Archive for August 2011
Even though divorce rates have been dropping, we still have divorce ceremonies and other ridiculous ways to spend money to celebrate something that shouldn’t be celebrated. Newly added to the mix: a divorce ring. The 18K gold ring from Spritzer and Furman is the shape of a broken heart. It will set you back $3,200.
Popular Science: A Florida funeral home has debuted a new alternative to cremation, known as the Resomator, that uses heated alkaline water to dissolve bodies in about three hours. Why do we need an alternative to cremation in the first place? Turns out cremation devices use lots of energy, release a fair amount of carbon [...]
An Arctic Blast on a Hot Day for $1
East Atlanta Patch: For the past several weeks, Michael Micucci and his business partners have been going to Zoo Atlanta, studying and gauging public reaction to and explaining concept behind the six, bright blue boxes around the zoo grounds. Called RenuZone, the kiosk-like devices are cooling stations — for $1, a customer stands in front [...]
Small Business Struggle Reflected In Restaurant Failure
When money is tight, what is one of the first cuts made to a family budget? Often that is the extra money people used to go out to eat. According to Central Wisconsin Business, new restaurants often fail, especially when many small business owners are already struggling to stay in business. While statistics regarding the [...]
CNN Money: From the outside, it looks like a crash-landed blimp. On the inside, it feels like a wind tunnel. For inventor David Chelf, this strange structure — a high-tech greenhouse with no skeleton, whose lightweight skin is held aloft on breezes from giant fans — looks like the future of agriculture. Chelf, the founder [...]
Starting a business is a lot of work, and it takes a certain personality type to succeed where others have failed. VentureBeat looks at some of the traits you need to succeed. Are there any you would add to this list? Are you self-confident? Do you believe in your convictions so strongly that you would [...]
Niche Biz: Plus Size Consignment
Consignment shops are a great way to find used clothing at a reasonable price. What if your size doesn’t fall within the average? Allison Barnes has started a plus size consignment shop to help answer that question. “I grew up on thrift stores because my mom was really big on them and she also opened [...]
Bar Owners Turn Off Sports, Turn on Video Games
Maximum PC: With football season still a couple of weeks out, the NBA mired in a lockout situation, and TV viewers ignoring any baseball game that isn’t part of the World Series, sports bar owners have been kind of at a loss about how to fill their seats. Enter Barcraft. Earlier this year, some enterprising [...]
Need a Job? Go to North Dakota!
CNBC: Unemployment is a national problem in the U.S., but you wouldn’t know that if you travel through North Dakota. The state’s unemployment rate hovers around 3 percent, and “Help Wanted” signs litter the landscape of cities such as Williston in the same way “For Sale” signs populate the streets of Las Vegas. “It’s a [...]
How Two American Kids Became Big-Time Weapons Traders
I don’t recommend this “business opportunity,” but Rolling Stone has up an interesting profile about two pot-smoking teenagers who became millionaires from the War on Terror. The e-mail confirmed it: everything was finally back on schedule after weeks of maddening, inexplicable delay. A 747 cargo plane had just lifted off from an airport in Hungary [...]
Breast Milk: The Market for Liquid Gold
Wired: It started with a bleary-eyed Google search: “Sell breast milk.” Desiree Espinoza had a 2-month-old baby girl but was pumping out enough milk to feed triplets. Ziplock baggies full of the stuff were crammed in her freezer, and unpaid bills crowded her kitchen table. She wasn’t sure there was a market for her overflow [...]
In 1900, the southern white rhinoceros was the most endangered of the five rhinoceros species. Fewer than 20 rhinos remained in a single reserve in South Africa. By 2010, white rhino numbers had climbed to more than 20,000, making it the most common rhino species on the planet. Saving African Rhinos: A Market Success Story: [...]
UK Telegraph: The trend for cosmetic surgery on pets started in the US, where all kinds of treatments have been devised for animals. Chin-lifts among dogs became popular in the 1990s in order to curb excessive drooling. In the mid-1980s ‘Neuticles’ were invented; testicular implants that were designed to give neutered pets a more masculine [...]
McDonald’s Olympics Promotional Disaster
Sometimes big companies run promotions that require them to give away a ton more than the bargained for. It’s hard to think even with all of those employees, big companies sometimes overlook huge gaping holes in their promotions. One such promotional distaster was one McDonald’s ran during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. In 1984, the [...]
SideSkills: Growing Your Biz Through Online Connections
As more and more people turn to the internet to find work or to hire for an open position, a new site called SideSkills.com is setting out to help people find work and grow their business through their online connections. For everything from home services to guitar lessons, the site aims to utilize online networks [...]
Katie’s Charming People With Low Cost, High Quality Charms
Jewelry fashions are always changing, but the universal love for charms and charm bracelets will always remain. That is what makes Katie’s Charms such a successful online shop. Katie’s is poised to offer quality charms for prices far below their competition. Like any good business, Katie’s Charms has a dedicated founder, Jennifer Colgan, working in [...]
When Small Biz Gets Hit By Big Fees
If building up a small business wasn’t hard enough, what happens when the city decides you should pay more in fees than you make per year? That is a problem Blue Sky Airport Parking is facing. The City of Phoenix is promoting new fees for ground transportation companies. The information was certainly interesting: The Aviation [...]
When was the last time you took time away from your business? If you’re like many entrepreneurs, it has probably been years since the last vacation. A national American Express survey of 500 small business owners showed only 46 percent planned to take a vacation this summer. That’s down from 67 percent in 2006. Business [...]
Are you currently on the look out for some business funding? Business Insider has recently shared a list of ten quotes you should avoid when pitching to an investor. Three of them are below. Have you fallen prey to one of these statements before? “Our product is truly disruptive technology.” If your product really represents [...]
Latina Clothes for Special Occasions
When Norma Suarez learned people were driving from Washington state down to Los Angeles for latino clothing for special dresses and accessories, she realized this was a business opportunity she couldn’t pass up. Bellingham Herald: Earlier this month Suarez opened Sueno Celebrations, a store focused on selling products designed for women and children for a [...]
Many business and inventor-based television shows have made an appearance on television in recent years, and Quirky has signed on as well. The series looks at the inner workings of Quirky and how they help everyday people make a little money off a simple idea. Quirky is an invention website that takes ideas from its [...]
6 Tips for Working at Home With Children
A reader wrote: Do you have any advice about working from home with kids? Here’s something I wrote about the subject from 2006. Since then, we’ve added another child to the mix, started homeschooling and I work from home entirely. During a typical week, I work from home for twenty to thirty hours. Although this [...]
The Home Emergency Lamp Post (HELP) is a mailbox post with an interior lighting system that automatically illuminates your address at night. The HELP is also equipped with a strobe light and a 120dB siren that can be activated in emergency situations via wireless remote. The siren alerts neighbors for immediate assistance while the strobe [...]
Forbes Most Powerful Women Mostly Moms
CBS News: They control $30 trillion collectively. They’re 54 years old, on average. Twenty-nine are CEOs. Eight are heads of state. Seventy-four are list returnees. And 22 are single. One number that stands out: Eight-eight percent of the women are mothers. “It’s a percentage that surprised even us,” Forbes says. “Power women today are not [...]
Last century people worked to build a better mouse trap. This century, the goal is to build a better robot. That is the mission Chunghsin Lee is on with his latest creation, the robotic golf caddy. I prefer to walk, and know a lot of other people who prefer to walk,’’ said Lee, an avid [...]
To make money, many airlines have imposed a carry on luggage fee. This includes Spirit Airlines. While taking a flight on the airline, one entrepreneur noticed an opportunity. Some carry on was free, as long as it met specific sizes… a size that was hard to find in luggage. So, he made his own luggage [...]
The Internet has bred a new generation of entrepreneurs. Instead of starting a local shop and hoping your idea will work, many entrepreneurs are able to start on the Internet. They can test their idea with a small investment, and build their way to a bigger business when they succeed. The Globe and Mail has [...]
How to Start a Tutorial Website
Looking to start a website, but constantly putting it off due to the fact that you have no clue where to start or what niche you would even want to get into? This is the case for a lot of different online business entrepreneurs out there, especially if you are in the service providing industry [...]
Lessons Learned When Businesses Fail
The sweets business went sour for David Payne when most of his customers flocked north for the summer. When he could no longer afford to continue his business, Payne closed up shop. Although his business was relatively short lived, he learned many lessons during that time. As he dealt with falling sales, a new opportunity [...]
Google In Spotlight Over Bad Ads
Google is well-known for its AdWords program. When a company is willing to pay big per click prices for their home loan or credit repair ad spots, it comes as no surprise that some dubious ads slip by, reports USA Today. That comes after the U.S. Department of Justice today hit Google with a $500 [...]
Apple is one of the big boys in the business world. So, when Steve Jobs steps down as CEO of the company, it is bound to grab the attention of everyone — customer and entrepreneur. TechCrunch recently shared his resignation. To the Apple Board of Directors and the Apple Community: I have always said if [...]
From The Pocket Grill To Entrepreneurial Meetings
Not long ago Benjamin Ashpole made the news for his latest invention, The Pocket Grill. Now that he has started picking up funding for his invention on Kickstarter, he’s trying to start down a new path: casual entrepreneur meetings. Ashpole hopes the house becomes a meeting place for inventors and entrepreneurs. with no dress code. [...]
Inventor Journal: Zip-It Clean
One year ago, Rich Whittle spoke with Gene Luoma, inventor of the Zip-It Clean drain cleaner. Video below.
Data Killers Shreds Data, Protects Customer Information
Whether you head a secret organization, run a large company, or you simply don’t trust throwing away old hardware with sensitive data, Data Killers can help. They will destroy tapes, hard drives, and other items to protect you from people who may want the information on your old electronics. I recently asked Elizabeth Wilmot a [...]
Don’t have enough time to build your muscles and create real abs? Duncan Bannatyne, recently viewed on Dragon’s Den, has a plastic sheet you can use to help you tan some instant abs onto your body. The screens are placed strategically on the torso while the user is on a sun bed or in natural [...]
People taking chemo often suffer from a metallic aftertaste while eating. So, Don Ladanyi developed an organic flatware option that won’t leave behind that metallic taste. “Don’s taste-inert flatware is a cool idea because it solves a very basic problem — that is, how to neutralize the unpleasant taste caused by standard flatware when your [...]
There is a lot people can do with Legos. However, not many people would think of making a 3D printer. Good thing Arthur Sacek isn’t like them. Arthur Sacek said his milling machine utilizes parts from the Lego Mindstorms NXT robotic toolkit and includes only a single non-Lego part, the drill to carve the foam [...]
When tragedy strikes and you’re on the upper floor of a tall building, how do you plan to escape? Liu Feng has spent each day jumping for a seven story building to test his invention, and to make a product that would be affordable enough for the average person to own. The invention is a [...]
From the classifieds: Penman PR is pleased to announce a new and unique business opportunity for professionals interested in entering a career in public relations or advancing their current career. The Penman PR Affiliate Program is a way to become part of the Penman PR team in a profound and meaningful way. It’s a program [...]
Aerial Advertising That Anyone Can Do
A Connecticut man has turned his motorized parachute ultralight flying machine into an advertising opportunity. He’s renting advertising space on his inflatable wing: As the ultralight aircraft swept down near the cannons on Tuesday, the underbelly of the 500-square-foot parachute boasted in huge letters, “Westport Wash & Wax 203-CAR-WASH.” Scott Tiefanthaler, owner of the car [...]
No More Cavities: Regrowing Rotten Teeth
Times of India: The whine of the dentist’s drill may soon be silenced, as scientists claim to have found the secret of a “completely painless” filling by identifying a material that can repair decaying teeth within weeks. The “filling without drilling” method, devised by a team at Leeds University’s Dental Institute in the UK, involves [...]
Don’t Worry About People Stealing Your Ideas
A reader wrote: Am I right to be so concerned about everyone stealing my business idea? No. Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If it’s original, you will have to ram it down their throats. Quote via Howard Aiken, an early computer pioneer. Photo by michaelgoodin.
In June we mentioned an inventor who finally struck gold with his word game. Today the 84 year old inventor has taken his game to the next level. It is now an app that you can download on your iPhone or iPad. Since receiving his first patent in 1958, Weiss spent more than 50 years [...]
Canada Post Recognizing Canadian Inventors
Americans can name some of the great inventors from their history, but what about great Canadians who changed our lives? Canada Post is celebrating these innovators by placing them on a stamp. “This series shines a spotlight on the ‘Made in Canada’ leaps of science and creativity that have changed lives here in Canada and [...]
It’s hard enough having a new baby in the house, none-the-less trying to get out and buy everything they need. That is the idea behind Storkly. People in the Des Moines area can order the baby necessities and have them delivered directly to their door. It all started with a question offered by a nine [...]
Everyone likes clothing that makes them look and feel good. How about some clothing inspired by a fruit loved by many? Bananas! Nineteen year old Kate Tary has always had a thing for bananas, so she decided to create a clothing line based on the fruit. Tary, 19, of High Ridge and a student at [...]
Last month I gave away a copy of the Candyman DVD and a pound of Jelly Belly jelly beans to two lucky readers. In case you don’t remember the movie: Candyman is a documentary movie about the rise and fall of Jelly Belly inventor David Klein. In 1976 all jellybeans pretty much tasted the same [...]
How Vodka Became a Billion Dollar Business
According to the Jason Wilson, the author of Boozehound: On the Trail of the Rare, the Obscure, and the Overrated in Spirits, “The largest liquor companies in the world haven’t launched more than five hundred flavored vodkas because no one wanted to drink them.” More from the Weekly Standard: To wit, on your next trip [...]
io9: Forget spring break trips to Cancun — in the future everyone will holiday in the Commercial Space Station created by Orbital Technologies (assuming it ever gets constructed). Space hotel guests will have access to the stars, via Russian Soyuz rockets. It only costs about $164,000 to stay for five days in the CSS. But [...]
Canada.com: A new library in Surrey, B.C., will be home to a “human library,” with people on loan as living books. The $36-million Surrey City Centre library, set to open at the end of the month, will allow users to “check out” people and pick their brains about their experiences with blindness, immigration, religion or [...]
