Hello and Welcome! This website is not like all of the others. Since 2001, we've posted 17,394 different business opportunities and ideas, so you're sure to find something here to inspire you!
Who needs sleep when there are start-ups to launch? Between endless e-mail conversations and talkative co-workers, getting actual work done during the day isn’t always an easy proposition.
The New York Times has an interesting article about a group of entrepreneurs, freelancers, and software developers who have come up with a nocturnal solution to that problem.
Calling themselves the New York Nightowls, this group of roughly 30 techies meets every Tuesday night from 10 p.m. until about 4 a.m. to to work on pet projects and side ventures that they normally don’t have the time to focus on during the traditional workday.
As one of the group’s co-founders explains, “It’s six hours of uninterrupted, productive time where you’re surrounded by other creative people doing awesome things.”
The concept of late-night work sessions seems to a perfect fit for New York, it is the city that never sleeps after all, but similar groups have also formed in nearly a dozen cities including San Francisco and Boston.
The USA Solar Store is a chain of independently run shops that offer alternative energy products. With 24 stores in 11 states, from California to Vermont, it is their goal to help bring renewable energy to everyday people all over the US.
Inspired by Helen and Scott Nearing, Dave Bonta and his wife moved to Vermont in the 1990’s with the intention of living the simpler life. What started as a lifestyle choice eventually became a business, providing the products people need to live a sustainable lifestyle.
Dane recently asked Dave a couple questions about the stores and his unique opportunity.
What is a USA Solar Store?
It is a chain of retail energy stores. Our mission is to provide a local resource for education, products and services spanning conservation, efficiency, and many renewable energy options. We are an entrepreneurial team of “mom & pop” storeowners connected by a common purpose and functioning as a buying group. As such, we offer the resources of a multi-million dollar enterprise with the local flavor of your neighborhood corner store.
What products and services do you sell?
Solar thermal solutions – (Evacuated tube and flat plate collectors, controls & storage tanks)
Photovoltaic (PV electric) systems – All types of modules and balance of systems gear)
Biomass appliances for space conditioning.
LED and CFL lighting and daylight lighting systems.
High efficiency appliances that conserve energy and water.
Design & customer support services – Installation either direct from store or professionally referred.
Electric vehicles
Composting toilets
The list goes on we have lots of products, most factory direct.
The USA Solar Store isn’t a franchise, so how does one start their own? How much does it cost, and what do they get?
It is a business op, like a franchise but no ongoing royalty fees. This year license fee is $75k-done in 3 payments, drawn like a construction loan, stepped to deliverables.
Store owners get proven business model (9 years strong), inventory, training, ongoing support, easy entry into very lucrative renewable energy market potential and a fantastic collaborative brain trust of positive people.
How many stores?
We are at 25 fully opened, 4 moving to open this Summer, 8 more moving through the screening process. Our immediate goal is 50 by next Summer.
Ponder the difference between the comedian and the musician. Both create and perform works to entertain audiences, but they go about protecting that work in different ways. The notoriously litigious music industry often resorts to the legal system to protect itself from pirates and samplers. But comedians don’t. So why hasn’t the joke well gone dry?
That’s the question discussed in a forthcoming book from the University of Chicago Press called “Intellectual Property Norms in Stand-Up Comedy.” Written by two professors from the University of Virginia School of Law, the book offers a case study in the axiom that more intellectual property rights aren’t always better intellectual property rights, reports Ars Technica.
For comedians, ripping off a joke is a major sin, but such cases almost never end up in court. Federal court, where copyright cases are heard, is too expensive to be worth it. Besides, copyright law only protects the exact expression, not the idea, so rip-off artists who add some different details are free to do so.
This hasn’t led to a dearth of jokes. Instead, comedians use social norms rather than law to enforce their joke rights, and these social IP norms have actually been part of the process that shifted comedy away from one-liners and “rim shot” jokes to today’s long-form observational comedy.
Jeremy Green, a physical therapist and entrepreneur, had to go through two rotator cuff surgeries so he knows just how important it is to do the prescribed exercises correctly reports NewsOK.
Green was studying to become a physical therapist when he had the idea that became Real Time Rehab. He deferred his studies and became an entrepreneur.
“As a therapist, I could have helped 30 to 40 people a week,” Green said.
“With just our beta sites, I help more people in one day than I could in a year as a full-time therapist.”
Real Time Rehab’s solution allows physicians, physical therapists and government institutions to provide patients with a customized video-based home exercise program that can be viewed using a television, computer or smart phone.
Amanda Keppert is convinced that she would have lost her hot dog stand in San Jose, Calif., if she had not received a type of loan that is more common in the third world than in the United States.
According to a story in The New York Times, last year, as fewer people ate out and layoffs mounted in Silicon Valley, sales plunged more than 60 percent at the once-thriving Mandy’s Korner.
My business was drowning and I was afraid it would go under,” Keppert said. While she picked up catering work at a local concert site, it wasn’t enough to pay her expenses. She had invested all of her savings in the business, and she did not want to see it go under.
But her loan applications were rejected repeatedly at banks in San Jose. Then she found Opportunity Fund, a local microlender that has teamed up with Kiva.org, one of the best-known international microlenders. Kiva, which has lent more than $150 million in 53 countries, had just begun a pilot program lending to business owners in the United States.
Through Kiva, Keppert obtained a $6,500 loan that she has three years to pay back and that carries a 6 percent interest rate. She used the money to buy an ice maker, a generator to save on propane costs and large signs to advertise her business.
Before the economic collapse, microfinance — the granting of very small loans, mostly to poor people — was a concept most closely associated with the developing world. But tight credit and the recession have increased the demand for smaller loans in the United States, giving microlending a higher profile and broadening its appeal.
Whether you’re a citizen journalist, podcaster or simply interested in sharing some sound with friends, your cell phone can become your mobile radio studio.
MobileActive has published an excellent guide to making mobile audio in the field. A few key tips from the guide:
Microphone positioning. “Place the mobile phone so it faces your subject (or yourself if you are recording self-spoken audio). Remember that the microphone is usually at the bottom of the phone.”
Minimize background noise. “Beware of spaces with too much background noise — fans, air conditioning, refrigerators, traffic or computers. If possible, turn off or deactivate these noise sources. Practice with test clips before you produce the audio. Journalist Victoria Foley suggests that you record from inside a car, which provides great audio insulation and a makeshift sound booth.”
Check signal strength. “If you are streaming live audio or uploading content right after recording, make sure to find a space with good signal strength. Poor signal strength can result in poor audio quality.”
Use an external microphone. “External microphones can drastically improve the quality of audio. However, mobile phones’ audio jacks are designed for headset-based microphones. If you are regularly planning on recording audio on a phone, consider buying a microphone designed for mobile phones.”
We’re adding another new program to our lineup, THAT’S MY BUSINESS! This week Rich Whittle interviews author Sherry Sexton about her new book on women entrepreneurs.
If you’ve ever lived in a neighborhood that had an ice cream truck come through, then you already have a basic idea of what they look like. Basically they are big, bulky vans with a window in the side for handing out the treats you purchase. However one company is out to change your impression of what that truck should look like.
The Cool Cycles Ice Cream Co. is a new breed of ice cream truck that isn’t even a truck. Instead Cool Cycles uses a specially made sidecar and motorcycle combination to sell prepackaged ice cream to the public.
I recently spoke with Joel Semanko, the president and CEO, about the business and their franchise opportunity.
Tell us a little about Cool Cycles Ice Cream Co.™
Cool Cycles™ is the nation’s only sidecar motorcycle mobile ice cream franchise currently offering Franchises on the West Coast in Seattle/Tacoma WA, Portland OR and San Diego CA. It’s designed to allow single unit franchise operators to earn part time or full time income from the sales of pre-packaged novelty ice cream in neighborhoods, festivals, company picnics and sporting events.
What inspired it?
The Cool Cycles™ Founder John Gibson was an investor in a foreign sidecar company back in the early 90’s. One of the first sidecars delivered into the country wasn’t a passenger sidecar; it was a small pickup box. What was a mistake turned out to be the inspiration for the Cool Cycles Ice Cream Co™. The founder thought if they are using sidecars to haul construction materials, what could he do with this sidecar? He thought if he put an ice chest and music box on it, he could sell ice cream in the neighborhoods. That was in 1993, it took almost another two years to design and build the original Cool Cycles™ sidecar motorcycle.
Rick Norsigian, a goateed 64-year-old maintenance worker who has spent most of his life living in the same house on a quiet street in Fresno, has long had a penchant for collecting antiques. His hobby may have paid off in a big way.
The Fresno Bee reports Norsigian and his attorney announced that 60 glass negatives Norsigian bought at a yard sale in Fresno a decade ago for $45 are the early works of famed photographer Ansel Adams.
One appraiser said recently that because they were created between 1919 and the early 1930s — a time before Adams became wildly popular — they are worth more than their weight in gold: at least $200 million.
“When I found out about the value, that made my legs start to shake a little bit,” Norsigian said.
Two handwriting experts have confirmed that notes on envelopes holding the 6½-by-8½-inch negatives were written by Adams’ wife, Virginia Adams.
One of the photographs captures a scene that has cloud formations and shadows that are almost identical to those in an authenticated Adams photo, according to a meteorologist who examined the negative. That indicates that the photo in Norsigian’s collection was taken at about the same time as the authenticated one.
According to The Florida Times-Union, the barbecue sauces, salsas, mustards and rubs are on the shelves. Now the owners of Sauceaholics just have to hope for business.
They opened the small shop in Lakewood, Florida, last week. It’s a simple operation by most business standards – one employee and 900 square feet of jars and bottles for sale in a shopping center. But they still face the same obstacles every new business does.
The idea started last Christmas when Don Smith went online to buy salsas for his partner in their CPA firm.
“The further I went, the more this exploded,” he said. “There’s a whole cult out there of people and their salsas.” “A $30 order might cost $15 in shipping,” he said. “So wouldn’t it be nice to have a store that had all that salsa?”
He talked to his wife about it. She talked to Sandra Hazen, a longtime friend, about it. Smith talked to a neighbor, Jack Gibney, about it. And they decided to go for it.
The process was simple: Search the Internet for makers of the products, e-mail them and ask about wholesale prices.
They created a corporation, got a credit card and started ordering. They order mostly in cases of 12, with most costing them $80-$150.
“Our competition,” he said, “is who we just bought it from.”
Generally, he prices the items a little higher than the manufacturer’s retail price and generally a little more than twice what they paid, but there’s no shipping. Prices run $3-$10.
According to a TD Canada Trust survey and BIV Business Today, the top five happiest entrepreneurial cities are Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver.
Overall, high satisfaction levels associated with owning their own business were the main reasons for small business owners having a more positive attitude than those who work for someone else.
About 97% said the business gives them a sense of pride and accomplishment, while 91% benefit from a deep personal connection to their employees and customers. About 86% said owning a small business gives them the flexibility to volunteer their time or make donations to charities, sports teams and events.
Although, the majority of entrepreneurs noted that they work far longer hours than employees. About 19% work between 50 and 59 hours a week, while 38% said they work 60 hours or more a week.
Numerous research studies show that our bodies operate by 90 minute rhythms during the day. When we’re awake, we move from higher to lower alertness every 90 minutes.
Matthew E. May at OPEN Forum says we should try to get things done in bursts of intensely focused activity, interspersed with periods of rest and recovery.
1. Make sufficient sleep your highest priority. After breathing, sleeping is our most fundamental need. It’s also the first thing we’re willing to give up in an effort to get more done.
2. Prioritize your tasks the night before. The number of potential distractions, interruptions, and fatigue tends to increase throughout the day. Do the most important work of your day first, before checking email, if possible.
3. Daydream for Breakthroughs. Schedule at least one half-hour a week to brainstorm around some issue at work. You can help access your right hemisphere by doodling, listening to instrumental music, going for a long walk—anything that lets your mind wander.
4. Accentuate the Positive. Make a list of activities that you enjoy most and that make you feel best. Intentionally schedule at least one of these activities into your life each week.
Michelle Staley is watching her online business grow while receiving and offering a helping hand to fellow moms at the same time reports The Fort Morgan Times.
She received her first shipment of her Busy Breathers backpacks in December 2008, but has learned more about marketing in the past 1-1/2 years, she said.
She’s added about 30 new products to her Web site, which allows her to appeal to a greater range of customer interests, and that is making for better business, Staley said.
It is not easy to market only one item at a time, but by having multiple products she is getting more attention, she said.
Staley got into the Web business after her son Ty was born prematurely. He had to have oxygen for a time, and it was cumbersome to carry around an oxygen tank and also try to balance a diaper bag and other items.
She came up with the idea of using a backpack to hold everything she needed, leaving her hands more free.
Staley then designed a special backpack which was specifically made for mothers to tuck away everything they would carry in their purses, such as wallets, and baby materials, with a special mount to hold the oxygen cylinder in place.
It’s been well received by the health community, but it was hard going getting the word out, even through the Internet, Staley said.
One unanswered question posed by this recession is, will we return to our previous buying habits once we believe that it is over?
A new Harris poll does nothing to clarify it for us, because it shows that we continue to look for more frugal alternatives in our day-to-day spending.
WalletPop reports that one way we are chopping our expenses is by buying generic brands.
Almost two out of every three persons surveyed indicated that they had bought, or considered buying, generics in the past six months. Even more troubling to those who long for an increase in consumer spending is the finding that this percentage has actually gone up since the question was last asked in January.
We’re also brown-bagging it: 48% saying they had carried their lunch to work in the past six months, up from 45%. Bypassing the dry-cleaners: 24% have reduced their use of this service. Canceling their land line: 15% have done so, while another 22% have considered it.
Skipping the coffee shop on the way to work: 22% no longer hit Starbucks or the like in the morning. Eschewing bottled water in favor of refillable bottles: 39% are doing this, up by 5% in only six months. Cutting back on cable TV: 22% have canceled or switched to a cheaper cable TV alternative; another 22% have considered it.
Lula Mae Reeves is a 97 year old entrepreneur and the first African American woman to open her own business in downtown Philly reports 6ABC.
She became a milliner in the early 1930s making hats and lots of them.
“The more I made, the more they liked them.”
She opened her first hat shop on South Street in 1934.
Miss Mae’s local customers included Marion Anderson and Lenore Annenberg. She was even sought out by celebrities like Lena Horne and Ella Fitzgerald when they visited the city.
Last spring, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture asked to acquire Mae’s hat collection, along with some of the antique tools she used to make them. It as an opportunity to tell not only Mae’s story, but:
“But many, many stories from her life and her business in terms of how African American’s lived, how they became and were productive members of society,” said Dr. Renee Anderson, a Smithsonian Museum specialist.
So Mae was honored with a fashion show, where Action News’ own Lisa Thomas-Laury was delighted to be a model for some of Mae’s unique creations.
She was also awarded the Philadelphia Liberty Bell.
Know any biz owners in NYC? I’m looking for a couple that I can interview at their location, on camera, for a three minute interview about online marketing in the next couple of weeks.
Vitamin D promises to be the most talked-about and written-about supplement of the decade. While studies continue to refine optimal blood levels and recommended dietary amounts, the fact remains that a huge part of the population — from robust newborns to the frail elderly, and many others in between — are deficient in this essential nutrient.
If the findings of existing clinical trials hold up in future research, the potential consequences of this deficiency are likely to go far beyond inadequate bone development and excessive bone loss that can result in falls and fractures. Every tissue in the body, including the brain, heart, muscles and immune system, has receptors for vitamin D, meaning that this nutrient is needed at proper levels for these tissues to function well.
According to NewsCore, the former eye doctor who discovered the wrinkle-reducing properties of Botox missed out on a fortune after she and her dermatologist husband failed to patent the anti-ageing procedure they discovered in Canada.
Dr. Jean Carruthers’ eureka moment came in 1987 when she spotted that the injections she used to stop eye spasms also smoothed facial lines.
Her British-born husband Dr. Alastair Carruthers then tested the toxin on the couple’s receptionist. “We had only to see her to say, ‘Oh, this does work.’ You could see a huge difference,” said Jean Carruthers, 61.
The couple wrote a paper on their findings four years later – and Botox is now the world’s most popular cosmetic procedure.
But the Carruthers, who run a cosmetic surgery clinic in Vancouver, Canada, never patented their work and missed out on fame, fortune and the thanks of younger-looking people worldwide.
The next generation of young social-preneurs may rely on more young innovators like Joey Ronca reports the Cleveland Daily Banner.
Although Ronca currently works with his father in their family-owned Italian Bistro, the soft-spoken Italian said his plans are to broaden his economic horizons as a young leader of the social enterprise movement.
“I’m currently in the process of opening a car lot in Cleveland called Big Wheel City, in September,” said Ronca. “I’ve always loved cars and have a real passion for them.”
According to Ronca, used vehicles have a much higher demand in today’s market in view of the economy and the enormous recall of certain later models cars. Not only is Ronca venturing out into the automobile dealership industry, but the co-owner of Papa’s Italian Bistro said he takes an active interest in the lives of others to promote social change as well.
“I’d like people to think of me as a devoted family man who looks out for everybody,” said Ronca. “I consider myself a people person who enjoys helping others. I feel the Lord is blessing me in my life and my marriage.”
Ronca said he believes his generation will do a better job with the economy and in bringing social change than the current generation, and will do his part to prove it.
“We’re more susceptible to change, but the people who are currently in office are approaching things as if to say, ‘This is our way. We’re not doing it your way,’” Ronca said. “And it’s been going on for a while. Personally, I think they need new people in there.”
Unemployment rates in most states fell in June, which means fewer people unemployed, right?
According to the experts, it isn’t that more people have jobs — it’s that fewer people are still looking for work. Apparently if you aren’t looking for a job, the government doesn’t consider you unemployed.
The insanity of this logic is that people must obviously do something to avoid living in their cars — and what they are doing is working in the “gig economy.”
WalletPop reports that instead of jobs, we now get gigs. Part-time work in our chosen fields where employers pay us by the hour, the shift, the legal case, the word, the blog post — and that’s all we get: the pay. Health benefits, paid vacations, sick leave, and pensions have no place in the new gig world order.
The gig economy, by the way, is flourishing — growing daily. And why not? From an employer’s perspective, giggers are cheap labor because you don’t have to pay them benefits and you only use them when you have a need.
But the government has no interest in counting giggers when it tries to figure out how many Americans are unemployed. Much has been written about how the unemployment numbers would actually be higher — and truer — if those who have abandoned hope of finding a full-time job and joined the ranks of the gig economy got counted.
Some call it the Pajama Generation, because we amble out of bed in the morning in our PJs and fire up the Mac — waiting for the economy to awaken from its deep, dreamless sleep.
Sgt. Neil Avant was on his way to a meeting in Baghdad when a man wearing women’s clothing and a bomb blew himself up. The injuries that he suffered were a enough to end his service with the army but they were not enough to break his entrepreneurial spirit reports The Los Angeles Times.
Earlier this month he joined 19 other disabled veterans at a eight-day crash course in entrepreneurship.
His instructors at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management were blunt. Why would anyone consult him, he recalled them asking, when there are numerous firms already offering to help customers convert to renewable energy?
“Man, this really is like boot camp, you know the way they break you down to build you up?” Avant said in between lectures on balance sheets and marketing strategies.
“I think I was a little too cocky….We were trying to do microloans and financing in a combat environment, and I was like, if I can do that in Iraq, I can do it anywhere, right?”
With jobs hard to find, starting a business can be an attractive option for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with debilitating injuries. Hundreds apply every year for the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities, which is offered at six universities nationwide.
The all-expenses-paid program, funded by contributions from the business community, was founded by J. Michael Haynie, who served 14 years in the Air Force before joining the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University as an assistant professor of entrepreneurship. “If we know anything from history, for veterans with disabilities the path to traditional employment is a challenge,” Haynie said.
Program participants say becoming entrepreneurs allows them to craft careers suited to their skills and limitations. Besides dealing with physical issues, many disabled veterans require care that can be difficult to fit into a traditional workweek.