Business Opportunities Weblog

June 17, 2009 by Dane Carlson | 0 Comments

photo credit: Gustty

Entrepreneur are born, not made. MBAs are just the opposite.

This old adage explains one of the most commonly-held differences between entrepreneurs and those with an MBA. While entrepreneurs typically have a drive and ambition that may also be present in those with an MBA, they usually are willing to take risks in order to succeed that stands them apart from others, and this risk-taking character trait is typically not something that can be taught.

Select Courses has nine other big differences between entrepreneurs and MBAs.

In Entrepreneurial Lifestyle | 0 Comments

June 17, 2009 by Dane Carlson | 0 Comments

There is still money to be made despite the economic climate according to industry research firm IBISWorld. The company identified the leading start-up opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors to potentially make a profit in 2009 and beyond.

Their report can be downloaded as a PDF here.

In Ideas | 0 Comments

June 17, 2009 by Jaclyn | 0 Comments

 
photo credit: Orin Optiglot

When working online with the public, being nice and professional is very important, and sometimes slightly difficult as the tone of “typing” is different from that of “talking” in person and can often times be read the wrong way. Below are a handful of tips on being professional and nice online located on SmallBizTechnology.

• First things first, keep all personal topics such as family, religion, sex and politics out of your online work. Always remember to imagine what a potential employer or prospect would think about you when you write about those topics.
• Always remember to tell the truth! Don’t exaggerate what your work related accomplishments are, don’t make it sound like you are the inventor of the light bulb when all you really do is sell discounted light bulbs.

Fourth, decide on what your “friending” policy is going to be and be consistent, at least for inside each social site that you frequent. For example, I am most stringent with the people that want to network with me on LinkedIn, and only accept connections with people that I have actually met face to face, or who have been long-time email correspondents.

In Advice, Blogging, Internet, Writing | 0 Comments

June 17, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 2 Comments

The Hartford Courant:

The recession has spawned a new generation of self-employed microbusiness entrepreneurs.

But they are not typically the innovators that many hope will lift the country out of choppy waters. Rather, they are what economists call “forced entrepreneurs” — like Staci Byers.

The Hartland, Conn., mother of eight — with four children still at home — lost her job as a trucker six months ago. Her husband, also a trucker, lost his job at the same time.

“You’re working one day,” said Byers, 50, “and, all of a sudden, you’re unemployed by no fault of your own.”

Byers is throwing all of her time and money into making and selling herbal medicine and teas — a hobby she had taken up over the years.

They are the face of this new, yet familiar, generation of microbusinesses. The housecleaners. The handymen. The home-based retailers. People who have fallen on hard times and see no other way of keeping afloat than to create jobs for themselves.

This rise has Jim DeBetta’s phone ringing off the hook. The Marietta, Ga., business consultant, who coaches start-up business owners, said he has been so swamped with calls from people who have lost their jobs that he hired an assistant to handle the flow.

“In a way, there are a lot of good things that’ll come from people looking to take control of their own destiny,” he said. “That kick in the butt is just what they needed.”

Photo by Hartford Courant.

In Downturn, Economy, Microbusiness | 2 Comments

June 17, 2009 by Dane Carlson | 0 Comments

photo credit: atomicjeep

Need a door to door salesman? The NY Times suggests that you hire a Mormon:

Six days a week, in fair weather and foul, two-dozen door-to-door salesmen, all of whom live clustered together in an apartment complex in this suburb west of Chicago, pile into S.U.V.’s and cars and head into the big city, bent on sales of home security systems.

And on Sunday, their one day off, they drive together to the nearest house of worship of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The salesmen are mostly former Mormon missionaries from Utah who cut their teeth — and learned their people-skill chops — cold-calling for their faith. In Chicago and in its suburbs where their employer, Pinnacle Security of Orem, Utah, has shipped them for the summer sales season, they are doing much the same thing, but as a job.

“It’s missionary work turned into a business,” said Cameron Treu, 30, who served his mission in Chile and was recruited into D2D (that is door-to-door in sales lingo) by another former missionary.

In Sales | 0 Comments

June 17, 2009 by Jaclyn | 0 Comments

photo credit: pfala

Earlier in the week we talked about the possibility of mandated health coverage for all employers, the thought of this I’m sure sends most employers into a frenzy wondering how they will be able to afford this proposal. However, a recent study posted on New York Times reported that the Obama administration is looking into signing new bills that could end up saving the small business community tens of billions of dollars even if that mandate goes through.

It is reported that more than half of small businesses who employe 9 or fewer people do not offer health coverage to those employees, it is simply to expensive. Think of it as buying in bulk, the more you buy the more you save, in health coverage the more employees you ensure the less you pay on your end.

It is not that small businesses don’t want to provide the coverage, they do, they just can not afford it due to the high costs of health coverage these days. So in order to correct this problem the administration is attempting to come up with two ways small businesses can save on coverage.

One way provides tax write offs to help lower the cost burden of health coverage. And the other way is the administration containing the costs of health coverage to begin with. No one wants to pay into the system when it is broken, meaning the costs continue to inflate to the point of not being able to afford them.

Over all, the study estimates that the proposals under debate could save small businesses anywhere from $546 billion to $855 billion over the next decade.

In Employees, Future, Government, Healthcare | 0 Comments

June 17, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 3 Comments

SMBCEO.com:

Twitter applications are tools that help you efficiently get the most out of your Twitter activity. They can save you time and effort while streamlining your marketing and social networking efforts.

New apps are popping up constantly.

Tweetr - This applications allows you to share files up to 10MB via Twitter. Tweetr will upload your file and covert it to a short URL. One other feature of Tweetr is that you can use your webcam to share images with your followers.

Twellow - In short, a yellow pages for Twitter users. This directory service enables you to easily search, find and follow people that interest you most. Registration is free.

Twitalyzer - Use this application to evaluate your impact and success of your Twitter activity. This tool measures your clout, generosity, influence, velocity and signal to noise ratios.

Twitter Job Search - Looking for work? This app searches and sorts available job positions discussed on Twitter. You can browse the jobs by category or use their helpful map of jobs tweeted within the last 72 hours.

Tweetmeme - This site tracks the most popular links found on Twitter. Search the business category for the most recent news and trends for your industry.

For 26 more apps, go here. An additional 27 twitter apps are here.

Photo by Twitter.

In Strategy, Texting, Twitter | 3 Comments

June 17, 2009 by Jaclyn | 0 Comments

photo credit: mark sebastian

According to Wikipedia, and Len Barry who coined the term, “relationship marketing is a form of marketing which emphasizes customer retention and satisfaction, rather than a dominant focus on point-of-sale transactions.”

Contrary to the title “relationship marketing” is not about the relationships themselves, it is about the marketing. The relationship part of this is based on your customers buying habits and their want to continue buying from you. As suggested on Coppyblogger it is not about making a deep connection with your customer to ensure that they keep buying from you repeatedly, it is about listening to your customer long enough to know what their likes and dislikes are in order for you to sell to them correctly.

Now just because you do not know the names of your customers relatives and their life stories does not mean that your customer is not going to buy a vacuum from you today. Customers buy products everyday that are not communicated to them, I buy cheese every week, that doesn’t mean someone had a long and deep conversation with me that made me buy the cheese.

Relationship Marketing is simply about marketing in general. Knowing your customers well enough to be able to sell to them, knowing them well enough and being nice enough to ensure that they will continue to shop at your company rather than someone else’s.

In Customers, Information, Marketing, Selling | 0 Comments

June 17, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 1 Comment

Springwise:

Parking garages are notorious for being grim and grey affairs, unadorned by any significant form of decoration. That’s due largely to fire code regulations, but a new, patented technology now allows large-scale ads to be created on the walls of such garages, essentially transforming them into immersive, branded environments.

Carspaze has created a new advertising platform for parking-garage walls centered on the ability to digitally print photo-quality images onto specially developed fire retardant materials.

Developed three years ago, the process has undergone technical trials and improvements in Germany over the past two years.

Now, focusing on garages near retail centers, Carspaze creates branded zones 10 to 20 parking spaces wide bearing advertising on the walls in front of parked cars. Only sustainable materials are used in the production of such advertising, including recycled panels and frames, wheel stops made from crushed rubber tires and lighting units made from recycled fiberglass and plastic.

In addition to creating a more cheerful, safer-feeling parking place, the ads have been found both to give consumers a way to remember where they parked their cars and—no doubt as a direct result—to dramatically increase top-of-mind awareness for the brands advertised and boost purchase likelihood.

Garage owners, meanwhile, receive revenue for each installation.

Photo by Carspaze.

In Advertising, Creativity, Niche | 1 Comment

June 17, 2009 by Jaclyn | 0 Comments

photo credit: iChaz

Tim Berry recently had a few thoughts on hiring new people for your company during its growing days. Obviously as your company grows bigger you will be in need of some new employees. Many business owners however often have reservations on hiring people and often times don’t even know where to start or look for them.

Many times owners reservations are due to them wondering what kind of an impact the new hire will have on their company. Because lets face it, if you have say only 5 employees than hiring one more has a much larger impact than if you have 100 employees and are hiring one more.

Sometimes you run into somebody who you want involved in the company, and you adjust the job description. For example, one person was hired to do tech support, but ended up as documentation manager.

You can most definitely build your company’s employees by shedding some of YOUR job functions. Think about how many different job functions you have, and then make a list of the ones that you can shed off of your load and hire someone new to take over for you. In the end your company will not only run smoother, but you will gain back a large amount of your own time in the process.

In Decisions, Employees, Growth | 0 Comments

June 17, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 0 Comments

Business Pundit:

What if your newest income source lay right at your feet? Panting, say, and begging for a treat? Fido, Snowball, or even Ted the Tarantula could be a potential new income source. Here are five ways people make money off their pets.

1. Model Them
Animal models rake in fees of up to $200/hour, with dogs grossing the most pay. Cats, birds, lizards, and other pets trail behind in terms of demand, but the opportunity still exists.

2. Milk Them
If you happen to have goats or cows in your backyard, milking is an obvious, if not lucrative, way to make money. However, if you’re tight on space, other critters’ fluids can actually pay quite well. Take Chuck Kristensen, who has about 50,000 spiders living in plastic cups inside his basement. Kristensen runs Spider Pharm, one of the world’s biggest spider venom producers.

3. Have Them Play
You never know–your Sparky could be the next Air Bud. Or Lassie, Benji, Morris, Spuds MacKenzie, or, heck, even the Taco Bell dog. Once you build your pet’s resume with a list of awards, certifications and acting classes, the sky’s the limit.

4. Show Them
If you’re passionate about your breed, and willing to deal with big overhead and time commitment, showing could pay off.

5. Sell Their Goods
Sell milk or organic eggs to your neighbors or local farmer’s market; sell wool to a guild or fiber co-op, or make your own cheese, yogurt, or yarn to sell.

Photo by tome213.

In Advice, Pets, Strategy | 0 Comments

June 17, 2009 by Angela Shupe | 0 Comments

With Father’s day around the corner, many people have found themselves waiting until the last minute to grab a card for the dad in their life. While some will get the card out on time, others will find themselves in a bind while last minute shopping for that perfect card. Unless they decide to card shop at GreetingBee.com.

For the cost of the average greeting card and stamp, you can visit GreetingBee.com, customize a card, and they will mail it to the recipient for you. There is no hassle and the card shopping is done direct from your computer.

Tell us about GreetingBee.com.

GreetingBee was conceived to apply a fun, fresh, and innovative approach to the creation of one-of-a-kind custom greeting cards and to allow anyone to send environmentally friendly paper cards with the same convenience as sending an e-card.

With our service, there are no more trips to the post office or lost time trying to find the right card. Anyone with a web browser can quickly create a unique greeting card from scratch or from one of our designer templates and have it professionally printed and mailed.

Continue reading Buzz Your Greeting Directly To The Receivers Mailbox, Without Leaving Home

In Internet, Interviews | 0 Comments

June 16, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 6 Comments

Mercury News:

At a time when we’re all looking for bargains, is there a catch to buying a $150 Nikon Coolpix digital camera for 34 cents? Or nabbing a $699 Apple 16GB iPhone for $8.06?

There is: While you stand to get a great bargain, you could be bidding against several thousand others in an online auction for one item, and each time you place a bid, it will cost anywhere from 60 cents to $1.

E-commerce is taking on a different spin with sites such as Swoopo and GoBid that appeal to the bargain hunter with a competitive drive. The giveaway prices on name-brand products, the limited and timed offerings, strategy play and fast pace attract shoppers willing to bid money for the chance to buy something at a fraction of its retail cost.

How do these auctions differ from those on eBay? The sites are selling the merchandise, whereas eBay is a place where sellers and buyers meet — it holds no inventory.

But the biggest difference is that to participate in a penny auction, shoppers must buy a bundle of bids and use one every time they raise their virtual paddle. Bids cost 60 cents to $1 each and are bought in packs of 10 to 700, depending on the site.

The auction companies make much of their money not from sales of merchandise but from the purchase of these bids.

While critics have questioned this form of e-commerce as a blink away from gambling, others have called it a smart business model for the Web at a time when new moneymaking ideas are scarce.

Photo by Swoopo.

In Ebay & Online Auctions, Ecommerce, Niche | 6 Comments

June 16, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 3 Comments

WomenHomeBusiness.com:

Some successful business ideas come from childhood.

As a child, Nicole Simon’s mom would make her special walnut recipe for friends and co-workers during the holidays.

Friends asked for their delectable walnut treats that making it and giving it as holiday gifts became the tradition in their household.

They decided to add a fun element by adding a fortune into each bag as a reminder of how fortunate they felt each year as their giving list grew.

In December 2002, Nicole was urged to find a way to make their nuts more accessible to everyone. She sold her special walnuts, Fortunuts – which she describes as, “a little bit of sugar, a dab of salt and a whole lotta love” — to the public at The Santa Monica Farmers Market, in Los Angeles.

The nuts came in Chinese take-out boxes, with fortune messages, and they were a huge success.

Photo by Fortunuts.

In Food, Niche, Success | 3 Comments

June 16, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 4 Comments

Detroit Free Press:

Amiya Alexander bounds in front of a parked school bus at Bloomfield Hills Montessori Center, her smile so wide it shows off the red and black bands around her braces.

Those braces, her brown Baby Phat high tops and the poof of pink feathers affixed to her hair speak to the accoutrements of any 10-year-old girl.

Except Amiya owns another accessory: the school bus.

At age 10, Amiya Alexander is an entrepreneur — owner, founder and creator of Amiya’s Mobile Dance Academy, which travels around metro Detroit teaching kids hip-hop, ballet, tap, merengue and more.

Painted a searing shade of hot pink, Amiya’s bus has all but four seats ripped out, a dance floor installed and ballet barres and mirrors affixed to the walls. On the ceiling, glitter glimmers.

Since January, it has rolled around metro Detroit, driven by her great-uncle, Sundiata Abdul-Mateen, who was lured out of retirement to help.

Aside from Bloomfield Hills Montessori, Amiya also teaches classes at the Northwest Activities Center in Detroit and has instructed toddlers in ballet and salsa at Island Kiddie Kampus Child Development Center in Grosse Ile.

Photo by Detroit Free Press.

In Kids, Microbusiness, Success | 4 Comments

June 16, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 3 Comments

HarvardBusiness.org:

A recent report listed the happiest nations in the world. Guess what? The US didn’t even make it into the top ten. So much for the American dream.

Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert argues that we can train our minds to be happier.

1. Smile. Turns out, smiling is directly linked to happiness. It may have started as a correlation but, over time, the brain linked the two. Don’t believe me? Try this: smile (a nice big smile) and attempt to think of something negative. Either you will stop smiling or you won’t be able to hold the negative thought.

2. Stop worrying. Worrying happens to be one of humanity’s best traits. It is the underlying emotion behind foresight, planning, and forecasting. We worry because some future event is uncertain and that feeling is a cue for us to start thinking about how to address it. The problem is, we worry too much about things that are out of our control (like the economy, stupid).

3. Take a break. The US is one of the most overworked industrialized nations. But this is counterproductive for a nation of “knowledge workers.” Overworking people to exhaustion is a horrible way to extract knowledge from people. Taking a break provides an opportunity to reflect and often it is during such times when the best ideas, our deepest insights, emerge.

Go here for 4 more tips.

What are your tips for being happier at work?

Photo by jaylopez.

In Advice, Employees, Operations | 3 Comments

June 16, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 2 Comments

Mashable:

San Francisco is hip to Twitter, and not just when it comes to its tech savvy users. Starting June 2nd, the City of San of Francisco has been supporting all 311 services via Twitter, with the help of Twitter CRM tool CoTweet.

Now citizens can send direct messages 24 hours a day to the sf311 Twitter account to report standard non-emergency city-related sightings like pot holes, request street cleanings, and any other service already supported by the phone or website. San Francisco is the first major city to adopt a city-wide Twitter program of this magnitude.

Editor’s Note: Not sure if faster reporting of problems will make repairs faster.

Photo by uniontownshippa.com.

In Government, Services, Twitter | 2 Comments

June 16, 2009 by Angela Shupe | 3 Comments

The sun is shining, the temperature is rising, and people are grilling outside instead of cooking indoors. This is also the perfect season if your business is in grill cleaning.

You might recognize The BBQ Cleaner from earlier this month when we profiled them on the website. We wanted to learn more about this interesting opportunity so we went directly to the source, Jeff Krentzman.

What is The BBQ Cleaner?

The BBQ Cleaner is a proven business opportunity to clean BBQ grills. Our unique barbeque cleaning system removes all traces of grease, fat and carbon deposits especially in areas that can’t be seen. We remove key components and deep clean them in specially-equipped trailers, using environmentally-friendly treatments.

When was it launched?

The BBQ Cleaner was launched in 2006 in Bergen County, NJ.

Continue reading The Business Of Barbecue Cleaning Is A Profitable One

In Biz Ops, Interviews | 3 Comments

June 15, 2009 by Dane Carlson | 8 Comments

photo credit: el__vaquero

This guest post by Amber Riviere really exemplifies how to start a business during a recession. She fell into entrepreneurship naturally because she had a talent that other people were willing to pay money for. She didn’t spend months planning her business and crafting a business plan. She just started.

Do you have a story like this to tell? Send it to me.

To be quite frank, I started my web design business on a whim. I had experience starting businesses before…the “right way,” but this time was much different.

I had been designing my own sites for quite some time, years in fact, and had heard many compliments about my work from friends, family members, and business associates. They’d ask if I’d ever considered doing it for a living, and I’d always say, “No, I only do my own.” They’d ask why, and I’d answer without hesitation, “Because I don’t want to turn a hobby into a job and end up hating it.”

Things went on like this for a while, until it literally got to the point where people were frustrated with me for not pursuing it. They’d say, “You have talent, and you’re not using it, and you have the business sense to make this work. What are you doing?”

Finally, my accountability partner asked me if I’d consider helping a friend of hers with her site as a favor and that the friend was willing to pay for my time. “She’d gladly write that check,” she said. I can remember it like it was yesterday.

I said that I wouldn’t even know what to charge. My accountability partner and I came up with what we both figured was a reasonable fee. I said, “Okay, present it to her and see what she says.” (The friend was allowing her to be middleman, since they were really having to twist my arm to get me to do it - really.) The friend gladly accepted my fee.

I did the work in a day. She was ecstatic, and she asked me to promise her that going forward I would, at a minimum, charge double for what I had done for her. A day’s work, and she was willing to pay me $500?! I was beside myself with disbelief. (”People are willing to pay me for this?!”)

In the meantime, she and my accountability partner were trying to convince me to do web design professionally. She said she had three other people who needed my help, but that she’d wait for me to give her the go-ahead. I said that I’d think about it for a few days and get back with her.

That weekend, I built my website and sent off the paperwork to create my LLC. Once the LLC was set up, I opened a business account at my bank, and that was it.

I didn’t have any funding. I didn’t have a business plan. I didn’t even have a logo. Two months later, I had $7500 worth of work lined up, and the rest is history.

Bottom line for me, I guess, was that I had gone the traditional route - planning, meticulously planning until…well, until nothing got done. This time, I was doing something I loved, I was having fun at it, and people were actually willing to pay me for it! I jumped and didn’t hesitate, and that has made more difference for me than any business plan ever could. Sure, I still have to treat this like a business, but it’s the action, the forward movement that makes it a success.

And in case you’re wondering, it’s still like a hobby to me!

Amber Riviere is a web designer with BrownBugProject.com. You can follow her work through her blog and through her newsletter, Inside Brown’s Brain.

In Entrepreneurial Lifestyle, Featured, Guest Posts, Startup | 8 Comments

June 15, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 2 Comments

smallbizbee:

I hear this a lot, “do you think my idea is good enough to start a business?”…and normally what people mean is “do you think I’ll make money doing this?”.

The short answer is- most ideas you can think of are good enough to start a business around – in short you can probably make some money doing almost anything.

The real question is whether or not your business idea is worth the risk, and will provide adequate reward if it works out. For sake of argument let’s say adequate return is enough money for you to live on, at least replacing your current income.

So now the question changes once again, this time to “given my idea, what is the potential?” We’ll talk about potential in a minute, but first let’s dispel some myths about what your business idea should be.

You can make your adequate return, and then some, if within your business idea you can see your unique selling proposition.

Simply put your unique selling proposition (USP) is the reason I’d buy from you and not a competitor.

Continue Reading: “Is My Idea Good Enough to Start a Biz?”

Photo by nookiez.

In Advice, Ideas, Startup | 2 Comments

June 15, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 1 Comment

SmashingApps:

Onyaka is an online staff time planning software service that takes all the pain out of staff scheduling. Onyaka provides you with easy to use staff scheduling software, with no downloads, no expensive license fees, and no installation hassle.

It has a simple drag and drop interface and you can use all of the features absolutely free. As Onyaka is online application that’s why you can use it from everywhere without any restriction on standard web browser.

Photo by Onyaka.

In Internet, Operations, Paperwork | 1 Comment

June 15, 2009 by Jaclyn | 0 Comments

photo credit: DavidErickson

We have all seen a number of logos whether it be on billboard signs, products, doors of a company, flyer’s and more, we have all at some point stopped and said to ourselves “why on earth would you pick that for your logo?” Logos can do wonderful things for your company if the appropriate one is picked, however, they can also cause a lot of damage to your company if they are not such a great logo.

A good logo withstands the test of time. It may need some touchups to keep it fresh and prevent it from looking dated our out of style, but that’s all it should require. Changing your logo when it already has memorability in place is bad for your branding.

Create a logo that is unique and hard to forget by your customers, make it a memorable logo that stands out in the minds of your customers no mater where they are. Another component of a great logo is one that further follows up on your brand and the marketing message you send out, the logo should be like an extensive to those two things already set in place, as suggested on Men With Pens.

In Advertising, Advice, Creativity | 0 Comments

June 15, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 2 Comments

Loveland Connection:

Twitter and other social media sites are easy to get addicted to; just ask entrepreneur Angie Shafranek.

“Ha, I’m on it like five times a day,” Shafranek admitted when asked how often she uses Twitter.

However, that Twitter habit has given a boost to her online children’s clothing business, Shafranek said.

She went from four people following her “tweets” to nearly 1,000 in no time, and since then, more and more people go to her Web site to check out what she’s selling.

“It’s growing my business, and that’s a big thing,” Shafranek said. “Twitter is the water cooler for the 21st century.”

People go there to talk about anything, and savvy businesses owners can take advantage.

Photo by Loveland Connection.

In Sales, Small Biz, Twitter | 2 Comments

June 15, 2009 by Dane Carlson | 3 Comments

A reader, Paul Rusnak, wrote in with the following account of his failed attempt at marketing:

I am a subscriber of you weblog and I enjoy reading all the stories, many of which give me new ideas to market my business.

Here is something that happened to one of my creative marketing ideas… that didn’t work or maybe it did work and I don’t know it yet.

I own and manage a local pack and ship store called Goin’Postal in Washington NJ and I am always looking for new marketing ideas. Since I am only open 6 months, my main goal was to make people aware of my location and the services I offer.

The annual car show seemed like a great opportunity to get my word out. They were asking local business owners to pay $300.00 to help sponsor the event. Alternatively, I can put a giveaway in one of the “goodie bags” that would be given out to each car registered.

I thought about the typical pen with my name on it or the travel mug with my logo on it that most people may or may not use but I wanted to do something unique. I notice giving away money really worked for the time-share industry so I decided to try that on a smaller scale.

I printed 150 coupons that offered a FREE $ 2.00 bill. No purchase necessary – no strings attached. Just bring the coupon to my store and I will give you a brand new $2.00 bill. Remember my goal was to get people aware of where I was located. I was two blocks from the car show. A 5 minute walk at most for $2.00. I was open early with my 150 $2 bills wondering how fast they would disappear. 1 hour, maybe 2 hours at the most. Well to my surprise, giving away money, even in this economy only brought in three people.

Did it work? NO. But it only cost me $6.00 to find out. I could have spent $300 to be one of the sponsors but now I have $294. back for an idea that didn’t work.

Can the economy be that bad if people will not even come in for free money? Maybe they thought it was a joke because of my store’s name. Who knows?

In Guest Posts, Marketing | 3 Comments

June 15, 2009 by Dane Carlson | 0 Comments

Have you ever wondered what goes into making, marketing, and selling an iPhone app? I have. PCWorld has an interview with Joel Rosenberg, the author of an addictive puzzle game for the iPhone called Blocked.

Here’s a snippet:

PC World: Let’s get the big question out of the way. Will you be able to retire based off the success of your first game?

Joel Rosenberg: Although I really enjoyed developing and selling my first iPhone game, I’m happy where I am right now.

PCW: But you have had some success…

JR: Well, when I was number one for that nice little period last month, I was seeing 10,000 to 15,000 downloads a day. But even at number ten they dropped off significantly, and two months ago I was selling 5 to 15 units a day, so it’s hard to make predictions.

PCW: That’s not shabby at all. How much of that 99-cent sale do you get?

JR: Apple gives developers a 70 percent cut of the sales across the board, so about 69 cents.

In Games, Software | 0 Comments