Archive for the 'Ideas' Category
The Wenatchee World: It was in 1986 when Charlene Woodward saw the need for a retailer in Seattle that catered to customers looking for unusual books. The budding entrepreneur founded Direct Book Service. Little did Woodward know then that her new business would eventually go to the dogs. Woodward soon discovered it was very difficult [...]
$6.5K Per Day To Teach Kids About Bullying
CNN: Schools worldwide book him to put a stop to bullying. One Minnesota community promised him $20,000 to get him to come to town for two weeks last fall. He calls himself The Scary Guy, and his price tag can run as much as $6,500 a day. The Scary Guy is his legal name — [...]
The Rise of Casual Video Games
If you’ve heard of Angry Birds, but don’t understand the appeal, perhaps this NY Times article: will help: In 2009, 25 years after the invention of Tetris, a nearly bankrupt Finnish company called Rovio hit upon a similarly perfect fusion of game and device: Angry Birds. The game involves launching peevish birds at green pigs [...]
WorldCrunch: First it was Swiss Life, now AXA has joined the party. Insurers have started selling e-reputation insurance products to protect your family’s image on the internet. Called “Protection Famille Intégr@le”, AXA’s new product will protect you against identity theft, credit-card fraud, harm to your online reputation and e-commerce disputes. Both insurers use a dedicated [...]
Niche: Buy Lottery Tickets Online
The trend towards convenience and online services continues with this unique concierge service that travels to the store to both purchase tickets and redeem the winnings on behalf of users. Winning player accounts are then funded with 100% of their prize money. LottoGopher keeps no portion of the prizes, large or small. With lotteries across [...]
3 Highly Specialized Products for Niche Markets
Finding your niche can be life changing. It can transform your failing restaurant into a bustling microbrewery, your boring band into a chart-topping hit machine, and even your debts into profits. Many business owners make the mistake of trying to market their product to absolutely everyone when they should really be tapping into a high-demand [...]
Niche: Monitoring Student Athletes Online
NY Times: The business plan of Varsity Monitor is simple. Major universities like North Carolina, Nebraska and Oklahoma pay $7,000 to $10,000 a year and Varsity Monitor keeps an online eye on their athletes. Among the services the company and others like it provide is a computer application that searches social media sites that athletes [...]
Golden Gate Knights is an exercise studio for, well, Star Wars nerds. You won’t find any yoga, stationary bicycles or stair masters here, only lightsabers. Yes, lightsabers. Their classes include: Stretching & Warm up We begin each class with a simple warm-up, stretching, and calisthenic exercises to get ourselves limber and prevent any injuries. Flourishes [...]
Niche: Senior Citizen Plastic Surgery
Marie Kolstad, an 83-year old grandmother of 12, recently became the oldest woman to receive breast implants. She’s not alone as WorldCrunch reports: Marie Kolstad’s case may seem a little over the, er, top, but it nevertheless reflects the latest trend in plastic surgery. If traditional surgery patients in their 30s and 40s are trying [...]
Profiting By Making Hearing Aids Affordable
Techcrunch: It’s not an unfamiliar story: There’s a niche market, which despite its relatively large size, goes unnoticed by most entrepreneurs and investors, because, simply put, it’s not sexy. For this and countless other reasons, as time goes by, legacy models and hardware, fragmentation, and high prices prevail. In short, it begs for new blood, [...]
WaitinIn: They’ll Wait For Your Deliveries
WaitingIn is a London, UK based short-term, professional house-sitting service designed to take the hassle out of home life. From emergency plumbers to furniture deliveries, washing machine engineers or TV repairs, they’ll wait in so you don’t have to. With a choice of full day or half day bookings, and a team of reliable, trustworthy [...]
Tie Society is an online rental service (like Netflix) that rents designer ties. Membership plans start at $10.95 for one item and go up $49.95 per month for 10 items. If you really like a tie, you can buy it at a discount instead of sending it back. Tie Society allows you to build an [...]
Business News Daily has a short list of businesses you may want to consider launching in 2012. Do you think they’re poised to take off this year? Home Renovation The real estate market has been in the toilet for three-and-a-half years now. It’s hard to sell a house and if you can’t sell, you can’t [...]
Comic: Shopping, Before and After Online Reviews
A University Degree for the Price of Cable TV
The Chronicle of Higher Education: The for-profit’s new venture New Charter University — sidesteps the loan system by setting tuition so cheap that most students shouldn’t need to borrow. The price: $796 per semester, or $199 a month, for as many classes as they can finish. “This is not buying a house,” says Mr. Wade, [...]
In Bjurholm, Sweden you’ll find the world’s only producer of moose cheese. The Moose House, a 59-acre moose farm with three moose that produce a total of only 660 pounds of cheese per year. Since moose only lactate for a few months per year, and they require almost complete silence while milking, the process is [...]
PennLive: Sure, the economy might still be struggling, with unemployment above 7.5 percent statewide, but that hasn’t discouraged 70-year-old Stanley Deimler Sr., who will hold a grand opening Friday for his latest business venture. Where most people see golf carts as a means of transporting their clubs around the links, Deimler sees a business opportunity [...]
I had no idea anything like this existed. At the Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha, Qatar this week, Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang put on his largest “explosion event” of the last three years, utilizing microchip-controlled explosives to form incredible designs and patterns. The video we’ve embedded of the event is an impressive testament [...]
Worldcrunch: “Live next to a Caribbean beach all year round, anywhere in the world….” The Chilean company Crystal Lagoons has succeeded in making this long overused dream cliche into reality by finding a way to treat the water in swimming pools hundreds of meters in size. The meteoric success of the holiday home complex built [...]
Wal-Mart’s First Advertisement
This is where it began in 1962. Below is the first ever advertisement for Wal-Mart. No comment from me.
Dream Homes from Shipping Containers
A trade imbalance has led to shipping containers piling up on US shores. Not to worry, “entrepreneurs to the rescue!” Via Yahoo Real Estate, here some businesses that are exploiting the shipping container niche: Alex Klein of Container Home Consultants Inc. has been involved in shipping container conversions for 30 years, while Heather Levin said [...]
Comedy: Straight to the Internet
NY Times: Stand-up comedians of a certain era knew they had arrived when Johnny Carson invited them to a desk-side seat on “The Tonight Show.” A generation later, the gold standard was getting a solo comedy special on HBO. But in the Internet era, the yardstick for success has been redefined. A handful of top-tier [...]
Making a Business Out of Standing in Line
Washington Express, a Washington DC courier service, also offers line standing: Do you need to attend a congressional or judicial hearing but don’t have the time to stand in line? Washington Express, a leader in DC area courier services, provides professional, competitively priced line-standing and seat holding services for congressional and judicial hearings. Our rate [...]
Thousands Descend on Mountain for “End of the World”
The Independent: A mountain looming over a French commune with a population of just 200 is being touted as a modern Noah’s Ark when doomsday arrives – supposedly less than nine months from now. A rapidly increasing stream of New Age believers – or esoterics, as locals call them – have descended in their camper [...]
Vending Machines to Sell Live Bait and Prescription Medicine
WSJ: Long a cultural icon, the vending machine is fading from the American landscape. The numbers are bleak: Traditional vending machines disappeared from 134,000 locations between 2007 and 2010, according to the latest available data from Vending Times, an industry publication. Sales from vending machines sank more than 11%, to $42.2 billion in the same [...]
Vending Machines Coming to NYC Cabs
NY Post: A plan to put vending machines – selling energy drinks, snack bars, breath mints, gum and even pain relievers – inside yellow cabs won rave reviews yesterday at a city-sponsored contest for new business ideas. “New Yorkers demand convenience. They want to be as effective with their time as possible,” said Brian Shimmerlik, [...]
Where does the millionaire go when he needs his $125 shave or his $650 haircut? He raps his secret knock on a nondescript gray door in midtown Manhattan to enter the world of Hommage Atelier. The luxury men’s grooming salon has dozens of locations in hotels and department stores around the globe, but the New [...]
Free Coffee at a Pay-By-The-Minute Cafe
Springwise: At the bright and open Anticaf’e, customers pay one ruble and 50 kopecks for each minute they stay. Drinks and snacks, on the other hand, are free. Aiming to create a space where consumers can relax and pursue their favorite diversions, the venue offers tea, coffee and desserts at no charge, and patrons can [...]
In 2010, when Maria Seidman wanted to start a iPad app company, she needed a tech wiz to get the biz off the ground. She posted what as essentially a dating add for a cofounder: “Well-connected, passionate entrepreneur with a decade of experience launching and running digital businesses at a major media company is seeking [...]
9 Entrepreneurial Homeless Signs
Even the homeless can use marketing to make their panhandling standout from the competition. Below you’ll find nine signs from the entrepreneurial homeless.
Atlas Obscura: Using an exciting – and questionably safe – food preparation technique, the chefs at the El Diablo Restaurant on the island of Lanzarote [in Spain] have a one of a kind kitchen, a volcanic hole in the ground. Building a restaurant on top of a massive heat source is not the easiest task. [...]
Ultimate Tak Ball: A Shocking New Sport!
Ultimate Tak Ball is an indoor sport where the two teams of 4 players each attempt to deposit a giant inflatable soccer ball into a goal while the other team tries to stop them with tasers. The tasers are the kind that you might use to defend yourself from a mugger in a dark alley! [...]
Snooker Dying in UK, Booming in China
Snooker is a table game similar to pool or billiards, but played on an enormous 6’x12’ table. Originally invented in British India in the 19th century, the sport is dying out in the UK. Luckily there’s a new market brewing for those wishing to profit from the game: China. Worldcrunch has more: In London, snooker [...]
3 Huge Ideas for the Next 3 Years
Michael Lazerow writing on Inc.com has identified three huge opportunities in the next couple years. They are: China + Internet = $$$$$$ Online organization drives offline markets Content is once again king Read the rest of his article for the details.
The Self-Employed Archeologist
nebusiness.co.uk: An archaeologist from Wallsend [UK] has unearthed an innovative new business idea to help children and adults get a taste of North East history. Archaeosoup Productions aims bring the region’s heritage to life through a blend of digital media production, educational talks and enthralling workshops. The firm was launched by Durham University archaeology graduate [...]
Asian Carp is a HUGE Business Opportunity
Although the asian carp is an invasive species of fish in the United States, that could potentially destroy the ecosystem of the Mississippi and the Great Lakes, Bloomberg reports that it’s actually a business opportunity for somone: Sometimes, Chinese netizens pay more attention to a U.S. news story than Americans do. President Barack Obama’s Feb. [...]
ExtremeTech: “Your dream of visiting the Red Planet may soon come true if the claim made by Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, actually comes to fruition. The commercial space travel entrepreneur told the BBC in an interview that he’s figured out how to send a person on a round-trip journey to Mars and back, and [...]
Everything is For Sale, Even Jail Cells and Carpool Lanes
The Atlantic: There are some things money can’t buy—but these days, not many. Almost everything is up for sale. For example: A prison-cell upgrade: $90 a night. In Santa Ana, California, and some other cities, nonviolent offenders can pay for a clean, quiet jail cell, without any non-paying prisoners to disturb them. Access to the [...]
How To Test Drive a New iPad for $24.95 for 30 Days
YBUY is a try-before-you-buy online subscription service that charges users $24.95 to give them a chance to test drive the latest in electronics, home and kitchen gadgets for 30 days before they commit to purchase. “For most consumers, when it comes to electronics or products for the home, the idea is that they want to [...]
Hydroponics is a Business Opportunity
Hydroponics is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil. One Florida in entrepreneur has found a business opportunity in it: No matter what the season, Heather Ulrichsen has fresh herbs, lettuce and peppers. What started as a winter hobby turned into a business opportunity. She and her partner, Richard [...]
Two weeks ago, we featured a post about a vending machine that dispenses cupcakes like an ATM. I’ve just come across of a video of it in action. Enjoy!
Take Advantage Of St. Paddy’s Day
What is your business doing to market itself this St. Patrick’s Day? Here is an idea from The Street. Using St. Patrick’s Day, a holiday marked in the U.S. mainly by green beer, leprechauns and four-leaf clovers, is a great way to lure customers in the door, says Charles Gaudet, founder of PredictableProfits.com. “The most [...]
Prescription Drug Arbitrage in Europe
Arbitrage means buying something where the price is cheap and reselling it where the price is high. A entrepreneurial pharmacist from Germany did just that after discovering, while on vacation in the late 1970s, that Benadryl sold in the UK for one-third of the price it normally fetched in Germany. He checked the ingredients on [...]
Turn Your Childhood Hobbies into A Retirement Business
Sometimes, after a lifetime of working for someone else, people can transform their childhood hobbies into businesses in their “retirement” years: The moment Robbie Crawford touched a calligraphy pen to paper, she fell in love with the beautiful form of handwritten expression. That was more than 30 years ago. Now, at the age of 60 [...]
If You Sell Souvenir Photos, Get to the Tourists First
Las Vegas Sun: It’s the ultimate Las Vegas photo opportunity: Two tourists from North Carolina are showered with cash, standing in front of the famous “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign on the Strip. Only in this case, the only real components are the North Carolinians, Veronica Miller and Mildred Wilson. The cash is fake [...]
CNN Money: Dan O’Brien, the owner of a 3,200-acre ranch in Rapid City, S.D., had been raising a few buffalo with his wife since 1997. But the hobby was proving costly. “We wanted to make this a better place for our (buffalo) herds,” said the 64-year-old, a wildlife biologist. “The way to do that was [...]
On a trip to Las Vegas for his 30th birthday, one of Gavin Cooper’s friends had the hotel deliver a bottle of champagne to his room. With this surprise bottle of bubbly consumed, a business idea popped into his head: What if you could send a bottle of champagne to anyone, anywhere? When he got [...]
Niche Biz: Renting Hotel Rooms as Condos
If you’re Las Vegas, and you have thousands of underused hotel/condo rooms because of the economic downturn, what do you do with them? If you’re Candace Bailey of Luxury Suites International, you profit. Her company serves condo owners looking to save their investments and hotels needing cash flow on empty rooms by providing a hybrid [...]
Buford, Wyoming, population now 1, will be auctioned at noon April 5. Don Sammons, the town’s sole resident, has put the town up for auction with Williams and Williams, an auction company based in Oklahoma City. This will be the company’s first town to auction, said Amy Bates, the company’s chief marketing officer. Buford sits [...]
iPad Will Transform Construction Industry
TechCrunch: Here’s just a short list of some things that will transformed in the next few years as the iPad delivers computing to the construction site: Adios, blueprints: The first thing that will disappear is paper. It’s expensive, always out-of-date, and with this new push for green buildings, The Owners are asking their contractors to [...]
