This website is not like all of the others. Since 2001, we've posted 15326 different business opportunities and ideas, so you're sure to find something here to inspire you!
Sher-Lee’s kids were intrigued by the idea of receiving mail but, unfortunately, they almost never received any. Inspired by their interest, Sherri-Lee formulated a business that would deliver postcards to those kids who loved to receive mail.
The skincare business is a tough business to break into. It is overloaded with competition and big brands. However Mary Beth Worzella has done pretty well.
With a flagship product like her deodorettes, MBeze has effectively separated itself from the competition. They not only do the job but the packaging looks good too.
Tell us a little about MBeze.
MBeze (pronounced embeez), is a natural skin care company. We create effective and innovative products infused with style, personality and great design. As well as promoting better physical health, we encourage you to express yourself, be aware of your consuming habits, and just be you. All products are cruelty-free and hand-blended with natural and organic ingredients in the USA.
Robin L. Hahn, a stay at home mother of 3 young children, changes the face of the local home party scene with Stella & Dot. The Stella & Dot look is fabulous and contemporary, and comes straight from the pages of the latest fashion magazines. “Stella & Dot is only available through Stella & Dot Stylists, and I’m thrilled to bring this gorgeous jewelry to my community,” says Robin. Now this incredible line of jewelry is available to everyone in Louisville.
“This isn’t the home party you might be used to. It’s social, stylish, creative, and fun,” says Robin, who is the premier Stella & Dot Stylist in Louisville. “Women love having the latest look and connecting with their friends at home.”
Over 1700 Stylists across the nation have joined this fast growing company. “Women are truly embracing the opportunity to start their own profitable business that fuels their creativity, yet also allows them to work from home and enjoy their family,” explains Stella & Dot President and Founder Jessica Herrin. Herrin previously started the company WeddingChannel.com. As a mother of two, she started Stella & Dot as a direct sales company so she could help other women achieve their entrepreneurial dreams while finding that work life balance every family needs.
Celebrities such as Penelope Cruz, Elisha Cuthbert and Brooke Mueller have been spotted wearing their Stella & Dot. Maya Brenner, Celebrity Designer for Stella & Dot, has had designs featured on the cover of InStyle magazine and worn by Reese Witherspoon, Cindy Crawford and many other Hollywood celebrities.
When being in business for yourself, there are so many different territories that one has to have control over, so many different decisions to make and ideas to come up with for products and services. Below are a couple questions that OpenForum feel’s every entrepreneur should ask themselves at some point.
Question #1: After each experience we go through, are we truly getting closer to our ultimate goals? Every avenue that you venture down in your business should hopefully get you closer to your end goal, if not, then you know this is an avenue that does not work so you don’t continue to pursue it and waste time and money.
Question #2: Can I let other people own my ideas? This pertains to as you move forward in your business and come up with more and more new ideas you will consider the possibility of taking on partners. However, you will not be able to afford truly great partners unless you allow them to take part ownership in your ideas.
Question #3: Can you be comfortable with the unconventional and mine the circumstantial?While the conventional approach in business is to plan extensively, most entrepreneurs we have interviewed – and even established companies that consistently innovate – take bold leaps and quick experiments in the pursuit of new ideas. These approaches require a willingness to mine the circumstantial opportunities that may present themselves along the way.
When you hire a consultant to come into your business, you are basically paying them a large fee to listen to your employees and then relay the infromation to you and vice versa. Why spend that money when you can do the same thing for free? It’s really quite simple actually, you listen to both yourself and your employees and then you put into action the things that make sense to everyone.
Always make sure that you fix the problems you can fix rather than pointing fingers and blaming others for the problem. One of the most important steps is to actually fix the correct problem. As silly as it sounds, all too often the wrong problem is fixed as suggested on Entrepreneur.com.
Listen to your team. Go to your team, and tell them you want to make a fresh start. Tell them you want them to enjoy their jobs more and get more done. Ask each person on the team for three problems that you can fix to make their lives easier.
Have you been your own companies consultant in the past?
This business is for someone who is supremely efficient and has the ability to make things happen.
People who hire you will expect things when they want them and you need to be able to come through with not only what they want, but with a personal touch and a smile on your face.
The most likely clients for a personal concierge service are top executives who find themselves at the office by 7 a.m. and are there most nights until 9 p.m., leaving them very little time to do all those things that often need to be done during those very hours.
When life throws you lemons, go ahead and make lemonade but take it one step further and open a lemonade stand!” says Mike Antinozzi, laid-off technology worker and Founder and President of Fresh Gear by Ozone Nation Inc.
Antinozzi has developed a machine that disinfects and deodorizes bacteria-infested sports gear worn in hockey, football and lacrosse as well as fire fighter gear and body armor. What started as an idea first conceived and tested in his garage during the summer of 2005 has reached the pinnacle of hockey success, the NHL.
“My heart goes out to all those people that have found themselves on the wrong side of these massive layoffs in the financial, technology and automotive sectors. In most cases, it was not a reflection on their work ethic or experience. Just a numbers game, out of their control,” Antinozzi laments. “It can really be a hit to your self-confidence. It feels great when you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off and show the world what you’re really made of!”
The machine that he invented, Fresh Gear C40, blows ozone straight into the gear, with the right volume and velocity, penetrating deep into the dense padding and hard-to-reach places like gloves and skates. This enables ozone to kill up to 99.99% of the bacteria lurking there, chemical-free and environment-friendly.
“The Fresh Gear C40 machine really does a great job on stinky, bacteria-infested gear. But we have taken it one step further and created an environment where people, many of whom have never been in business for themselves before, can buy a machine and take the sales and marketing materials that go with it and start to earn revenue, while providing a sorely needed service to the community,” said Antinozzi.
If you enjoy working outdoors, but don’t like plants enough to be a gardener, then maybe the BBQ cleaning business is for you?
Anyone can take a sponge and a pail and say they are in the barbecue cleaning business. But The BBQ Cleaner offers a complete mobile business system that will help you start and run your own business or add this service to your existing business. Included in the turnkey The BBQ Cleaner business opportunity is a fully-outfitted trailer that contains the total cleaning system and fully-developed, professionally-created marketing materials.
Nicole Pritikin, the owner of an online knitting and yarn shop in North Bennington, Vt., was so happy with her credit card from Advanta Corp. that she praised the company in its 2001 annual report. “The checkbook is history!” she said.
Since last week, though, she has switched her automatic bill payments to another credit card and redeemed her Advanta rewards points. The reason: The Spring House, Pa., company is walking away from all one million of its customers.
small-business owners throughout the U.S. were scrambling to replace Advanta credit cards that essentially will be canceled on June 10. The company will continue to accept payments on existing balances, but won’t make any new loans.
Advanta’s move is one of the most extreme retreats in the credit-card industry, which is being racked by record delinquency and default rates. While Advanta is a tiny player overall, with about $5 billion in outstanding card loans compared with $176 billion at J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. as of March 31, Advanta focused solely on small businesses.
Small-business owners have been among the most severely hurt by the credit crisis and recession. Banks have pulled back on small-business loans in recent months, forcing company owners to rely more heavily on plastic for many of their expenses. Card issuers are leery of small businesses because of their volatile revenue streams.
According to a recent survey by the National Small Business Association, credit cards are the most popular form of financing used by small business to finance their capital needs. One-third of small businesses reported that their credit lines had been reduced in the past six months.
Women-owned businesses are expected to be a driving force that turns this otherwise dismal economy around.
An article in Small Business Trends suggests that women entrepreneurs will “rule the global marketplace” due to social entrepreneurship, which women are better at.
Who knew our gift of gab would help us take over the world?
In this continuing “Inspirational Moms” series, I’d like to introduce to you successful moms who know how to weave their parenting / multitasking / problem-solving skills into business gold.
What I love about Sandy Hunter, president, Hunter Hawk, Inc., mother of two (now grown ups), is that she dared to set up stakes in a field so dominated by males that she was once named “Man of the Year” by an industry association.
Her company is a custom manufacturer and provider of industrial products and services for the oil industry. And we’re not talking mineral oils here. She also works with energy companies, biotech and water companies.
From small-business owners to television sitcom actors, recording artists, authors and a nationally known dessert company, Patricia Lawrence Kolaras is the woman behind securing the logos, lyrics, scripts and the secret recipe.
Kolaras, 41, an intellectual property and transactional attorney and founder of the township-based PLK Law Group, said her job is to protect the intellectual property of her clients. Intellectual-property law includes copyright, trademark, unfair competition, trade secrets, trademark dilution and domain-name disputes. The firm also focuses on aspects of transactional law, including drafting, negotiating and enforcing contract deals.
Kolaras, a mother of two, said the mission of her firm is to educate clients about the legal impact of their business practices and to communicate the law in a way that clients can understand. Kolaras’ combination of legal expertise and entrepreneurial skills led her to close a high-profile, multimillion dollar deal for Tracey Hughes, founder and chief executive officer of the nationally known Rum Cake Fairy Dessert Company, which recently was endorsed by Oprah Winfrey’s O List.
Kolaras, who now serves as co-owner of the dessert company, was able to secure the company’s trade-secret recipe.
Another client is Divine Diamonds, the originator of the famed “Ah Ring.”
You might think that during times of economic recession consumers are in no mood to experiment with, or purchase inventive products. Counter-intuitively, starting a business or launching an invention during a recession can be one of the smartest moves to make — depending of course, on if you take certain factors into account. Looking at past recessions and consumer psychology can give us ideas on the types of inventions that can succeed during an economic downturn. Let’s walk through some of these themes that appear on the psychological landscape during a recession.
Let’s start with how people are feeling during these uncertain times. Recessions can generate fear and uncertainty in the minds of people. All around, people are watching others suffer economic hardship, losing their jobs and homes. A result of this is a mindful gratitude that they are not that person they see struggling on the nightly news or in their neighborhood. An appreciation of what one already has, as opposed to what one can attain becomes paramount.
That’s why many inventions that do well during hard times have to do with comfort, organization and do-it-yourself products. Nesting relates to all things related to the home; personal possessions, making oneself more comfortable and secure, improving home environment, and making one’s life more functional. It’s also a known fact that during recessions, many people have less disposable income to spend on going out, so home entertainment and gaming items are always popular. An example of an inventive gaming product introduced during this recession is The Sega “Project Beauty” virtual reality video game (designed for Nintendo DS), which helps women try out different make-up looks via their TV screen. The Magic Fur Ball helps take care of your clothing and laundry by removing people and pet hair from fabrics in the dryer. Lumbarwear is a soft undergarment that supports core and back strength, while providing comfort to the wearer. Tag Tamers is another product that enables comfort by relieving the itchiness of garment labels and eliminating the need to cut them out of clothing. By the way, replenishment products such as this are great for repeat sales. The stylish Shoe Seen is a transparent shoe pouch that helps people organize and store their footwear. All of these are products that satisfy that urge for nesting.
Bleacher Buddies is a stadium seat fundraiser and business opportunity.
Bleacher Buddies are steel frame stadium chairs with nylon padded seat and backs that are rented to spectators, for a donation, at sporting events by fundraising groups. The group hands out the chairs at the beginning of the event, and retrieve them afterwards.
The President of Bleacher Buddies wrote in an email:
We have a product that is used as a fundraiser for school groups. It would make an ideal bizop for someone with a metro area that has several schools within a 100 mile area. They would need to be connected to the advertising industry or a real go getter sales type. Should be able to net $70,000 or more. Very small investment.
The website is directed to the school group. However, the bizop person could get rewarded greatly by getting the advertisers for them.
The current economy is making it tougher than ever to try to grow a startup?but in many ways, it’s never been easier to launch a new business.
Tech platforms like social networks and open-source software have boosted the chances that people with good ideas will get their startups off the ground, even if they don’t know how to write code and haven’t raised a round of funding.
Meanwhile, people that do have tech skills can get their products in front of potential consumers directly?no middleman required for distribution (or promotion).
it’s easier to be an entrepreneur now because service providers like Akamai and Amazon have made digital content distribution easy and cheap.
“There’s zero incremental cost for digital goods?whether its a music track, an article or an app?so now anyone can put up a piece of content and sell it to a billion people,” he said. “That makes it much easier to start and reach a massive market.”
With channels like social media, apps and online video, you have multiple ways to grow a very specific audience very quickly?which is far more attractive from an advertising point of view.
The secret is really finding a business model to lay across those features that someone creates.
Not having enough money for a comfortable retirement tops the list of financial concerns among aging Americans, according to a recent Gallup Poll. It even outweighs peoples’ worries about having a serious illness or accident.
With statistics showing that Americans can expect to live 20 or more years after reaching retirement age and our longevity continuing to inch upward, these fears could be well founded.
Three out of 10 American workers haven’t saved at all for retirement, and among those who do, many have not saved enough, according to another study. The study showed that three out of 10 workers age 55 or older have saved less than $25,000.
There is an alternative to having to work full-time until we’re in a wheelchair. It’s also a smart choice as we get past age 50 and want to slow down a bit, but still stay active and stimulated. And that’s to gradually make the transition from working full-time as an employee to being in business for ourselves on a contract or per-project basis. By planning ahead, you can gradually turn your job skills into a “microbusiness” while you are still employed.
If you have worked in a specific industry for 10, 15 or more years, you are ideally suited for this type of transition. You can set up a home office in a spare bedroom of your home, get the equipment you need and gradually establish your business.
You can choose either to do the organizing work or to come in to a home and consult on the things the homeowner could do to better organize.
Have a portfolio of different organizational scenarios in different rooms in the home and talk with the homeowner about the style he or she likes.
Create checklists and questionnaires to understand how the family uses the home. Are the kids wildly busy with after-school activities?
Or are they usually home after school and want access to their toys? Do they share rooms? All of these things will help you tailor an organizing plan and become the family hero.
On this day in 1937 Sylvan N. Goldman, owner of the Humpty Dumpty supermarket chain in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, invented the shopping cart. He imagined that his customers would love it because it would free them from having to carry heavy hand-held baskets full of groceries. Unfortunately, they didn’t.
But the launch turned out to be a flop: Customers didn’t want to use the new invention. Young men thought they would appear weak using the carts; women thought they were unfashionable and too suggestive of a baby carriage.
So Goldman got smart and started marketing his new invention:
Instead of giving up, he hired models of both sexes and different ages to push things around in his store, pretending to be shopping. It worked. Soon the carts in Goldman’s stores were a success. By 1940, the shopping cart’s popularity had grown so much that buyers faced a seven-year waiting list.
Just remember this next time you launch a great business or invent a very useful product. No matter how great it is, it does need marketing.
Yahoo! Make It Green is looking for do-it-yourself ideas that improve lives and help our planet.
This Live Product Search is a little different from our other searches. Yahoo! has built an entire site dedicated to allowing their members to vote on the best do-it-yourself green ideas. They’ve even subsidized the $25 entry fee so that it is only $10 per idea.
You have the ability to decide whether a snapshot of your idea will be considered for publication to the Yahoo! site. Ultimately, the best ideas will be presented not only to Yahoo! but our entire portfolio of retail and manufacturing partners, including a few who haven’t even launched searches yet.
Abby and Ken Kohut both launched home-based businesses three years ago. Staffing Symphony, Abby Kohut’s recruitment consulting firm, occupies an office in their Springfield home a few steps from the office of Ken Kohut Photography.
“It is a wonderful experience to have your own business,” Abby Kohut said. “But you have to be aware that expenses creep up as the monthly bills come in.”
Entrepreneurs tend to underestimate how much things will cost, because “when you work for a company, your phone, cell phone, travel, electricity — they’re all paid for by your employer,” she said. One of the keys to managing a successful home office is figuring out when money should be spent, and when it shouldn’t, she said.
The Kohuts, like thousands of other Americans who run businesses from home, enjoy the tax benefits of the home-office deduction. Basically, this involves taking the square footage of your office and calculating that space as a percentage of the square footage of the house, then deducting that percentage of your house expenses from your income.
Martinsville CPA Gail Rosen said “the home-office deduction is very good, because you are getting a deduction for things you are already paying for.” Among the eligible expenses: property taxes, homeowner’s insurance, heat, electricity, water, garbage, sewer fees, condo fees, mortgage interest and home repairs. Rosen said these deductions reduce all your taxes: federal, state, Social Security and Medicare.
If you’re paying 40 percent of your income in taxes, and claim $10,000 in home expenses, you’ll save $4,000 in taxes, “a significant savings,” she said. “You have to keep very good records to use the home-office deduction, but it’s worth it.”
Italian food is famous for being cooked fresh with fresh ingredients, but an entrepreneur wants to popularize his automatic vending machine that will cook pizza with fresh ingredients, including the dough.
Claudio Torghele, 56, become successful by selling pasta in California, and now wants to sell his automatic pizza vending machines in Italy.
In this global world there is an enormous demand for people to communicate in multiple languages. Language Champs is a system and methodology for teaching a second or third language that is currently being implemented in schools and centers located in Australia. The languages offered include English, Chinese, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian and more.
Licensing Opportunity
For the first time, this system is available to individuals in the US. So if you are bilingual and are considering starting a business, Language Champs could be for you. This system could be utilized by, but not limited to:
start-up language schools
established language schools seeking a children’s program
private kindergartens and child care centers looking to differentiate their center
Anyone parent and parent-to-be is likely to know what it is like to prepare for a new baby. The preparation alone can be tiring but the cost isn’t much better. Babies tend to be expensive but, thanks to a website called BabySteals.com, new parents and parents-to-be simply need to visit the website at 9am every weekday for the lastest “steal”. Why 9am? Because that is the moment the virtual doors open and sometimes the products, especially the best deals, can sell out fast.
If you thought the steals would stop at just babies, you’re wrong. Jana Francis, the founder of BabySteals.com, has some other niche deal of the day websites in the works. Anyone who enjoys scrapbooking should keep their eye on ScrapbookSteals.com, while parents of children between the ages of 2-8 can expect their own steals in the future.
Would you mind telling us a little about BabySteals.com?
BabySteals.com is the first deal of the day website offering daily deals on baby and maternity products, and has become a 9am MST internet obsession for tens of thousands of moms in the US and Canada! BabySteals.com lists one item per day until it sells out. Each item is listed at 9am MST.
One of the biggest problems today is the number of uninsured individuals in this country. Many small businesses can not even afford to offer insurance to their employees because of the cost, which in turn makes it impossible for the individual to afford it on their own as well.
Larger insurance companies are switching over nicely on their policies such as that of Cigna who is offering insurance to those with pre existing conditions as well as no longer basing their prices on a person’s health. However, it was recently discussed in The New York Times that some insurance agencies such as Wellpoint who handles a lot of Blue Cross policies is refusing to change the way they provide insurance to smaller businesses.
Much of the Congressional talk about health care has not yet focused on what federal oversight, if any, might be necessary for the small-business market. Proposals before the Senate Finance Committee seem to envision the same kind of rules for both the individual and small-business markets. And some House members seem to lean in that direction, too.
What are your thoughts on health coverage for small businesses?
Kelly Ripa (from Live! With Regis and Kelly) is teaming up with TLC and HSN to find women with great ideas and prototypes. If you have a brilliant product and a working prototype, TLC and Kelly Ripa want to help you manufacture, market and sell it on the Home Shopping Network
They are seeking women who are US Citizens over the age of 18 who have an invention or product with a working prototype. The invention or product may not be edible or make any guarantees of satisfaction (such as “guaranteed weight loss” or “best ever.”) Applicants can come from anywhere in the US. They are holding casting calls but inventors are also able to mail a video submission if they are unable to attend an open call.
If you’ve got ambition, an idea and a working prototype, apply now at www.milojo.com/casting.
These difficult people harass you and others, ask too many self-explanatory questions, neglect details, distract you and repeatedly challenge you and others. Even worse, when they interact with customers, vendors and people lower than them on the corporate hierarchy, they can be grouchy, impolite, condescending, uninformed, misleading, inappropriate or simply wrong. Do you know anyone like this?
Entrepreneur.com recently posted an article regarding these difficult employees that we have all encountered at some point in our business life. Many of us don’t know how to handle them, well now there are a few suggestions below to help you out.
Don’t ignore the problem, this will only tell them that their behavior is acceptable and it will continue rather than stop.
Take care of the problem. A manager needs to take the difficult employee into a room away from others and calmly address the issue, give the employee a chance to respond and then try to work on ways to correct the behavior.
Step in to take care of the problem as soon as possible. Letting this behavior go on for any length of time even a few days could cause the solution to backfire. The employee may ask why it wasn’t addressed days ago if it was such a problem.
When all else fails termination may have to be a course of action. If you have addressed the behavior more than once, you have given numerous warnings verbally and written warnings to go in the employees file, and it is still going on, then termination may be the only resort left.
The skincare business is a tough business to break into. It is overloaded with competition and big brands. However Mary Beth Worzella has done pretty well.
“Stella & Dot is only available through Stella & Dot Stylists, and I’m thrilled to bring this gorgeous jewelry to my community,” says Robin. Now this incredible line of jewelry is available to everyone in Louisville.
An article in Small Business Trends suggests that women entrepreneurs will “rule the global marketplace” due to social entrepreneurship, which women are better at.
Kolaras, 41, an intellectual property and transactional attorney and founder of the township-based PLK Law Group, said her job is to protect the intellectual property of her clients. Intellectual-property law includes copyright, trademark, unfair competition, trade secrets, trademark dilution and domain-name disputes. The firm also focuses on aspects of transactional law, including drafting, negotiating and enforcing contract deals.
