Archive for June 2010
Selling Fake Oil Spill Souvenirs
Jeffrey and David Shiffman are consummate entrepreneurs, attempting to make money off of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. They’ve turned their bathtub into a chemistry lab and are making and bottling “Oil Spill Water” to sell on their website oilspillwater.com. Originally, they were using the actual polluted water from the [...]
Why Are Weddings So Expensive?
The modern American couple starts life with a heavy financial burden: In a big city like Chicago, the average wedding costs between $22,500 and $37,500. Yet in the 1930s, it was cheap, costing around $400. There’s no question that wedding prices are out of control. What went wrong?
Facebook Friends Connect In Business
No story starts out sounding much stranger than it does for this group. Having connected on Facebook they left all of their friends and family behind to live in a house together, many miles from home. Together they hope to launch the next go-to brand in social media marketing reports The Orange County Register. It [...]
Marilyn Monroe’s Chest X-Ray Sells For $45,000
Someone must’ve really liked Marilyn Monroe – either that or chest X-ray – because they’ve shelled out $45,000 for it, reports Neatorama. A 1954 x-ray of the stunning starlet’s chest sold at auction in Las Vegas on Sunday for a sizable $45,000. This was well above the estimated $800 to $1,200 it was expected to [...]
Fans Of “Facebook With Training Wheels”
The San Jose Mercury News checks in with the creator of Togetherville, a website often called “Facebook with training wheels.” Although he declined to discuss figures, the website’s creator says parents are embracing the idea of a social networking site where they have the control. The company, which just secured venture capital funding, says it [...]
Getting Their Home Out Of The Mud Using T-Shirts
Two mom wanted to help the people around them get unstuck so they started up a small side business to help raise money for flood victims in Tennessee, according to jacksonsun.com. “We wanted to do something for West Tennessee,” Beth Murley said. “There are a lot of fundraisers for Nashville and Middle Tennessee … And [...]
Flying Car Goes into Production
The Terrafugia Transition, a light aircraft that looks like a Volkswagen Beetle and can convert into a road-legal automobile, is to go into production after being given a special weight exemption by the US Federal Aviation Administration. The car/plane will be available for $194,000. The press release is available after the jump.
Recurve, a six-year-old construction company in the Bay Area, focuses on energy audits and “home performance retrofits”—that is, making houses use less energy, reports Bloomberg Businessweek. The company is also developing software to help other contractors record, track, and report data on energy savings for clients. Founder Matt Golden says Recurve’s employees help about 30 [...]
TechCrunch: The iPhone 4 hasn’t even been out a week and already awrapforthat.com has popped up to make vinyl skins that wrap around the perimeter of the device. Why would anyone want that? Because of the iPhone 4 antenna issues — the so-called “Death Grip” problem.
Can A Ball Help Kids Learn Braille?
Imagine if you could pick up Braille just by playing with a ball. Fast Company reports that a new conceptual toy by recent Pratt grad Danielle Pecora is designed precisely for that. Be-B is a ball that helps kids, blind or not, learn Braille through touch and sound. Looking a bit like a stiff Koosh [...]
KansasCity.com: It was December 2008, and Jason Day had something to show his barbecue contest teammate Aaron Chronister. Day, having thrown back some holiday cheer at one Christmas party, showed up late in the evening for his second party, at Chronister’s place in Brookside. Day walked into the kitchen, tossed on the table a Styrofoam [...]
States Ease Food Safety Rules For Homemade Goods
The Associated Press reports that federal and state laws require that most food sold to the public be made in licensed facilities open to government inspectors. But as more people become interested in buying local food, a few states have created exemptions for amateur chefs who sell homemade goods at farmers markets and on small [...]
Many of us still don’t want to look the recession directly in the eye. We would rather acknowledge it in a back corner of our mind, and remain positive in the front of our mind as if there is nothing wrong. If you are one of these business owners who would rather remain positive up [...]
Many business owners often times reach a point in their business career where they realize that their business is in desperate need of enhancement, but yet they don’t usually know how to go about doing this. Well below are a few ideas for those of you who may find yourself at this point with your [...]
Business Card Redesign Contest
MOO.com, a custom business card printer, is offering free business card redesigns for 500 small businesses. To apply for MOO’s Business Card Project, submit a existing business card online and fill out a short application, including a 100-word essay about why your card needs a redesign. Entries will be accepted until August 31, 2010.
The X Prize Foundation, which fueled private space travel with their ten million dollar prize for the first rocket capable of making reliable flights into space announced a new prize this weekend. They will award $3 million for a cleanup of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. CNN has the details.
Discovery News: Dentists could soon hang up their drills. A new peptide, embedded in a soft gel or a thin, flexible film and placed next to a cavity, encourages cells inside teeth to regenerate in about a month, according to a new study in the journal ACS Nano. This technology is the first of its [...]
According to The Morning Sentinel, it’s easy to learn, fun, and extremely popular, say those who play pickleball. Say what? Yes, pickleball. You might call it a cross between badminton, pingpong and tennis. It’s played with a net, paddles and a ball with holes in it, similar to a Wiffle ball. The game, while developed [...]
Inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil sat in his office late last week, confidently spinning scenarios with timelines that stretched to 2020, 2030, and beyond, according to The Boston Globe. But the near-future was also on his mind: WorldFuture 2010, the annual conference organized by the World Future Society, scheduled for July 8-10 at the Westin [...]
Microfinance Goes Where Banks Fear To Tread
Gentle Parking has grown quickly since William Ortiz-Cartagena started the San Francisco company two years ago. He now employs 25 people and says he turns a decent profit running six parking lots, including two he manages for the city. When he decided to bid on a contract to run another city-owned lot, though, two banks [...]
Painting The Mountains… Literally
Telegraph.co.uk: By painting the mountains, Eduardo Gold hopes to replicate the effect of Andean glaciers, which reflect back sunlight and hence heat back through the atmosphere. The technique is scientifically plausible and, according to some scientists, may be the only method of lowering global temperatures in a crisis. “A white surface reflects the sun’s rays [...]
The Early Bird Really Does Get The Worm
People whose performance peaks in the morning are better positioned for career success, because they’re more proactive than people who are at their best in the evening. According to Harvard Business Review, biologist Christoph Randler surveyed 367 university students, asking what time of day they were most energetic and how willing and able they were [...]
The Entrepreneurial Rollercoaster
It takes a little bit of insanity, according to Tina Paparone writing for Reuters, to start a business but sometimes it just might send you over the edge too. How do you stay sane? After two years of being on the rollercoaster ride of entrepreneurship, these are the things I’ve found help me manage the [...]
Founder and president Sarah Beatty bills Green Depot as the country’s largest green building supplier, with 10 showrooms and 20 warehouses across the Northeast. She says the fast-growing business isn’t expanding merely for the sake of growth, but to make sustainable building products accessible and affordable so they can be easily adopted in standard construction. [...]
Work At Home Scams Popping Up On Twitter
With thousands of people out of a job right now work at home schemes are popping up all over the internet, Vegas’ 13 Action News reports. The latest one involves Twitter. Scammers are using the pitch that you can make money by sending emails or posting links on Twitter or by placing ads on Google [...]
Add A Little Spice To Your Life
I think it is pretty safe to say that people enjoy their food with a little spice. While some prefer it be slightly mild, there are some people that truly enjoy their food full of spice and heat. Bob de Gouveia is one of those individuals. He loved to spice up his foods, especially curry. [...]
Should You Pay To Trademark Your Product Or Service?
According to a story at VentureBeat, filing for a federal trademark can be an expensive endeavor, costing thousands of dollars. So unless you have the resources, it might be best to try more cost effective ways of protecting your brand. The good news is you don’t necessarily have to do anything to have a protectable [...]
Online banking is a double-edged sword for small businesses: It’s easy and convenient, and yet it makes them vulnerable targets for cybercriminals. There are a lot of small businesses out there, and they don’t all have the big budgets for IT resources or a large staff. Another potential downside is that as a small business, [...]
Many professional bloggers tend to have a hard time updating or improving their blog in order to receive the very best out of their blog. I have put together a small list of some tips that you can follow in order to improve your blog instantly and be sure to get the most out of [...]
Open Forum: There are 130 million blogs on the Internet (according to Technorati), and 350 million people reading blogs daily (according to Comscore). Clearly, engaging with influential bloggers can be a real boon to your business, if you can win them over towards your brand and persuade them to evangelize your product. Rather than offering [...]
Get Others To Promote Your Biz
Dead Apple Tours organizes tours to the sites where famous New Yorker’s have died or where New York City deaths have taken place. Smallbiztechnology.com spoke with Drew Raphael, founder of Dead Apple Tours about his company’s growth and online marketing. Photo by Dead Apple Tours.
According to the New York Daily News, this baseball cap is totally kosher. A Manhattan man has invented what he calls the “yamulkap,” a yarmulke with a brim like a baseball cap so religious men can get some shade. Seth Mosler, 59, who is Jewish but not strictly observant, was walking through Central Park two [...]
Niche Biz: Emergency Pet Transport
Cheryl Brady, owner of Vet Care Express, said she founded the Bradenton business in November because there was a big need for emergency transportation for sick and injured animals, reports Bradenton.com. After helping a friend who had run over a dog, Brady began to wonder what she would have done if the animal had survived [...]
The SpaCapsule is a non-invasive technology that provides treatments for nearly any beauty, health, fitness, wellness and sports facility. The system aids in a variety of areas such as weight loss, massage or anti-aging. The machine, which uses a secret jet technology, is built with some of the most advanced materials available, creating positive experiences [...]
Todd Smith, Jess Lin, and Greg Wong, partners at a design firm in New York, started Hello Rewind in February to help victims of sex trafficking in New York. Bloomberg Businessweek reports that the company makes custom sleeves for laptops out of old t-shirts, but its underlying mission is to help sex trafficking victims prepare [...]
Fashionista Turned Pet Food Mogul
MSNBC: Marie Moody’s career went to the dogs. Specifically, to two pooches: Stella, a terrier blend, and Chewy, an Airedale-Shar-Pei mix. Stella and Chewy led this fashion rep to leave the world of design and start her own dog food company. Since there weren’t any commercial raw dog foods available, Moody decided to make meals [...]
Young Food Entrepreneurs Make Their Future By Hand
Young, college-educated, Internet-savvy, unemployed and hoping to find a place in the food world outside the traditional route, Fabiana Lee, is typical of the city’s dozens of new food entrepreneurs. The New York Times reports that as the next generation of cooks comes of age, it seems that many might bypass restaurant kitchens altogether. Instead, [...]
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, writes Success magazine. When Greyston Bakery [...]
Another Blow To Small Biz Credit
With revenues at his six-employee construction business on track to jump 10 percent this year, to $2 million, Gary Desilets thought he’d be able to get credit pretty easily. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, as it turns out, securing financing is harder than he expected because his trade creditors—suppliers that let companies buy now and pay [...]
Biggest Mistakes Owners Make When Selling Their Company
photo credit: timparkinson John Warrillow, the author of Built To Sell: Turn Your Business Into One You Can Sell, knows about selling businesses: He has started and exited four companies. His new book is a compact and essential guide to anyone who plans to sell their business. Suggestion: buy the book a couple of years [...]
Keys To Building A Successful Business
photo credit: Stars*Go*Blue We all want to succeed at everything we do in life, especially that of a small business opening. You put so much effort, time and money into opening up your new business that of course you want to see it succeed in all aspects that it can. I recently came across a [...]
Small Business PR Plan For Today
photo credit: LoopZilla Major media outlets are still important, but their importance has been diluted to some degree by a million bloggers and the flow of information that marches directly to the end user. Both of these trends spell opportunity for small businesses aiming to tap the awesome lead generation and customer loyalty building power [...]
The editors at Esquire mined Google Patents for the strangest culinary creations going back to 1935, then looked into whether they’re being produced today. You know, just in case you want a hamburger bun shaped like a bear. Combined Hot Dog and Pretzel, Robert M. Kempher, 1990 Still in production? Yes. Auntie Anne’s makes Pretzel [...]
Make In The U.S. Or Go Abroad ?
According to The New York Times, Super Sized Cycles, manufactures and adapts bicycles for overweight riders who are too big for conventional bikes. The five-year-old business, which is based in Vermont, had sales last year of $104,000. The challenge Joan Denizot, the founder, has been agonizing over whether to manufacture bicycles in the United States [...]
After talking to Katrina Foster for a few minutes she will have you convinced that working in public relations and marketing is really just a lot of fun says the Times Herald-Record. Foster, 27, is the president and founder of KKPR, a boutique advertising, marketing and public relations agency based in Milford, with clients ranging [...]
The folks over at Home Owners Insurance have put together an interesting infographic about caffeine. Photo by Home Owners Insurance.
Mom “Schleps” For Busy Pet Owners
Debbie Kulak is aware just how close some owners are to their pets reports MyCentralJersey.com. Kulak of Bridgewater worked in sales and marketing but decided to take time off to focus on raising her children. When her kids were old enough, she found she had time to start her own company. Again and again, Kulak [...]
Renowned Entrepreneur Talks Taking Risks
The Patriot Ledger reports that Seth Godin drew about 500 fans to a Back Bay auditorium as the renowned author and entrepreneur launched the first of a series of talks in cities around the country to better connect with his audience. Godin espoused the importance of an entrepreneurial spirit and taking risks to a fulfilling [...]
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 companies we’ve posted about this week: 1800Flowers.com a franchise Alphagraphics a franchise American Prosperity Group a franchise Anytime Fitness a franchise Arbonne International a business opportunity Auntie Anne’s Pretzels [...]
DVDNow Kiosks Business Opportunity
Thanks in part to companies like Redbox, the demand for movies that are easy to access is on the rise. That popularity has only helped bring DVDNow to the attention of movie-loving entrepreneurs that are hoping for a chance to make money selling videos using a similar system. Unlike their competitor, though, their kiosks can [...]
