Archive for March 2010
Petrol Pal: Gas and Oil Mixing Made Easy
In my garage, I have at least five different one-gallon gas cans with different ratios of motor oil and gas for all of the different power tools I own. A new product from Petrol Pal will eliminate this clutter and is just what I need. Petrol Pal is a pitcher designed with an adjustable divider [...]
Stroller Strides Right Into Raleigh
Jen Kedrowski is a nurse and she has her MBA but she always wanted to run her own business, says WRAL.com. “I heard of the brand and looked on the website and there weren’t any classes nearby,” she told me. “I was really surprised. This is a great mommy-owned business. Something you can do part-time.” [...]
Dress Disasters Are A Thing of The Past
According to the new website DressRegistry.com you no longer have to worry that you’ll show up at a gala or your prom wearing the same dress as someone else: Our goal is to lessen the chance that someone attending the same event as you will be wearing the EXACT same dress. We also hope we [...]
Now that it is spring, people are starting to brush the dust off of their sandals and preparing them to be worn once again. However that also means it is time to pretty up our feet for the occasion. The founders of T!ntalize, Sidney Dillard and Allyson Carey, had a similar problem. Allyson wanted to [...]
Entrepreneur Never Stops Learning
Have you ever wondered what is going on in the mind of someone who sees opportunity where others have not? That is easily a question you could pose to Mike LaVecchia, the founder of Grain Surfboards. Through their unique design his surfboards are revolutionizing the surf industry says Seacoastonline.com. Would you believe the adventure started [...]
The Most Elaborate Rube Goldberg Machine Ever
Musical group OKgo for their new song ‘This too shall pass’. For a behind-the-scenes look, go here.
New Bizop Classified Ads This Week
New listing this week on the Business Opportunities Weblog Classifieds. First Time In India In Mlm Provisions, Redymade Garments, Wine, Etc Need Income?? Turn Your Computer Into A Major Profit Centre!!! Groom Mate 888-886-1789 What Will You Do With Your Tax Refund? Spend It..then What? Put It In The Bank…..and Earn An Entire 3% Interest? [...]
Poochie Pets Finds Niche, Stays Local
According to a story in The Hartford Business Journal, it’s not the 40 percent growth a year or the international shipments that make Poochie Pets founder Cheryl Pedersen glow with pride. For Pedersen, her greatest joy comes from working with canines. Poochie Pets has been in business for five years, four of which were spent [...]
Do you have a website for new parents? If so, Amazon has a great deal over the next month on promoting their diapers, wipes and formula. For any sales of these items, Amazon Associates can earn an additional 10% advertising fee on each qualifying sale during the month of April 2010. Via Amazon: Starting [April [...]
Home-Based Firm Finds Niche In Small-Scale Globalization
The ‘Made in China’ tag has become synonymous with massive factories staffed by thousands of workers, stuff rolling off assembly lines in container-load quantities, reports The Vancouver Sun. But one home-based Vancouver company is chipping away at this widely held image. Twinklebelle Design Inc. is a tale of two sisters, a small sewing group and [...]
Are any chocolate bunnies or marshmallow peeps in your immediate future asks The Sun News? While it doesn’t have the weeks of buildup of Christmas and it doesn’t drive single-day sales as well as Valentine’s Day, Easter can still be big business. According to National Retail Federation’s 2010 Easter Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, Easter [...]
Greeting Cards That Are Good To You And The Earth
When it comes to sharing a special moment with friends and family or just letting someone know you care, nothing will ever replace the traditional greeting card. Unless, of course, you replace it with one that is earth-friendly. Launched by husband and wife team, Tom and Rene’ Bross, My Good Greetings has given them the [...]
Dropbox: Free Online Backup, Now Even Better
I recently wrote about my love of Dropbox, and today, I’m excited to report that Dropbox has announced something that makes their free service even better. In a nutshell, Dropbox is a free backup software that allows me to easily and securely backup the most important files on my computer to an external disk somewhere [...]
Before Karen Hewko’s son was 7 months old he could ask for an apple, a bath, and even identify a dog. And not one word had to pass his lips because he was able to use sign language, reports TheSpec.com. Karen Hewko, is the Hamilton-Burlington area franchise owner for My Smart Hands. As a certified [...]
Bestselling Books for Entrepreneurs
Each month, we highlight the bestselling entrepreneurship books on Amazon.com. Rework Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It Raving Fans: A Revolutionary [...]
Oogavé Soda Entrepreneur Hopes To Cash In On Investment
Stephen Anson was the owner of a natural foods restaurant in Denver. While he was happy with the menu, he was less than thrilled with the beverage options, reports the Greeley Tribune. His customers wanted soda, but part of the reason for opening a natural foods restaurant was to avoid processed, corporate products stuffed with [...]
Franchise Makes it Easier to Break Up
AOL Business has a great profile on the Fairway Divorce Solutions franchise: All’s fair in love and war, which may be why divorce often seems unfair. One person usually leaves the union feeling especially burned, either because he or she was blindsided and didn’t see the end coming, or because one person got the house [...]
NicheGeek: Chuck Gordon, then an art student at UCLA, balked at the thousands of dollars he would have to pay to store his belongings while spending a semester in Singapore two years ago. He ended up stowing his stuff in friends’ homes and garages. Gordon thought plenty of people with extra space would rent it [...]
How to Stand Out in a Niche Full of Scammers
Is your niche perceived as being full of scammers and jerks? You’re not like that, but how do you develop trust, build authority and be seen as authentic? There’s a great post up on Problogger with a few thoughts on the topic, none of them by themselves will flip a switch and make everyone trust [...]
Leave Your Mark… On Your Drink
When you’re with a group of friends and you all have identical looking beverages, what is to stop you from grabbing the wrong one and drinking out of it? Or worse, what’s to stop your friend from doing the same thing? It’s a problem that finally has a solution, says ABC7 Chicago. Drinkmarx are customizable [...]
New Book Offers Secrets to Teaching Youth How to Be Ethical Leaders
Frustrated with society’s lack of true leaders, long-time Twin Cities, Minnesota, business executive John Amann has co-authored MacAdemia Nuts, a new children’s book that teaches kids how to be ethical leaders – a key survival skill needed to advance in today’s work world and one that isn’t being taught in public schools. “Schools teach our [...]
The Christian faith holds several acts of “super-sizing” to be miracles accomplished by Jesus Christ — a handful of fish and loaves of bread expanded to feed thousands; a wedding feast running low on wine suddenly awash in the stuff. The Los Angeles Times reports a new study of portion expansion puts Jesus once more [...]
The Toiletpaper Entrepreneur has discovered a little used trick that makes the process of getting great testimonials real easy, and it employs a strategy called instant reciprocity. I’ll share the exact method in just a second, but first you have to remember the basics to great feedback… take excellent care of your customer. I mean, [...]
Secret To Work-At-Home Success
According to a story at Work-At-Home Success.com, many people make working at home more difficult than it is. That doesn’t mean working at home is easy or not without effort (as the scammers would have you believe). But some people get so bogged down in the details, they never actually get anywhere. Working at home [...]
Small Banks Can’t Win In Small-Biz Lending
According to a story in USA TODAY, David Harmer didn’t think he’d have a problem getting a $50,000 line of credit for his 33-year-old air-conditioning business. First Class of Cape Coral, Fla., was profitable. Harmer’s net worth was $2 million, and he’d never been late with a loan payment. As Harmer tells it, a bank [...]
Affiliate Program: TextAlert4U
TextAlert4U is an SMS-based mobile advertising service that enables you to send unlimited advertising text messages to an unlimited number of subscribers – on a bulk broadcast basis – any time you want, as frequently as you like, with no per-message charges and no phone company fees ever. The owner of the company sent me [...]
Womans History Month Highlights The Impact Of Latina Entrepreneurs On US Business
The Hispanic population is one of the largest and fastest growing minority groups in the US, so it comes as no surprise that Latina entrepreneurs are making a strong impact on US business, says My Latino Voice. Accrediting women for the work they have done opens doors for other women to follow their lead. Lisa [...]
Signs Urge Onlookers To Keep Fingers Off Baby
After Kimberly Levine had her son she soon learned just how much strangers like to look at and hold babies, says The Palm Beach Post. As sweet as their intent was, she also didn’t want just anyone walking over and touching her child. Inspired by the “baby on board” signs that people hang in their [...]
United Shipping Solutions is a third party provider of transportation services. They are one of very few companies with a contract to resell both small parcel and freight services. They are currently seeking people to become Independent Sales Agents to run their own transportation business in major markets throughout the United States. This is a [...]
Niche Biz: Dating for Gardeners
Cultivateadate.com (Cultivate a Date) is a dating website for people with a shared interest in gardening, horticulture, botany, and the environment. From the site: The newest and freshest way of finding people with a common interest in the world of flowers – in its widest connotation, anything botanical whether it be as basic as having [...]
WebSafety: Keeping Kids Safe Online
The following is a guest post by Gail Wallin. WebSafety launched in 2009 after several years of product development. Developed by a group of concerned parents, law enforcement officials and today’s top software engineers, the result is a company with advanced technology that empowers parents to protect their children in the cyber and cellular worlds. [...]
You Can’t Keep A Vintage Toy Entrepreneur Down
Carin Shaw refuses to let high rents or a tough economy stop her from launching her vintage toy shop, says Mountain Xpress. Vintage Childhood is devoted to the toys, books, quilts, decor, and dollhouses and miniatures that have made generations of children (and collectors) happy. She decided to rent a small permanent building at the [...]
According to a story in BusinessWeek, in the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Shaun White’s incredible snowboarding performance stands out. Shaun had already won the Gold Medal before he did his final jump. Even his coach told him: “Shaun, we have achieved what we came here for. You can take it easy now.” What did White [...]
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: Franchises Café Jubilee Cool Cycles Ice Cream Lenard’s NakedPizza Pal4Pets Two Small Men With Big Hearts Moving Co. Xpresso Delight Dealerships ClearView Invisible [...]
photo credit: caveman_92223 BusinessInsider: If you want to start a company and are working on new ideas, here’s how I’ve always done it and how I recommend you do it. Be the opposite of secretive. Create a Google spreadsheet where you list every idea you can think, even really half-baked ones. Include ideas you hear [...]
This looks interesting. Got a great idea? Let your Fans decide! Post your idea on our Wall, and a video, too if you’ve got a lot to say. Make a difference in the lives of those trying to make a difference by “Liking Up” the venture you feel are worthy. You just might make the [...]
Video: Best Homemade Used Car Sales Video
Is this video the best homemade used car sales video ever? via Autoblog.
Alyssa Ettinger at DIY Life discovered teacher and artist Liz Dickey, whose shop features curious clocks crafted from parts of old bicycle gears and reclaimed textiles. They’re so innovative we just had to learn more. She made her first clock quite by accident: her boyfriend had lots of bike gears hanging around and she was [...]
The Rise of Saturday Landlords
The following is a guest post by Brian Davis. Anyone who’s tried to sell a piece of real estate in the last three years has likely had a lengthy, dispiriting selling process, filled with compromises and sacrifices. Prices dropped, mortgage lenders tightened up, would-be buyers lost their jobs, others postponed buying to shore up their [...]
The billboard systems provide a new unique outdoor advertising format to reach audiences in any coastal location or waterfront event. “It’s the only product of its size and kind that works. It’s never missed since you have no visual competition out on the water” says Peter Fleck of Sliders Inc. Mitsubishi, McDonald’s, Disney, and Red [...]
Toys That Inspired Scientific Breakthroughs
Scientific American reports advances in science and technology can launch from unassuming springboards. In 1609 Galileo tweaked a toylike spyglass, pointed it at the moon and Jupiter (not the neighbors), and astronomy took a quantum leap. About 150 years later, Benjamin Franklin reportedly used a kite to experiment with one of the earliest-known electrical capacitors. [...]
Get Better Visibility On Google
USA TODAY’s Jefferson Graham interviews Google engineer Matt Cutts on how to get your site to the top of Google with 5 basic, common sense SEO tips.
Will you buy an iPad when they become available this week? Yes No Waiting for reviews and comments from users View Results Photo by Apple.
In this excerpt from the book Mint Condition: How Baseball Cards Became an American Obsession, Dave Jamieson explains how baseball cards first became seen as promising investments, setting the stage for a decade of speculation and overproduction: Around the mid-1970s, a small cabal of serious baseball card collectors grew wise to the fact that their [...]
Seven Tips for Those Considering a Consulting Franchise
photo credit: lirneasia The following is a guest post by Miles Lee. As more and more corporate executives lose their jobs or go into early retirement, business-to-business consulting franchises are becoming more and more popular. All it takes is a search for business coaching, cost containment, factoring, internet services, financial services, to name a few, [...]
Invention Finding Favor In Snowsports
The Otago Daily Times is reporting that a Wanaka entrepreneur’s snow-grooming invention will be shaping park features at two of the resort’s skifields this winter, after gaining valuable exposure from the recent Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Development Snowparks director John Melville’s “Global Cutter” invention – a custom-designed and laser-guided halfpipe shaper – was released on [...]
Golf Tee Inventor Takes His Best Swings
Mario Caya, who designed a new style of plastic tee, called ‘BIRTEE’, to help make it easier to place the ball at the correct height each time someone lines up their shot, says there have been some encouraging developments the past couple of months, reports Smith Falls EMC. He says he has received corporate approval [...]
Remember summer when you were a kid? No school, going to the pool and playing baseball were all rites of passage. So was building a lemonade stand. What was better than getting together with your friends, having fun and making money? Today, tens of thousands of kids continue this time-honored tradition on May 2, but [...]
Design Your Own Stuffed Creatures
Stuffed animals never seem to go out of style. With each new generation they just get more and more creative. Now, instead of hitting the toy shelves for your next new friend you can design one instead. Using the kid-friendly design tools on the CurlyQ Cuties website, anyone can quickly design their own unique stuffed [...]
According to a story at trendspotter Springwise, three soups are typically on the menu in any given week at SoupCycle. Consumers who live or work in the Portland, Ore., company’s delivery area begin by checking out the selections for the following week and placing their order by midnight on Friday; rustic bread, salad and dressing [...]
