April 3, 2014

Ideas: Tap Into The Luxury Market

Entrepreneur: Here, three ways you can tailor your startup to capitalize on the trends: 1. Offer an affordable splurge. While consumers still lust after designer brands, they are demanding deals. In the past 5 years, 73 new sample sale websites — like Gilt.com and HauteLook.com — have launched, hawking luxury goods at a discount. IBISWorld […]

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The Piano That Tunes Itself

Popular Science: Most musicians can tune their instruments whenever they like. The exception is the pianist, who typically isn’t trained to tune the piano’s 200-plus strings. Instead, both amateur and professional piano players must hire a technician to get their instrument in shape. But Don Gilmore has accomplished an engineering feat that he says could

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Making Money from Truancy

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

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Making Money Making Movies: How One Woman Created a Movie Making Business with Kids as the Stars

The following is a guest post by Shelley Frost of Make-A-Movie Studios. As a kid in the 1970’s I always dreamed of being the first woman movie director. Since that time, many other females have beat me to the Director’s chair. Not living in Hollywood put an enormous crimp in my desire to direct feature

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Own Your Startup’s Niche

ReadWriteWeb: There are a lot of consumer-facing Web startups out there – maybe too many. Now that it’s easier, faster and cheaper to launch a Web business than ever before, entrepreneurs are under increasing pressure to differentiate. Great design and even great service just aren’t enough anymore. The key is to establish a niche that’s

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Niche Biz: Herbs

The Packer: Think of herbs as a niche within a niche. Camilo Penalosa does. It’s also an opportunity, said Penalosa, vice president of business development with Miami-based Infinite Herbs. But teaching consumers and even retailers about the product is a challenge, Penalosa said. “We basically try to let people know what should be out of

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The City Car Of The Future

In the future, you won’t see full size vehicles driving the streets of NYC or San Francisco. You just might see William Lark Jr.’s CityCar instead, reports NewsOne. The cars, which are smaller than Smart Cars, are battery-electric, so they don’t cause tailpipe emissions. They also weigh less than a 1,000 pounds and are intended

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Gambling for Airfare

AllegiantAir wants it’s customers to be able to gamble on fuel prices. They’ve written a letter to the Department of Transportation asking for permission to allow their customers to be able to choose between a traditional fixed-price ticket and a discounted, variable-price one. If the price of jet fuel falls by the departure date, customers

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