Archive for November 2011
The Final Frontier: How Do You Wash Dirty Underwear in Space?
Since there are no washing machines on the International Space Station, astronauts often wear the same underwear for three or four days before disposing of it by hurtling it back towards Earth where, hopefully, it burns up on reentry. The costs of sending anything in space currently range from between $2500 and $5000 per pound, [...]
Why You Should Start a Dog Walking Business
The following is a guest post by Jim Masterson, author of How to Start a Dog Walking Business: Dog Walking Jobs For Fun and Profit. Have you ever considered starting your very own dog walking business? If so, you’re not alone, and the timing couldn’t be better for you. That’s because a dog walking business [...]
Franchising Help: Few people realize how critical franchising is to our economy, but as the infographic below illustrates, some of the most celebrated brands in the U.S. today were launched during times of deep recession, and franchised businesses as a whole continue to serve as a model workhorse for productivity and wealth creation in our [...]
Website Let’s People Pay Someone Else to Do Their Chores
WSJ: A new crop of websites and smartphone applications are allowing people to farm out chores to a growing army of temporary personal assistants. These micro-employees are taking the division of labor to once-unthinkable extremes. One recent advertisement on TaskRabbit sought someone to play a joke on a friend who’s a customer-service representative. “It’s his [...]
Decide.com Tells You When to Buy
Is Black Friday the best day to buy something? Not always, according to Oren Etzioni’s new website, Decide.com. The site looks at current and historical prices and rumors about upcoming models and tries to estimate the best time to buy. Let’s see what Decide.com says about some popular gift ideas: Apple MacBook Pro -Wait for [...]
Bag Rack Inventor Markets To The Traveler
Ever wish you had some way to hold your bag open for you, while you try to stuff it with whatever you need? That is just one of the many uses the Bag Rack has. Drew Schiller, the man behind the rack, is hoping to add travel to that list. The all American-made BagRack – [...]
Farming Turkeys For Thanksgiving
If you don’t want to sell eggs for a living, maybe you should consider raising turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner instead. The opportunity may have passed already for this year, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take a lesson from David Cover and prepare for next year. Ten turkeys enjoyed their last meal in a way [...]
Building An ‘Egg’pire One Chicken At A Time
BBC News: On going into business, Emily said: “We had loads of spare eggs and we just thought we better get rid of them because we couldn’t use them ourselves.” Neighbour Claire Dumbreck was so impressed by the business she nominated Emily for the prize She gave the first batches away with a little note [...]
A Little Inspiration For Inventors Of All Ages
Susan’s journey began long before she began writing, but it was her turn as author that helped inspire women and children to find the inventor within. It was through her books that she found another calling as a public speaker. I recently asked Susan Casey a few questions about who she is, and what inspired [...]
Cabby Drives You and Your Car Home
A new cab service in Lexington, Kentuck will not only transport you, but also your car. WKYT27 reports: Jackie Robinson Jr. has been driving his cab for three years, but just over a year ago, a conversation with a customer gave him a new business idea. “Tow and Go service, we’ll tow you home and [...]
Franchise Direct sent me a promotional video for some of their franchises. Even though it’s very promotional, I thought that it contained an interesting mix of business ideas and opportunities to share. Two of the interesting franchises profiled were: Alloy Wheel Repair Specialists Jan-Pro Cleaning Systems The video is below.
Making Money Delivering Lunches: Eat Club
A couple Stanford Business School grads have started a company in the Bay Area to deliver lunch to office workers. The company, Eat Club, was founded a year ago and now serves lunch to about 3,000 office workers per week from South San Francisco to northern San Jose. Their secret sauce: The company only delivers [...]
Hearing loss from exposure to loud music is a serious problem. One study from the University of Minnesota found that after a concert, 64% of the test subjects had significantly changed their ability to hear soft sounds, compared to 27% of the subjects who wore earplugs. With statistics like that, you think that selling earplugs [...]
What would you do with a 26-pound gummy bear? Imagine the shock of your party goers when they realize that your 32,000-calorie gummy bear also features an integrated one-liter serving bowl! Serve punches, candies, or even more gummy bears from within this seventeen-inch-long confection. The giant gummy bear sells for $149! More photos after the [...]
Using Server Farms to Heat Homes
NY Times: To satisfy our ever-growing need for computing power, many technology companies have moved their work to data centers with tens of thousands of power-gobbling servers. Concentrated in one place, the servers produce enormous heat. The additional power needed for cooling them — up to half of the power used to run them — [...]
What Do You Want? Tell sQuimble
It all started when Marlon Brown’s co-worker tweeted about wanting a mocha. What if a company near her could read that post and instantly offer her a deal on a mocha from their shop? Here’s how it works: If you’re in the Charleston area, you can text, Tweet or enter on squimble.com what you want. [...]
Activating Your Entrepreneurial Spirit
Some skills it seems entrepreneurs are born with. However, whether or not you’re born with those skills there is still a lot you can learn. Mashable has a few tips on things you should consider if you want to run a successful company. Innovate and invent constantly. Great entrepreneurs rarely invent just one profitable product [...]
Inspires Me Week Inspiring UK Students
InspiresMe.co.uk: The scheme, called Inspires Me Week, allowed more than 50 students aged 14 – 16 to spend a week working directly with companies in a variety of sectors including TV production, food, mobile applications, environmentally friendly baby retail and fashion. The budding entrepreneurs went behind the scenes, shadowing business leaders and company bosses. They [...]
Michael Powell faced a fear many low budget inventors encounter, and he won. In this case, he tackled Home Depots theft of his invention, and he won a generous settlement. It’s been seven years since he showed Home Depot officials a saw guard he invented that allowed it to continue to cut lumber for its [...]
Niche Biz: Earthquake Solutions
Worried about what might happen to your family during the next earthquake? One entrepreneur sells kits and consults on the topic. “I’ve been interested in natural disasters since childhood,” Kelcy said. “But I guess when I started to tune into it in terms of a career happened when I was in college and working at [...]
Bancroft: Spend any time speaking to Cox about cloth diapers and you soon realize that there are many forms, techniques and styles but that they all have the same results, low cost and great benefit to the environment. “I love cloth diapers because they keep garbage out of the landfill,” Cox explains, “But I also [...]
How do you explain DNA to people who are less than interested? Make it fun, of course. Jun Axup, a biochemistry student, has made a DNA plush toy. The hand-sized plush dolls look more like Saturday morning cartoon characters than anything Axup might encounter under a microscope while working on new cancer drugs. The dolls [...]
So You Want To Start A Business?
In the past, no one really considered themselves to be an entrepreneur. Sure, people stared businesses, but they didn’t have much support from outside sources. That has changed over the years, though. There are resources for almost everyone who wants to start a business, including men, women, and children. So, why does the failure rate [...]
Small Biz Maintaining Optimism
A recent report analyzes the attitudes entrepreneurs have in six different countries: the United Kingdom, the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, France and Spain. According to Sys-Con Media, although business hasn’t been at its best, most entrepreneurs are still optimistic. Forty three percent reported negative or no growth in revenue last year. Despite this performance [...]
Internet Business Is Like Chess
When you think of chess, The need for strategy is apparent. The same can be said about running an Internet business. That is something Drew Sharma knows a lot about. Sharma got hooked on building web-based businesses when he sold multiple businesses, including InkCartridges.com in 2009 to a large e-commerce company, beginning a winning streak [...]
Some people see a mild success by offering Groupon deals. Some people lose thousands of dollars and nearly kill their business. Need a Cake in the UK falls into the second category. Need a Cake bakery owner Rachel Brown decided to put up a 75% discount on a dozen cupcakes on the site, which dropped [...]
Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Dane Carlson’s Business Opportunities Weblog. Regular coverage of all the business opportunities and ideas you can handle will return Friday. Today, please gather with your loved ones and thank God for your blessings. Photo by Bochkarev Photography/ShutterStock.
A Mouthwash to Rid the World of Dentists?
A microbiologist at the UCLA School of Dentistry has developed a mouthwash that successfully destroys the harmful bacteria that is the principal cause tooth decay and cavities. In a recent clinical study, 12 subjects who rinsed just one time with the experimental mouthwash experienced a nearly complete elimination of the S. mutans bacteria over the [...]
Find Your Ideas Outside Your Own Country
International vacations can be a great way to come up with new business ideas. When you’re outside of your normal environment, and even more so, when outside of your cultural comfort zone, you’ll be exposed to many interesting and innovative ideas and opportunities that with a just a little localization might be just right for [...]
Small Biz More Popular This Holiday Season
Forbes: A small-business holiday-shopping campaign led by American Express is peaking just as a new survey says Americans have the warm fuzzies for local mom and pop shops. The promotional campaign, Small Business Saturday, is aimed at supporting small businesses on one of the busiest shopping days of the year: the Saturday after Thanksgiving. American [...]
Its the toy that will “Keepon” dancing. Originally designed as a therapy device, the Keepon has turned into an unexpected toy success instead. “We used the robot in the playroom and a therapist in another room is controlling the robot. In the research version the eyes are cameras, the nose is a microphone and a [...]
Did you miss the buttons on your Blackberry when you switched to the iPhone? An inventor has tapped her way into the market to create a special stylus ring. She came up with the idea of a special ring to make texting simpler. The silicone spheres, which come in a set of two for $30, [...]
When Jennifer decided she wanted to be an entrepreneur, she was not looking for just another MLM. She needed a product that she would have some control over. Jennifer Devlin, founder of Celtic Complexion Skin Care for Rosacea, had two choices when she decided to go into business herself after leaving a ten year career [...]
Finding Financial Success Later In Business
So, you want to become some sort of Internet tycoon. What will help you get there? Maybe you should consider how your business is financed. Success can spell the difference in billions. Andrew Mason, the chief executive and founder of Groupon, is worth $2 billion less than Eric Lefkofsky, the man who financed Groupon’s start. [...]
Although it’s nice to know where your ancestors originate, it’s not always fun trying to teach that piece of family history to your child. Instead of sitting down with a complicated list of things you want them to know, next time just buy the My Heritage Book. Deanna Bufo Novak always held a special place [...]
Password Protecting Your Business & Life
Passwords are a part of every day life. Business accounts, email accounts, and computers are password protected today. Just how strong is your password? Fox recently posted a list of 25 passwords you should never use. SplashData created the rankings based on millions of stolen passwords posted online by hackers. Here is the complete list: [...]
Games have been around for many years. However, some of the games people love, like Monopoly or Life, have made it hard for new game inventors to enter the market. So, when one inventor has more than one success, its obvious he is innovative enough to meet gaming needs. Velte, 50, now creates fun full [...]
First it was the milk bottle that went green, now the same company is turning to paper for wine bottles! The first question that I’m sure immediately comes to everyone’s mind is how a paper bottle full of wine doesn’t just turn to mush moments after being filled. And the simple answer is by using [...]
Ever wanted to surf without the fear of sharks? While there was not much you could do before, Joel Centeio is hoping to change that with his special shark repelling device. The tiny box on the Velcro strap is called the Electronic Shark Defense System or ESDS. Wilson Vinano created the lightweight machine. He said [...]
Did you know that flip flops are a $20 billion dollars industry? I had no idea. Flip flops have replaced the running shoe, said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst with the NPD Group. “It’s one of the few categories that, even during the recession, continues to do well,” he said. “Flip-flops, from even before the [...]
Buy the Stuff Appearing on Your Favorite Shows
eBay has developed an iPad application that works with TV-guide data to show relevant merchandise from the television show currently being watched. For now, the user has to the tell the app what show the user is watching, but in the future, they hope that the app will automatically synchronize with the television. This is [...]
Robots to Replace Undocumented Workers
Wired: Massachusetts startup Harvest Automation is beta testing a small mobile robot that it’s pitching to nurseries as the solution to their most pressing problem: a volatile labor market. The multi-billion-dollar industry that supplies ornamental plants to building contractors, big-box retailers and landscaping firms — $11.7 billion according to the most recent USDA figures — [...]
What’s for Christmas: Everyone Wants an iPad
A new report from Nielsen indicates that what kids want for Christmas is an Apple iPad. But, it’s not just the kids. The Apple iPad is the most desired Christmas gift for children aged 6-12 and children and adults 13 and up. Two charts of the other top desired products are below.
Business Week: World Entomophagy is one of a growing number of insect suppliers that promote bugs as food. For humans. Encouraged by media attention, TV shows like Fear Factor, and growing concerns about the threat of overpopulation to the food supply, Americans—at least a few—are warming to the idea. “In the past three years, interest [...]
Irish Times: When Deirdre Murtagh of Causey Farm speaks of the business she co-founded with her two siblings – which allows various groups to get a taste of life on their family farm in Co Meath – you get a real sense of the passion she has for it. Causey Farm first opened up in [...]
Positive reviews can help spread the word about a business, but does a service like Yelp really help businesses bring in more customers? For one entrepreneur, even the negative reviews can help. Bolt Barbers actually displays those negative Yelp comments explicitly on their website. They put them in their window, and they’ve even published a [...]
Niche Biz: Beauty Sleep In A Bottle
STL Today: After spending a bulk of his career developing energy drinks, Clark Wolfsberger’s latest venture is the polar opposite. His company, University City-based Big Quark, launched BeautySleep, a 2-ounce beverage that’s touted as a sleep enhancer and an anti-aging elixir, last fall. The drink’s now sold at more than 500 spas, salons and retail [...]
Long before its official release date last week, everyone has been trying to get a handle on what the Kindle Fire is when compared to the iPad. Thanks to pre-ordering and one day shipping, I became the proud owner of this device on Tuesday. After spending a week playing on it, I believe I can [...]
Assessing Feedback on Startup Ideas: Avoiding Dangerous but Common Pitfalls
The following is a guest post by Dr. Mark Simon, Ph.D. So, let’s say that you have an idea for a new business that you think is a “real winner!” You personally believe that the product or service behind your startup idea will be desired by enough consumers to earn a consistent profit, and you’re [...]
A reader wrote: Traveling with Entrepreneur Magazine in 2011 we’ve interviewed some of the brightest innovators all across the U.S.A. We decided to bring them all together in this short film. The Innovators from SPARKHOUSE on Vimeo. After the jump, all of the innovators featured in the video.
