See - Click - Fix

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http://seeclickfix.com/

Ben Berkowitz got nowhere when he called City Hall two years ago to report graffiti in his neighborhood in New Haven, Conn. His frustration became the seed for SeeClickFix, a Web site where citizens can flag such problems as graffiti and potholes to authorities.

Berkowitz, a 30-year-old Web developer, and three friends built a prototype using the Google Maps API in four hours. Eventually they created a system to set up "watch areas" to alert officials by e-mail every time a new complaint comes in. SeeClickFix launched in spring 2008, but it remained a side project until early 2009, when the Boston Globe agreed to use the site for a "pothole map" on Boston.com.

Berkowitz and his team bootstrapped the company—two of the four still have day jobs, and he worked from coffee shop until recently—before the group raised an undislcosed sum from angel investors in October. They plan to use the money to expand and expect to be profitable in 18 months. SeeClickFix has three revenue streams: licensing the tool to media sites, selling advertising, and selling premium accounts to cities that want to use the site for complaint management or integrate it with existing 311 systems.

In May the startup landed a $20,000 contract with Houston to provide 100 premium/paid accounts for public works inspectors. Berkowitz estimates 50 to 60 cities have adopted SeeClickFix so far, including his native New Haven, which now responds to his graffiti alerts within hours.

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[Via - BusinessWeek.Com]

The Million-Dollar Idea in Everyone: Easy New Ways to Make Money from Your Interests, Insights, and Inventions

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide by Dan S. Kennedy

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms & Dads

Make Your Ideas Mean Business

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Can You Spare A Foot?

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http://www.sparefoot.com/

Chuck Gordon, then an art student at UCLA, balked at the thousands of dollars he would have to pay to store his belongings while spending a semester in Singapore two years ago. He ended up stowing his stuff in friends’ homes and garages. Gordon thought plenty of people with extra space would rent it out if they could easily connect with renters.

That was the original plan behind the Web site he launched with his college roommate Mario Feghali in December 2008, now called SpareFoot. When they found that storage companies were listing their vacant units alongside individuals with extra closet space, they refocused the site on driving customers directly to professional storage firms. That was around the same time SpareFoot moved from Los Angeles to Austin to take part in the Capital Factory startup incubator, a 10-week mentoring program that yielded $20,000 in seed funding, as much in in-kind business services, and connections to investors. SpareFoot raised the first part of a Series A round expected to total about $1 million in September.

Gordon, 22, says revenue at the four-person company has doubled each month since September and now has more than 100,000 listings from more than 1,100 storage companies nationwide. The site works on an auction system in which companies bid for favorable placement. When customers book a storage unit, SpareFoot takes a cut of half the first month’s rent. Individuals can still list their storage space, but by focusing on companies, "we’re able to get thousands of thousands of listings in a matter of a couple months," Gordon says.

[Via - BusinessWeek.Com]

The Million-Dollar Idea in Everyone: Easy New Ways to Make Money from Your Interests, Insights, and Inventions

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide by Dan S. Kennedy

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms & Dads

Make Your Ideas Mean Business

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Five Business Books You Should Read Right Now

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1. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

According to Pink (A Whole New Mind), everything we think we know about what motivates us is wrong. He pits the latest scientific discoveries about the mind against the outmoded wisdom that claims people can only be motivated by the hope of gain and the fear of loss. Pink cites a dizzying number of studies revealing that carrot and stick can actually significantly reduce the ability of workers to produce creative solutions to problems. What motivates us once our basic survival needs are met is the ability to grow and develop, to realize our fullest potential.

2. America, Welcome to the Poorhouse

When I first got this book I have to admit it was the picture and title on the cover that caught my original attention. I put it aside for about a month and the other day I had a flight with a small layover down to Houston, TX so I took this book along. The moment I started reading the introduction I got hooked -- and by the time I got to Houston about 3 hours later I had read all 190+ pages. Let me just say this -- by the time you get 5 pages in you will be angry; by the time you get all the way through the book you'll be mad as h-e-double hockey sticks! The author tells us the way things are and how we got here -- and let me tell you it isn't a pretty picture. She doesn't hold any punches back. This isn't an anti-Republican book, nor is it anti-Democrat. She puts the blame where it belongs. She traces the corruption of our political system that helped create the groundwork that let a lot of the financial mess happen in the first place. If you ever thought for one minute Senators care about your interests -- you got another think coming.

3. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

If you are going to write a guide to crafting sticky ideas, your book had better embody your principles. Authors Chip and Dan Heath succeed admirably. What I love about "Made to Stick" is that it is not merely entertaining (though it is), it provides practical, tangible strategies for creating sticky ideas. Once you understand these recommendations, you can boil them down to a set of touchstone points to evaluate your own work. This sets "Made to Stick" apart from the work of Malcolm Gladwell, whom the Heath brothers cite as an inspiration. I enjoyed Gladwell's books but could not necessarily apply his ideas to my own work.

4. This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly

The authors say it is "almost comical" that no governments reveal their true financial condition today, nor have they done so in the past. The lack of transparency and the shenanigans that go on behind the curtains contribute, of course, to the human suffering that ensues in crisis after crisis. One needs to find this book comical if one is not to slip into a permanent depression about the utter failure of national leaders to address shortcomings in national domestic and foreign economic policies in order to avoid systemic crises. No one has, from the 13th century onward, anywhere in the world.

5. Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

For a former baseball player Billy Beane is a rare bird as a baseball GM. He used real baseball statistics, the kind the sabermetricians use to make great trade and bring a strong team back to Oakland. He had a great advantage over other GMs because he took advantage of their ignorance and tendencies to rely on the somewhat biased eyes of basebll scouts. What Michael Lewis did with this book was to show the world of baseball how Billy Beane did it and now I am sure that other GMs like Brian Cashman at New York and Theo Epstein in Boston are catching on. I don't know how much Steve Phillips put into action when he was the Mets GM. His lack of great success there indicates that he [robably didn't follow it enough. But now as an ESPN commentator he definitely mentions it. This book si so good that the term moneyball now means the strategy that Billy Beane used. So the title of this book became a baseball term! This book is a must for managers, general managers and owners of professional baseball teams. It is also great for the fans and the fantasy baseball enthusiasts.

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How To Make Money Off A Prank

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http://www.humorhotlines.com/

After a few long nights at the bar in 2001, Jeffrey Goldblatt decided he was tired of overhearing trashy pickup lines and withering put-downs. He teetered home and set up Rejection Hotline--a phone number women could dish out to their pursuers, leading them to this voice mail: "Hello, the person who gave you this number obviously did not want you to have a real number. Maybe you're not this person's type; note this could mean that you are short, fat, ugly, dumb, annoying, arrogant or just a general loser."

The hotline, claims Goldblatt, fetched 600,000 callers in its first year, inspiring him to turn his Don Rickles prank into a business. The Atlanta company, now RH Brands, has morphed into a YouTube of sorts for the phone, offering 100-plus hotlines to inform callers, say, that their friendships have been outsourced to India or that their body odor is horrific.

Remarkably, there's money to be made in this. Companies such as Sony Pictures, Blockbuster and Dish Network pay for audio ads that are played following the call, if the victim hasn't already hung up. Other businesses like SendMe Mobile and Thumbplay send mobile text offers for ringtones and videogames. All this produced $2.5 million in revenue last year, up from $841,000 in 2008. Goldblatt claims the service got 69 million calls last year, fed by social networking sites Facebook and Twitter.

Goldblatt is expanding in the Hispanic market in the U.S. and plans to move into Europe, India and maybe even China. He worries about competition, but he might need to worry more about something getting lost in translation.

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[Via - Springwise]

The Million-Dollar Idea in Everyone: Easy New Ways to Make Money from Your Interests, Insights, and Inventions

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide by Dan S. Kennedy

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms & Dads

Make Your Ideas Mean Business

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What's Your Size?

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http://www.orgasizer.com/

The best-laid plans to give clothing as a gift can be foiled in an instant for lack of the recipient's correct size. Aiming to banish such disappointments once and for all, Belgian OrgaSizer offers an online place to check the sizes and preferences of loved ones and friends.

Users of OrgaSizer begin by registering with their age, location and gender, among other information. They can then enter all their sizes and preferences for a variety of different types of clothing. Along the way, users can decide what information they'd like to share with others, and exactly whom they'd like to share it with. Nothing is ever publicly shared, OrgaSizer stresses. Users can also create wish lists and request reminders about important gift-giving dates. Ultimately, the idea is that shoppers hoping to purchase a gift can then check the site from wherever they happen to be to see what the recipient wants, and in what sizes or variations.

OrgaSizer is still smoothing out the edges on its site, which at present is available only in English. More languages are coming soon, along with advertising support, it's hoped. Clothing brands and retailers around the globe: one to sponsor, partner with or otherwise get involved in?


For more unusual ways to make money, visit this site

[Via - Springwise]

The Million-Dollar Idea in Everyone: Easy New Ways to Make Money from Your Interests, Insights, and Inventions

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide by Dan S. Kennedy

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms & Dads

Make Your Ideas Mean Business

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Coffee Mashrooms? Yep!

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http://www.bttrventures.com/

BERKELEY, CA (KGO) -- Two new graduates from UC Berkeley's Business School are trying to turn coffee grounds into a high demand food for local consumers. But the venture doesn't stop there, it gives back to the community as well.

What do mushrooms and a pile of used coffee grounds have in commmon?

"Mushrooms biologically grow really well in hardwoods, and so, coffee acts like a hardwood biologically, and we can grow them pretty well in that," said BTTR Ventures co-founder Nikhill Arora.

The mushrooms aren't caffeinated produce, they just absorb all the coffee grounds' nutrients. So, why in the world are two new graduates from UC Berkeley's Business School, Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez, growing mushrooms for a living?

"I was a business-political science student. Alex was business-education. So neither of us had any background in mycology, but I think we both have the passion to do something -- one, on our own , and two, that kind of looked out for the community and had a social conscious as well," said Arora.

The pair was inspired after hearing a Cal guest lecturer talk about mushroom-growing as an innovative way to fight malnutrition.

"We heard of a fact that a lot of women in urban areas in Colombia and East Africa were using the coffee pulp to grow gourmet mushrooms," said Velez.

Seeded by a $5,000 social innovation grant from Cal, they researched and launched a for-profit social venture called BTTR Ventures; BTTR stands for "Back To The Roots." The goal is to be a sustainable company focused on social responsibility. They're accomplishing this by diverting one of America's largest waste streams out of Bay Area landfills.

"We realized America is like absolutely addicted to coffee," said Arora.

So it dawned on them they could help the environment, at least locally, by collecting a ton of coffee waste a week from local shops like Peets Coffee and Whole Foods' Alegro Cafe. And then at a local warehouse in Emeryville, a small crew of employees packs sterile bags full of grounds, growing hundreds of pounds of gourmet oyster mushrooms a week. After harvesting, they're sold at local farmers markets and grocery stores.

A Whole Foods store in Berkeley is one of seven in the Bay Area that buys the BTTR oyster mushrooms. Now each store orders about 15 pounds per week and apparently they've been pretty popular because the last delivery already sold out.

But this is about more than growing mushrooms -- the post-mushroom coffee grounds are then re-used as compost, which is sold to consumers, and some is also donated to local school gardens and non-profit urban farms. In its first year, BTTR Ventures is already growing a profit and making a difference in the community.

For more unusual ways to make money, visit this site

[Via - ABC News]

The Million-Dollar Idea in Everyone: Easy New Ways to Make Money from Your Interests, Insights, and Inventions

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide by Dan S. Kennedy

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms & Dads

Make Your Ideas Mean Business

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Retrofitness Means Profits

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http://www.retrofitness.net/

It was the decade that wrapped itself in Spandex, pulled on pink leg warmers without irony and felt the burn with Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons.

And now, the '80s are fueling yet another fitness craze: Retrofitness--Eric Casaburi's chain of 1980s theme gyms. In just five years, the New Jersey-based franchisor has sprouted 54 clubs on the East Coast.

"Nostalgia for the 1980s has never disappeared," says Casaburi, 35. And let's face it, neither has the ridiculous fun of hair bands and Sixteen Candles. Retrofitness gyms tap into all of that, with Retro Cardio Movie Theaters, RetroBlends juice bars, tanning booths, Rubik's cubes at the front desk, loud red and yellow weight machines, an 867-5309 phone number (hello, Jenny!) and, of course, a solid '80s soundtrack.

The result: While other gyms are struggling to hang on to members, Retrofitness is expanding--85 more are in the pipeline, and Casaburi hopes to reach 300 gyms in three years.

"If you keep people entertained," he says, "they don't mind the sweat."

How did you hit on this concept?
I had owned two other licensed fitness centers, and I wasn't happy with how they were operated. So I spent a couple of nights sitting in a rocking chair, jotting down notes. I felt there was a niche for a low-cost provider that gave a high-end experience. I did the raw math and figured I could be better and attract more customers at $19.99 a month than clubs charging $39 or $49 a month. I could build a cheap gym where you didn't need a tetanus shot when you left.

Was it a hard sell?
I was all about putting on a show--but vendors bought into my pitch and they sold me equipment at a much higher discount rate. I laugh now because I exceeded even what I told them. I said we'd have 10 clubs the first year; we had 15. I said 30 in Year 2, and we had 40.

Why the '80s?
We knew Generation X would be a big part of our customer base. I thought, "How can we attract and entertain them?" Eighties movies and '80s music just make you feel good; when you drop a marketing piece with an Atari joystick on it or Vans sneakers, people say, "I remember that." And actually, even younger people listen to hair bands. I have kids I coach on a football team who told me they're going to a Whitesnake concert!

Don't people get sick of the '80s?
We keep it interesting and drop in current tunes and movies all the time. But there's so much stuff from the '80s, you don't ever have to see a repeat.

Are you really obsessed with this decade or is it just a gimmick?
Oh yeah, I lived it. I grew up during all this awesome pop culture. My iPod is all Poison, Bon Jovi, old U2, old-school rap. I constantly watch '80s movies. My wife and I watched Big last week, then we watched it again with the kids last night. Everything we do in our gyms, I do in my house.

For more unusual ways to make money, visit this site

[Via Entrepreneur Magazine]


The Million-Dollar Idea in Everyone: Easy New Ways to Make Money from Your Interests, Insights, and Inventions

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide by Dan S. Kennedy

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms & Dads

Make Your Ideas Mean Business

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