Author Archives: Rich Whittle
Niche Music Company Keeps Price, Message On Track
According to a story in The Tennessean, Mike and Sue Gay figured they had a pretty good idea for a new business, but they never expected it to become what it has. Now, 17 years into their homegrown music company that features children’s songs with a Christian bent, the couple has sold more than 20 [...]
Jimmy Berke checks on trays of bright red tomatoes drying in a specially equipped 90-degree solar room that includes dehumidifiers and fans, reports The Palm Beach Post. He’s pleased to see they’re coming along, soon to be on their way to customers who love the sun-dried products his business Leechango Plantation at Turtle Creek produces. [...]
Law enforcement agencies don’t flip through old yearbooks when they want information on a suspect anymore—they turn to Facebook and Twitter. Social media sites say they are constantly besieged with requests for information. Facebook told Newsweek in 2009 that it received between 10 and 20 requests for information each day. The New York Times reports [...]
Ever since transportation authorities placed rigorous limits on the amount of liquids allowed on flights, travellers have had to figure out how to both pack their favourite toiletries and comply with those regulations. According to trendspotter Springwise, helping consumers avoid bag-check charges or confiscation of their non-compliant toiletries and cosmetics, New York-based 3floz is an [...]
Five Payment Trends To Watch In 2011
2010 dramatically changed how we think about how people and businesses exchange money. We saw ecommerce continue to grow and we saw emerging channels take flight with consumers and merchants of all sizes. Osama Bedier from PayPal shares his views with Mobile Beat. Mobile, mobile, mobile Wallet in the cloud. The digital wallet. Call it [...]
USA Today interviews FootzyRoll co-founders and sisters Jennifer and Sarah Caplan about the creation of their small business and strategies they are using to grow it.
If you’re a first-time entrepreneur with a business idea, you probably need to do a lot of research and planning before you’re able to persuade anyone — banks, angels, friends or family members — to give you funding. Entrepreneur.com reports that startup boot camps can help. Their sole purpose is to teach you how to [...]
Shoe Device Knockoffs Create Foot Fight
According to The Wall Street Journal, many have tried, but no one has ever come up with a more elegantly simple way to measure the human foot than Charles Brannock, inventor of that ubiquitous metal gadget found in shoe stores and known, fittingly, as the Brannock device. Created in the 1920s, Brannock’s tool is among [...]
Ruth Haldeman moved to rural Hot Springs, Ark., in 2002 and promptly took in a couple of orphan chicks. She soon discovered chickens poop–a lot. According to Entrepreneur.com, in the interest of keeping her house relatively clean, Haldeman broke out her sewing machine and designed a roomy cloth diaper with a disposable liner. As time [...]
Groupon Gives Couple Deal Of Lifetime
Dana Burck and Greg Hill of Cincinnati were a happy young couple who enjoyed traveling, watching movies, and did a lot of online shopping together. The New York Times reports that last Tuesday evening, Hill kept Burck up late with caffeine and back rubs, until about 1 a.m., when she says, “and then we went [...]
Amid strict lending restrictions, slowly rising retail prices, and sluggish hiring, where are the bright spots for 2011? The Wall Street Journal has compiled an in-depth report detailing the climate for small business in 2011. And guess what? It’s not so bad. Small businesses are expected to increase their head-counts this year, more small businesses [...]
Highlights: Consumer Electronics Show
This year’s Consumer Electronics Show is more about incremental upgrades than massive breakthroughs. And, of course, there are the tablets. Wired put together this video for a quick, two-minute overview of the highlights.
Big Ideas 2011: Paranoia, Inc.
According to Inc.com, radical transparency is so last decade. Privacy and security are the new concerns swimming in the zeitgeist. Blame it on brouhahas over airport body scanners, WikiLeaks, and customer tracking by Web companies. Look for more upstarts like LifeLock, which offers identity theft protection, and Reputation Defender, which offers a service to remove [...]
Electronics companies are rolling out a slew of new gadgets this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Inc.com takes a look at three trends for business owners to watch: Mobile Devices with Built-In Projectors MicroVision unveiled a prototype of a mini-tablet with an embedded Pico projector that displays widescreen images as large [...]
eBook Sales Soar After Christmas
According to USA Today, millions of gift-wrapped iPads, Kindles, Nooks and other digital reading devices resulted in an unprecedented surge in sales of e-books last week. E-book versions of the top six books outsold the print versions last week. And of the top 50, 19 had higher e-book than print sales. It’s the first time [...]
Are you young and enterprising? Get ready to crash and burn. Every entrepreneur will fail at some point, says start-up investor Alex Taussig. But those under 30 tend to fail in ways that are “wholly unnecessary,” he writes in Fortune, ratting off a list of “15 mistakes young entrepreneurs make but don’t have to.” Among [...]
Niche Biz: Furniture From Old Christmas Trees
You’ve opened the presents. Sipped the nog. Hot-tubbed in champagne. And so, as the new year quickly becomes just “the year,” there’s only one tradition left to check off your list. We’re talking, of course, about turning your Christmas tree into a footstool, the UrbanDaddy newsletter reports. Introducing The Christmas Tree Project, a pop-up concept [...]
Big Ideas 2011: Facebook Backlash?
Facebook survived the Hollywood takedown of 2010, and Mark Zuckerberg emerged as Time’s Person of the Year. Is it too good to be true? According to Inc.com, Facebook might be primed to stumble—or at least stub a toe—sometime soon. Its size and ubiquity have drawn scrutiny and criticism from users worried about its blasé attitude [...]
It’s a new year with new tax incentives that could help small businesses grow. KETV7 reports that If you run a micro business employing five or fewer full-time employees, you could qualify for special tax credits. But you need to act fast. Omaha boasts hundreds of small businesses, some of them just starting out in [...]
Social Media Business Trends To Watch For In 2011
Social media has become increasingly important to businesses small and large over the past couple of years. It is, however, a field that changes almost constantly. And few companies seem to realize that social media goes far beyond sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. 2011 will be just as turbulent, but Gary Halliwell in a [...]
Firm Creates Niche Painting Stripes
They do lines — lots of lines. You’ll find them in parking lots, airports and even at Miami’s Doral Golf Resort. The company We Do Lines USA is one of the few companies nationwide that specializes in striping — creating those white, iridescent lines to mark off parking spaces. According to Bradenton.com, the Connecticut-based firm, [...]
Working in partnership with the Denver Office of Cultural Affairs, YesPleaseMore aims to provide an economic development platform that gives participating creatives funding for new innovations, the opportunity to sell their wares, and a nurturing environment for creative entrepreneurial culture and reported by trendspotter Springwise. Its pop-up souvenir shop in a vacant retail space within [...]
Big Ideas 2011: The Battle For Your Living Room
In September, Steve Jobs introduced his company’s Apple TV, a little box that lives on top of your television and streams movies, as “one more hobby.” Inc.com reports that competition for your home-entertainment is getting serious. Google and start-ups like Boxee, Hulu, and Roku are jostling for space on your television screen with stand-alone gadgets [...]
Online Shoppers Look To Buy From Trusted Sources
When Kristen and Chris Conn of Evanston wanted to help other parents find and buy safe, nontoxic merchandise, they turned to the Internet. The result wasMightyNest.com, an online business the husband-wife team launched in October 2009 that marries content and commerce to cost effectively reach busy parents. The Chicago Tribune reports that thanks to consumers’ [...]
Top 5 Microbiz Opportunities For 2011
According to Dawn Rivers Baker over at SmallBizTrends.com, microbusiness opportunities often build from everybody else’s opportunities. If one of the big trends to watch in 2011 is travel and tourism, then the microbusiness opportunity lies in providing the personal touch–for example, via a B&B or by supplying the handcrafted soaps used by the local Big [...]
2010: Big Year For Remote Web Workers
John Paul Titlow over at ReadWriteWeb.com reports that this year proved to be a strong one for online employment, as more and more took to the Web to find work, where an increasing number of jobs are for employers in other geographic areas, according to a report released by Elance. Elance reported its one-millionth job [...]
E-Book Trends That Will Change Publishing
From the front lines of the e-book revolution, here are five trends Philip Ruppel, president of McGraw-Hill Professional, is watching. 1. Enhanced E-Books Are Coming and Will Only Get Better Consumers have already shown that they love e-books for their convenience and accessibility, but ultimately most e-books today are the same as print, just in [...]
Big Ideas 2011: Rethinking Retail
Online retailers have always competed by offering convenience and low prices, but they’ve lately began to master the art of getting people to buy things they don’t yet know they want. Inc.com reports that these new start-ups—like Gilt Group, LivingSocial, and Groupon—send locally targeted e-mails (hello, Shreveport, Louisiana!), give huge discounts (50 percent off is [...]
Trends That Will Define Opportunity This Year
Hard to believe, but according to the learned folks at the National Bureau of Economic Research, the economy’s been in recovery since June 2009. Entrepreneur.com reports that a big reason for the stagnation so far has been, well, YOU. Tons of people–71 percent, says a recent survey by Discover Small Business Watch–are waiting for economic [...]
Checking trademark availability is an essential when creating a company. If you mistakenly choose a company name that a 3rd party has already trademarked, you might later be forced to change your company’s name and pay damages. Until now, checking for taken trademarks was a lengthy process that usually required you to spend money. But [...]
Internet Sales Tax Could Impact Your Biz
Heads up, entrepreneurs! There’s increasing political interest for an Internet sales tax. Although we’ve seen calls for this in the past, the topic has seen a resounding resurgence amidst budget deficits in almost all 50 states. This deficit crisis has presented many lawmakers with a golden opportunity to recoup some revenue by collecting tax on [...]
2011 Small Biz Forecast-O-Rama
Entrepreneur.com has a collection of some of the more interesting forecasts for small businesses in 2011: 1. More companies will use direct deposit to save money and help the environment. 2. Companies that take advantage of tax breaks expiring this year will have more growth capital for 2011. 3. New high-tech methods of reaching customers [...]
Via: Stephanie Fox at io9.
Geraldine Doyle was just 17 when she took a job at a metal pressing plant near Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1942. AFP reports that she was there when a United Press International photographer came to the factory while documenting the contribution of women to the war effort. A picture of Doyle was later used by [...]
Man Makes Living Suing Spammers
Daniel Balsam hates spam. Most everybody does, of course. But he has acted on his hate as few have, going far beyond simply hitting the delete button. He sues them. According to the Associated Press, eight years ago Balsam was working as a marketer when he received one too many e-mail pitches to enlarge his [...]
Via: Online Schools
Train Brain For New Years Resolutions
Resolutions require more than just willpower says The Wall Street Journal. In order to really change your behavior, you must learn to change the way your brain responds to old habits. Training yourself mentally by breaking small habits—like using your less dominant hand or improving your posture—can make sticking to the big goals easier. Giving [...]
If you’ve been thinking about starting a small online business, take advantage of this deal. Go Daddy.com is offering a new 1-year domain name registration for $1.49 via coupon code “NEWYEAR11“, This offer isn’t limited to .com domains; .org, .net, .biz, and others. Click here. Photo by Go Daddy.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy challenged the nation to reach an ambitious goal: land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth by the end of the decade. Although many believed the mission could not be achieved, Kennedy succeeded in changing the narrative. Instead of dismissing the idea, scientists accepted the [...]
You Can’t Multitask, So Stop Trying
The year end is a busy time for almost everyone. As we use our smartphones to confirm online gift orders, we’re also trying to wrap up those work tasks we should have finished in November. We feel overwhelmed but also productive, pleased with our ability to juggle so many things. In reality, however, that sort [...]
Steps To Small-Biz Success In 2011
Economists say the Great Recession–the longest and deepest since World War II–ended 18 months ago and that the U.S. economy is, in fact, growing again. That doesn’t mean sit and wait for things to improve. Rather, Entrepreneur advises retool for the economy that exists today, and will be lingering for many tomorrows. Double Down On [...]
The Sun Sentinel reports what’s being billed as the first gold-dispensing ATM in the nation at the Town Center Mall in Boca Raton, spitting out an after-dinner-mint-sized gold bullion into the palm of its first customer. The Gold To Go gold bullion vending machine, developed by the Germany company Ex Oriente Lux AG, was brought [...]
Barbara Weltman over at AOL Small Business shows you how to squeeze some extra savings out of your 2010 tax bill. 1. Wait to bill for work you’re doing now. Instead of sending an invoice immediately so you’ll receive payment in 2010, consider waiting until the end of the year to send it. This will [...]
Frank Fish was on vacation with his fiancée in Boston when he spotted a fine-art sculpture of a humpback whale in Quincy Market. On closer inspection, he noticed the flippers had bumps on the edges. “I thought ‘The artist got this all wrong,’” he recalls. “But when the store manager pulled out a picture of [...]
Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions
What does it take to make that new habit stick past January 1? What are the key principles in transforming our lives to make conscious new habits become unconscious routines? Kentin Waits over at Wisebread has put together five key steps that can give you a running chance at achieving those New Year’s resolutions and [...]
Top Ten Franchising Trends For 2011
The future of franchising is looking bright: In September, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 10.5 percent of all businesses with paid employees were franchises in 2007, the latest data year, and that they generated a staggering $1.3 trillion in annual sales. Where is franchising headed next? Entrepreneur.com identified 10 categories as the industries to [...]
Best Industries For Starting A Biz Right Now
Candy How sweet it is. Even in a recession, candy has been a luxury that many people can still afford. “Chocolate is a comfort food,” says Dan Johnson, owner of Choco-Logo in Buffalo, New York, which has seen retail sales rise 30 percent since last year. The confectionery industry, as a whole, grew 3.7 percent [...]
As more businesses move online and more jobs come into existence based upon these moves, it’s not a surprise that the number of people working from their home office is rising. This infographic by ContactMe drives home the numbers and puts it into perspective. Photo by ContactMe.
Entrepreneur reports that a new fleet of entrepreneurs are creating their own spin on the food-truck model some with seriously cool mobile retail. On weekends, one of the hippest places to shop in SoHo In New York sits at the corner of Broadway and Prince, with street artists to the west, trendy stores all around [...]
Intuit took the pulse of small businesses in America to hear both their biggest challenges and greatest rewards from 2010 as well as their perspective of what’s to come in 2011. While small businesses are still feeling the brunt of the recession, they enter 2011 motivated to grow and with realistic expectations. Photo by Intuit.
