This Capcha Has Been Paid For

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http://www.solvemedia.com/

It's always inspiring to see an entrepreneur hit upon an idea that solves two problems at once. Case in point: New York-based Solve Media. Combining websites' need for user authentication with advertisers' ongoing need for consumer attention, the company has launched a captcha-style tool that addresses both ends.

Rather than the nonsensical text or words in difficult-to-read fonts used by most captcha tools — typically requiring about 14 seconds for users to negotiate — Solve's Type-Ins tool achieves website user verification by asking users to type in advertising text instead. The ad is simply placed where the cryptic text would be, and users must enter into a box the text presented within quotation marks — typically a brand message. (For security, slight variations in pixelation mean that no two Type-Ins are the same, according to a report in AdAge.) The process takes only 7 seconds using Solve's system, yet advertisers are guaranteed to have the user's attention for that full time. The result, according to Solve, is no less than 1,200 percent greater message recall than is typically achieved with a banner ad.

Ads get remembered, websites verify their users, and ad revenue gets shared between Solve and its publisher partners. Advertisers and web publishers: what's not to like? ;-)

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

Link of the day - If You Sell Links On Your Site, I Will Buy Them Off You

Drybar - Hair Salon That Does Not Cut Hair

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http://www.thedrybar.com/

Beware the woman with a blow-dry. She walks taller, negotiates tougher and can blind opponents with a toss of her freshly coifed locks. Such is the thinking behind Drybar, a new chain of high-concept salons in Los Angeles that caters solely to women who skip the cut and color for a simple shampoo and mane styling.

"You see this amazing metamorphosis that goes beyond their appearance," says Drybar co-founder Alli Webb, who conceived the idea after operating a mobile hair service for two years. But when Webb went to her older brother, Michael Landau, for business advice, she quickly inherited an ambitious partner. Landau, a former marketing exec at Yahoo!, foresaw a Drybar empire. "Women either had to go to a high-end salon for a very expensive blow-out or to one of those discount chains," he says. "There was a big hole in between."

Knowing that women are fiercely loyal to their hairdressers, the duo focused on branding its concept. Step inside the first Drybar--which opened in February in Brentwood--and you'll find a long, white marble bar rather than individual stations, and built-in iPod chargers by each chic white leather swivel chair. Servers--er, stylists--give you a menu of blow-outs to choose from (the Mai Tai is an order for beachy waves, the Manhattan will get you sleek, shower-curtain-straight locks). Each costs $35, plus gratis champagne. Even cheekier, the mirrors hang behind the customers so they have to stand and turn around for the big reveal. "Come on. No one really looks great with wet hair," Webb says. The overall effect is more Sex and the City-style saloon than salon.

Without a surplus of funds, Landau and Webb found creative ways to get the glamour quotient they wanted. To lure award-winning New York architect Josh Heitler of Lancina Heitler to design the space, the team offered him a slice of equity. "We took a little bit of heat for it, but we don't regret it," Landau says. "Because he had a vested interest in the concept, he gave us his heart and soul." They also enlisted the expertise of Webb's husband Cameron, an art director with Secret Weapon Marketing, who created the whimsical website, which attracted one investor before the first salon even opened. (In fact, a few of their female customers even came in as early investors.)

Webb and Landau knew that they had a hit when they were forced to turn away customers within a week of opening. "We had pages of people on waiting lists," Webb says.

By the end of this year, three more Drybars will open in Los Angeles and two more locations will follow in early 2011. Franchises are in the works, too. For the sibs, working closely together has strengthened their mutual respect and taught them at least one new boundary, too: Regressing back to childhood roles is absolutely verboten. "There are certain places that you just can't go," says Landau, with a laugh.

For more unusual ways to make money, visit this site.

[Via - CNNMoney.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

Link of the day - If You Sell Links On Your Site, I Will Buy Them Off You

Why Didn't I Think Of That?

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1. Million Dollar Homepage

1000000 pixels, charge a dollar per pixel – that’s perhaps the dumbest idea for online business anyone could have possible come up with. Still, Alex Tew, a 21-year-old who came up with the idea, is now a millionaire.

2. PickyDomains

Hire another person to think of a cool domain name for you? No way people would pay for this. Actually, naming domain names for others turned out a thriving business, especially, when you make the entire process risk free. PickyDomains currently has a waiting list of people who want to PAY the service to come up with a snappy memorable domain name. PickyDomains is expected to hit six figures this year. Full Story

3. Doggles

Create goggles for dogs and sell them online? Boy, this IS the dumbest idea for a business. How in the world did they manage to become millionaires and have shops all over the world with that one? Beyond me.

4. LaserMonks

LaserMonks.com is a for-profit subsidiary of the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank, an eight-monk monastery in the hills of Monroe County, 90 miles northwest of Madison. Yeah, real monks refilling your cartridges. Hallelujah! Their 2005 sales were $2.5 million! Praise the Lord. Full Story

5. AntennaBalls

You can’t sell antenna ball online. There is no way. And surely it wouldn’t make you rich. But this is exactly what Jason Wall did, and now he is now a millionaire. Full Story

6. FitDeck

Create a deck of cards featuring exercise routines, and sell it online for $18.95. Sounds like a disaster idea to me. But former Navy SEAL and fitness instructor Phil Black reported last year sales of $4.7 million. Surely beats what military pays.

7. PositivesDating.Com

How would you like to go on a date with an HIV positive person? Paul Graves and Brandon Koechlin thought that someone would, so they created a dating site for HIV positive folks last year. Projected 2006 sales are $110,000, and the two hope to have 50,000 members by their two-year mark.

8. Designer Diaper Bags

Christie Rein was tired of carrying diapers around in a freezer bag. The 34-year-old mother of three found herself constantly stuffing diapers for her infant son into freezer bags to keep them from getting scrunched up in her purse. Rein wanted something that was compact, sleek and stylish, so in November 2004, she sat down with her husband, Marcus, who helped her design a custom diaper bag that’s big enough to hold a travel pack of wipes and two to four diapers. With more than $180,000 in sales for 2005, Christie’s company, Diapees & Wipees, has bags in 22 different styles, available online and in 120 boutiques across the globe for $14.99.

9. SantaMail

Ok, how’s that for a brilliant idea. Get a postal address at North Pole, Alaska, pretend you are Santa Claus and charge parents 10 bucks for every letter you send to their kids? Well, Byron Reese sent over 200000 letters since the start of the business in 2001, which makes him a couple million dollars richer. Full Story

10. Lucky Wishbone Co.

Fake wishbones. Now, this stupid idea is just destined to flop. Who in the world needs FAKE PLASTIC wishbones? A lot of people, it turns out. Now producing 30,000 wishbones daily (they retail for 3 bucks a pop) Ken Ahroni, the company founder, expects 2006 sales to reach $1 million.

To see other businesses that have not made the top 10 list but came pretty close, visit Uncommon Business Ideas Blog

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Link of the day - If You Sell Links On Your Site, I Will Buy Them Off You

Mobile Entrepreneurs - Chris Miller

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http://www.chrislittlechicago.com/

After selling his Illinois gourmet food store and moving to Austin six years ago, Chris Miller was anxious to open another food-related business. So he became an early pioneer of one of food world's hottest trends: mobile food trucks.

Miller's hot-dog trailer transplants a Chicago classic down south. "I manage the trailer myself with a small crew, keep a close relationship with all my customers -- many I know by first name --and put out a quality product that people really seem to enjoy," Miller says.

He likes the flexibility mobility brings. "If the location ever seems to peter out, I can always hook it up and move to another spot," Miller says.

Plus, low overhead translates to low prices: "I can feed a family of four for around $20."

Why it works: "These venues feel local and intimate at a time when consumers are looking for ways to feel connected to their communities," says Kit Yarrow, a consumer psychologist and professor at Golden Gate University in San Francisco. Yarrow has been studying the micro-business phenomenon.

Like many mobile businesses, Miller's advertises its specials on Twitter and encourages fans to post pictures on Facebook.

"The Internet has changed our perception of 'place,'" Yarrow says. "Virtual identity is as real as an identity created by a physical location."

For more unusual ways to make money, visit this site.

[Via - CNNMoney.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

Link of the day - If You Sell Links On Your Site, I Will Buy Them Off You