Archive for January 2011
Olark Helps Entrepreneurs Communicate With Online Customers
Just because you run a business online does not give you an excuse to ignore your customers. Olark offers a tool that can help you connect with your customers, even if you cannot see them face to face. Their real-time chat tool allows you to connect with your customers via instant messenger, and installation is [...]
Shirts For Multiples That Say It All
Julixa Newman was sick of answering the same questions every few steps while out shopping with her twin daughters. According to the Howard County Times, that frustration inspired her to create something new. With the aim of running her errands more efficiently, she created two shirts for her babies in order to answer the most [...]
A new company, Lumi Co, has created a unique printing process that makes it possible to print images on natural materials. According to Inventor Spot, this eco-friendly technique is called the Lumi Process. The engineers of the Lumi Process are Art Center College of Design students Jesse Genet (the inventor) age 23, and Stephan Angoulvant [...]
Small Walls Filling Painting Niche
Julie Caliel Boney has come up with a unique way to choose the right colors for your home. According to IthicaJournal.com, her product is the latest DIY sensation featured on the Today show, in 2011 Women’s Day magazine, and on the DIY Network. the Small Wall is an adhesive-backed panel that you paint with sample [...]
Sure Strike Challenge: Make $100k!
Turning Up The Heat On Bedbugs
Where there is a problem, there is often an opportunity. Mike Frye found his opportunity in the killing of bedbugs. According to RTOHQ, he has created a cost effective solution to help manage bedbud infestations called the Bug Out Thermal Extermination System. “I began researching and found the heated trailers, the kind that super heat [...]
Plenty Of Opportunity With Snow
With the snow comes an opportunity for entrepreneurial kids: shoveling snow. According to KSDK.com, Max Nissen received a John Deere tractor for Christmas. While that might seem like an unusual gift for 12 year old kid, it’s not so unusual if that kid hopes to make a little money every time snow falls in his [...]
Mom’s Blog Network ‘Woo’ing Kids
Wendy Piersall wasn’t always a successful online entrepreneur. In 2006 she was working for an employer that she was not happy with, and facing a difficult time in her marriage with an alcoholic husband. Bound to keep that from holding her back, she made a change. She quit her job and started a business blog [...]
Niche Music Company Keeps Price, Message On Track
According to a story in The Tennessean, Mike and Sue Gay figured they had a pretty good idea for a new business, but they never expected it to become what it has. Now, 17 years into their homegrown music company that features children’s songs with a Christian bent, the couple has sold more than 20 [...]
Jimmy Berke checks on trays of bright red tomatoes drying in a specially equipped 90-degree solar room that includes dehumidifiers and fans, reports The Palm Beach Post. He’s pleased to see they’re coming along, soon to be on their way to customers who love the sun-dried products his business Leechango Plantation at Turtle Creek produces. [...]
Law enforcement agencies don’t flip through old yearbooks when they want information on a suspect anymore—they turn to Facebook and Twitter. Social media sites say they are constantly besieged with requests for information. Facebook told Newsweek in 2009 that it received between 10 and 20 requests for information each day. The New York Times reports [...]
HydroCar Inventor Puts It Up For Sale
Rick Dobbertin, the man who created a HydroCar out of a 1959 milk tank truck and drove it around the world, has created a second vehicle and he’s now trying to sell it on ebay reports Reuters. Dobbertin, 58, of Pennellville in upstate New York, spent almost nine years and $300,000 building the HydroCar. It [...]
Pure eCommerce 2nd Annual Business Give Away
If your idea for a fabulous online business is still at the thinking stage, Jennifer Gault-Varner of Pure eCommerce has a proposition for you. Describe your idea for the perfect retail ecommerce business on the online form at Pure e-Commerce, and you could win the business of your dreams. The company that produces turnkey e-commerce [...]
Chili is possibly one of the most simple, yet complex foods today. Anyone could make chili, but not everyone can make it good. However, one company is helping the average person change that. Cin Chili offers a variety of spices and products that can help the home cook create the type of chili that will [...]
Ever since transportation authorities placed rigorous limits on the amount of liquids allowed on flights, travellers have had to figure out how to both pack their favourite toiletries and comply with those regulations. According to trendspotter Springwise, helping consumers avoid bag-check charges or confiscation of their non-compliant toiletries and cosmetics, New York-based 3floz is an [...]
Opportunitity Is In The ‘Contact’ Of The Beholder
Hayden Hamilton kept getting asked by his online pharmacy customers why contacts were so expensive. According to OregonLive.com, he decided to seek out an answer. He concluded there was no good reason for contacts to run $20 a box or more, other than pure profit for the handful of manufacturers that control the market. “It [...]
Five Payment Trends To Watch In 2011
2010 dramatically changed how we think about how people and businesses exchange money. We saw ecommerce continue to grow and we saw emerging channels take flight with consumers and merchants of all sizes. Osama Bedier from PayPal shares his views with Mobile Beat. Mobile, mobile, mobile Wallet in the cloud. The digital wallet. Call it [...]
USA Today interviews FootzyRoll co-founders and sisters Jennifer and Sarah Caplan about the creation of their small business and strategies they are using to grow it.
We Were Experiencing Technical Difficulties
Sorry about that. The site was experiencing technical difficulties over the weekend, but thanks to our loyal reader, Adam, everything is back to normal.
If you’re a first-time entrepreneur with a business idea, you probably need to do a lot of research and planning before you’re able to persuade anyone — banks, angels, friends or family members — to give you funding. Entrepreneur.com reports that startup boot camps can help. Their sole purpose is to teach you how to [...]
Shoe Device Knockoffs Create Foot Fight
According to The Wall Street Journal, many have tried, but no one has ever come up with a more elegantly simple way to measure the human foot than Charles Brannock, inventor of that ubiquitous metal gadget found in shoe stores and known, fittingly, as the Brannock device. Created in the 1920s, Brannock’s tool is among [...]
From Digging Ditches To Entrepreneurial Advisor
When most kids were still trying to figure out their college major, Matt Wilson had began to make plans for his own business. He even founded an entrepreneur organization at his school. After graduation, though, his life encountered and unexpected twist reports Reuters. He moved back home to East Fishkill, N.Y., with his mother, who [...]
Ruth Haldeman moved to rural Hot Springs, Ark., in 2002 and promptly took in a couple of orphan chicks. She soon discovered chickens poop–a lot. According to Entrepreneur.com, in the interest of keeping her house relatively clean, Haldeman broke out her sewing machine and designed a roomy cloth diaper with a disposable liner. As time [...]
Bored is not often a word that is associated with parenthood. However, Leni Calas found herself at home feeling very pregnant while her husband worked and her daughter went to school, reports NY Daily News. “It was a moment of pregnant desperation,” said the life-long Queens resident. “I knew nothing about Web development or design.” [...]
Sportsmen’s Show and Signs of Recovery
Sibila Lantzy of Resort Business Opportunities just sent me a message about her experience at the International Sportsman’s Expo: I attended the International Sportsman’s Expo in Denver Yesterday and in-between drooling over lots of cool stuff (truck campers, drift boats, $1000 fly rods) I managed to talk to some people about their outlook on business [...]
How He Raised $31,000 on Kickstarter
In early November Andrew Plotkin came with a crazy idea. He wanted to spend the rest of his life writing text adventure games. For those of you who don’t remember computer games from the early 1980s, text adventures games are old fashioned text-only games that are also called “interactive fiction.” The genre hasn’t had a [...]
Groupon Gives Couple Deal Of Lifetime
Dana Burck and Greg Hill of Cincinnati were a happy young couple who enjoyed traveling, watching movies, and did a lot of online shopping together. The New York Times reports that last Tuesday evening, Hill kept Burck up late with caffeine and back rubs, until about 1 a.m., when she says, “and then we went [...]
Sometimes inspiration can come from the most unlikely of situations. According to USA Today, Becca Brown was inspired on prom night when her spiked heels sunk into the ground. A decade later, Brown offered her business school classmate an unusual idea for an entrepreneurship project: “Becca turned to me and said, ‘Why is there nothing [...]
10 Business Models That Rocked 2010
The presentation from Nick De Mey of Board of Innovation, does a phenomenal job analyzing and visualizing business models in a wide range of industries. Featured in the presentation of the 10 business models that rocked 2010, at least according to De Mey, are Groupon, Flattr, Spotify and Airbnb, among others.
Amid strict lending restrictions, slowly rising retail prices, and sluggish hiring, where are the bright spots for 2011? The Wall Street Journal has compiled an in-depth report detailing the climate for small business in 2011. And guess what? It’s not so bad. Small businesses are expected to increase their head-counts this year, more small businesses [...]
Highlights: Consumer Electronics Show
This year’s Consumer Electronics Show is more about incremental upgrades than massive breakthroughs. And, of course, there are the tablets. Wired put together this video for a quick, two-minute overview of the highlights.
Batteries Plus Franchise Opportunity
Batteries Plus is a franchise that is dedicated to batteries of all kinds. Whether it is for a cellphone, laptop, or even a car, they pride themselves on having it available for customers. For as long as people will need batteries, there will be a need for this type of business. The first location was [...]
Marshall High DECA Members Reaching Out To Mompreneurs
Mom’s wear a variety of “hats” in their life, but many moms are taking on the task of entrepreneur as well. The Marshall High DECA chapter recently held an event that was dedicated to moms that needed a little help getting their start in business reports the ViennaPatch. “Our goal is to help mothers who [...]
Coffee Capsule Inventor Looks Toward Tea
Eric Favre, credited as the inventor of the Nespresso coffee capsule system, is going to take a leap into the Asian market with a similar system that makes tea reports The Independent. Favre … will unveil his new “Tpresso” system in Beijing next Wednesday. The head of Swiss firm Monodor “has been working for 30 [...]
Many inventions have become an icon for the era they were created in. For example, the club is a steering wheel locking device that is mostly remembered as an invention of the late 80′s and early 90′s. Another invention, the Beehive, is a hair sensation that is remembered best as a symbol of the 60′s, [...]
Isn’t it amazing that every football used in the NFL for the past 20+ years has been made by Deb, Loretta, Peg, Glen, Emmett, Tina, Etta Mae, Pam, and Michelle?
Big Ideas 2011: Paranoia, Inc.
According to Inc.com, radical transparency is so last decade. Privacy and security are the new concerns swimming in the zeitgeist. Blame it on brouhahas over airport body scanners, WikiLeaks, and customer tracking by Web companies. Look for more upstarts like LifeLock, which offers identity theft protection, and Reputation Defender, which offers a service to remove [...]
Older Entrepreneurs Are A Better Bet
Today many of the successful entrepreneurs we might think of are young. For example, the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg. However,that is not necessarily true. According to The Huffington Post, a series of studies have shown that it’s not the younger generation that’s driving our growth. Research by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) shows that [...]
Sunclipies Offer A New Twist To Clip-On Sunglasses
When you wear glasses all of the time, there are not many options to choose from when you’re blinded by the sun. You can either get prescription sunglasses or settle for a pair of clip-ons that just don’t seem to fit your frames the way they should. Sunclipies is giving eyeglass wearers a third option: [...]
Electronics companies are rolling out a slew of new gadgets this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Inc.com takes a look at three trends for business owners to watch: Mobile Devices with Built-In Projectors MicroVision unveiled a prototype of a mini-tablet with an embedded Pico projector that displays widescreen images as large [...]
eBook Sales Soar After Christmas
According to USA Today, millions of gift-wrapped iPads, Kindles, Nooks and other digital reading devices resulted in an unprecedented surge in sales of e-books last week. E-book versions of the top six books outsold the print versions last week. And of the top 50, 19 had higher e-book than print sales. It’s the first time [...]
Are you young and enterprising? Get ready to crash and burn. Every entrepreneur will fail at some point, says start-up investor Alex Taussig. But those under 30 tend to fail in ways that are “wholly unnecessary,” he writes in Fortune, ratting off a list of “15 mistakes young entrepreneurs make but don’t have to.” Among [...]
The Key To Entrepreneurial Success: Common Sense
Common sense — also known as street smarts, experience, know-how, etc — might just be the key factor in whether you will succeed as an entrepreneur. While there is a lot to be said about education, sometimes the best route is just to be there and learn it hands on. According to Reliable Plant, Groupon [...]
Niche Biz: Furniture From Old Christmas Trees
You’ve opened the presents. Sipped the nog. Hot-tubbed in champagne. And so, as the new year quickly becomes just “the year,” there’s only one tradition left to check off your list. We’re talking, of course, about turning your Christmas tree into a footstool, the UrbanDaddy newsletter reports. Introducing The Christmas Tree Project, a pop-up concept [...]
What does it take to become a successful mompreneur? The answers may very between women, but the basics are all the same. It takes work, but passion and determination help. The San Francisco Chronicle recently took a look at five different mompreneurs and their reasons for success. Two of these exceptional women are shown below. [...]
Big Ideas 2011: Facebook Backlash?
Facebook survived the Hollywood takedown of 2010, and Mark Zuckerberg emerged as Time’s Person of the Year. Is it too good to be true? According to Inc.com, Facebook might be primed to stumble—or at least stub a toe—sometime soon. Its size and ubiquity have drawn scrutiny and criticism from users worried about its blasé attitude [...]
HSN To Sell Gadgets From Quirky
If you have an idea that you feel would make the perfect invention but you don’t really want to do the work to bring it to fruition, Quirky is the website to visit. For $10, would-be inventors are able to pitch their idea for consideration. People, known as “influencers,” pick over the idea. If Quirky [...]
It’s a new year with new tax incentives that could help small businesses grow. KETV7 reports that If you run a micro business employing five or fewer full-time employees, you could qualify for special tax credits. But you need to act fast. Omaha boasts hundreds of small businesses, some of them just starting out in [...]
Social Media Business Trends To Watch For In 2011
Social media has become increasingly important to businesses small and large over the past couple of years. It is, however, a field that changes almost constantly. And few companies seem to realize that social media goes far beyond sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. 2011 will be just as turbulent, but Gary Halliwell in a [...]
IRS Extends Tax Deadline to April 18th, 2011
The Internal Revenue Service today announced that they have changed the tax filing deadline for 2011. Taxpayers will have until April 18th to file their tax returns. Taxpayers will have until Monday, April 18 to file their 2010 tax returns and pay any tax due because Emancipation Day, a holiday observed in the District of [...]
