Saturday, April 28, 2007

Funny PPC Ads

http://funnyppcads.com/

Have you ever seen a hilarious AdSense ad? As PPC ads become more and more creative, an increasing number of bloggers point these out. However, to this day, there hasn’t been a single central source for those.

FunnyPPCAds.com hopes to fill this niche, allowing site visitors to submit the funniest PPC ads they see on the internet (currently limited to Google AdSense ad format).

Why bother collecting funny ads? David DePrice, the owner of DePrice.com and FunnyPPCAds.Com founder explains.

“It’s not just about humor. You see, creative PPC ads attract reader attention and get higher click-through rates, which in turn results in lower CPC values and wider distribution through AdSense network. This is how Google algorithm works. They actually reward you for good ads. So it’s not about ‘funny’, it’s about ‘money’.”

Funny or not, an idea to collect best pieces of PPC copywriting is certainly a timely one. Unlike direct-mail copywriters who have their swipe-files, or regular ad professionals with their portfolios, people struggling to write their first AdWords ad have no resource that would allow them to see most successful PPC ads to model.

Mathematicians Discover A Formular For Perfect Beer Foam


Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords

Insider SEO & PPC: Get Your Website to the Top of the Search Engines

FlexPetz.com - Strange 'Rent-A-Pet' Business Idea

http://www.flexpetz.com/

Flexpetz recently launched in Los Angeles and San Diego, and offers consumers the option of having a dog for just a few hours or days a week. Which is a good solution for people who'd love to have a dog, but are too busy, travel frequently, or live in buildings that don't allow dog ownership. The dogs come from breed rescue shelters, who take in specific breeds and help pick animals that are well-suited to a live as Flexpetz. When they're not spending time with members, the dogs live in a cage-free facility that provides a safe and steady base. The company's founder, Marlena Cervantes, views Flexpetz like an extended family: "When our dogs spend time with their extended family members, they are lavished with love and undivided attention. We feel our this concept allows our dogs more love and attention than single ownership can often provide."

Membership is limited, and each dog generally spends time with a small group of people. Monthly membership costs USD 39.95 plus a daily fee, and members can reserve their pooch of choice online. Before being allowed to rent a dog, members go through a mandatory training session with a certified Flexpetz dog trainer. The service aims to expand to New York, San Francisco and Boston soon, followed by other cities in the United States and abroad. One to set up locally? Or how about starting a website that matches two or three owners, facilitating fractional dog ownership based on location, availability and personality?

The Funniest AdSense Ad You'll Ever Read

Friday, April 27, 2007

How To Make Money With Medical ID Jewelry

http://www.jewelsetjim.com/

Everything changed for Julia van Hees-Aidner the day Zoe Potkin was diagnosed with epilepsy.

In 2003, van Hees-Aidner was working in PR for several high-end jewelry companies when she received a call from her friend, Ralph Potkin, who was concerned about his daughter's refusal to wear the medical ID tag notifying doctors that she was epileptic. Van Hees-Aidner scoured lists of jewelers, searching for someone who could make a fashionable ID tag to fit Zoe's lifestyle. But she found no one.

Van Hees-Aidner, 49, was also reluctant to wear a medical ID tag alerting doctors of her drug allergies and lupus condition, so she decided to create a tag that wouldn't embarrass wearers. She partnered with vintage jewelry expert James Martin, 45, to create Jewels et Jim, a line of high-end, fashionable medical ID tags.

The Jewels et Jim charms are a far cry from old medical ID bracelets. Each charm features the staff of Asclepius, the medical symbol emergency professionals use to identify patients with drug allergies or other medical conditions. Highly stylized precious and semiprecious jewels and stones make up the face of each charm.

"They're not just bracelets," says van Hees-Aidner. "The charms can also be worn on a necklace, and we'll be offering rubber and silk cords for a younger audience." Prices for the jewelry, which is sold at Geary's of Beverly Hills and select Neiman Marcus stores nation-wide, range from $250 to $12,000.
With 2007 projected sales of $2 million, the company will introduce a children's and men's line this year and will donate a portion of profits to lupus and epilepsy causes.

World's Most Expensive Train ($20000 Per Person)

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Wednesday, April 25, 2007

10 Wacked Out But Wildly Successful Homebusiness Ideas

http://www.hardtofindseminars.com

Michael Senoff has stumbled upon a perfect online home business opportunity – reselling old seminar materials. He was really impressed by Jay Abraham. The only problem was that it costs $20,000 to attend Jay’s workshops (no wonder the press called it, “the world's most expensive seminar"). So he did some digging and managed to find a guy from Northern California who had attended the seminar, asking to buy seminar materials off him. He bought the entire set for … 50 dollars. He later found out that Jay’s materials are being sold on eBay for several hundred dollars. He broke up the original package (that he got for $50) in several pieces and sold items for $1700. Thus, his perfect online homebusiness was born. Michael now resells old seminar materials for dozens of marketing gurus, easily profiting over $1000 a day. Read full story in Mike's own words.

http://www.hungrypod.com/

Catherine Keane, the owner of Hungry Pod, makes over $100,000 a year, uploading music to other people’s iPods. This online homebusiness idea came to her when an acquaintance offered her $500 to load his CD collection onto his iPod. Thanks in part to a small story in The New York Times, Keane's advertising efforts on Craigslist and word-of-mouth, HungryPod has expanded to three employees and four computers, and has annual sales that exceed $100,000. Read The New York Times article about Catherine and her business.

http://www.idonowidont.com/

Joshua Opperman has his ex-fiancée to thank for his thriving online home based business. After the breakup, he was stuck with the engagement ring he paid dearly for. He went back to the jeweler where he'd bought it three months earlier, but found he could only get 32 percent of its original cost. Josh didn’t like that one bit, so he set up a site, where people in the same situation can sell their engagement rights for a better price. See the full profile of this online homebusiness here.

http://www.pickydomains.com/

This is a great online home-based business idea that requires no money and that anyone can start. PickyDomains is a risk-free domain naming service that got a lot of publicity and ‘blogtalk’ in Europe lately. This is how it works. A customer deposits $50 dollars and describes what kind of domain he or she wants. Domain pickers then send in their suggestions of available domain names. If the customer likes one of the domain names and registers it, the service gets $50. Otherwise the money is refunded at the end of the month. Read full article about how you can make money naming domains here.

http://www.greekgear.com/

Reading a business magazine in the doctor's office inspired Joseph Tantillo to try his hand at online retailing. At the time, he and his wife were expecting their first child and wanted to work from home. An article about starting an online store jumped out at him, he recalls—and, as a member of a fraternity in college, he decided to sell personalized Greek apparel to that market. After setting up shop for just $79.95—the cost of a merchant account with Yahoo!— he began researching what kind of products his former fraternity brothers might like. Using the strong Greek network worked, as he's built GreekGear.com's yearly sales to $1.9 million. Read Joseph’s story here.

http://rickspicksnyc.com/

Rick Field, a Yale graduate and former TV producer for Bill Moyers, is a perfect example of how you can start successful home business out of a hobby. Field learned the art of pickling when he was growing up in Vermont. About eight years ago, gripped by a sense of nostalgia, he took up pickling again. In his tiny kitchen, Field made family recipes and then quickly began experimenting. People’s wildly enthusiastic response to his Windy City Wasabeans (soybeans in wasabi brine) and Slices of Life (sliced pickles in aromatic garlic brine) told him he was onto something. Read how Rick took his homebusiness online here.

http://www.militaryexits.com/

Karin Markley set her online business right out of home. Having 15 years of experience working in a civilian employment agency and knowing that companies value employees with military backgrounds, and she wanted to provide a one-stop link between the two. Karen contacted the Department of Defense for permission to use its seal on her Web site. It took months to get it, but MilitaryExits.com is now linked to all the military bases. Markley, who projects annual sales of $600,000, points to her biggest reward: "Helping the military. Getting the letters and phone calls from these people thanking me so much for what I'm doing for them."

http://www.hotsauceblog.com/

If I told you that you can make $200,000 blogging about hot sauces, you wouldn’t believe me. Yet, this is exactly what Nick Lindauer does. In 2001, while still in college, he launched his online homebusiness then called Sweat 'N Spice out of his Springfield (Ore.) apartment. He sold a few dozen types of hot sauces, packaged each order by hand, and shipped everything from his local post office, barely eking out a profit during his first year of operation. Today, Lindauer sells over a thousand products from some 300 manufacturers. In 2005, the business grossed around $130,000. He got $200,000 in 2006. One day, it’s going to be a cool $1000000. Full story.

http://amazingbutterflies.com/

Amazing Butterflies is really an amazing million dollar homebusiness idea success story. Jose Muñiz's career began when a friend bet him $100 that he could not sell butterflies for a living. Now, seven years later, the former business consultant and his wife, Karen, own Amazing Butterflies, a live-butterfly distributor that generated $1 million in revenues in 2006. Though Muñiz is still waiting for his $100, he says that he has backed his way into a job that he loves. "I could never go back to consulting," he says. "This is just too much fun." Full story.

http://www.laneigepurse.com/

What began as a solution to her chronic back and neck pain is now a line of purses for women who share Kristy Sobel's condition--or simply want a fashionable fanny pack. After three car accidents that resulted in extensive back and neck surgeries, the 35-year-old entrepreneur realized she couldn't do the traveling her then-job required. To ease the weight on her shoulders, Sobel searched for a fanny pack that would accommodate her condition, but realized fashionable ones were nonexistent. So she created one. Before long, family, friends and even strangers were requesting this one-of-a-kind purse. She approached boutiques with her design after successful test runs at her friends' shops, but the door-to-door routine eventually took a toll on her body. Sobel continued her venture from home, found a rep to promote her bags at a trade show and used her and her husband and co-founder Eric's savings to launch LaNeige Purse. Last year she made over $200,000 from her purses.

Books on homebusiness:

The Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People's Stuff Online

Missed Fortune 101: A Starter Kit to Becoming a Millionaire

Internet Riches: The Simple Money-making Secrets of Online Millionaire

Real online home business ideas

Massive Free Internet Marketing Software Giveaway ($497 Worth Of Free Software)

LeaseTrader.Com - How To Turn Pain Into Profit

LeaseTrader.com

When Sergio Stiberman wanted to get out of his car lease in 1998, he did what most people would do--he went to his dealership. But he wasn't entirely satisfied with what he found out. "It was going to cost me the same amount as all my remaining payments" to get out of the lease early, Stiberman says.

What Stiberman wanted was a way to end his car lease early without excessive fees and payments. As the former owner of a consumer electronics business, he was also looking for a new venture, and with his car problems came a business solution: Create an exchange program for consumers to trade car leases. "I realized there was a need from a consumer standpoint, and there was no one in the market doing it," he says.

Stiberman decided to launch a website that would allow lease buyers and sellers to connect quickly and easily. "You don't have to deal with a dealership, going from one loop to the other," he says of his company's services. "You pretty much dictate the terms you want on a contract."

He hired professional site developers to give LeaseTrader.com a unique look. Startup costs to launch the website were relatively high, so Stiberman used his own funds along with money he received from outside investors.

The site has thousands of listings nationwide. Potential buyers can log on and sign up to view the available listings for free. After checking with their leasing companies, which make the decision on whether to allow trades, sellers can choose from different listing packages ranging in price from $39.95 to $189.95 and begin by entering their vehicle and lease information. LeaseTrader.com will even run credit verification for buyers to ensure a viable sale.

With 2006 sales at $3.7 million, Stiberman projects 2007 sales will grow to $8 million.

The Dumbest Stripclub Visitor

Do You Know What Keywords Pay Best With Google AdSense? Be Ready For A Huge Surprise.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

The Hanger Millionaire Story

Devon Rifkin Story

http://www.hangers.com/

When I was 23, I went to work in my father's warehouse in Miami. It sold store fixtures - mannequins, showcases, hangers - everything in a store that a store doesn't sell. I started to pay attention to the hangers when I noticed that every retailer who came in to buy supplies would also purchase hangers for his own home.

"Give me $500 worth of hangers for my house," a typical jewelry store customer said. When I realized there was no universally recognized place that specialized in selling high-quality hangers, I decided then and there to become the Hanger King.

In the same month I got married, bought an apartment, and used it as collateral to borrow $30,000 and start the Great American Hanger Co. (hangers.com). Then I started to travel the world to learn about the hanger business. I went to India, other parts of Asia and South America.

In a leap of faith, I bought $50,000 worth of wooden hangers from India, because they were the cheapest and the Indians spoke English. I started selling them to my dad's customers and to other store-fixture distributors.

I sold $25,000 worth of hangers in three months in 1999 and $500,000 the next year. Today we are one of the world's largest sellers of high-quality hangers, including lines designed for lingerie and suits. We did $8 million in sales last year, and I think we can definitely become a $100 million company.

The Coolest Free Internet BizOpp Today

Perry Marshall On The Realities Of Internet Marketing

Couple Finds Winning $1000 Lotto Ticket in Trash

Monday, April 23, 2007

The Non-Explosive Business Growth

http://www.blastgardintl.com/

The AHA! moment arrived over breakfast in an Orlando diner. James Gordon and John Waddell were trying to develop a product designed to protect lives and property from the deadly effects of bombs and industrial explosions. Their first idea was a stiff plastic or paper honeycomb panel filled with perlite, a volcanic glass commonly used as loose-fill insulation in masonry construction and as an ingredient in soil-free growing mixes for horticulture.

Perlite dissipated explosions quite well in early tests, but the honeycomb casing proved too rigid and too expensive. Gordon and Waddell needed a material to contain the perlite that was tough, light, bendable and cheap. "The concept was great," recalls Gordon. "The packaging was impossible." Then they spotted their solution sitting in plain sight on the breakfast table: Smucker's jelly containers.

Waddell and Gordon are sixtysomething veterans of the real estate and steel industries, respectively. They teamed up to launch BlastGard International, a small public company based in Clearwater, Fla. After two years and $2.5 million in private financing, BlastGard landed its first major customer in 2005.

To date the Washington, D.C., Metro rail system has ordered 208 explosion-mitigating trash receptacles for use on Metro platforms (total cost: $797,000). The containers are lined with BlastWrap, two layers of thin white plastic sealed together to form pockets about three inches square and one inch deep. Each pocket is filled with a white, sand-like compound of perlite and salts, which contains water. Sliced apart, the individual pockets could be little diner packages of Smucker's.

BlastWrap essentially diffuses the energy of an explosion. The explosive shock wave ruptures the plastic packaging and breaks down the perlite mixture, filling the blast area with perlite dust and droplets of water released from the pulverized salts. The dust dissipates the shock wave while the water douses the fireball - all in a few milliseconds.

BlastGard's second big order came from Amtrak in early 2006: $959,000 for 236 trash receptacles for railway stations in New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago and elsewhere. But shielded trash cans are just the beginning. Waddell and Gordon want to sell BlastWrap to anybody who handles explosive materials. Target customers include airlines, the military and the petrochemical industry, but frequent fliers will welcome one application in particular.

In collaboration with Nordisk Aviation Products, a Norwegian company that produces most of the aluminum freight containers used on wide-body aircraft, BlastGard has developed - but not yet sold - a shielded container designed to smother suitcase bombs. The problem is that BlastGard's container sells for about $2,900, compared with $1,000 or so for an unprotected container. BlastGard can't reduce the price until it builds a volume business. But the struggling airline industry isn't likely to cough up the extra money unless regulators or insurers insist. So far, they haven't.

Military forces around the world are a major target of opportunity for BlastGard. A pad of BlastWrap on the bottom of a Humvee, for example, would complement the vehicle's armor plate. Conventional armor is pretty good at blocking the shock wave and shrapnel from a mine or from the homemade explosives that litter roads in Iraq. But armor plate also compounds the jolt that tosses the vehicle, often causing serious injury to its occupants. BlastWrap would reduce that bone-breaking whump.

In November, BlastGard announced that it had signed a $186,000 deal to provide its products to the U.S. Marine Corps for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. The company also named L. Paul Bremer, former administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, to its board.

Man Gets 5,000 Calls After Posting YouTube Video

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Sunday, April 22, 2007

Would You Like To Learn How To Make Money Naming Domains?

http://pickydomains.com/

PickyDomains.Com is a perfect example of how to turn one’s talent into a profitable business. With ever expanding Internet and tens of millions existing websites, finding an available domain name that’s not already taken by cybersquatters can be a real nightmare.

But one man’s problem is another man’s solution. Rather than to shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars for a domain name on the aftermarket, an increasing number of web entrepreneurs turn to professional “domain namers�?.

While most naming agencies charge a non-refundable fee that can be as high as $1500 for a corporate domain, one service that unites 17 professional domain namers from countries like United States, Russia, Australia and New Zealand, decided to offer a risk-free service that costs only 50 dollars per domain.

After 50 dollars are deposited, clients start getting a list of available domain names via e-mail for a period of 30 days. If they see a domain they like, they register it and notify the service about domain acquired. The individual, who came up with the name, gets $25, the other half going to the service. If no domain is registered, the money is refunded in full.

While the idea is brainlessly simple, it appears that PickyDomains.Com has no competition with its risk-free business model. But that is almost certain to change as more people find out that finding available domain names for other people can be a profitable business.

Robbery Aborted When Employees Get Giggles

Commuting And Marketing

Friday, April 20, 2007

Real Money From Virtual Real Estate

www.weblo.com/

Online worlds like Second Life have made a successful business out of getting people to buy and sell 3-D virtual real estate.

But can the same business model be made to work on the regular old Internet, where the "real estate" being traded is nothing more than a webpage? A Montreal startup called Weblo thinks it can--and claims that its plan will pull in $2 million in the second quarter of 2007 alone.

Weblo's pages represent states, cities, and buildings in the real world--and are in finite supply. For example, there's a Weblo page for the Empire State Building (bought for $1 by city worker Rick Bujold, who later flipped it for $250), a page for Seattle (bought for $2,000 by Seattle real estate loan analyst Padraic Slattery), and a page for California (bought for $53,000 by lawyer Michael Edelson).

All told, Weblo has attracted 10,000 speculators so far. Weblo CEO Rocky Mirza, who got $2.6 million in VC funding, expects to hit $10 million in revenue by the end of 2007. "It's Monopoly on steroids," Mirza says.

But is there any inherent value to Weblo pages, or are they as worthless as Monopoly properties? The pages are supposed to be mini travel guides to the locations they represent, with photos and starred reviews from users--though currently most pages offer very little content.

Owners keep the ad revenue generated by their pages but have to pay a slice of it in "taxes" to the owners of the city and state pages where their properties are located. For example, Chris Gingras, a network marketer in Toronto, spent $16,900 to acquire Ontario--and is making back $700 a month in ad revenue and taxes from the province's subsidiary properties.

All of which has analysts scratching their heads. "I don't see the economics," says Barry Parr, a media analyst with JupiterResearch. "You can't value things simply on the ability to sell them to someone else. I don't know what's going to drive the audience. It doesn't feel like a sustainable business."

But if Weblo has somehow managed to siphon off a bit of the irrational frenzy endemic to the real-world real estate market, it just might have found a profitable niche.

Oops - Rookie Plumber Makes A $12 Million Mistake

Cellphone To Text Service

Teddy Bear Multimillionaire Story

http://www.buildabear.com/

Maxine Clark rode to riches on the back of a teddy bear. Clark opened her first Build-A-Bear Workshop in a St. Louis shopping mall in 1997. Now the international chain generates $360 million in sales annually and has made Clark a multimillionaire.

In Clark’s stores, kids of all ages line up to create stuffed animals in what look like factories run by Dr. Seuss on casual Fridays. Guided by a peppy staff clad in denim and khakis, customers produce personalized teddy bears and other creatures. “We really are a theme park in a mall,” says Clark.

Would-be designers spend an average of 45 minutes crafting their custom-made creations. They pick a pelt, size the stuffing, choose clothes, accessories and even furniture, name the beast and leave with a one-of-a-kind toy. For $85, you could construct a stuffed panda that sings “I love you” in Spanish, wears an official Oakland AUs uniform, carries a fake camera cell phone and resides in a display case that looks like an armoire.

Clark’s playful idea was backed up with 25 years of toil in the retail business. Clark joined May Department Stores as an executive trainee in women’s sportswear in 1972, shortly after graduating from the University of Georgia. She climbed her way up the corporate ladder and ran Payless ShoeSource for more than three years before starting her own company.

Clark advises aspiring entrepreneurs to gain experience in a field that stokes their passion. “If you want to own a restaurant, go work in one,” she says. At May, she helped develop the company’s logistics system, a project that taught her how to manage a large chain of stores. “It would have taken me a lot longer to learn how to do that on my own,” she says, “and Build-A-Bear would be at 50 stores today instead of 300.

Why Michael Jordan Made 300 Times More Money Than His Teammate Joe Klein

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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Camp Bow Wow - Dog Daycare Hits It Big

http://www.campbowwowusa.com/

Five years ago, Heidi Flammang launched Camp Bow Wow, a Denver doggie day care center, and a year later sold her first franchise. By 2005 she had 11 different locations and planned by the end of that year to expand to 75, each bringing in between $750,000 and $2 million in revenue annually, depending on size and location.

"The company is doing very well, and everyone is very happy. But personally, I wanted to be farther ahead as far as the number of camps opened and as far sales go."

Flammang says she has sold 180 franchises, but only 35 are operating, well under her initial target of 75 in operation by the end of 2005. However, she says that by the end of this year she will have sold 225 franchises and there will be 75 Camp Bow Wows up and running.

"We are selling more franchises than we thought, but they are taking longer to open," she says. The biggest obstacles, she says, are zoning and construction issues. "It takes so much time, and we can't speed this up because getting permits depends on local municipalities."

Flammang has also readjusted her sales goals to $600,000 to $700,000 per store, in large part because she has also scaled down the size of each camp. "Our original model has not proven that bigger camps are better," she says. "We wanted to keep the intimate, boutique-camp feel… And having more than 150 dogs in a facility is too crazy."

She's learned a few lessons about franchising along the way. "One thing I've noticed is how important cash flow management is for us and the franchisees," she says. "It's important to have working capital and to invest wisely and to advertise. A lot of franchisers did not want to advertise. Now we have strict rules on that. We didn't have those rules a few years ago."

All in all, however, Bow Wow's future looks good. Flammang says the company brought in $10 million in revenue last year. Based on her new goals, she expects to hit $100 million by 2010. There are Camp Bow Wows in 28 states and Canada—more than double the number in 2005.

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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Outsource Your Chores.

http://www.domystuff.com/

Beverly Hills-born DoMyStuff.com is an online marketplace where busy people can quickly find others to do their chores, from mowing the lawn or picking up dry cleaning to researching a cruise or planning a party.

How it works? Someone posts a task, choosing a relevant category and describing the task in detail. Businesses and individuals then bid for the task. Bids include the total cost to complete a task, when it will be completed and information on the service they will provide. The customer reviews the bids and chooses an assistant. Customers can view in-depth information on the service providers, including their names, locations and the ratings they've been awarded by past employers.

In addition to the bidding system, DoMyStuff has integrated several other features that take it beyond posting casual jobs on Craigslist or other boards. First of all, a rating system lets users share information on the quality of service providers. Which is important, considering many chores take place in or around a customer's home, making safety and reliability a key issue.

Secondly, to establish trust between buyers and providers, DoMyStuff provides an online escrow system that allows customers to forward payment for a task into an escrow account. While the task is being completed, neither customer nor assistant have access to the funds, but the assistant is able to see that the account has been funded for a specific task. Once the job has been completed to the customer's satisfaction, the funds are released to the assistant. Which protects both buyers and sellers.

DoMyStuff's charges service providers a commission if they're awarded a job. Commission rates vary according to a job's category and total cost, ranging from 7–10%. The service is free for buyers, who have the option of paying a small fee to highlight their project, bringing it to the top of a category (much like Google's sponsored links). The company is currently focused on Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. One to start up locally before they go global?

How To Make Every Ad Dollar Accountable

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Monday, April 16, 2007

How To Make Money Online Without Trying Hard

http://www.scholarships-ar-us.org/

When word of a whites-only scholarship at Boston University hit the media last fall--drawing coverage from bloggers and biggies like ABC alike--Daniel Kovach smelled opportunity. His goal: to boost traffic to the website he runs, Scholarships Around the US.

So he paid a writer to crank out "The White Man's Guide to Getting a Minority Scholarship," which reveals that some schools do offer scholarships to "nonblack" students--and added it to the mix. Then Kovach planted a link to the article on recommendation site Digg, where it jumped to the coveted front page.

That, in turn, led other sites to link to the article. And Kovach landed a top search ranking on Google for phrases like "white man scholarship."

Such timely strategies have helped Kovach turn his year-old site into a $10,000-per-year cash cow. Not bad for a 26-year-old who works about an hour a day out of his townhouse in Raleigh, N.C.

Media outlets have, of course, always exploited offbeat events and stories to drive traffic. But today it's easier than ever to profit from a surge of interest in a particular topic. Some people simply aim for 15 minutes of Web fame and make a few hundred bucks by setting up a site around a topic, loading it with Google pay-per-click ads, and working social sites to link to it.

But others, like Kovach, are making bigger money by tapping the cultural zeitgeist to draw more people to an existing site.

Kovach's windfall is more surprising given that he started with a terrible domain name: www.scholarships-ar-us.org. It's difficult to remember, and no one would ever type it directly into a browser. The domain's appeal--and the reason Kovach paid $1,000 for it--was that residual links pushed it up high in Google search results.

And that was better than starting from scratch. For $900, Kovach hired a designer to give the site a simple and authoritative look. He found freelancers on the Web to write items on topics from essay writing to sports scholarships. He mapped out what categories the site should include.

Each step of the way, Kovach milks trends big and small. He says he spends about 15 minutes a day culling education-related articles from Google News, scanning the headlines in search of anything that might help him stoke traffic.

"You have to sift through it all," he says. "No one is going to hand you pieces of trend gold." And he uses Google's Keyword Tool and Wordtracker--services that show what phrases people are searching--to figure out which parts of his site to beef up.

When Kovach discovered that people regularly search for scholarships for "twins," "tall people," and "left-handed people," he added a section about each. "There are hardly any real scholarships," Kovach explains, "but we'll give the searcher any information they want."

Scientists Discover That Scientists Shouldn't Marry.

Man In Ohio Is Giving Away A Free House. Wanna Know What The Catch Is?

Sunday, April 15, 2007

1-800-Cab-Ride.com - A Taxi Company With No Cabs

Hailing a cab works great in certain neighborhoods, but if you're off the beaten path there's not a lot of chances that a cabbie is going to randomly swing by for a pickup. One man is betting that the Digg generation would be more inclined to use taxis if there was a convenient web interface. Jason Diaz’s 1-800-cab-ride.com (800-222-7433) plans to be the one-stop online shop for scheduling taxi cabs. Essentially, 800cabride.com is a car service that doesn't own a single automobile - it uses a network of independent cab shops around the country to arrange rides from one central dispatch office.

It's a pretty simple setup. Just go to the website, choose pickup and drop off locations, and the service will have a ride dispatched. Cab rides are billed at a flat rate that includes all applicable fees and tip, and payment is made on the website via credit card or corporate account. Airline pickups are "will call" when debarking so there's no chance of a delayed flight causing a missed ride. If you don't call the 800 number to confirm arrival there's no charge to the credit card. It's nice that they've kept it flexible because traveling can sometimes turn into a nebulous form of performance art.

Man In Ohio Is Giving Away A Free House. Wanna Know What The Catch Is?

JFK Sniper Window Sold For $3 Million

Saturday, April 14, 2007

How To Make Money Reselling Junk Computers To Collectors

http://www.sellam.com/

In the first purchase of his collection, Sellam Ismail loaded the trunk of his car with old computers he stumbled upon at a flea market for $5 apiece. Soon he had filled his three-car garage with what others would consider obsolete junk.

Years later, his collection of early computers, printers, and related parts is piled high across shelves and in chaotic heaps in a 4,500-square-foot warehouse near Silicon Valley. And it is worth real money.

Even as the power and speed of today's computers make their forerunners look ever punier, a growing band of collectors are gathering retro computers, considering them important relics and even good investments.

"There has been a real steep upward trend in prices in the last year, year and a half," said Ismail, 38. "It seems it's become like the new collectible to moneyed people. Before it was just nerds and hobbyists."

He states his own affiliation clearly: he wears a black T shirt with the word "nerd" on the front. He recently brought a quarter-century old Xerox Star computer back to life to be used as evidence in a patent lawsuit.

The pride of his collection is an Apple Lisa, one of the first computers (introduced in 1983) with a now standard graphical interface. Such items sell for more than $10,000.

Minnesota Man Wins $25,000 Lottery Two Days in Row

$3 Million For JFK Sniper Window

Friday, April 13, 2007

World's First Folding Guitar

http://www.devillain.com

Just launched at the Musikmesse in Frankfurt by Swedish start-up the DeVillain Guitar Company, the Centerfold guitar solves a problem that every guitarist has experienced: portability. The folding guitar is a patent-pending product developed by an airline pilot who's also a fervent guitarist. Having a hard time taking his guitar with him everywhere he went, Fredrik Johansson started working on a prototype for the instrument that's now being brought to market.

The guitars, which are handmade in Sweden, slip into a small backpack which will have no trouble fitting into an overhead luggage bin. The neck folds down with strings still attached, and if it's in tune when you fold it, it will be in tune when you unfold it. The neck and body are connected with an airplane aluminium bolt that ensures maximal connection. Lefty versions aren't currently available, and DeVillain will only produce 300 guitars this year, for a direct to consumer price of EUR 2,600 or USD 3,370. A folding electric bass is in the works.

Since the electric guitar is one of the world's most popular instruments, the potential market for DeVillain's highly innovative product is substantial. Time to snap up local distribution rights? And how about some inflatable drums? ;-)

Scientist Needs $20,000 To Finish His Timetravel Experiment
$1 Parking Ticket Paid After 26 Years
Free $25 To Spend At Burger King

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Green Movers

http://www.earthfriendlymoving.com/

Moving supplies such as boxes, bubble wrap and other packaging materials remain piled up in landfills long after people have settled into their new abodes. EarthFriendlyMoving has set out to change that by offering eco-friendly moving supplies available at consumer-friendly prices.

EarthFriendlyMoving's RecoPack—short for Recycled Ecological Packing Solution—containers are made from recycled plastic and come in five convenient sizes. Customers can rent RecoPacks for just “a buck a box a week”, which, depending on how long they keep them, may actually be less than they might spend on traditional cardboard boxes. Even better, RecoPack containers are lightweight, sturdy and stackable, and EarthFriendlyMoving delivers them and picks them up in their bio-fueled trucks.

Customers who want to further protect their breakables might wrap them in EarthFriendlyMoving's Giami packing paper, a honeycomb-like recycled paper made to replace bubble wrap. Instead of “packing peanuts,” customers can use RecoCubes, which are made from recycled paper sludge—simply toss them in the yard after use, and they'll compost to help feed trees and grass. EarthFriendlyMoving even employs “Poopy Pallets,” each of which are made from 500 recycled baby diapers. These and other green solutions are available for rent or purchase, and customers can get free estimates as soon as they're ready to begin planning their move.

EarthFriendlyMoving currently operates in Long Beach and Orange County, with plans to expand their reach through more of Southern California in 2007. The company hopes to go nationwide within the next few years. It's a great example of finding a profitable—and ecologically sound—niche market within the trend to go green, and of bringing innovation to an industry that hasn't changed very much over the past century.

Funny Money:

Florida Nudists To Use $2 Bills Exclusively

Cabbie Says He Was Stiffed on $8,200

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Solar Trash Can Million Dollar Idea


http://www.seahorsepower.com/

Back in 1999, during a walk along Boston's bustling Charles Street, Jim Poss decided he wanted to help his city resolve a messy problem he had encountered on almost every street corner: overflowing trash cans. At the time, Poss was working for electric-car company Selectria, so he was comfortable with solar technology and motors. He worked out a makeshift design for a garbage can fitted with a solar-powered trash compactor that he thought could reduce the amount of trash spilling onto streets.

His brainstorm eventually led to the creation of his 15-employee, Needham (Mass.)-based Seahorse Power, which sold its first solar-powered receptacle in 2005. Now, there are about 500 units, named BigBelly, installed around world. The selling point: Each BigBelly holds between four and five times the amount of a conventional trash can, thereby reducing the amount of trips a municipal government needs to make to collect it. By adopting his technology, Poss says that municipalities save time and money and reduce fuel consumption and wear and tear on city streets.

Of course, breaking into such an entrenched industry has its share of challenges. Adoption of BigBelly units has been slow, but is increasing exponentially. In 2005, Seahorse had about $275,000 in sales. In its second year, it reached $1 million.

What Great Direct Mail Offers Are Made Of

Bloody Hell, This Is The Strangest Biz Opp Idea I've Even Seen On The Internet

Monday, April 09, 2007

10 Awesome Startups You’ve Never Heard About

http://www.newyourkey.com/

New Yorkers who have a hard time keeping track of personal items now have one less thing to worry about. For a modest annual fee, NewYourKey keeps copies of keys in a secure storage facility and can deliver them right away if customers find themselves locked out. Keys lost in a nightclub at four in the morning? No problem! NewYourKey will deliver spare keys within an hour any time of day or night, wherever a customer happens to be.

http://www.pickydomains.com/

Can't think of that totally awesome domain name for a new website? PickyDomains is a risk-free domain naming service that got a lot of publicity and ‘blogtalk’ in Europe lately despite being only two months old. This is how it works. A customer deposits $50 dollars and describes what kind of domain he or she wants. Domain pickers then send in their suggestions of available domain names. If the customer likes one of the domain names and registers it, the service gets $50. Otherwise the money is refunded at the end of the month.

http://www.darknessradio.com/

Dave Schrader of Circle Pines and Tim Dennis of Burnsville are leading groups on trips to haunted hotels and spooky cruise ships. The two started an online radio show called "Darkness Radio" in January 2006. Within a year, their weekly broadcasts had made them celebrities among fanciers of otherworldly mystery.
They then began asking the stars of T-V shows about the supernatural to cohost weekends at haunted destinations. Among the locations are the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado -- made famous by the movie "The Shining." Travelers pay between 180 dollars to 250 dollars for the trips -- not including transportation or lodging.

http://www.peasy.com/

Peasy.com is an online marketplace for parking spaces, enabling drivers to search for and book spaces before they leave home, and letting British homeowners monetize unused parking spaces by adding them to the Peasy network. To rent out a parking space, the owner needs to register and enter all relevant details, including price, when the space is available, and whether it will be rented out daily, weekly, or both. Those who require parking can then search for suitable parking spaces and securely book them online, or first negotiate a better price.

http://recruitmentrevolution.com/

Frustrated with the whole process of recruitment agencies Jamie Mistlin and Anna Taylor decided to design a new system where employers and candidates could communicate directly with each other. The site allows companies to book temporary workers directly via our bespoke fully-automated online system. Both parties can even negotiate the hourly rates directly online, as the service does not filter or distribute CVs. Instead candidates market themselves directly to companies via the website.

http://www.gaming-lessons.com/

Tom Taylor never expected to be a player in the business world; he just wanted to play video games. But as he got better and better, his passion for competitive gaming--and his desire to share his expertise with others--grew. Last year, Taylor, a top-five rated player in the pro-gaming circuit, started a video game coaching business to help others who wanted to improve their games. "I wanted to offer them a shortcut so they didn't have to go through what I did to learn," says Taylor, who started playing video games at age 7. Running his business, Gaming-Lessons, out of his Jupiter, Fla., home, Taylor draws dozens of clients from middle-school kids to middle-aged parents and from college students to celebrities. His fees? A whopping $65 an hour.

http://www.alchemygoods.com/

Two years ago, Eli Reich was a mechanical engineer consultant for a Seattle wind energy company when his messenger bag was stolen. The environmentally conscious Reich, who rode his bike to work every day, decided that instead of buying a new one, he would simply fashion another bag out of used bicycle-tire inner tubes that were lying around his house. Soon compliments on his sturdy black handmade messenger bag turned into requests. "That was the catalyst," says Reich, who obtained a business license, gave up his day job, and quickly launched Alchemy Goods in the basement of his apartment building. The company's motto: "Turning useless into useful."

http://www.bagborroworsteal.com/

Got rich friends and need to look the part? Those that can't afford to buy the latest Fendi purse can still sport it thanks to Bag Borrow or Steal, a designer handbag rental startup that allows customers to pay a monthly fee, pick and order handbags online, and borrow them for as long as they like. The service allows style-conscious customers access to the ultra-luxe and high-end products that they otherwise couldn't get their hands on. Monthly memberships range from $20 to $175 a month

http://www.corporateinterns.com/

When Jason Engen was an undergraduate student at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, he and his friends knew the challenges students faced in finding worthwhile internships. So for one of his business classes, Engen wrote a business plan detailing a concept for an internship placement service--one that would interview and screen students and match them with local companies that needed interns. "We hit a nerve in terms of the marketplace and focused 100 percent of our efforts on students," says Engen. "We started a week after we graduated, and it took off."

http://www.heybuddyvending.com/

Started in 2005, Startup costs: $6,000

When July hit Miami in 1998, everyone seemed to be enjoying the dog days of summer--except the dogs. As owners took giant swigs from their 32-ounce water bottles, their dogs ran to and fro, wearily retrieving makeshift toys in the afternoon heat. It was on one sunny afternoon in July that Carlotta Lennox rolled by a park on a pair of rollerblades, noticed that the dogs looked tired and hungry, and realized how she could give the day back to the dogs. Seven years later, the first Hey Buddy pet vending machine was established in Bark Park Central, an off-leash dog park in Dallas. Lennox, 36, stocked the machine with dog treats, tennis balls, dog shirts, dog glasses--basically everything a dog might need for a walk in the park. And with its shingled roof and slated facade, the doghouse-inspired vending machine was hard to miss--which meant pets and their owners weren't the only ones begging Lennox for more.

If you liked these stories, please use the buttons below to promote it on social bookmarking sites of your choice (I think I have most of them).

Here are some similiar stories about unusual startups from Business Ideas Blog:

Personalized Baby Blankets

Millionaire Moms - Stroller Strides

AdSense Niche Testers

How To Make A Million Dollars

Massive Free Internet Marketing Software Giveaway ($497 Worth Of Free Software)

And here are a couple of books worth looking at:

The Startup Company Bible For Entrepreneurs: The Complete Guide For Building Successful Companies And Raising Venture Capital

High Tech Start Up, Revised and Updated: The Complete Handbook For Creating Successful New High Tech Companies

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Toll Transponders - A Clever Way To Make Profit From Them.

http://www.highwayimage.com/

Owen Burns was fed up with unsightly spots. They were everywhere he looked: inside his minivan, on other people's minivans, in traffic, in parking lots. He even saw them on vacation. But he wasn't ready to stand by and let Americans' windshields become overrun with white spots created by ugly toll road transponders. He was going to give people the freedom to make generic transponders personal.

So in 2004, he launched Highway Image, a company that manufactures custom stickers to hide the windshield eyesores created by common toll road transponders. As part of Highway Image's service, drivers can choose from 200 available transponder covers, ranging from unicorns to major sports team logos. They can even send in their own images to have custom covers made.

But Highway Image isn't just about making windshields attractive. Over the past two years, Burns, 40, has taken the business far from its original purpose as a provider of transponder covers and turned it into a niche for an entirely new brand of automotive affinity marketing. Now the product is also recognized as a cheap and useful way for groups like universities and major organizations to market their products or services.

"We've partnered with large groups like Autism Speaks, which is a national, very powerful, influential organization," says Burns. "They market the product through their website and newsletters." Burns' company contributes up to 50 percent of the profits from these sales back to the organization. "People love it. If you're into the group and you're connected emotionally to it, it's exciting."

In 2006, Highway Image doubled its sales for the second year in a row and sold more than 10,000 covers, which start at $19.99. And though Highway Image isn't exactly the Pimp My Ride of automotive detailing, the covers are still a "look-good, feel-good product," says Burns, making them appealing to everyone from soccer moms to Porsche enthusiasts.

"When you start a business, you never know what's going to happen next, and you really have to go for it," he says. "But when you do that, hopefully you'll realize that that silly little idea means a lot to a lot of people."

The Sweet Spot of Success

Direct Selling: Dreams And Reality

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Fotolia - How To Make Millions, Selling Photos Online.

http://www.fotolia.com/

Oleg Tscheltzoff is the president of Fotolia, one of a new breed of so-called microstock houses--born of the Internet and Web 2.0-that are challenging the giants like Getty Images and Corbis, and could soon start cutting into their market share.

While the big two offer exclusives on great photos at prices that range from a few hundred dollars to more than $10,000 apiece, Fotolia sells pretty good pictures for a good deal less--often just a dollar or two. Unlike Getty and Corbis, which compete fiercely to work with the top artists, the microstock firms get most of their photos the way Wikipedia gets its entries, by "crowdsourcing" work from interested amateurs or beginning pros.

And, like Wikipedians and bloggers, the micro-stock sites are radically remaking their corner of the media business.

"We have a disruptive business model," says Tscheltzoff, who co-founded Fotolia in 2005. "One of us could even challenge Getty."

That could take some time. Although Fotolia sold 4 million images last year, it doesn't offer the quality or the exclusivity that ad agency art directors demand, so it can't charge premium rates. But that's only a matter of time.

Banner ads just don’t work … so they say!

Why are small dogs small? Science thinks it knows.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Willy Wonka Business Idea

http://www.firstflavor.com

Many dismissed the flavored wallpaper scene in Willy Wonka& the Chocolate Factory as childhood fantasy, but for Adnan Aziz, it was a revolutionary idea with real-life potential. In January 2005, he partnered with seasoned entrepreneurs Jay Minkoff, 48, and Josh Kopelman, 35, to launch First Flavor in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania. Together, they refined the idea of edible strips that allow consumers to sample a product's flavor before buying. These tasty marketing tools are deliverable via methods like in-store coupon dispensers and direct mailings.

Using tried-and-true tactics, namely product research and consumer focus groups, the partners brought the innovative strips to market just this quarter. Companies specializing in everything from candies to alcoholic beverages want a piece of the action, and 2007 sales are projected to hit between $3 million and $5 million. Says Aziz, 24, "I had a dream; now I'm getting a chance to give it to the world."

Online Universities Real Education Or Not?

Tadacopy - How Japanese Entreperneurs Profit From Free Photocopies

Thursday, April 05, 2007

How To Make Money Stitching Hoodies


http://AliMadigan.com

When most teen girls can’t find anything to wear they ask mom for a credit card and hit the mall. But when 18-year-old Ali Madigan had nothing to wear, she decided to make a sweatshirt out of some spare fabric. She never imagined that the sweatshirt would turn into her own line of trendy casual hoodies, dubbed “Boozey” after her childhood nickname.

Her handmade hoodies feature bright colors such as yellows and details such as purple pinstripe cuffs, red zippers and a floral lining in the hood.

To get her clothing line some exposure, Madigan reached out to Stunna, a member of the rap group the Wolfpack, best known for the single “Vans.” Madigan did her magic with needle and thread and graciously gave one of her treasured hoodies to Stunna. He wore it, and the rest is history. Cha-ching!

Since the clothing is handmade, a sweatshirt sells for $200 and up, depending on the design. “In the next few months I’m going to focus on getting my product in a store and in about two months or less, AliMadigan.com should be up. I’ve already bought the domain,” Madigan says.’

The Coolest Homebusiness Idea I Ever Came Across.
The Biggest Secret To Successful Copywriting There Is.
How To Make A Million Dollars With E-Mail Marketing.
Software for tennis bet
ERP news and PLM solutions

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

20Ltd.com - Scarcity Sells

http://www.20ltd.com

Online retailer 20ltd sells no more than 20 items at a time, each of which are highly exclusive and only available in small numbers. Goods currently on offer range from GBP 2,900 white buffalo horn sunglasses (edition of 10), to a GBP 9,000 hammock covered in cashmere and black fox fur (thankfully for black foxes, only 5 of those were made). All items are exclusive to 20ltd, and not sold anywhere else. As soon as a product is sold out, it's replaced by a new object of desire.

The British retailer is backed by private investment, and will operate solely online. Calling itself an "etailer of authentic, ingenious, beautiful and unexpected things," 20ltd hopes to reach a global audience, including rapidly growing luxury markets like Russia, China and the Middle East. The website is currently available in English, Italian, Russian, Chinese and Japanese.

The underlying trend and opportunities for other entrepreneurs? As regular luxury goods become available to ever more consumers across the world, luxury manufacturers and retailers are turning to 'planned scarcity' to attract status-hungry buyers who desperately crave the exclusivity that money used to be able to buy. 20ltd combines planned scarcity with niche curation: the polar opposite of Amazon.com, which offers everything for everybody, 20ltd narrows it down to a limited selection of limited edition goods for a limited group of very affluent consumers.

Why Clueless Marketers Are Terrified Of The Web

Five Cool Things You Can Get Online For Free

Cabbie Says He Was Stiffed on $8,200

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Sammy Hagar And His Cabo Wabo Tequila Empire

http://www.cabowabo.com/

Sammy Hagar, former lead singer for the mega-band Van Halen, is renowned for his soaring vocals and stadium showmanship. However, for the past 15 years, Hagar has earned another reputation: entrepreneur. As the founder and front man of the 200-employee, Novato (Calif.)-based Cabo Wabo Enterprises, with about $60 million in revenue, Hagar is behind a top-selling line of premium tequilas, as well as a growing chain of tequila bars, aptly named the Cabo Wabo Cantina.

"Like many people, my first introduction to tequila was probably around the toilet," jokes Hagar, who at 59 still has the youthful exuberance of an arena rocker. "Still, I dug the salt and lime. It was a fun drink."

But in 1982 he sampled the good stuff—premium blanco tequila—during a visit to Cabo San Lucas, a small Mexican fishing village on the tip of Baja California. "It changed my life. I had the true taste of tequila, and I became a blanco freak," says Hagar. Thus a businessman was born.

Ten years later, Hagar opened his first Cabo Wabo Cantina in that same speck of a town, envisioning a place where he could drink tequila and play music when he was bored. "It was just an ego trip," he says. "The town wasn't even big enough to accommodate the idea."

In fact, his business manager quit over the project. "She thought it was the stupidest idea," he recalls. "She said I'd spend a half a million dollars, we'd get sued, and it would be a money pit."
Famous Friends

Although Van Halen and the band's manager also thought it was a lousy idea, Hagar got members of the band to come in as partners. Together, he says, they invested a total of about $400,000. The Cantina kicked off with an MTV party, forwhich the music network flew in 300 fans. But Hagar says that following the launch, business slowed to a trickle, and the village, little more than a ghost town at the time, couldn't support it.

"The guys in Van Halen got sick of it," he says. "We lost money for five years—about $40,000 a year—[but] that's pocket change to those guys.… They said the place was too hot, there were no telephones, and no TV. But that's what I loved about Cabo." So Hagar took sole ownership of the Cantina.

Then things turned around. Hagar brought in a new manager to run the bar. At the same time, Cabo San Lucas started to earn a reputation as a tourist destination. The surge brought new infrastructure, paved roads, and new hotels. And people began flocking to Hagar's cantina.

Before long, Cabo Wabo was out of debt and turning a profit. "We first made about $30,000 to $40,000 a year, and then we started making a lot of money," says Hagar. "I didn't give a crap about profits. I thought if this place could just break even it would be a great place to play." Soon, rockers like Iggy Pop, U2, and Guns 'N Roses began flying down to play at the little cantina.
Packed House

By 1996, Hagar decided he wanted to produce a premium tequila to sell at the bar. He partnered with the Rivera family that had owned and operated a distillery in Jalisco since 1937.

It was a tiny operation. At first they sent Hagar their handmade tequila in jugs, vats, and five-gallon gas cans. Hagar stored it at the bar in a little barrel and served it in porcelain bottles with cork stoppers.

"Every step of the way, this was organic," explains Hagar. "I had no intention of starting a tequila business. I just wanted this to be the best tequila in the world and sell it in the bar. Period."

However, Hagar's business continued to grow as Cabo San Lucas developed. In 1998 the town became part of the cruise-ship circuit. "[The cantina] was packed all the time whether I was playing there or not," says Hagar. And more and more people discovered his Cabo Wabo tequila. "It was way beyond my hopes and dreams. It just exploded, and I knew this could be a real business."

In 1999, Wilson Daniels, a top wine importer based in St. Helena, Calif., launched a spirits division and contacted Hagar about distributing Cabo Wabo in the U.S. According to Hagar, the company signed an order to purchase 6,000 cases of his tequila, which retails for about $50 a bottle. That first year they ended up selling 37,000 cases. Last year, Cabo Wabo sold 140,000.
Rising Spirit

What began as a hobby is now a serious business. According to Stephen Kauffman, Cabo Wabo's president and an industry veteran, for the past several years the company has seen sales growth of 25% annually. And he says Cabo Wabo is tied for the No. 2 superpremium tequila spot with Don Julio, behind Patrón in the U.S.

The brand is also sold in Canada, Australia, and Mexico, and there are plans for a larger global market push. This month, following his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Hagar introduced Cabo Uno, a $250 limited-edition reserve.

Kauffman says the company is also considering other brand extensions, such as a beer label. It already sells T-shirts and other accessories bearing the Cabo logo. And in 2004, Hagar opened his second Cabo Wabo Cantina at the Harrah's casino in Lake Tahoe. A third in Las Vegas is scheduled for 2008.

Cabo Wabo has followed the upswing in the fast-growing U.S. tequila market. Made from the spiky-leafed agave plant found in central Mexico, the distilled spirit, once considered a low-end party drink, has seen a renaissance due to an increase in demand for high-end tequilas.

According to Nielsen Scantrack and LiquorTrack, sales of tequila rose 12.5% in 2006, grabbing a 6% share of the total $58 billion U.S. spirits market—nearly triple the pace of overall spirits, which grew 4.5%.
The Worm Turns

A number of factors including the continued popularity of margaritas are behind the surge in demand. For one, an agave shortage in 2000 spiked prices, narrowing the gap between the cheaper and more luxe offerings. And many of the largest liquor conglomerates such as Diageo, Seagram, and Allied Domecq, as well as smaller boutique labels, have all recently jumped into the premium tequila business.

Eric Schmidt, manager of information services at Adams Beverage Group, an alcoholic beverage research outfit based in Norwalk, Conn, says that in the past few years many new brands have entered the market. According to his tracking, in 2004 there were 13 new entrants, in 2005 that number rose to 19, and in 2006, 40 new labels joined the party. To understand just how far tequila has come from the $7-worm-in-the-bottle iteration, Patrón recently introduced a limited-edition Gran Patrón Bordeos priced at $400 a bottle.

As for Cabo Wabo, Schmidt says: "Hagar has created a great niche. As far as the affiliation with Hagar and the party atmosphere, they've done very well. But on a volume basis, it's relatively small."

Being a huge corporate brand was never in Hagar's plan. Refusing to deploy a team of marketers, he relied on his grassroots rocker platform to spread the word. In 1999 he wrote the party anthem Más Tequila, and he says he always mentioned the brand in interviews.
Just Like Martha

Moreover, on tour with his solo band the Waboritos (he stopped formally fronting Van Halen in 1996), he created mini versions of his bars on stage featuring bikini-clad waitresses serving tequila. His annual October birthday parties held at the Cantina in Cabo San Lucas attract thousands of fans who party with Hagar free of charge.

This past March he hosted a week-long Cabo Wabo cruise from Los Angeles to Cabo San Lucas. Although tickets cost between $1,249 and $4,619, it was sold out.

Hagar says the secret to his success is that he maintained authenticity by turning his lifestyle into a business—kind of like Martha Stewart for the hard-core partying set. "I didn't want layers of people telling me what to do," he says. "I didn't want a CEO and a chairman, and a president and vice-president and head of marketing."

Instead, Hagar says he has a small group of people who work for him. "Before I made it as a rocker, I had a lot of executives tell me what to do to make it, and I never listened to them," he says. "They'd tell me to write a song like this or I'd never make it. But I did it my way. And the same thing here, many businesspeople were trying to convince me that to make this a great thing, I had to have a corporate structure and involve people who knew what they were doing. I don't believe that. I didn't want to make it like that."
Creative Decisions

Indeed, while Hagar says he could have rolled out 80 Cabo Wabo Cantinas by now, he remains cautious about diluting the unique brand experience he has created. He's thinking about launching cantinas in Orlando, Atlantic City, and Fresno, Calif., but he fears turning the lucrative tequila bars, which account for about 25% of his business, into a cookie-cutter chain. "I'm fighting with myself on this one," he says.

Right now, Hagar is content to both play the party and host the bar. "I like owning and operating a business," he says. "It's as creative as stepping on stage or making a record."

Of course, this is one businessman with a buzz.

Another Hot Marketer
Business and Business Management Advice

Monday, April 02, 2007

Bottle Crusher - How To Profit From Broken Glass

http://www.bottlecycler.com/

Free Software For Internet Marketers

Catering to the hospitality industry, Australian BottleCycler helps recycle disposable glass bottles. Their bottle crushing machine can be placed inside the bar area. Bottles are fed into the BottleCycler through an opening in the top of the device, which then quietly slices the glass into recyclable pieces. The glass falls into a regular 60L wheelie bin, which is picked up and emptied by BottleCycler, and brought to regional glass recycling plants for processing into material for new bottles.

BottleCycler's main selling point s that it reduces volume taken in by empty bottles by 80%. However, it also removes danger of staff injuries related with carrying, sorting and disposing of glass bottles, and reduces complaints about noise and broken bottles from residents living near clubs, bars and restaurants. One to partner with and distribute to hospitality companies across the world?

How To Cut Costs And Increase Your Sales
Make Your Own Cookbook

Sew Now Studio - Sewing Business With A Twist.

http://www.sewnowstudio.com/

Knitting may have been all the rage a few years ago, but today, it's all about sewing, with sewing converts eager to design their own fashions and accessories. "It's a way to express yourself," says Steven Berger, CEO of the Craft and Hobby Association.

Susan Goldie, co-founder of Sewnow! Fashion Studio in Lafayette, California, is providing a place to sew as well as lessons for sewing newbies. Her diverse clients rent time on the professional-quality sewing machines, and parties and embroidery services round out her offerings. Goldie says that even before her December 2006 opening, the store garnered a lot of interest. "It's been exciting to have people just come in and check out what's going on and hear their enthusiasm for the products and services," says Goldie, 41. All the creativity is pushing first-year sales projections to $250,000.

Massive Free Software Giveaway ($497 Worth Of Free Software)


Auto insurance news

net switch

Lord of the Rings Online video

LOTRO video

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Carol's Daughter - A Mom-Inspired Business


http://www.carolsdaughter.com/

Lisa Price didn’t have any formal training in mixing fragrances or creating beauty products when she started using her kitchen as a personal laboratory, but she did have a passion for experimenting with different combinations of all-natural ingredients. In 1993, with her mother’s encouragement, Price invested $100 and set up a booth at a church flea market. Her handcrafted products nearly sold out, and she spent the rest of the summer selling at more events, thereby introducing the public to her homegrown business, Carol’s Daughter--named after the woman who inspired her to start it.

Thanks to her background in TV and film production as a writer’s assistant on The Cosby Show and other projects, Price got her products into the hands of celebrity hairstylists and makeup artists. In 1996, she quit her full-time job; in 1999, she opened her first storefront. Word-of-mouth spread, and Price was soon filling orders from the likes of Halle Berry and being featured on various TV shows, including The Oprah Winfrey Show in June 2002. This appearance resulted in a three-page spread in People and a deal for her book, Success Never Smelled So Sweet.

In the beginning, Price pursued the business as a hobby. Today, the multimillion-dollar company is a hit with its line of more than 200 products, the recent opening of its first mall location and its 2006 partnership with Sephora. Price has learned to adjust her vision and allow others in, including her present business partner, Steve Stoute, who rounded up significant investment dollars, enabling Carol’s Daughter to fully blossom. Says Price, “The most important thing I did was get out of my own way and let my business do what it could do.”

Woman Entrepreneur - Banu Ozden (Smart Medical Consumer)

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