Archive for October 2011
Used Car Dealer Takes Horse as Trade-In
CBS Tampa: Recently a woman with no cash came to Park Auto Mall needing a used van for her large family. The only thing of value she had to trade was a horse. The woman and her family now have a van and the horse has new owners thanks to the unique and non-conventional way [...]
Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple Inc, died yesterday. Let’s remember him with this commencement address he gave at Stanford University in 2005.
The Material Girl Who Sells Fabric
Michelle Bailey always wanted to start a business, but she wasn’t sure what. Although a salon had crossed her mind, she was once a hair stylist, she decided against it. Instead, she went into the fabric business, reports The Gadsden Times. “Sewing was my hobby,” Michelle says. When she realized there was no place in [...]
Small Biz Still Left Behind In Lending
The statistics say that government-backed loans are on the rise, but not necessarily the number of businesses receiving the money, reports The Wall Street Journal. Last October, the SBA expanded the pool of eligible small businesses by raising the loan amounts it would back to a maximum of $5 million from $2 million. But that [...]
Small Business Networking Event In Ohio
If you’re near Cleveland on October 19 and October 20, you may want to stop by the I-X Center for a small business conference being hosted by The Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE). The conference includes 50 breakout workshops in the areas of sales, marketing, HR, money, social media, technology, as well as personal and [...]
Half NYC’s Small Biz Owned By Immigrants
The Wall Street Journal: According to the study published Monday by the Fiscal Policy Institute, immigrants constitute just over one-third of New York City residents. But they are 48 percent of the city’s small-business owners. Immigrants dominate businesses like grocery stores, taxi services and dry cleaning but they are in every sector of the economy. [...]
FoamAroma: A Better Coffee Lid
FoamAroma: In 2007 inspiration presented itself to Craig Bailey in the form of a latte at a coffee shop in Ridgefield, WA. Why was the foamy latte so much better while drinking it in the shop from a ceramic mug compared to the typical to-go paper cup and lid? The issue is the plastic lid. [...]
Truancy costs school districts as much as $50 per day per student. Two California high school students realized that offering a service to combat it was a huge opportunity. The NY Times has more: Zak Kukoff, 16, and Jonathan Yan, 18, classmates, started TruantToday after Mr. Kukoff skipped a 7 a.m. honors geometry class at [...]
Pepsi Pink: Carbonated Strawberry Milk?
InventorSpot: Just in time for Japan’s “winter party season” comes Pepsi Pink, a blush-tinted cola which should sell well in the homeland of Hello Kitty. According to Pepsi Japan, new Pepsi Pink is bursting with the rich aroma and refreshing taste of strawberry milk. Is the world ready for carbonated strawberry milk, or at least [...]
Truck Sales Up: Economy is Rebounding?
More than 7 million light trucks were sold in September, which was the highest monthly sales count for trucks in 3 and-one-half years going all the way back to March of 2008 (see chart above). September truck sales were up by 9.5% compared to August and up by 20.3% compared to last September. Why are [...]
Starbucks Tips to Fund Startups
Bloomberg: Howard Schultz is giving new meaning to “start me up.” The increasingly activist Starbucks Corp. chief executive officer is taking donations online and through Starbucks cafes to create a small business lending fund. The company will donate $5 million in seed money to give the project, umm, a jolt. That money can be leveraged [...]
A farmer in Colorado tried hiring American workers in place of migrant labor. It didn’t go so well: “It didn’t take me six hours to realize I’d made a heck of a mistake,” Mr. Harold said, standing in his onion field on a recent afternoon as a crew of workers from Mexico cut the tops [...]
Does Social Media Make Us Lazy?
What was once said about television has made its way into social media: too much of it makes us lazy. At least, that is the theory Edward De Bono has, according to News.com.au. “There’s a danger in the internet and social media,” says Mr De Bono. “The notion that information is enough, that more-and-more information [...]
Names like Levi Strauss and Rube Goldberg are generally well known for many reasons, but the Quincy Herald Whig looks at what these people did before they reached fame. Levi Strauss (1829-1902) Twenty-four-year-old Levi Strauss left New York for San Francisco in 1853 to open a dry goods store with his sister and brother-in-law. They [...]
Chinese Entrepreneurs Fleeing From Debts
A lot of focus has been placed on the need to grow small business in the United States, but what about China? A recent article from AFP highlights a need for change in the way money is loaned to small businesses in their country. China’s banks — which are not allowed to charge higher interest [...]
What Entrepreneurs Need To Know About PR
According to Forbes, there are five must-haves for successful public relations. Three of them are below. Does your small business have what it needs? Write Well. All the tools in the world won’t help if nobody reads your tweets, posts, pitches or press releases. Josh Ochs, a social media guru in Los Angeles, says, “Great [...]
What Can Angry Workers Say Online?
Social media has given companies the opportunity to reach out to potential customers. However, it has also given angry employees a place to vent their work-related frustrations. Workers – on and off the clock – are taking to their Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts to complain about everything from jerky bosses to rude customers to [...]
Kevin Noble wanted something easy to prop up an iPad or iPhone, so he invented the Stump, reports Chron.com. By the time he envisioned the Stump – a portable stand that accommodates the iPhone, iPad or Kindle – in 2009, he knew the hurdles he would face and how to jump them. “The more you [...]
Looking for advice to help you raise a young entrepreneur? USA Today has pulled together advice from kids who have already experienced that success. When you hear about kids like Abbey Fleck, who helped her parents achieve their dream home, adopt a few more kids and put all five through college on her Makin’ Bacon [...]
Women in Canada looking for a consultant to help them succeed in business need to look no further than Desiree Bombenon and her initiative called Mentor in a Miniskirt. The consulting initiative has moved Bombenon into a leadership role where she is looking at starting a series of books and self-help sessions for young females [...]
The Kauffman Foundation is in the process of building an entrepreneur walk of fame to honor those people who helped shape business our world with their companies and innovations. Some of the names on the list? Thomas Edison, founder of 14 companies included the predecessors of General Electric, holder of 1,093 patents Bill Gates, co-founder [...]
Feeding Into The Backyard Chicken Trend
Today people care more about where their food comes from and how it is grown than ever before. At one time no one worried about the pesticides and ingredients in the food we ate. However, more people are looking for food that is organic. Backyard Chicken Run helps feed into that trend, reports Lake Zurich [...]
The Best Cities For Female Entrepreneurs
We often see information about the best states or cities to start a business, but what about entrepreneurial women. Forbes has crunched the numbers and determined what they believe are the best cities for women in business. With the numbers crunched, it wasn’t surprising to see who came out on top. New York and San [...]
The Scramble For A Better Bed Bug Buster
Bed bugs may be small, but the effect they have on the life of someone whose home is infested is huge. The process to get rid of the pests can be long, expensive, and frustrating. This problem has brought together around 75 companies in Chicago, all hoping to try and find the best way to [...]
