Business Opportunities Weblog

Marketing eYe: “A Swedish scuba diving company is using post-it notes to promote their services. They stick hand written post-it notes on Post Boxes and ATM machines. The post-it notes read: ‘Remember! Take classes and begin scuba diving’ and is signed with a link to their website.”

I reported on Dan Sherman’s implementation of this idea a few months back.

Dave Pollard: “I would hazard a guess that, both in business and in our personal lives, ‘finding people’ is our most inefficient process, the one we waste the most time doing ineffectively, and the one we do the worst job at. This is another instance of ‘the cost of not knowing’ — Who is the best supplier to repair your furnace, or advise you on managing your business, who are the best people to go into business with, what is the best community of people to live in and with, and, of course, who is Mr. or Ms. Right to spend the rest of your life, or at least the rest of the week, in the romantic company of.”

How Stuff Works: “You are starting a company and want to limit your personal liability for the debts of the business as well as the taxes you’ll have to pay. This is a common goal for many new business owners. Having a good understanding of how business legal structures work, however, is not so common. So, what are legal structures and what type(s) should you consider? C-corporations, S-corporations, limited liability companies, sole proprietorships, and partnerships are some of the more common options for business legal structures. There are differences and similarities in each that can dramatically affect the future of your company.”

Rob Levinson:

Nearly three years into my consulting practice, it’s crystal clear that I was destined to be my own boss. If only I had read the signs along the way, I could have avoided — or at least seriously shortened — the bumpy road I traveled getting here.

Ask yourself, does it seem as though you’ve been in the wrong place, living the wrong life?

It sure seemed that way to me. I spent the first 15 years of my career bouncing from one prestigious advertising agency to the next alternately getting big promotions — and even bigger pushes out the door. Though I continually questioned my ability to work for anybody, I still fought the good fight and conceded a life as a company man.

That is until 1998 when I landed at a high-flying (later, crash-and-burn) dot-com populated with scores of Harvard Business School grads 10 years my junior. These young men and women were take-no-prisoner trailblazers ill content with old-school titles, attitudes or operating procedures. They were super-bright, super-confident young professionals who were going to change the world. They weren’t just businesspeople; they were entrepreneurs. And I felt right at home.

Which got me thinking: Were the many supervisors who showed me the door intimidated by my entrepreneurial spirit? Are today’s entrepreneurs simply yesterday’s troublemakers who made waves, broke rules but often succeeded brilliantly? Was I actually an entrepreneur and not just a problem child?

Entrepreneur:

How do you figure out what will be a hot seller on eBay? It’s a challenge for new sellers. “They’re hopped up to sell, but don’t know what to sell,” says Jim “Griff” Griffith, dean of eBay Education.

In fact, “What should I sell on eBay?” is the most common question new sellers have, says Todd Lutwak, eBay’s director of seller development, adding that “eBay attempts to provide as much information as possible to help people spot trends.”

Seller Central is the place where new sellers can find hot lists that reveal the top search terms or keywords by category. Sellers can learn, for example, if computer buyers recently using the site preferred to use laptop or notebook as their main search term.

“It’s great data for sellers,” Lutwak says. “By looking at the keywords, you know what’s selling. And it’s a leading indicator of how you should be selling it.” eBay also e-mails sellers information regarding the top-selling categories for the last month.

Rhonda Abrams: “The long-awaited (at least by me) Census Bureau report on home-based workers has just been released. Poring over the data, I discovered an interesting distinction: Those home-based entrepreneurs whose businesses are incorporated made more money.”

Ram Shriram: “Launching a company is easy. The great thing about the Internet is you can launch and test an idea easily, and cheaply. If it doesn’t work, you can go back to the drawing board. ‘If you build your field of dreams, and no one comes, you can shut it down,’ he said.”

via Om Malik.

Small Business Trends: “A recent survey by Capital One and Consumer Action finds that 40% of Americans dream of starting their own business.”

Slashdot: “The next time you launch a huge online enterprise designed to cash out on Nasdaq IPO, it might be worth to check the Dotcom Business Plan Archive, MSNBC warns. David A. Kirsch, a professor of entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland, is collecting dotcom business plans and stories about creative destruction.”

Jay Dwivedi: “I divide an entrepreneur’s life into three distinct phases: initiating (dreaming up grand ideas, making paradigm shifts, putting a team together, funding, etc.), establishment and growth (attracting customers, serving them well to gain additional business, and diversifying into related business), and finally, sustenance (maintaining the growth and values of a company in a changing environment). The transition through the stages is not always easy for an organization and its founders. In many cases, the consequences can be disastrous to the business due to poor performance.”

“I call my invention ‘The Wheel,’ but so far I’ve been unable to attract any venture capital.”

via Jeff Cornwall.

Jeremy Wright’s very interesting new project Resume Wiki has launched.

Jeremy describes the new site as “part resume/job hunting resource and part ‘get community input into your resume’. My hope is that this resource will bring the power of communities to resumes.”

Small Biz Advisor: “Doing radio interviews can be an effective way to publicize yourself and in the process, sell a few books. But even if no immediate sales result from an interview, the publicity, over time, will have a positive effect on sales. Some folks have no problems with interviews (in my case, my amateur radio hobby has made it easy to ‘talk at a distance’) but for others the experience can be somewhat daunting… especially at first. Here are some hints to make the process smoother and to help avoid any embarrassing moments.”

Steve Johnson:

• The average customer with an unresolved complaint will tell nine to ten people; 13% tell more than 20 people.
• Up to 70% of complainers will return to your business if their complaint is resolved. Up to 95% return if the problem is resolved quickly.
• For every one complaint received, the average company has 26 unhappy customers it never hears from; six of these customers have problems that are considered “serious” problems.

Greedy Girl:

I’m going to spend an hour or so today working on “gift guides” for my various marketing projects.

Do you market to consumers? I suggest you do the same. Getting a gift guide up promptly after Thanksgiving is a great way to boost Christmas sales (which are always a huge part of my income). Don’t forget to include a stocking stuffer section!

About:

If you have a patent or have applied for a patent (patent pending) you can attempt to license your invention. Technically, it is called licensing your patent rights, rather than licensing your invention. Another broad term used is technology transfers. Non patented inventions can be licensed as well and the research/marketing methods would be the same, however, extra/different steps would be taken that are not covered here.

Create a list of potential manufacturers who may be interested in your product. (In our lesson on searching for prior art it was suggested that you write down any patent assignees - now you can understand a use for them.) Aim for a list of at least 50 or more. Find manufacturers by looking in stores and magazines for similar products. Visit product related tradeshows. Your local library should have great reference material on manufacturers. Use online manufacturer databases such as the Thomas Register to search for companies that make a product like yours. You can do an Internet search for manufacturers by using the keywords of your product.

Bob Shaver: “There is about 9 million tons of gold dissolved in the ocean, which is 180 times the amount that has been mined in human history. The gold in the oceans is very dilute, and a process for recovering it has not been found yet.”

Fortune Small Business: “Gil Walker may not act like a stereotypical prison warden, but he does act like a stereotypical entrepreneur. He knows his customers by name, even serving them meals on occasion. He runs his company, GRW, out of his split-level home. And Walker’s tiny, family-run firm may be the new face of private prisons, an industry long dominated by faceless megacorporations such as Cornell, Corrections Corp. of America, and Wackenhut.”

Amazon: “Small business consultant and author Michael E. Gerber, with sharp insight gained from years of experience, points out how common assumptions, expectations, and even technical expertise can get in the way of running a successful business. Gerber walks you through the steps in the life of a business — from entrepreneurial infancy through adolescent growing pains to the mature entrepreneurial perspective: the guiding light of all businesses that succeed — and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether or not it is a franchise. Most importantly, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business.”

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Glenn Reynolds, in this Opinion Journal piece, posits out that the big chain stores are better places to buy books because the stores are in business to make money, not because they like books: “Independent bookstores have traditionally been run by people who like books. Those people generally aren’t interested in offering the other amenities… The chains, however, aren’t in business for personal gratification. They just want to keep customers coming back.”

PayPal:

Recently, the PayPal site had technology issues that may have hindered your ability to conduct business using PayPal. To show our appreciation for your continued business, we’re going to credit you for PayPal transaction fees incurred on October 28, 2004, between 12:00:00 AM PDT and 11:59:59 PM PDT. You don’t need to do anything to receive your credit. We’ll add up the transaction fees you accumulate, and send a credit to your PayPal account by November 25, 2004. This is available only for users in certain countries. For more information, see the FAQs and Terms and Conditions below. To read a letter to the community about the recent PayPal site issues, click here.

It’s always good to apologize when you screw up.

USA Today: “Far too many new business people believe that a business plan is only necessary for getting financing. This is not the case at all. Putting together a business plan allows you to stroll through many aspects of your business future and helps you to have ready answers when needed. In other words, it’s your roadmap to success.”

via Bizz Bang Buzz.

Small Business Blog: “Starting your own business is not always one of the best ways to own a business. For some people buying a business is a much better option. When you buy a business most of the kinks (hopefully) should be worked out. You have customers (hopefully) in place and your vendor relations (hopefully) are all set up and functioning well. So how do you buy (pay for) a business? Well here is an interesting option you should read about. Paying part of the sales price with payments in the future.“

Kirsten Osolind: “What’s fascinating? The number of entrepreneurs without a degree. The National Federation of Independent Business reports that only 60% of all entrepreneurs (men and women combined) have at least some college education. Only a tenth of this group (12.6%) has graduate or professional school degrees. A full 40% have but a high school degree or less. Some notable inventors and entrepreneurs who bailed on college or high school? Bill Gates (who hoisted blue-peter from Harvard during junior year), Michael Dell (who took flight from Texas), Ted Turner (expelled from Brown for having a girl in his room), Barry Diller (who sprang from UCLA), Chef Wolfgang Puck, Robert Redford, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Nathan Pritikin (Pritikin diet), Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Ray Kroc, Carl Lindler, David Murdock, Vidal Sassoon, Richard Branson, Jim Clark (founder of Netscape), Kemmons Wilson (founder of Holiday Inn), Jimmy Dean, the Wright brothers…”