Business Opportunities Weblog

May 6, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 0 Comments

Kim Beasley at bizzia:

Helping a fellow business owner can be very rewarding because it is a way for your to “pay it forward”.

“Paying it forward” is the process of helping out three people without expecting anything in return.

Then ask them to help out three people instead of paying you back. It’s a simple theory that was brought to the forefront by the movie “Pay It Forward”.

As I thought about how I could “pay it forward” and who I could do it for, I realize that it’s a big decision and it can have a big impact.

One of the people that I chose to “pay it forward” to is a friend who wanted to start their own online business but didn’t know how. So I decided to invest time into helping her start her own business and train her. It has been very rewarding and fulfilling to “pay it forward”.

Photo by brokenarts.

In Advice, Mentor | 0 Comments

May 6, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 1 Comment

suite101.com:

The happiest and most successful entrepreneurs are ones that turn a passion into profit.

Here are 4 steps business owners can take to make money by doing what they love.

Step 1: Discover Your Purpose

Step 2: Uncover Your True Passion

Step 3: Select a Product that Embodies Your True Passion

Step 4: Just do it!

Photo by svilen001.

In Advice, Strategy, Success | 1 Comment

May 5, 2009 by Dane Carlson | 4 Comments

photo credit: simiant

A reader wrote:

I want to start a website and sell something online. What should I sell? Any advice?

If you want to start an online business and sell something, you should sell a digital product, because physical products have two real problems:

1. Unless you manufacture the product yourself, someone else will be undercutting your price on eBay within 6 months.
2. Margins are tight. Inventory and shipping cost real money and take time.

In Ecommerce, Reader Mailbag | 4 Comments

May 5, 2009 by Dane Carlson | 0 Comments

How’s this for a very niche microbusiness: a photographer that only takes pictures of bottles.

They only photograph bottles — nothing else. You send them your bottle and they shoot it and then clean up the resulting image in Photoshop and then make it available on their servers for you to download. Simple as pie.

In Microbusiness, Niche, Photography | 0 Comments

May 5, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 1 Comment

photo credit: Yodel Anecdotal

Google recently did an article giving tips to all of you entrepreneur’s and people thinking about becoming entrepreneurs. Given the fact that google has been called the mother load of all search engines, I think it wise to take a read of the goals they mentioned.

● Don’t settle. It’s better to take your time in picking out the staff and other contributor’s that will help in your start-up, make sure you get the right one’s right off the bat.
● Be an expert. Whatever field or service your going into, do as much research as you possibly can and then do a little more. Make sure you know everything there is to know about your business.
● Setting goals. Take a few day’s to think about your goal’s, set some easy one’s, set some very difficult but not impossible one’s with a reasonable time limit on them. And don’t forget to track the progress of these goal’s.
● Don’t be scared of those hard problems. One thing to remember is that the problem may be huge to your customer, but come to find out it’s easy for you to fix, once you manage through the problem, your rewards for your efforts will follow.

Go to Small Biz Bee for the complete list of tips.

What are some of your tips for entrepreneurs?

In Ideas, Small Biz, Startup | 1 Comment

May 5, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 1 Comment

photo credit: aloshbennett

When your getting ready to start your own business, you realize there are a million and one thing’s to do before it’s all said and done. So naturally you want to tackle as many of these tasks at once so that you get them accomplished faster.Web Business Freedom posted a very interesting article regarding this topic.

However, it is not always’ that simple to pick say 10 tasks to have done at once by a certain time frame. The easiest way to handle this which may not be easy for some people is, take one step at a time.

By conquering one thing at a time you will have less stress, a clearer head to go onto the next task and you can rest assure that with every task you tackle, your giving it your all at that time.

The trick is to slow down…and map out what you need to focus on and accomplish. Be very specific. Then figure out all the next action steps. Write them down, or put them in your Getting Things Done (GTD) application of choice. Better yet, cut them out and post them in front of your work area. Then turn off all distractions so you can get them done. One at a time.

How do you handle your list of 100 thing’s to do?

In Decisions, Entrepreneurial Lifestyle, Execution, Office | 1 Comment

May 5, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 0 Comments

photo credit: atomicjeep

Is it time for your company to do away with the Monday morning meetings, checking up on employees, reports, statistics on employee performance, etc? In a recent new book regarding a new era of work, it is suggested on Open Forum that it’s time to do away with old business practices and begin new ones.

It is easy to fall into the trap of adding more layers of bureaucracy rather than instilling mechanisms that encourage experiential education and growth. People must be allowed to fail as long as they take the steps to fix the situation and learn.

It is no longer the days where one person has one job function and one expertise, it’s time for all employees to be flexible in doing their old job as well as learning new job functions.

Rather then having those every Monday morning meetings and regularly scheduled check-ins on your employees, regular feedback from your employees say through email or a weekly sheet on Friday would be more sufficient and less time consuming for everyone.

How has your company changed it’s way of learning?

In Advice, Business Structures, Ideas, Strategy, Work | 0 Comments

May 5, 2009 by Dane Carlson | 0 Comments

As a followup to Rich’s earlier post about making money from the swine flu, here’s the story (in his own words) of how one fast acting entrepreneur went from an idea a few H1N1 related t-shirt designs to being profiled Forbes magazine in under a week:

Last Monday, the 27th of April, I noticed the increasing media hype surrounding the swine flu. Not a minute passed where every major news station mentioned swine flu and its inevitable destruction of humanity. I thought it’d be interesting to see what would happen if i whipped up some cheesy shirt designs and sold the shirts online. So I did. At the very least, it would be an interesting learning experience. I booted up Photoshop/Illustrator, created the designs, uploaded them to http://www.spreadshirt.com, and deployed my store – Flu Shirts. Ok great. I had these shirts for sale, but no one knew they existed. I needed to get attention.

Read the rest.

In Ecommerce, Microbusiness, News | 0 Comments

May 5, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 0 Comments

Inc.:

TakeLessons.com, an online service that connects music students with its instructors in more than 400 U.S. cities, is having a very good year.

The company enjoyed increased same-city sales ranging from 12 percent to 28 percent each quarter of 2008 versus 2007, and 2009 looks even stronger, says CEO and founder Steven Cox.

Thanks to American Idol, voice lessons are most in demand, followed by piano, guitar, violin, and drums.

TakeLessons’s good fortune is part of an unexpected recession sweet spot for music.

In 2008, a year in which auto sales plummeted and many retail stores struggled, musical-instrument sales tended to hold up, according to Music Trades. And some categories grew.

In the first three quarters of ‘08, fretted instruments like guitars were up an average 4.3 percent.

It’s not just kids signing up for lessons. Recent enrollees at TakeLessons were split evenly between under-18-year-olds and adults.

Photo by TakeLessons.

In Internet, Learning, Music | 0 Comments

May 5, 2009 by Dane Carlson | 0 Comments

photo credit: John Kratz

Joel Spolsky has written a profile of an Willy Wonka-esque retail store called B&H in New York City. It is a 70,000 square foot super store devoted to cameras and video equipment, like a Cabelas for cameras. Could you do something equally imaginative in your business?

B&H opened in 1973, and it’s an amazing place. If you are in Manhattan, you should visit the store, on Ninth Avenue at 34th Street. The first thing you will notice? The place is humming. Originally a camera store, B&H has grown to carry more than 250,000 items, including all kinds of pro audio, pro video, and computer gear. The company is closely held and somewhat press shy, so it’s hard to know how successful it is. “Our business remains strong, particularly considering the overall economic climate,” a spokesperson says. I suspect that’s an understatement. The store is always packed with customers, browsing through hundreds of varieties of camera bags with every possible combination of lens compartments; the room full of telescopes; and, of course, enough lenses to burn all the ants in the Sahara to a crisp. The electronic superstores in Tokyo’s Akihabara district are the only other places where I have seen so much gear under one roof.

How could you turn your retail business into a tourist destination? Heres’s more:

Continue reading A Retail Tourist Destination

In Retail | 0 Comments

May 5, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 0 Comments

The Wall Street Journal:

Many small-business lenders are seeing signs of a thaw in the secondary market for loans backed by the Small Business Administration.

That is spurring more lenders to originate new loans — and more small companies to apply for them.

In February, the latest month for which figures are available, 35% of newly approved 7(a) loans, the most popular SBA loan program, sold on the secondary market, according to the Government Accounting Office.

That was up from 24% in January. From September 2007 to September 2008, before the credit crunch, 45% of approved 7(a) loans sold on the secondary market.

Movement was noticeable at GovGex.com, a secondary-market exchange where bundled SBA-backed loans are bought and sold.

The number of bids per loan for sale at GovGex.com has more than doubled to about 6.7 since mid-March, after President Barack Obama gave a speech about using $15 billion of federal funds to unfreeze the secondary market.

At Small Business Loan Exchange, an online marketplace where small businesses can find lenders, loan applications have more than tripled to 41 since mid-March, from the month before Mr. Obama’s speech, according to Edgeware Analytics Inc., the San Diego company that runs the site.

Photo by GovGex.com.

In Credit, Small Biz | 0 Comments

May 5, 2009 by Angela Shupe | 0 Comments

Any man who has ever spent the time trying to shape his goatee will know how much work can go into it. The slightest mistake can completely destroy the look. While all men with a goatee might understand this, it took one man to build a device to solve the problem. His name is Scott Bonge.

The problem-solving device that Scott created is aptly named the GoateeSaver. Ultimately it is a template for the perfect goatee and it leaves only the area you want to shave open for attack by your razor.

What was the inspiration behind the GoateeSaver?

My own struggles with getting my goatee even. I asked my wife often how my goatee looked, and had many times when I looked in the rearview miror while driving and had to come back home and try it again.

Continue reading Invention Allows For The Perfect Goatee

In Interviews, Invention | 0 Comments

May 5, 2009 by Angela Shupe | 0 Comments

Chicago Tribune:

Kate Mazzara has a passion for birth.

The resident of Livingston County’s Hartland Township and mother of three has helped bring dozens of babies into the world throughout her career as a midwife, a job she chose to pursue after having her first son in 1993.

“I had a baby, and I fell in love with birth,” Mazzara said. “I thought it was postpartum. I thought every one experienced that, but I found out they didn’t.”

Mazzara – who became a certified midwife in 2001 after training in an Amish community in Pennsylvania – runs a home-based business, Mazzara Midwifery. Last year, she assisted in 20 births, and she has 30 clients scheduled this year.

On the job, Mazzara provides support to mothers and families during the months of pregnancy, as well as supervision and instruction during labor. Births take place at each client’s home without the use of epidural anesthesia to relieve labor pain.

She said many of her clients come to her seeking a natural and less commercial experience than what is provided in hospitals. Mazzara gave birth to one of her own sons four years ago in her home bathtub.

“There is a tremendous amount of empowerment from it,” Mazzara said. “It’s a peak experience for women.”

Photo by jonny.hunter

In Babies, Mompreneur, News | 0 Comments

May 5, 2009 by Angela Shupe | 0 Comments

Gemini Greetings® announced today that it has been recognized as one of the top 200 mom-owned businesses in StartupNation’s 2009 Leading Moms In Business Competition (http://www.startupnation.com/leading-moms-2009). The competition, sponsored by VerticalResponse, recognizes the achievements of mothers across the country who run outstanding businesses.

Gemini Greetings® is a unique company providing greeting cards and gifts for families with twins, triplets and quadruplets, found itself ranked 33 out of 200 plus businesses owned by moms. What sets Gemini Greetings® apart from the other competitors, is that it fills a need market for a family base that is ever growing in our society, those with twins, triplets and more. Currently, I am not aware of any other businesses focusing on this type of product the retail marketplace.

Featured in article “Moms Create Business in the Niches”, by Rich Sloan, Gemini Greetings® is recognized for its unique position in the market in conjunction with the competition.

“Moms across America were honored in this year’s ranking, showing that they’re capable of starting and running successful businesses while managing to balance family, career, home and self,” said Rich Sloan, co-founder of StartupNation.”Well over 600,000 votes were cast in support of several thousand contestants. What an incredible achievement to be named a winner, and what an inspiration for anyone looking to start their own business.

“It’s challenging for anyone to start and run a successful business – particularly in this economy. These women are setting the standard for innovation and creativity,” said Janine Popick, founder and CEO of VerticalResponse.

Continue reading Gemini Greetings® Voted One of Top Leading Moms in Business

In Mompreneur, PR, Success | 0 Comments

May 5, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 1 Comment

H1N1 or more commonly known as Swine flu is sweeping the country. You can’t turn on a news channel without hearing of a new outbreak.

Well, some entrepreneurs are jumping on the bandwagon with swine flu related merchandise.

A check today at Cafepress.com shows over 47,000 products dealing with the influenza.

CafePress.com is an online retailer of stock and user-customized on demand products. They sell teeshirts, bags, mugs, wallclocks and calendars.

Customers can upload their own graphics design, logo or text, which will be added to the product by CafePress.

CafePress.com has empowered individuals, organizations and businesses to create, buy and sell customized merchandise online using the company’s unique print-on-demand and e-commerce services.

Today, CafePress.com is a growing network of over 6.5 million members who have unleashed their creativity to transform their artwork and ideas into unique gifts and new revenue streams.

If you fancy trying your hand, you can set up a small business using Cafepress to collect the money, produce the goods, mail them out, and handle customer service.

All you need is access to a computer and some graphics software that can save your design in, for preference, the PNG (portable network graphics) format. The site provides web space and has a Learning Center to help you get going.

Cafepress has steadily expanded its product lines. It now prints designs not just on T-shirts, shorts, tank tops and thongs but on stickers, badges and magnets, a variety of hats and bags, baby bibs and even housewares.

Photo by Cafepress.

In Advice, Ecommerce, Microbusiness | 1 Comment

May 5, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 0 Comments

Washington Energy Services:

An Oregon company is hoping to carve an interesting new niche for itself in the recycling industry, according to recent reports.

According to the Statesman Journal newspaper, Agri-Plas is using a new process developed by Oregon State University graduate Kevin DeWitt that can break down old plastic and turn it back into oil.

The process reportedly involves heating waste plastic, largely from agricultural sources, to 1,100 degrees and then reconstituting the gases emitted into what is called a “high-grade” oil.

The so-called “conversion technology” is said to be the first of its kind in the nation. According to the newspaper, the company hopes to eventually recycle 25,000 pounds of plastic into about 70 barrels of oil per day. Using the process, about nine pounds of plastic can reportedly be turned into a gallon of oil.

Photo by mzacha.

In Eco-friendly, Niche, Recycling | 0 Comments

May 5, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 5 Comments

Inc.:

As consumers slash their budgets and newspaper subscriptions continue to slide, more people are turning to the Internet for coupons.

That’s good news for entrepreneurs leading the charge to move coupons online.

According to a recent survey of 4,500 women by Burlington, Massachusetts-based online ad network Burst Media, coupon usage is up, and more consumers are turning to the Internet as their source.

Thirty-four percent of respondents report using more coupons, while the rate of online users has jumped since 2002, from 3.8 to 16 percent.

“The Internet has become the second most important place for women to get coupons, and when you consider that newspapers have had 60, 70, 80 years of marketing efforts, it’s that much more powerful a message for marketing,” said Chuck Moran, Burst Media’s VP of marketing.

Photo by CouponMom.

In Economy, Giveaway, Strategy | 5 Comments

May 4, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 0 Comments

photo credit: Paulo Brandão

Once you’ve been funded and set up for your new business, you may be asking yourself “now what?” many entrepreneurs do. It will be much easier for you if you have created a product or service that is quite meaningful to the public, so make sure your’s is a meaningful product/service. So, below are a few tips on what to do next after you have your green light to go. Below are a few suggestions from Open Forum.

●Set goals that are relevant to your business, achievable, and measurable. One’s that you know are within your reach.
●Postpone the goals that your kind of up in the air on.
●Make sure the goals are clearly understood by everyone.
●Follow through on all issues until it is completed.
●Award the achievers that helped you reach your goal’s.

When the hype dies down, a company either executed or it didn’t. Put aside the brilliance of your idea, the qualifications of your world-class team, and the hype surrounding your launch. Either you ship a product and customers buy it, or not. That’s execution, and execution is why you get the big bucks and perks.

What were your goals in your business when you got your funding?

In Execution, Funding, Operations, Startup | 0 Comments

May 4, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 1 Comment

photo credit: alfonso benayas

While in the past entrepreneurs have had to do a lot of exaggerating to get their business off the ground as far as lying through their teeth in order to get the financing they need, or they had to sell their soul’s to get the financing, today there are better and easier ways as talked about on Entrepreneur.com.

●Write paycheck’s that don’t bounce, but they also increase as the business grows. Meaning, right off the bat offer your employee’s a salary of $70,000 and a promise of a salary of up to $160,000 when the company revenue hit’s a certain point. This will make the employees want to help you make it work as fast as they can for obvious reason’s.
●Get your investors to compete to be in line as number one. There is a certain level of pride and prestige that investors get knowing they were among the first that enabled a company to kick off and make it big. This is where a little bit of that lying may come into play in order to give them a nudge.

●Develop financial projections that are rooted in verifiable assumptions.
There’s no point in just fabricating a set of projections that aren’t based on reality. One way to build a set of realistic projections is to start with business drivers that can be discussed and debated with investors.

What hoops did you have to go through to start-up your business?

In Ideas, Investors, Money, Revenue | 1 Comment

May 4, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 1 Comment

photo credit: Torley

In a previous post I wrote about how it may be time to do away with daily or weekly meetings as they can be time consuming where email updates would take less productivity time. In this post I’m going to the other extreme with daily short meeting’s.

A recent article was posted on CrowdSpring regarding meeting’s. A man came to the defense of meeting’s with valid points throughout the article. His company has a five minute long meeting every morning. They discuss what their business did the day before and what they want to do that day in business.

Now, this may seem to the far end of extreme to have a meeting every day, but he makes a good point to it…it is a short and to the point meeting. Does your business know what they did the day before, do you know if you reached your goal that day or even what your goal was to be reached?

We don’t wait until the end of the week to see if we’re having a bad week. We don’t wait until the end of the month or the end of the quarter. Every single person (yes, even the development team), knows every single day where things stand. And this way, it’s everyone’s job to spot the trend and do something about it.

Do you think your company could benefit from this type daily meeting?

In Advice, Brainstorm, Communication, Meetings | 1 Comment

May 4, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 1 Comment

photo credit: Refracted Moments™

When trying to increase your sales on the floor, the obvious first step is to bring more customers into your store…you cant sell to them if they are not there! Advertise in local areas where your customers are such as magazines, local radio, local tv, libraries and more. By talking to your customers you will create more traffic as suggested on BizUnite.com.

Once you find out from your customer what their ultimate item is they are looking for, create room for them to spend beyond that one item by suggesting other items that compliment or help improve the original that they are initially buying.

Go around your store after hour’s as if you were a customer and take a look around. Make sure you offer end of the aisle displays, orderly displays that enables customer’s shopping is easier, clear product placement, make sure thing’s put together belong together rather then having cleaning next to food.

So are there dollars out there, waiting for you to claim them? Of course there are. If you visit our Best Practices area, you will find dozens of powerful ways to capture them.

How do you capture more revenue on the sales floor?

In Goals, Ideas, Money, Revenue | 1 Comment

May 4, 2009 by Angela Shupe | 0 Comments

Because of Etsy, many talented crafters have been able to turn their hobby into a successful business.

That is no different for Nichole Jeske. The moment someone asked about purchasing her jewelry, the entrepreneurial seed was planted and the idea for Paw & Claw Designs was born.

What is the inspiration behind Paw & Claw Designs?

Paw & Claw started when I began tinkering with beads and wire that were given to me by a friend. I’m almost completely self-taught, though both books and trial and error. My Passion for jewelry making started out as a way to create with some beautiful materials that were given to me, and now, my vast array of supplies has taken over a good portion of our home, and my life.

Continue reading Crafter “Claws” Her Way To Success With Jewelry

In Creativity, Ecommerce, Interviews | 0 Comments

May 4, 2009 by Jaclyn Wells | 3 Comments

photo credit: thingermejig

It seems that one of the most rising products in the economy today are anything that proves to be a “green” product. With the world going green from recycling to products and services we use in our house…why not start a “green” business. Below are a few examples of eco-friendly business’ with low start-up costs for your entrepreneur needs.

●Zola goods home party coordinator. With this business you help teach the public on eco-friendly products they can use in their home. With a small start-up cost of $149 for your initial kit.
●Green internet store. Own a internet store that offers over 6,000 green products for your customers to shop through. This business has a small start-up cost of $2,500.
●Making gold out of garbage. This business takes garbage that we throw away and turns it into new usable products that can be redistributed.

Getting involved can be more than donating to a charity or starting a nonprofit. With these double bottom-line business models, you can endorse your environmental activism while making money to be self-sufficient.

Can you think of other “green” business to start-up with low costs as the ones found on Entrepreneur.com?

In Eco-friendly, Entrepreneurs, Ideas | 3 Comments

May 4, 2009 by Angela Shupe | 0 Comments

ABC News:

Mommy blogger Colleen Padilla never imagined that her opinions would become so coveted by other parents that corporations would come knocking on her door, requesting that she review their products and tout them in the blogosphere.

She launched her blog, Classymommy.com, as a way to chronicle her life as a new mom but it quickly transformed into a small business venture for the Philadelphia mom of two.

In the past three years, Padilla has reviewed more than 1,000 products, everything from diapers to plush toys to infant-safe skin creams, to the delight of the growing parenting community that she says considers a stamp of approval from fellow parents to be the final word.

Logo from Classymommy.com

In Blogger, News | 0 Comments

May 4, 2009 by Rich Whittle | 0 Comments

USA TODAY:

In the midst of this job-eating, business-depleting recession, some entrepreneurs — particularly owners of small businesses — are taking a step few could have seen even one year ago: working for free for their best clients.

Instead of moping, Watts Wacker got a novel idea from listening closely to President Obama’s inaugural address urging Americans to act with hope and virtue in troubled times. He e-mailed a letter to a handful of his best clients. He told them the nation’s business model had to change during this downturn, and he volunteered to go first. He told clients that if they had some work — but no dough to pay for it — he’d do it for free.

Earl Broussard responded first.

The Austin-based president of landscape architectural firm TBG Partners met Wacker seven years ago at an Urban Land Institute convention in Las Vegas where Wacker was a keynote speaker earning up to $30,000 a pop. They struck up a friendship, and soon a business relationship. For his company’s 20th anniversary, Broussard hired Wacker to speak to employees and help plot the firm’s future.

After receiving Wacker’s work-for-free offer, Broussard, a local board executive for the non-profit Urban Land Institute in Austin, asked Wacker to speak to the group for free. Wacker will do that next month, with only his travel expenses paid.

Continue Reading: “Bizs Get Goodwill By Giving Away Services”

Photo by USA TODAY.

In Economy, Free, Strategy | 0 Comments