is the costs of creating professional grade products has gotten cheaper and easier. The price of many advanced, computer-controlled tools, such as laser cutters, milling machines, 3-D printers and computer-aided design tools have [...]
When the daughter of a good friend passed away in 2008, entrepreneur Scott Wilson could have sent flowers, instead he paid tribute in his own way, doing what knows best — making t-shirts. A clothing manufacturer in San Marcos, CA for more than 30 years, Wilson screen-printed a photo of his friend’s daughter on the [...]
US Government Posting Wealth Of Data
The Obama administration is posting to the Internet a wealth of government data from all Cabinet-level departments, on topics ranging from child car seats to Medicare services, according to a story in The Washington Post. The mountain of newly available information comes a year and a day after President Barack Obama promised on his first [...]
Astronauts Finally Get Internet Access In Spaaaaaaaaaaace
In a high tech first — really, really high — astronauts in space finally have Internet access. Space station resident Timothy (TJ) Creamer had been working with flight controllers to establish Internet access from his orbital post ever since he moved in last month. On Friday, his effort paid off. He posted the first live [...]
The sexual harassment line is already forming in human resources.
New in the Directory This Week
One of the often overlooked sections of this website is our directory. Over 2300 different bizops, franchises, dealerships and online opportunities are listed there. Here are the new companies from this week: Business Opportunities Copy Center Cafe Glide Hair (Australia) Glide Hair (USA) King Bear Auto Services Centers Local MugShots Winfree Business Growth Advisors Franchises [...]
Manpacks Offers Delivery Of Clean Undies
Men, apparently we’re stupid. Stupid and lazy. If this isn’t news to you then have a look at ManPacks, delivered packs of socks, undies and T-shirts that will find you every 3 months without you having to do tedious things like leave the house, or even *gasp* go shopping. Red Ferret reports it’s a subscription [...]
Weird: ‘Human Bed Warming’ Service Launched In UK
Skynews: Holiday Inn, operator of over 4,000 hotels worldwide, will begin to offer a free five-minute “human bed warming service” at it’s London Kensington hotel throughout next week. If requested, a willing member of hotel staff will jump in your bed, dressed head to foot in an all-in-one sleeper suit, until your nightly chamber warms [...]
Home Biz Advice: Soapbxx and Daily Worth
First and foremost, I chose to run my business from home. When I started my Web consultancy, Soapbxx, it became a constant migraine with all the overhead and office space. I’ve been running Soapbxx from home now for four years. We are brutally honest with our structure and have never lost a client. I find [...]
Kick-Start: Write A Not-To-Do-List
There is a difference between being busy and being productive. What are you wasting time on? What are you doing that doesn’t produce revenue? Here’s a powerful exercise. In 15- to 30-minute increments, keep track of each of your activities during the workday. Do this for a week. Then annualize the total amount of time [...]
Best Way To Market My New Niche Biz?
Pattie Simone over at Entrepreneur magazine has a great answer to this marketing question. Successful campaigns in any platform come about as a result of careful research, brand development, testing various messages, offers and venues within an overall strategically planned action blueprint. Specifically, from a cursory review of your metadata, you could use better tags [...]
TechDirt is reporting that last week the International Jack Benny Fan Club got some very bad news. Rather than allow the club with the Benny family’s enthusiastic blessing to digitally preserve some unreleased public domain Benny show masters that CBS has in its possession, the network is giving a thumbs down to the idea — [...]
Out Of The Boutique & Into The Livingroom
The Orange County Register: Nicole Fields is shutting the doors of her San Clemente shop heralded by boutique lovers for its affordable glamour, but she’s not giving up on her fashion talents just yet. Fields 4 Dreams, a women’s clothing boutique at 308 N. Avenida de la Estrella, has been open about a year and [...]
Day-Old Chicks Shipped More Efficiently
I received the following as a press release, but I thought that the idea of chicks being sent through the mail made this story interesting enough to post. Endicia helps companies save money by maximizing productivity. And with the recent USPS price increase, it’s a great time for businesses of all sizes to start saving [...]
Starting a Customized Glass Etching Business
Starting a glass etching business can be a fun, exciting, and profitable niche business idea. There are a variety of things that you can etch to maximize your number of customers.
Giancarlo Massaro is a 20 year old college student and the founder of AnyLuckyDay.com. He has been promoting companies since January 2009. His initial idea was simple: he contacted companies to see if they would be interested in sponsoring a contest on his site. Unfortunately, being that his site was so new, no companies were [...]
Avon’s Little Sister Is Calling
Kristiauna Mangum, 22, a senior at Ohio State University in Columbus, said she always had a flair for makeup, but never considered it a professional calling. Then she heard about a pilot college program offered by Avon’s little sister brand, Mark, two years ago. “My mother was an Avon Lady, so I thought, huh, maybe [...]
Entrepreneur Takes A Sweet U-Turn
Judy Pomykata was breathless with excitement. She just got the contract of her life. Pomykata is a former event planner whose bridal clients kept asking for something different, like an open bar stocked with candy instead of vodka, scotch, wine and beer. She tried it and fell in love with the concept, reports The Orange [...]
Home Biz Advice: Shop Around Tours
One of the downfalls to being a home-based business is that if you wanted to, you could always be working. When I first started Shop Around Tours, it was so important to build the business, so whenever the phone would ring, I would answer, no matter what time of night it was. After answering a [...]
On Monday, we honored Dr. Martin Luther King, an American who played a major role in bringing about positive change in our nation. It’s appropriate that we also remember another renowned American this week — Benjamin Franklin, whose birthday was Sunday. Perhaps the preeminent Founding Father of our great nation, Franklin was born Jan. 17, [...]
1. How can I get franchise for business with McDonalds? Go to http://aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/franchising.html 2. Do you know of any incubator kitchens in Miami? I don’t, but perhaps one of our readers does. Any one? Leave a comment, or shoot me an email. 3. I have opening an online clothing company and I was wondering how [...]
Can You Make $5000/Month Selling Used Books on Amazon?
Selling used books is something that I have perfected over the few years that I have been doing it. It is an extremely easy, low risk, no capital required way to bring $5000 per month.
Kick-Start: Be A Student Of All You Do
You must become an expert in your field. How? Read! Ask questions of mentors and peers. Attend training. Start today by identifying areas for improvement, looking for training opportunities in your field and signing up for seminars and web-casts, reading or listening to personal-development material, seeking out people you would like to emulate and approaching [...]
The Internal Revenue Service reminds taxpayers to follow appropriate guidelines when determining whether an activity is a business or a hobby, an activity not engaged in for profit. In order to make this determination, taxpayers should consider the following factors: • Does the time and effort put into the activity indicate an intention to make [...]
Woolies Help Motivate Moms To Use Cloth Diapers
Mlive.com: Not long after beginning her adventure as a new mom, Sarah Eddy made a bold move for the sake of the environment. She switched to cloth diapers. “It’s not as icky as some people think it is,” Eddy said. After experimenting with various cloth diaper brands and styles, the 2005 Grand Valley State University [...]
Find A Little Gratitude In Your Day
When was the last time you were thankful for life? In a world where everyone seems to have a never ending schedule of appointments and no time to relax, the days tend to slip by unnoticed. Sometimes we forget to stop for a moment and remember that each day is a gift, although it’s not [...]
Nick Lessins and Lydia Esparza pride themselves on meeting high standards for quality, but not necessarily for catering to the demands of their customers. They are co-owners of Great Lake, a small Chicago pizza shop that has seen the mixed blessing of great reviews, reports The New York Times. The couple wanted to start a [...]
Best Hamster Wheel Sand Printer
There is another printer though, in a wheel form, not yet known worldwide that does not need ink or paper to print, but is faced on the other hand with the minor problem, that the letters «written» with it, disappear with every next incoming tide (or with the wind, when the sand used as base [...]
Procter & Gamble Testing Web Sales
The maker of Tide detergent, Pampers diapers and Gillette shavers is taking hundreds of its popular consumer products directly to shoppers through a new Web site, reports The Associated Press. The “eStore” that Procter & Gamble Co. is testing, an unusual venture for a consumer products manufacturer, could put it in direct competition with some [...]
New listing this week on the Business Opportunities Weblog Classifieds. Log Home Maintenance Free One Way Text Links National Telemarketing Company Looking For Products To Sell Nationwide Low Cost Opportunity! Free 14 Day Trial (no Credit Card Needed) – Only $10 A Month! Make $3, 000 A Month Be Your Own Boss – Anywhere!!! High [...]
Home Biz Advice: Callisto.fm and HyperSites
There are days where I won’t even open my Twitter or Facebook accounts, just so I can tune out and focus on my goals. Just because you are connected all the time doesn’t mean you have to be available all the time too. Set up absolute productive time for yourself where you don’t go on [...]
Kick-Start: Stop Using The “Bad Thing” Label
Whenever something happens that is not in line with our desires, we get disappointed. We stick the label “bad thing” on it. And when we do, we experience it as such. In truth, we do not know whether something unexpected is “good” or “bad,” and we may never know. When Greyston Bakery filled its first [...]
Five Proven Benefits Of Cloud Services
How can your company get started with cloud computing? Well, consider following the market leaders. With a few more months of client experience, Forrester Research recently addressed the major questions that executives have about the adoption of cloud services, reports David Deans over at Cloud Computing Journal. Benefit #1: Improving time-to-application deployment. Benefit #2: Aligning [...]
The Gazette: The tween years continue to present a fashion dilemma to girls and their parents, says Elena Grant. This is how the North Vancouver mother of three came to start Sofia-bella, an age-appropriate online boutique for girls that launched in September. “My daughter Sofia turned 12 and started to become conscious of what she [...]
If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry…
According to the official weather service, the United Kingdom has just suffered through its longest spell of freezing conditions since December 1981. The recent winter storms wreaked havoc with public transportation and generally disrupted the lives of millions of UK residents. In calculating which regions were affected and determining where snow was falling or not [...]
How to Present Like Steve Jobs
Next week Apple CEO Steve Jobs is expected to announce something big and shiny. Whether you use Apple products, or think that they’re overpriced, you can’t deny that Jobs is a great presenter. His stage persona has been carefully crafted to convey insane amounts of enthusiasm for whatever product he’s introducing that day. Whether it’s [...]
The second worst part about breaking a bone, after the pain, is that you have to wear a boring cast. Yes, it starts out fun. You can usually get them in a variety of colors, and your friends will all want to sign it, but after it will grow increasingly dirty and drab. Luckily, there [...]
Conan O’Brien Hits A Nerve With America’s Job Insecurity
Out of luck and out of jobs as the nation slowly tries to emerge from a recession, many Americans are finding in Conan O’Brien what they can’t find elsewhere — dignity in telling The Man to take a hike. WalletPop reports in O’Brien’s fight to keep his job as host of “The Tonight Show” and [...]
Fun Never Stops For Fun House Entrepreneur
Helen Stephens opened Our Fun House in Middlesbrough in 2008 to cater for parties and after-school activities for under-12s as well as offering adventure and educational play for toddlers, reports The Journal. She said: “I can’t deny that it was difficult to start up a business in the recession. A lot of people said we [...]
When we started Games2U, we put a list together of what we wanted it to be. We knew we didn’t ever want to have a retail business — mobile and home-based was essential to our concept. We wanted a business that needed very little head count, and one that anybody could own and operate on [...]
Kick-Start: Practice The One-A-Day Principle
You can’t delight everybody all the time but you can do something extraordinary for someone each day. Find a customer, colleague, relative or a friend each day and do something remarkable. Using the one-a-day principle will make your business and life remarkable. – Mark Sanborn, leadership development speaker and author of the best-selling book The [...]
How The Internet Changed Writing
Kevin Kelleher over at GigaOm has an interesting look at how the Internet has changed the way we write. With so much discussion about how the Internet is changing journalism and media, there’s surprisingly little said about how writing itself has transformed. But it has changed in a dramatic if subtle way. Nine years ago, [...]
Used Space Shuttles Now Almost ONE-THIRD Off!!!
NASA announced that the cost of buying a used space shuttle for display in your museum, educational facility or backyard has dropped from $42 million to the low, low, low price of just $28.8 million, reports The Houston Press. And that’s not all!! The delivery of these fine, almost one-of-a-kind vehicle has been moved up [...]
Own Your Own Professional Sports Team: The National Martial Arts League
For over sixty years, martial artists have honed their skills in one-on-one combat in hopes of being the best of best, or becoming the next Chuck Norris or Bruce Lee. But so far no one, including investors, has yet to reap the rewards this sport can generate when it breaks out of its current limitations. [...]
Jazz Up Your Email Newsletters
Do you send email newsletters to your customers and prospects? Smashing Magazine has some great tips for designing and sending your email newsletters. Respect your reader. Don’t waste their time or attention. Ask nicely first. Focus on relevance. Design with a goal in mind, so that you’ll know if it worked. Make unsubscribing easy. Code [...]
Book Store Owners: Attract Home Educators
photo credit: brewbooks Do you run a bookstore? If so, check out these ten tips for attracting home educators (home schoolers) into your store. Here are a few: 4. “How-to-homeschool” books are fine, but many parents have moved beyond this introductory stage and need content. Stock core texts in the main academic areas too: history, [...]
Selling Services to Medical Marijuana Providers
Imagine a business where everyone is very, very paranoid. Could you sell them sophisticated business management tools? John Lee of PlainView Systems thinks he can. CNNMoney.com: Entrepreneur John Lee thinks the pot business is ready for its own Amazon.com. The numbers back him up. Marijuana is California’s biggest cash crop, generating sales estimated at $14 [...]
Jewelry Designer Goes From Mobile Business To Boutique
CNNMoney.com: Entrepreneurial spirit and parental advice don’t always jibe, but sometimes mother does know best. It was Heather Key Tiller’s mom, Susan Foxworth, who in 2001 noticed the FOR RENT sign on an empty store at 47 John St. as the two left a nearby French restaurant. At the time, Tiller worked as an office [...]
ezShade For The Busy Family On The Go
If you’ve ever found yourself under one of those big umbrellas at the beach, then you’re probably well aware of how little shade they actually offer. One mom in particular, Linda Varga, took notice and decided to do something about it. From a moment of inspiration the ezShade was born. Linda’s product not only makes [...]
