Unusual Business Ideas That Work

Regreen Corp

2012-01-23T01:53:00.001-08:00

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://regreencorp.com/

What it does: Energy savings for businesses
Founders: Sean Neman, 25; Kevin Refoua, 25; and David Duel, 24 (Pictured left to right)
Based: Los Angeles
Revenue 2011: $15 million

David Duel and Sean Neman, business students at the University of Southern California, started Regreen with their friend Kevin Refoua in 2008 to convince business owners that going green could be profitable. Backed by $400,000 raised from family and friends, ReGreen audits companies to identify ways they can lower energy costs and then provides engineering and construction teams to install enhancements such as reduced-flow toilets and low-energy lighting. “Most companies don’t have the in-house expertise to understand how to integrate these new technologies,” Duel says. ReGreen has worked with about 3,000 clients, including property managers such as Douglas Emmett and Transwestern. ReGreen now has about 110 full-time employees and Duel says its next big push will be designing, engineering, and installing solar power systems.

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

[Via - NicheGeek.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

Dude, What's Wrong With Your Head? How Head Injury Made One Man Rich

Matt Lauzon And His Success Story

How To Make Half A Million Dollars, Writing About Parking Lots

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

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

Mint.Com Review

2012-01-17T02:41:00.000-08:00

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://mint.com

A TechCrunch conference held in San Francisco is abuzz with tech experts, exhibitors, and speakers; and everyone has their opinions about the winners and newest innovations for the year. However, not all joined in the fun. Far left of San Francisco Design Center Concourse’s hall is a thirty-something tech geek, a cameraman, and a reporter. They are currently filming his testimonial about Mint.com.

"Hi, I'm Tammer from Zong Mobile Payments, and I am a Mint user...I've actually found it very easy to use, it's very clean, very easy to interface with. It's especially useful for younger people, because getting into managing your finances at a very young age can be very difficult. It's better if you can avoid the missteps with some kind of a service. I highly recommend it."

In case you're wondering what he was talking about, he’s talking about the most popular financial service on the Web today. Mint.com, in a nutshell, is a site that helps use rs manage and save their money online in an easy and secure way.

Time Magazine included it in the 50 Best Websites list in 2008, 2009, and 2010. It was the top pick of Money Magazine in 2008, a PC Magazine Editor's Choice in 2008, and PC World's Top Rated Online Finance Service in 2008. It won a Webby Award in 2009, and bagged other award categories from 2008, as well. TechCrunch 40 awarded it “Best Presenting Company” in 2007.

Mint currently has five million users, starting from its initial launch in September, 2007. It was acquired in September 2009 by Intuit, making it the biggest growing service of its kind. Aaron Patzer, the founder and visionary of the company. He started it when he was just 25 years old, after getting fed up with the time it took him to get all his personal finances in order.

“Mint was born out of a personal frustration of using personal finance tools which entailed way too much work. Maybe ther e was a problem when you have to go through 50 screens of setup.”

Mint reduced those long setups to two. Registering takes less than five minutes, and once you have an account, you can see how much you spend on all your transactions, such as your groceries, gas, electricity, and etc. It allows you to check on your credit card, bank, and other investment balances and get notifications and updates for every dollar added – or deducted from your accounts. It even calculates and advises you on how to budget your expenses, with graphs that give you visual representations of all your expenses. You can even use your mobile phone to stay up to date.

And the best thing about it is that it’s free.

Taking advantage of Mint.com's full features requires you to enter very sensitive and private information, such as your bank account usernames and passwords. This raises a lot of red flags, especially when it comes to security.

Patzer, h owever disagrees. “Mint uses bank-level security. If you’re comfortable with your banks’ online banking service, you should be comfortable with Mint. Also, users are anonymous on Mint. We never ask for your name, SIN number or other personally identifiable information, and all data is encrypted.”

Mint also has taken steps to add more fool-proof security. Users have read-only aggregates of their accounts, and they don’t display account numbers. They also cannot transfer money from the bank.

"I see no problem trusting mint.com. Like others have said, why would it even especially matter if someone did somehow crack their security and could see my transactions there? Someone could see the same by going through my trash for my bank statement, and if they want to go through the hassle of diving or hacking to see that I spent $2.50 on apples yesterday, then it's fine with me,” says JD Jackson a Mint user from Tennessee.

For Mint.com discount, specials and promotions, follow this link.

[Via - NicheGeek.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

Dude, What's Wrong With Your Head? How Head Injury Made One Man Rich

Matt Lauzon And His Success Story

How To Make Half A Million Dollars, Writing About Parking Lots

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

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

Cool Startups - iContact.com

2012-01-11T23:59:00.000-08:00

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://icontact.com

Icontact.com is a website that was made to facilitate the needs of people wishing to get into email marketing. Icontact simply provides the tools that are necessary to initiate an email marketing campaign, track its effectiveness as the emails are sent out to customers and last but not least improve on your campaign so as to attain better results. The degree of ease that you will experience when using icontact may make you believe it is a tool for beginners. However icontact is more than that and will provide more than enough to satisfy even the needs of the more experienced email marketers.

First and foremost icontact simplifies the process of designing your marketing campaign. It's step by step process allows you to utilize plain text, HTML, templates or a web page in the creation of your campaign. Icontact also allows you to create an email that matches your website. This is especially useful if you would like to maintain a certa in theme in your products. Should you make use of a template you can store it for future use and you can also preview your email after you have completed the design process.

Marketing is only useful if it effectively reaches the customers. This is why icontact has one of the best tracking systems that can be used in email marketing. Icontact provides up-to-date reports on all the messages that have been sent or forwarded and also tell you which messages have been delivered and which ones have bounced. There are also many other statistics useful to marketers that icontact provides using tables and charts that can easily be read even by marketing beginners. You can also use icontact to track your marketing campaigns in social media sites such as Facebook and twitter.

Apart from the necessities, icontact also provides various features that can further boost your marketing campaign such as making and sending surveys so you can know customers' reactions to y our products. Icontact also assists in adding forms for signing up on your website and this is useful in gathering recipients for your emails. You can also upload recipients from excel/CSV files. The ability to define various target markets, adding social media features and autoresponders are just a few other features availed by icontact. The spam test feature is also quite useful for checking your email and ensuring it doesn't contain elements of spam/junk mail.

One of the best features of icontact.com is the fact that it is so easy to use. It has multiple features for accomplishing each function so that both those who are versed in marketing and coding and those who are new to it will be comfortable as they make their campaigns. The user interface is quite friendly and well designed so it's easy to navigate the site. For the more experienced individuals there are various features that they can use to further improve their marketing effectiveness such as being ab le to customize the HTML code.

When you run into any problems while using icontact you can sit pretty knowing there is a wide variety of tools at your disposal to help you with anything. From the user manual, articles and the knowledge base to the video tutorials and the webinars (live or recorded), there is plenty of information around the website to get you out of any fix. The step by step instructions will ensure that you always get it right.

When all is said and done, icontact has managed to bring the idea and capabilities of email marketing down to the inexperienced individual while also empowering the experienced ones. For those who make use of it, icontact will prove decisive in taking their marketing efforts a step further.

For iContact coupons, discounts and promotions, follow this link.

[Via - NicheGeek.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

Dude, What's Wrong With Your Head? How Head Injury Made One Man Rich

Matt Lauzon And His Success Story

How To Make Half A Million Dollars, Writing About Parking Lots

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

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

SitterCity Review

2012-01-11T01:09:00.000-08:00

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://sittercity.com

"I work 12-hour shifts early, so I need someone to be here really early and stay really late." says Beaje Mayo in an interview aired at a local TV news station.

Mayo is a full-time nurse and a local military wife with one big problem: finding a nanny for her two young boys.

"It was extremely difficult. The first time my husband was deployed, I went about five or six different either day care centers or providers."

That's when she found out about Sittercity.com.

Sittercity.com is the biggest online provider of babysitters and nannies in the US today. It has an estimated 2 million caregiver profiles across the nation that offers babysitting, pet care, housekeeping, senior care, and even tutoring services. The site helps match these caregivers to the right families, and the family that hires them will negotiate the salary.

The site al so has a corporate program that ties with companies and organizations, such as Fox, Avon, and MasterCard.

Sittercity has been mentioned by well-known media sources, such as FOX, Today, ABC, and CBS, getting glowing reviews. Even the US President recognized their site and gave them a big thumbs up. Apparently, it was a really big one, because today, the US Department of Defense pays for the annual memberships (worth $140) of all its active soldiers and their families to the site.

Beaje Mayo’s family was one of them.

This is quite a feat for someone who started out as a college sitter. Genevieve Thiers, the founder of Sittercity, was a babysitter when she saw a pregnant woman walking almost 200 steps at Boston College to post ads for a sitter. Thiers took the flyer from the woman and posted it for her, and the idea for Sittercity was born.

Child nannies are the most popular of their services. Parents can choose from 40 criteria, such as whether the babysitters can be available on holidays, or they know certain languages. Parents can even add smokers or non-smokers in their list. The site also offers information, references, and feedback from other clients about the sitter’s quality of service.

Most of the caregivers who find work at Sittercity are university students, stay-in moms and retirees. When asked what they think about the site, many say they couldn’t have been happier.

K.J., a Chicago-based nanny agrees. "I have used Sitter City for a few years and am pretty pleased. With my last job posting for an occasional sitter I received almost 40 applicants! You can really get your pick of the litter with response rates like that!"

Sittercity has three payment options: a yearly plan ($140), a 3-month membership ($70), and a monthly plan ($35). There is also an additional $9.99 fee for each background check of your candidates -- something that a lot of parents find a bit expensive. Others, however, take it all in stride.

"It's well worth it. I've wasted a lot of time on Craigslist, getting zero response to my ad, and never hearing back from most of the people I reached out to,” wrote a parent in TimeMom.

So does Sittercity.com live up to all its hype? Mary from parentplaza.com believes so. "SitterCity is like an Amazon.com for finding babysitters. Not only are you likely to find what you're looking for, you're likely to find more than you'll ever need.”

For SitterCity coupons, discounts and promotions, follow this link.

[Via - NicheGeek.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

Dude, What's Wrong With Your Head? How Head Injury Made One Man Rich

Matt Lauzon And His Success Story

How To Make Half A Million Dollars, Writing About Parking Lots

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

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

SocialFlights.com Review

2012-01-10T01:28:00.000-08:00

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://socialflights.com/

If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to fly on those fancy private aircraft that rich people use for getaways such as skiing or beach weekends, a new Web-based company in Smyrna aims to put you in the jet set — at prices that rival those of regular airline seats.

SocialFlights.com allows individuals to book vacant seats on private charter airplanes via the Web and ride point-to-point, avoiding layovers, plane changes and even those long security lines.

For instance, on Friday, one-way flights from Smyrna to Rifle, Colo., on Jan. 2 and from Nashville to Hilton Head Island, S.C., on Jan. 4 were listed on the website for $300 per seat, while a trip from Destin, Fla., to Nashville on Jan. 1 was going for $200.

The service, which began a beta test in February and goes to full operation in January, offers flights to and from airports all over the U.S. — not just the Nashville area.

Besides selling unused seats on charters, Social Flights also has initiated a weekend scheduled service between Smyrna and Knoxville, using a 29-seat Jetstream turboprop plane. The fare is $50 for the round trip, and the flights operate on Fridays and Sundays.

Nationwide, more than 91 private air-charter firms, which operate 627 private aircraft with 30 seats or fewer, have already signed up to offer their empty seats to Social Flights users, said Jay Deragon, chief executive officer and a co-founder of Social Flights.

More than 12,500 people have registered to use the service, he said.

“We’re essentially using social networking to fill vacant seats on private aircraft that go all over the place every day, often with nobody on board,” he said. “A company or group might charter a jet to take them to California, but then that plane flies back empty. With Social Flights, people can buy individual seats on the return trip, giving the charter company revenue it wouldn’t have had.”

Social Flights calls it hassle-free flying because these airplanes don’t use the big airport terminals that the airlines use. They fly out of the private-aircraft terminals at airports all over the country — including thousands that have no airline service.

On these charter flights, passengers don’t have to go through metal detectors or X-ray machines, Deragon said. Their names are run through the TSA’s no-fly list, however, so any suspected terrorists would not be able to board the planes, he added.

“We say, ‘Just show up 15 minutes before your flight and walk right on,’ ” said Deragon, a social media expert who came up with the idea of Social Flights along with Allen Howell, founder and chief executive of the Smyrna-based Corporate Flight Management, one of the Southeast’s largest charter operators.

Each flight has a crew of three — two pilots and a flight attendant.

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

[Via - NicheGeek.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

Dude, What's Wrong With Your Head? How Head Injury Made One Man Rich

Matt Lauzon And His Success Story

How To Make Half A Million Dollars, Writing About Parking Lots

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

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

NeighborFavor Review

2011-12-27T01:10:00.000-08:00

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://www.neighbfav.com/

It’s been a few years since we featured a site that lets consumers solicit help with their weekly errands, but recently we came across one that offers a slightly different twist. Now following in the footsteps of Sherrands, RunMyErrand and DoMyStuff.com comes NeighborFavor, a site that lets college students earn cash by helping each other with their shopping.

Focusing primarily on fast food and grocery delivery, NeighborFavor lets college students see where their friends are going shopping and then request that one of them pick something up while they’re out. Along the way, they must indicate not just what they need and when they need the items, but also how much of a “tip” they’re willing to pay for that convenience. Once a neighbor has accepted the request and delivered the needed items, payments are made via PayPal and neighbors can rate each other’s performance. A 3-digit PIN is assigned to each favor to ensure that payments are made accurately as agreed.

Apps for Android and iOS are coming soon, says CBZG Studios, NeighborFavor’s Massachusetts-based maker. A concept to bring to students — or other closely affiliated consumers — in your neck of the woods?

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

[Via - NicheGeek.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

Dude, What's Wrong With Your Head? How Head Injury Made One Man Rich

Matt Lauzon And His Success Story

How To Make Half A Million Dollars, Writing About Parking Lots

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

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

How Tyler Johnson Gets Millions, Builing Wilderness Trails

2011-12-16T00:20:00.000-08:00

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://beatenpathtrails.com/

Business Model: Providing manual labor for building trails
Who Did It: Tyler Johnson
Capital Required: $0
How Much It Makes: $3.3 million a year in revenue

Getting to see nature is not an easy task if you cannot gain access to nature. If people don't get to see nature they may never get to truly appreciate it and the role that it plays in their lives. Trails are the paths that hikers and backpackers use to gain access to nature. These trails can however only be constructed without the use of vehicles or machinery according to the law and this has presented a difficult situation to many contractors. There is however a different kind of contractor that has achieved plenty of success building and maintaining these trails.

On the Beaten Path Trail Contractors only started early this year and has already acquired around 3.3 million dollars worth of contracts for the jobs done on the trails. 17 dollars for every hour was an attractive offer to many workers at the ski-resort whenever the season wasn't good for skiing and soon enough even college students started to come in during their summer breaks. In only its first year, On the Beaten Path Trail Contractors already has 63 workers in four states including Colorado and the company is not worried about government cut backs either. According to its founder Tyler Johnson, the support from government officials for both access to nature and job creation will ensure that the contracts keep coming.

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

[Via - Unusual Business Ideas]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

Dude, What's Wrong With Your Head? How Head Injury Made One Man Rich

Matt Lauzon And His Success Story

How To Make Half A Million Dollars, Writing About Parking Lots

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

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

GSMNation

2011-12-14T02:31:00.000-08:00

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://www.gsmnation.com/

Business Model: Selling unlocked cellphones
Who Did It: Junaid Shams and Ahmed Khattak
Capital Required: $150,000
How Much It Makes: $35 million a year

The name GSMNation is one of the most synonymous with the mobile phones. GSMNation is a well known seller of mobile phones but this is not why the website has become well known. What makes the phones that are sold by this website so special is the fact that the phones are first unlocked by the manufacturers prior to being sold. GSMNation is the brainchild of one Ahmed Khattak, a Yale student who noted during a brief stay in London that in Europe, mobile phone users would use their phones without having to take contracts with the carriers of the service. This was in stack contrast with the American population where most users buy phones that come with contracts. This is more expensive than the services that come minus the contracts and this is the pitch that GSMNation is now using and has been quite successful so far.

Surprisingly GSMNation was started with nothing more than 150 000 dollars that Khattak and his friend Junaid shams had gathered on their own and from their families. They also got support from the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute. GSMNation was officially launched in 2010, two years after the two friends had started selling the unlocked phones online. GSMNation sells a wide variety of mobile devices including the popular BlackBerrys and iPhones. Apart from individuals, the website caters to a wide array of clientèle including agencies of the government. GSMNation currently employs 12 people and has already achieved sales in excess of 50,000 phones. The unlocked phones can be used with any carrier and although most of GSMNation's are from other countries, the U.S. based customer base is expected to grow in the years to come.

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

[Via - NicheGeek.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

Dude, What's Wrong With Your Head? How Head Injury Made One Man Rich

Matt Lauzon And His Success Story

How To Make Half A Million Dollars, Writing About Parking Lots

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

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

uFlavor.com

2011-12-13T00:55:00.000-08:00

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://uflavor.com/

Mad scientists, rejoice: An Indianapolis startup is rolling out a make-your-own-soft-drink campaign its founders hope will become the YouTube of the beverage industry.

The idea is simple, even if the execution isn’t. Customers will be able to choose the ingredients for custom-made concoctions and design their own labels, then uFlavor will make and sell the drink—to its creators and the general public, who’ll be asked to rate the finished product.

“That level of mass customization is pretty intriguing,” said Jerry McColgin, founder of Carmel-based production and design firm Insight2 Inc. “Everyone wants something that is uniquely their own. They’re onto something there.”

Brown concurred.

“It’s one of the biggest trends out there right now,” he said. “There’s no reason uFlavor can’t be in the forefront of that."

McColgin, who has no connection to uFlavor, also praised the company’s slow-but-sure rollout strategy. Rather than immediately go to market with a product that’s new to consumers, many firms have had success generating buzz first.

“You want people waiting for it, watching for it,” he said. “But ultimately, your product has to live up to the expectations you create.”

Cloran and his partners have been working on uFlavor since 2009, when he pulled the concept out of his “ideas” folder. His original brainstorm came about 10 years ago: a vending machine that could produce any drink in the world.

“It was a crazy idea, too hard to build” said Cloran, 43.

Then he met Purdue University graduates Nathan Altman and Mike Mitchell, fellow entrepreneurs who met as members of Carmel High School’s award-winning robotics team. They thought they could pull it off, and they did.

A prototype was on display Thursday at DeveloperTown, which also invested in the project, but the partners decided it made more sense to build the online marketplace—and line up additional funding—before mass-producing the machines.

Home soda-making equipment already is sold at thousands of retailers. Market leader SodaStream, for example, allows users to choose their own syrup, bottle and carbonation. The partners say uFlavor breaks down the process even further.

“We really want to open up the ‘black box’ of the flavor industry—how different acids affect the tongue, how different tastes unfold,” Cloran said.

Cinnamon gives Coca-Cola its characteristic bite, for example, while Pepsi dials up the sweetener.

uFlavor’s founders worked with FONA to get a feel for how to blend flavors, and the company’s flavor scientists helped tweak the first three drinks to get them just right.

A single custom soda sells for $9.99 on uFlavor’s website, an eight-pack is $29.99 and a 24-pack is $59.99—all with free shipping within the continental United States. Once users start designing their own flavors, the company plans to use the Threadless model and give creators a share of the proceeds.

The partners hope to return to Indianapolis in two weeks with some sales in the books, which could help them line up additional funding. They declined to disclose financial details, but Verge CEO Matt Hunckler is chronicling the trip online.

“It’s always exciting in a startup environment when people pay you,” said Altman, uFlavor’s CEO and “prime minister of choice.” Mitchell is chief technology officer and “viceroy of variety.”

The men, both 24 and partners in DeveloperTown, will be working full time on uFlavor. Cloran, the chairman and “flavor emancipator,” will devote one day a week to the startup.

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

[Via - NicheGeek.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

Dude, What's Wrong With Your Head? How Head Injury Made One Man Rich

Matt Lauzon And His Success Story

How To Make Half A Million Dollars, Writing About Parking Lots

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

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

ICUC Moderation - How To Make $40,000 A Year As Professional Forum Moderator

2011-12-10T02:52:00.000-08:00

http://icucmoderation.com/

“GO F- -K YOUR SELF A- -HOLE, You are making me hate this site!!! F-G!”

If this comment is not enough to make anyone squirm, then they should work for ICUC Moderation. Chuck Dueck, a professional online moderator for the company, eats comments like these for breakfast everyday.

And he does more than eat it straight out of the can. With the mental poise of a Zen master, Dueck carefully deletes these comments and gives the commenters a bit of scolding on the forum. He even does it through email.

It doesn’t work all the time, though. There are occasions where he had to ban the accounts of repeat offenders, all the while deleting the cusses and swears of spammers, trolls, and haters alike. This goes on for hours; and after a day of careful pruning, Dueck has temporarily managed to restore civility among the volatile users of the Internet. That is, before he gets another comment from someone intent on annihilating the human species.

Free discussion and commenting have always been one of the main reasons why a lot of people are seduced by the Internet. But freedom of expression isn’t always served with good intentions. Online discussion can be a lethal combination, a concoction of anonymity, privacy, and safety from a secluded area of the world that brings out the repulsive natures of human beings—hence, the increasing need for moderators to act as online mediators and censors in the comment boards.

Dueck is among one of the 200 comment moderators employed by ICUC Moderation, a brainchild of Keith Bilous. He started the company in 2002 as a business that broadcasted text messages onto nightclub screens. The business expanded, and a year ago, ICUC cleaned up the comments on the Twitter and Facebook pages of the Boston Globe, Starbucks, and Chevron, earning them around $10 million in revenue.

Not bad for a company who makes a living out of raging hormones, bad hair d ays, and “colorful” obscenities.

Moderators, or "mods", typically earn from $40,000 to $80,000 every year—an acceptable figure to compensate for working with the vile and the obscene. Personal threats are not uncommon, as well as extreme bigotry, racism, and pedophilia. Even Bilous is not immune to them. There are moments he feels like he needs to spend two hours in the shower because the comments can be so disgusting.

And he’s not the only one who shares this sentiment. Many of his staff feels the same way, and there are some who finds it just one BIG pain-in-the-ass. In fact, a significant number of newly-hired employees with ICUC last for only about two weeks; and so to keep them longer, the company has devised a strategy where moderators work on sites in short shifts, alternating between malicious forums to light and fun ones.

At the end of the day, however, it all comes down to the person who’s moderating the site. Commen t moderation is not just about mediation, conflict-resolution, and sensitivity, but also a unique detachment from everything and everyone. It also requires good common sense. It takes a special kind of person to do all of that—and the faint-hearted ones need not apply. Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr and a former community manager for numerous online comment forums sums it up in one sentence: “It’s art, not science.”

[Via - NicheGeek.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

Uncle Milton Uncle Milton Giant Ant Farm Story

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

10+ Unusual Ways To Make Easy Money On The Internet If You Love Writing.

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea

Texas Cider - The Story Of Leprechaun Golden Cider

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

MyFunkyPlanet.com - Making Real Toys For Virtual Game Characters

MrBeer.com Review

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

Leprechaun Cider Co - How To Sell Cider In Texas

2011-12-09T00:37:00.000-08:00

http://www.leprechauncider.com/

By the time Jake Schiffer was ready to incorporate Leprechaun Cider Co. in the spring of 2010, he had a business plan, enough funding to cover startup costs and an orchard lined up to provide the kind of apples he wanted and to handle the fermentation and bottling of the product.

All he needed was his parents' signature on the paperwork, since he was only 20.

“It's been a learning experience for all of us,” Schiffer says.

Leprechaun Golden Cider hit the Houston market in March, but only on draft. In mid-September, 22-ounce bottles of the sparkling alcoholic beverage went on sale at retail prices of $6 to $7.50 each in stores and around $9 in restaurants. It's available in San Antonio at Lüke and some liquor stores.

Next will be a drier product that Schiffer explained in a recent interview is more like the European ciders he was exposed to during travels while in high school and college. Both ciders will be available year-round; future seasonal releases could involve additions of such fruits as Fredericksburg peaches or Michigan cherries.

Leprechaun joins a U.S. cider market that, although tiny in comparison with the beer market, grew by 10 percent last year. A recent Reportlinker.com analysis attributed that to increased investment and marketing by Green Mountain Cider, the U.S. market leader, as well as growing consumer demand.

“The growth of premium regional draught cider products (many of them on tap) has mirrored the growth of craft beer, and these two segments share a somewhat similar consumer positioning,” the report said.

Schiffer said he was inspired to form a cider company while he was a student at the University of San Diego because he was dissatisfied with the ciders he found in the U.S. He approached his parents about taking the money they had set aside for him to attend graduate school and putting it into a business instead.

“I had to sell them first,” he said. “They weren't going to give me the $100,000 without a plan.”

His parents — both attorneys, although his mother has retired from corporate work to write a book — helped him refine that plan, secure the necessary licenses and purchase kegs, glassware and other items.

They also put him in contact with family acquaintances at Blue Mountain Cider Co. in Oregon. Schiffer flew up and liked what he saw at the 300-acre orchard. The company produces its own cider from handpicked cider apples, but now it makes Leprechaun under a separate contract based on recipes that Schiffer developed.

“Our cider doesn't taste like their cider,” he said.

Schiffer, who made his entrepreneurial debut while a junior at Memorial High School, selling skimboards to friends and classmates to use on flooded fields, said he decided to contract for the cider production because that would let him get a product more quickly so he could capitalize on the coming “cider wave.”

He noted that two other Texas cider companies, both based in the Austin area, have opened since Leprechaun went on sale.

Schiffer said he might one day plant an orchard and start making cider on native soil, but for now he is promoting Leprechaun's “Texas roots.”

He expects to have produced up to 11,000 gallons by year-end. Although not in the black yet, he said, Leprechaun already is generating cash that can be used to support the business.
For more unusual ways to make money, visit this site.

[Via - MadConomist.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

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

MrBeer Kit Review

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea

The Best Paid Review Deal On The Net

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

SiteX Review

Make Your Ideas Mean Business

IWearYourThirt.Com Review

Cool sites - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

Sebastian Abondano And MyFunkyPlanet.Com

2011-12-05T00:05:00.000-08:00

Cool sites - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://www.myfunkyplanet.com/

What it does: Sells toys with virtual counterparts
Founder: Sebastian Abondano, 24
Website: myfunkyplanet.com
Based: Port St. Lucie, Fla.
Revenue 2010: $1.3 million
Revenue 2011 (projected): $2 million

Sebastian Abondano was fascinated by the success of Webkinz, stuffed toys that came with a corresponding online persona for kids to play with in a virtual world. In 2008, while a junior at Babson College, he started his own line of toys that bridge the physical and digital worlds. My Funky Planet sells remote-controlled cars and helicopters that come with codes to unlock virtual replicas in an online game. Targeted at boys aged 6 to 12, the toys are manufactured in China and sold through U.S. retailers such as Toys R Us, Sears, and Discovery Channel Stores. They retail for from $20 to $120 and come with virtual currency that can be used to soup up the online avatars. Though selling virtual goods is not a big source of revenue right now, Abondano expects it to grow as the user base expands and players can eventually interact with each other in a game world. Abondano says the nine-employee company has raised $400,000 in seed money and has been profitable since its first year.

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

[Via - BusinessWeek.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

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

MrBeer Kit Review

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea

The Best Paid Review Deal On The Net

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

SiteX Review

Make Your Ideas Mean Business

IWearYourThirt.Com Review

Cool sites - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

MrBeer Kit Review

2011-12-03T01:06:00.000-08:00

Link Of The Day - Product Naming

http://MrBeer.com

“Not bad. In fact, my first home brew wasn’t as good as this.”

That was Garrett Oliver, Brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery, and what he had to say when he gave a MrBeer beer kit a try for himself. And believe us—he wasn't drunk when he said that.

Oliver described the “Mr. Beer Process” in three steps: "We sanitize, we brew, and then we bottle."

And how much did it cost him to make a 2-gallon beer?

It took him $40 for the complete kit—and a 2-gallon beer worth $.25 cents to $1, depending on the size of the bottle that’s being used.

That's not bad, considering it tastes good. Comedian Andy Dick once had a test run of the Mr. Beer as well, and all he had to say was: "That's smooth. That's probably the smoothest beer I've ever drank." And unlike those that have been shipped and exposed to outside air, Mr. Beer’s aroma is more intense because it comes straight from the plastic beer keg.

Mr. Beer has been in the business of creating the world's easiest home brewing systems and supplies since 1993. They use barley, wheat, and hops for their malts, and are brewed on their modern facility on South Island NZ. They use a complex process of cracking, heating, and separating grains and then adding in hops to produce the color, balance, and flavor that beer is known for. However, the difference is that with Mr. Beer, all the excess water is removed, and the concentrated malt extract that’s left would be canned for shipping.

Their most popular product is the Premium Edition Mr. Beer Kit, which comes with a 2-Gallon Fermenter, first batch of beer (Standard Booster Recipe with Hopped Malt extract, dry brewing yeast, and No-Rinse Cleanser), eight amber-colored bottles with caps and labels. These bottles are designed to accommodate carbonated beverages, and are FDA approved.

Other Mr. Beer products also include Cider Kits a nd Root Beer kits—and they taste good as well.

With such high-tech procedures, does it guarantee perfect beer all the time?

Not necessarily. It depends on how you brew it.

"It's a little bit sweet and needs a little bit more carbonation." Oliver observed, after tasting his first batch of beer.

But here’s where he made a teeny-tiny-itsy-bit mistake: he didn’t wait long enough for the beer to ferment.

A good way to avoid this is to let the beer sit longer than a week to reduce its sweetness. The longer it ferments, the less sweet it becomes.

As with everything else, patience really IS a virtue when it comes to brewing your own beer. According to Drew Vics, a.k.a "The Brewologist", you can have home brewed beer in two weeks, but if you want it to taste its best, then wait for four weeks—or three and a half, if you can't wait any longer.

A good solution for that "le ss head" or "less carbonation" problem so often encountered by first-time brewers is to dissolve no more than 3/8 of a cup of sugar or confectioner's corn sugar into 1 pint of hot water and then let it cool. Then divide them evenly among your bottles instead of adding each sugar in each bottle (as what the direction says). This results in better and more even carbonation.

Really, it doesn’t get any simpler than that. Vics put it succinctly: "Mr. Beer makes a good beginner home brewing kit, and it is a great kit to keep around and reuse, even for the more advanced brewer. This is a great way to get your feet wet, and learn the basics of the home brewing process."

For Mr. Beer coupons, click here.

[Via - Offbeat News]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your business, too.

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

10+ Unusual Ways To Make Easy Money On The Internet If You Love Writing.

5 Coolest Beer Records

15 Most Common Myths And Misconceptions About Beer

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 - Product Naming

TaskRabbit Review

2011-12-01T01:09:00.000-08:00

Need business name ideas? PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://taskrabbit.com

That was the help-wanted note new mom Rachel Christenson posted a few weeks ago at online marketplace TaskRabbit Inc. Neither she nor her husband wanted the "gross" job of dealing with an overflowing compost bin, so she clicked her mouse in search of someone who would do her dirty work.

After about 11 hours and a few crazy questions like, "Are your worms nice?" Ms. Christenson, 27 years old, found a taker. Douglas Ivey, a 45-year-old research scientist, drained the "worm juice" from the bin, put back the compost, mixed in newspaper and hosed it all down. The price? $31. "That guy was bold," says Ms. Christenson, of San Francisco. "He just jumped right in."

"It was completely disgusting," says Mr. Ivey, who added, "I don't mind. Actually, I find the really gross jobs pay pretty well."

A new crop of websites and smartphone applications are allowing people to farm out chores to a growing army of temporary personal assistants. These micro-employees are taking the division of labor to once-unthinkable extremes.

One recent advertisement on TaskRabbit sought someone to play a joke on a friend who's a customer-service representative. "It's his bday today, and we need someone that will make a prank call multiple times each hour for a 4 hour time period," read the ad. "The goal is to keep him on the phone as long as possible."

Thousands of unemployed or underemployed workers have parlayed one-off job requests into part- or full-time work. The gigs are especially popular with stay-at-home moms, retirees and students. Workers choose their jobs and negotiate their own rates.

Erika Dumaine, 24, logged onto TaskRabbit this April and saw the following plea for help: "Buy me shoes ASAP. I stepped in dog poop." So Ms. Dumaine, now a full-time nanny, bought and delivered a requested new pair of navy blue Toms shoes from Nordstrom's to the poster, Guillermo Rauch. (Her payment: $17.) Aura Montano, a 21-year-old nursing student, stood on the Brooklyn Bridge holding an "I heart Anie Lewis" sign one Friday evening in August so she could attract the attention of Eric Lewis's wife and hand her flowers as she walked home from work. (She earned $19.)

Some investors see dollar signs. Zaarly Inc., an online marketplace for micro-labor and goods based in San Francisco, recently raised $14.1 million from Google Inc. investor and venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Actor Ashton Kutcher and clothing designer Marc Ecko have also put in money. In October, Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Meg Whitman joined the company's board.

After launching six months ago, Zaarly is processing more than 1,000 transactions a week for jobs that cost around $50 a pop. Chief Executive and cofounder Bo Fishback, 33, says about half the requests involve tangible goods, and the rest involve some sort of service. One of his favorites: a person who hired someone to buy a Michael Jackson-themed dog costume for a puppy.

Sometimes the situation can be dire. John Burks, a 30-year-old actor who also runs an arts organization in Chicago, accidentally dropped his keys in a sewer during a rainstorm over the summer. To replace all the keys—including ones to his home, office and Mercedes—could cost well over $100.

After Googling "lost keys down sewer" to see what tactics others had used, Mr. Burks thought he could recover his keys with a fishing rod and a magnet, but had neither. His girlfriend at the time knew someone who worked at Zaarly, so he posted the job on its site. Liz Langer, a 27-year-old neuroscience graduate student and top Zaarly "fulfiller," spotted the job and within an hour arrived with the needed tools. Fifteen minutes later, they fished the keys out of the sewer. (Price: $80.)

"It's like stranger than fiction," Mr. Burks says. "I thought there was a very small chance that anything like that can happen."

Mr. Ecko, founder of his namesake billion-dollar fashion company, posted a request for a cake resembling a can of Barq's Famous Olde Tyme Root Beer for his now seven-year-old son's birthday. His son got the cake "and I came off like a hero," he says. Mr. Kutcher, 33, who has received Hebrew lessons and cups of coffee through Zaarly, says every request he's posted—anonymously, he emphasized—has been fulfilled. "Companies like this are really tackling things like unemployment in an efficient, viable way," Mr. Kutcher says.

Some micro-laborers find a lot of little tasks can add up. Alanna Greenham, 56, was cash-strapped and unemployed in San Francisco. Then last April, while sending in her 30th job application, she came across a TaskRabbit ad.

After submitting an online application, completing a video interview and going through a Social Security number trace and a federal criminal background check, Ms. Greenham joined the San Francisco-based company's crew of about 2,000 "TaskRabbits." She does odd jobs via the service every day, aiming to clear at least $25 an hour. So far, she's completed about 250 jobs and has racked up around $1,500 a month.

Recently, Ms. Greenham drove a truckload of goods from San Francisco to a warehouse in San Bruno, Calif., where they were shipped off to the Burning Man Festival in the Nevada desert. Her cargo? A big silver tricycle, a batch of Jester clothes and a large, tent-like dwelling called a yurt. Her price? $100.

TaskRabbit won't disclose specific revenue per task, but says its average service fee is 15%, paid by the person posting the job.

Amazon Mechanical Turk, a service of Amazon.com Inc., lets people work from home, like virtual temps. Companies such as Microsoft Corp. and LinkedIn Corp. place jobs on the service, often to help them manage or categorize content, says Sharon Chiarella, vice president of Amazon Mechanical Turk.

About a year ago, Chris Berry, a special-education teacher in Granite Bay, Calif., began actively using the service, launched in 2005, in hopes of making extra money to support his wife and four children.

Mr. Berry, 39, earned more than $10,000 from tasks that paid as little as 10 cents a pop. He says he sometimes completed more than 1,000 jobs a day, ranging from writing golfing tips to doling out parenting advice.

"I don't see myself stopping any time soon," he says. "I could be on Facebook playing games or something, but this is kind of fun."

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

[Via - Madconomist.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

Tours By Homeless

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

Storage By Mail

Need business name ideas? PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

How To Make Money Identifying Beetles And Butterflies

2011-11-29T00:58:00.000-08:00

http://determix.com/

Before the rise of the Digital age, research and forensic scientists, biologists, and botanists, painstakingly identified each and every living organism by searching their various ranks in the Nomenclature Code rule book. Using advanced technology however, has made it possible to simplify these steps in just a couple of clicks on the computer. Determix has created Lysandra Online, an internet-based, biological database that classifies all organisms using interactive catalogues and identification guides. Everything is basically there; and unlike a trip to the library, it wouldn't take a day to find a strange organism's Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species classification—all in one sitting.

This is good news to scientists all over the world. Lysandra Online is co-authored by leading specialists in the fields of zoology and biological sciences; and it uses complex algorithms to search for an organism's specific hierarchies. It makes things even easier by adding illustrated catalogues, handy navigation, and print output in its features. And here's the best part: it can organize random search lists from the general catalogue and even create mini-presentations. Some of its published works include beetles and butterfly classification, butterfly identifcation database, and all that can be easily accessed via website.

The best part, however, is that it’s free. All its database and facilities are available after installation, and some of its demo databases don't even need registration. Today, it is used as an accurate guide to biological classification, and Determix has now released a commercial version of its database that contains completely illustrated tools, maps, and pictures for better identification.

[Via - MadConomist.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

Tours By Homeless

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

Storage By Mail

Need business name ideas? PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

ShiftMyGift.Com Review

2011-11-26T00:48:00.000-08:00

Need business name ideas? PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://www.shiftmygift.com/

What it is
Shift My Gift is a web-based service that allows registered users to transfer money to worthy causes--money that would otherwise have been spent on gifts. Donations are processed online through Network for Good, a Bethesda, Md., nonprofit organization. Through a partnership with GuideStar, a nonprofit reporting agency, users can access a database of more than 1.8 million IRS-recognized nonprofits and choose where they want the cash to go.

How it started
After hiking through some of Nepal's poorest regions, Blair Souder returned to his Lincoln University, Pa., home just in time for Black Friday, the post-Thanksgiving retail frenzy. Although the people in Nepal had very little, they "were very connected and seemed to be living in happiness and peace, as far as I could see," Souder says. It was a stark contrast to the shopping craze that kicks off the December holiday season in the States.

"I began thinking it would be cool to have a place online where people could easily [transfer their gifts to benefit others] and also create a bit of a movement around it," Souder says. "It would help people reflect on themselves: How am I going to celebrate the next event in my life? Do I really need more gifts?" He told his brother Kirk about the idea and the two went to work building the site.

Why it took off
The site, which has only been live since mid-August, attracted more than 2,000 discrete visitors within the first month, simply through word-of-mouth. The Souders plan a grassroots promotion campaign that will include up to 25 partner nonprofits to help spread the word through their own networks. One of the most recently featured nonprofits is the venerable Heifer International, which was established in 1944 and works with poor communities throughout the world to end hunger and poverty while caring for the earth.

The business case
Shift My Gift charges users a $1.49 processing fee per transaction--less than what it would cost to wrap and send most gifts through the U.S. Postal Service or courier. The fee is not tax-deductible, but the donation is. In addition, a 4.75 percent "grant" is withheld from each donation and given to Network for Good to offset the cost of processing (the grant is tax-deductible).

What's next
The Souders will work with their nonprofit partners to run donation campaigns and encourage gifting through the site. They're also working on a publicity campaign and increasing their social media profile to get the word out about their site, which Blair says is easy to use.

"For people who realize that they just don't want any more stuff and would like to use gift-giving occasions, like birthdays or weddings, to make a difference in the world, this allows them to celebrate in a more meaningful way," he says. "People are really responding to that message."

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

[Via - Madconomist.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

Tours By Homeless

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

Storage By Mail

Need business name ideas? PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

SaleSpread.Com Review

2011-11-25T05:51:00.000-08:00

Need business name ideas? PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://www.salespread.com/

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, as the old saying goes, and we’ve seen that maxim applied in numerous marketplaces, connecting buyers and sellers of unused deal-a-day coupons, cardboard boxes and — perhaps most literally of all — industrial waste. Now bringing it into the realm of the sales department, SaleSpread gives businesses a way to sell the prospects they can’t use and buy others they can.

Companies with surplus leads that aren’t useful to them begin by signing up to sell them on UK-based SaleSpread, which then notifies the client in question of the business’s intent to share their information with other companies. Assuming the client accepts, SaleSpread then verifies the details and assigns a price to the lead based on its headline value, the number of years the business relationship would be likely to last, the industry, and the likelihood of potential buyers winning the lead, among other factors. Next, it sends a prospect description to potential buyers, who are given the chance to purchase one of four slots, each representing an opportunity to contact the client and provide a quote. If the sale goes to one of these four SaleSpread potential buyers, all four companies are charged the lead price. If the sale goes to a business outside of SaleSpread, then all four members are reimbursed. Sellers can make as much as GBP 100 for each lead worth GBP 1,000 that ends up being won by a SaleSpread member, the company says.

Waste not, want not, to quote another old proverb. How could you build a business on unwanted discards?

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

[Via - Springwise.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

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

10+ Unusual Ways To Make Easy Money On The Internet If You Love Writing.

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

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

The Best Paid Review Deal On The Net.

2011-11-24T08:10:00.000-08:00

Would you like us to write about your business? We are offering a deal that no other blog owners do – for $35, review of your business, site or service will appear on NicheGeek, Uncommon Business Blog, MadConomist, PickyDomains (News/Blog section) and Sahio.Com. Pageranks for these sites vary from 3 to 5 and combined daily readership is around 2500-3000 unique visitors.

So essentially, you are getting links and visitors from 5 different well ranked and widely read blogs for seven bucks each. Our requirements are as follows:

1. Legitimate websites only. No MLM, no e-books, no scams, no infobusiness, no investment opportunities, no diets, no supplements, no pharma.
2. SEO links only if applicable and organic looking (limited to 1, not counting URL of your website).
3. If we do write up, there is a $15 fee ($50 total). If you provide review, the price is $35, but we have to OK it first. The review you provide must look as a neutral business article, NOT blatant advertisement. Giving us a previously published review is OK (as long as we approve it).
4. If you want to provide 5 different reviews for the SAME website there is no extra charge. If you want to give us 5 different reviews for 5 different sites you own, there is $5 extra charge for each review you provide or $15 for each review we write.
5. Payments are done via PayPal, credit card, MoneyBookers, bank transfers or checks.
6. If you want to test our service, before paying full $35/$50, that's fine. For $10 we'll publish review your provide at one of our blogs (most likely NicheGeek.com), so you'll be able to look at traffic/SEO effect the review generates, before paying the full amount. If you are satisfied, you simply pay the remainder to have you review published at the remaining four sites.
7. This is a SPONSORED REVIEW service, NOT paid links service. All poorly written submissions or SEO-centered submissions will be refused. Your review must have the same general tone as all other materials published at our sites. Once again, think news article in business journal, not infomercial.

If you are interested, send us an email to david[AT]DepriceDotCom with URL of your website.

Here are detailed stats for each site.

PickyDomains.com - PageRank 5, Alexa rank 82,000, daily visitors - 900-1100 (however, less than half visit news section)
NicheGeek.com - PageRank 3, Alexa rank 150,000, daily visitors 800-1500
Madconomist.com - PageRank 3, Alexa rank 400,000, daily visitors - 400-1500
UncommonBusiness - PageRank 3, Alexa rank 750,000, daily visitors - 250-300.
Sahio.com - PageRank 3, Alexa rank 5,000,000, daily visitors - 50.

Daily visitors is a number of people who visit the ENTIRE site in a single day, not just the main page. Traffic at Nichgeek.com and Madconomist.com can go up to 5-50K per day for a short period of time, when one of the posts lands on the front page of Reddit, Digg or other social networks. This has happened a number of times in the past.

http://digg.com/news/story/Top_10_stupid_online_business_ideas_that_made_someone_rich
http://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/mmtbj/somebody_did_not_get_number_9/

For each website, except PickyDomains.com, your review will appear on the front page and will be treated as all other blog posts (meaning we won't hide it and it will capture most visitors possible.) All posts/links are permanent.

You WON'T FIND prices that low anywhere else on the net.

Flowboard

2011-11-23T01:27:00.000-08:00

Need business name ideas? PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://www.flowboard.com/

When Michael Kern came across a 14-wheeled "flowboard"--basically a skateboard-snowboard-surfboard hybrid--in 2001, he knew he had to jump on an opportunity. His 20-year-old company, Sport Technology, bought the licensing rights, then the original board-maker's company, and now also produces the Snowskate, which replaces the wheels of a skateboard with four mini-skis for free-footed mayhem on the slopes. It's available at major retailers, including Target, Walmart and Toys"R"Us, as well as through more than 60 independent toy, specialty and catalog retailers. Company revenue in 2010 was around $10 million, more than double the year before; 2011 revenue is close to $20 million; and Sport Technology forecasts $36 million for 2012. A bad-ass (and lucrative) crossover.

[Via - Entrepreneur.Com]

Not Your Regular Clipboard

Watching TV Could Easily Cost You Up Tp $1 Million In Your Lifetime

10 Books Like Freakonomics

How To Sell A Nine Dollar Domain For $38,650 And Six Other Domainer Stories

10 Crazy, Silly Or Wacky Real Life Ideas For Business

Bloove Review

Need business name ideas? PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

Jerkey Station

2011-11-21T01:41:00.000-08:00

Idea of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://www.caribreoso.com/JerkStation.html

Residents and workers in Redmond can get a taste of the Caribbean without leaving city limits.

The Jerk Sation, a mobile food truck serving up Caribbean cuisine, made its debut in Redmond on Monday and is helping owner and chef Michael Cunningham get his food out to hungry people.

The Renton resident and former Boeing employee opened for business about two weeks ago in Woodinville, where he is stationed in the parking lot of the Woodin Professional Building at 13901 NE 175th St. on Tuesdays and Fridays. Right now, Cunningham is in Redmond on Mondays and his truck is parked at 6855 176th Ave. N.E. The Jerk Station also parks in Renton on Wednesdays and Thursdays in the Center Cycle parking lot at 3950 Lind Ave. S.W.

"My preference is to stay on the Eastside," Cunningham said.

The Jerk Station offers food in two categories: Caribbean classics and Caribbean creations. The former features classic Caribbean dishes such as Jamaican patties, jerk meats, rice and peas and mofongo. With his creations, Cunningham said he has created original dishes that use Caribbean preparation techniques. Some of Cunningham's dishes include a Haitian lobster roll, Puerto Rican crab cake and Cubano cheesesteak.

Cunningham received his culinary training at the Kitchen Academy (now called Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts) in Tukwila and graduated in 2008. Although he grew up in the South, Cunningham went to school in south Florida, which introduced him to Caribbean food. This was one of the reasons he chose to focus on Caribbean cuisine.

"I always enjoyed the food," he said.

To promote his new business, Cunningham, who has a masters of business administration in marketing, said he did a lot of footwork by passing out flyers before he opened, but he has also utilized social media, promoting the Jerk Station on Twitter (his handle is @CaribreosoCater) and Facebook. Through Twitter, Cunningham said he is able to communicate directly with customers, giving them real-time information about what he's selling and even taking suggestions on what people want.

Cunningham added that since he began Jerk Station, his Twitter account — which he also uses to promote Caribreoso, his catering company — has tripled in the number of followers.

"It's been growing pretty quickly," he said, adding that posting pictures brings in more followers as well.

The idea to start a food truck came to Cunningham when he was laid off from Boeing in 2010. At that point, he had already put the wheels in motion to start a catering company, but he also wanted to offer a lunch service. Cunningham said he initially started with a delivery service, but that didn't work because orders weren't coming in with enough time for him to cook the food and get it to his customers.

Right around this time documentaries and shows about food trucks were airing and Cunningham saw that they were run by experienced, professional chefs.

"These are people who have extensive, well-established food backgrounds," he said.

A food truck seemed like the perfect idea for Cunningham. He said he didn't want to open a brick-and-mortar restaurant because the hours were too long and grueling. He said he wants to be able to spend time with his wife and a restaurant would have him working opposite hours as her.

Eventually, way down the line, Cunningham can see himself opening a bed and breakfast with a full-service restaurant, somewhere on the beach. But that's far into the future.

For now, Cunningham said he enjoys seeing people eat his food and interacting with his customers.

"I feed off of that," he said.

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

[Via - Redmond Reporter]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

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

10+ Unusual Ways To Make Easy Money On The Internet If You Love Writing.

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

Idea of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

Canadian Couple Crowdsources Their Baby Name

2011-11-18T23:53:00.000-08:00

/PRWeb.com/ Canadian couple Jon Peters and Brittany Gardner has hired PickyDomains.com to name their baby boy. Order 2090 reads as follows:

“We are expecting a son on December 1st and need a first and last name for him. Neither of us are particularly traditional, but would like the name to have a strong/enlightened/intelligent/futuristic meaning, and have good sound harmony when spoken. Some of our favorite first names so far are Raven, Colour and Sword. A last name is requested as well. Some general concepts we like (for inspiration) are: Futurism, Liberty, Knowledge, Transhumanism, Creativity, Exploration, and Innovation. We are open to cool names from any fiction/culture/religion (though we are not religious).”

Dmitry Davydov, the co-founder of PickyDomains.com at first was surprised. “We’ve had some wacky naming orders. We’ve been asked to name a rap star dog once and we’ve named stip clubs and escort services. But crowdsourcing baby name, that’s the first for us,” said Davydov.

PickyDomains.com is word’s first risk free crowdsourcing naming service, meaning clients pay (typically $50 per name or domain) only if they decide to use one of the name suggested by the service. It has named over 1500 domains since being launched in 2007. Some examples include DePrice.com, GetMapped.com, MadConomist.com, Architexa.com, SoftwareJudge.com, NadaPay.com and StandupKings.com. The service also provides slogans, taglines and product name suggestions.

Jon and Brittany live in Vancouver, Canada and both have Facebook pages

http://www.facebook.com/brittanyngardner
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=890355610

How Clipboard Can Save Cop's Life

2011-11-17T01:29:00.000-08:00

Idea of the day - Coupons For Godaddy

http://www.impactarmortech.com/

Although police officers in most countries are issued bulletproof vests, they don't necessarily wear them at all times - would you want to heave one of those things around for an entire shift? What they do often carry, however, are clipboards. Taking the "every little bit helps" approach, Ohio's IMPACT Armor Technologies has put two and two together, and come up with something that should actually offer some protection - a Ballistic Clipboard.

Besides holding arrest warrants, speeding tickets and other cop-type papers, the clipboard is also capable of stopping bullets. It reportedly "provides multi-hit protection against 9 mm, .357, .40, and .44 mag rounds" at up to point blank range, in hot or cold temperatures. It is also said to protect against knives and blunt weapons. Unlike a vest, however, it weighs less than two pounds (907 grams).

While some people might picture an officer desperately trying trying to hide their entire body behind a clipboard, it presumably isn't intended to work that way. More likely, in situations where an assailant fires wildly at an officer's chest, there would actually be a pretty good chance of their bullet striking the clipboard instead.

It's apparently not that wacky of an idea, as IMPACT first designed the device in response to a request from local law enforcement personnel. Additionally, the company is not the only one offering such a product. Although the somewhat riot shield-like design of IMPACT's clipboard is unique, more ordinary-looking bulletproof clipboards are available from several other manufacturers.

[Via - Madconomist.com]

Nashville woman sells chickenpox-infected lollipops for $50 each

Startup Name Ideas

IWearYourShirt.Com - Making Money By Wearing Other People's T-Shirts

The Most Cost Effective Way To Advertise Your Business Online.

10 Online Business Ideas

Idea of the day - Coupons For Godaddy

Quirky.Com

2011-11-14T01:22:00.000-08:00

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://www.quirky.com/

Revenue 2011 (projected): $ 7.2 million

Ben Kaufman wants more people to try to become inventors. "It's a great feeling to see your product being used by a complete stranger," says Kaufman, who founded and sold an iPod accessories company before he launched Quirky in 2009. The site turns two community-submitted ideas into sellable products each week. Hopefuls pay $10 each to post an idea online for the 85,000-member Quirky community to vote on. Ideas must be be physical goods (not software) that can retail for less than $150. An in-house team of engineers and designers examines the two most popular submissions and builds a prototype. If enough units are presold to cover the cost of bringing a product to market, Quirky will contract to have it manufactured and distributed. Kaufman says Quirky retains all rights to the products and takes 70 percent of the revenue; the rest goes to the creators, many of whom earn tens of thousands of dollars from their ideas. The company has completed nearly 200 products, including such best-sellers as a power strip with a flexible body, a collapsible hanger, and a modular pocket knife.

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

[Via - BusinessWeek.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

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

10+ Unusual Ways To Make Easy Money On The Internet If You Love Writing.

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

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

SiteX Review

2011-11-10T02:03:00.001-08:00

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

SiteX is a site where you can get a ton of freelancing jobs. It is one of the largest freelancing marketplace on the internet. The total value of contracts at SiteX was $16 million for the month of April 2011, so you can imagine that it is a really huge business.

There are plenty of jobs at SiteX for almost all the categories that you can think of. Personally, I know about writing jobs – they have more than doubled in the last year itself and perhaps will keep increasing. Since there are so many jobs to choose from, you can find the jobs where your skills are in demand and apply for those with your expertise. For example, some writers are better at creative writing while some are good at writing sales copies. Since there are many jobs, you can always find some that are tailored to suit your skills.

In terms of getting paid, SiteX perhaps has the best system in place. There are two kinds of jobs – hourly and fixed price. If you are working on an hourly job, you can post the hours you work at SiteX. You will need to install their special software which allows it to track your activity: keywords and mouse clicks. If the activity is above a certain threshold and the random screenshots taken by this software show that you are working and not browsing the internet unrelated to the job, you are guaranteed to get paid. This is a very good safeguard in place which new freelancers especially like (those who are skeptical about the whole system!) Since freelancers are guaranteed to get paid, it is certainly a positive aspect of SiteX review that no other site can beat.

The feedback system is wonderful at SiteX and is much more revealing about both employees and employers than at similar sites like Elance or Guru. After the assignment is done, the site will ask both the parties involved to give a feedback on a scale of 5 for different parameters like quality of work, communication, deadlines, etc. In addition, both parties should leave a comment that appears on the profile page. This is a very good resource for both employees and employers to work with long-term SiteX members only so that there is little or no chance of getting scammed.

BlackSocks.Com Review

New Domain Parking Strategy Increases Payouts Up To 1000%

Revolights.Com Review

Business Name Generator

IconWanted.Com - The Search For Free Icons Is Over

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

Shunpike.Org - The Business Of Art

2011-11-07T00:00:00.000-08:00

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://www.shunpike.org/

In the drizzly Pacific Northwest, Andy Fife is a rainmaker for the region's thriving arts community. Through Shunpike, a Seattle-based arts organization, he has helped nurture more than 2,500 creative enterprises across Washington, providing a solid financial foundation for the region's most prominent entrepreneurial artists.

So what's his big secret? "We mostly focus on writing a business plan, creating a marketing plan, securing funding, establishing lines of credit," Fife says. "That, itself, could be considered innovative in the art world, where most people aren't trained in the business fundamentals."

"Artists always do badly with money," admits Jennie Shortridge, a Shunpike client and co-founder of Seattle7Writers, a collective of published Pacific Northwest authors. "We just aren't very good with spreadsheets and bank accounts and, frankly, we don't always want to be."

That's where Shunpike comes in, offering two tiers of service for its financially challenged members. "Basically, we're a service hub for all the back-office functions," Fife explains. "Our mission is to handle all of that for them and let them spend their time doing what they do best, which is producing art."

Shunpike's first-tier program offers grant-writing services, tax-exempt 503(c)(3) status and consultation about fundraising, finance and advisory board development for a $100 annual fee and a 7 percent cut of revenue. The second tier, called the Partner Artist program, offers all of the above, plus assistance in bookkeeping, taxes, licensing, permitting, human resources, payroll and insurance. The same $100 annual fee applies, plus 10 percent of revenue.

Even in the shadow of the Great Recession, Shunpike appears to have no shortage of potential clients. A 2010 report by Americans for the Arts said Seattle is home to 4,370 businesses in the "creative industries"--museums, symphonies, architecture, advertising--employing more than 21,000 people.

When Fife joined as executive director in 2007, Shunpike's annual budget was $400,000; today, it's $1.4 million. About 55 percent of these funds come through donations by government agencies, corporations, foundations and individuals, he says. The rest comes from consulting fees and percentages of Partner Artists' revenues. Shunpike, now in its 10th year, has about 115 Partner Artists on its roster.

Providing aid to nonprofits is Shunpike's specialty, but the group also doles out advice to for-profit ventures. Katrina Toft, co-founder and owner of Two Ravens Studio in Tacoma, Wash., sought marketing and financial advice from Shunpike in 2010 when she and her business partners wanted to grow their metalworking business.

"Andy created a diagram for us, explaining how to get bank loans, address environmental concerns and go through the permitting process," Toft says. "We also learned to be open to not just the standard methods of marketing. He gave us great advice on utilizing social media and venturing into Facebook."

"It's so important to learn business skills," says Teresa Thuman, producing artistic director of the nonprofit Sound Theatre Company, a Shunpike Partner Artist since 2006. "We had no real structure when we started, so Shunpike essentially became our business office. They helped out tremendously with grant-writing, licensing and fundraising."

Fife recommended that Sound Theatre eliminate overhead by renting out local theaters. He is also a champion of pooling artists into collectives and raising funds via online crowdsourcing, much the way Kickstarter works, with incremental PayPal donations.

"You might find other organizations that will help support your business, but no one else will support both your business and your artwork," Thuman says. "There's really no other organization like Shunpike."

Soon that may no longer be true. Fife says he may try to export the Shunpike model. "The strength is that it's a very local approach," he says, "but there's no reason it can't be repeated in other cities."

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

* - do you own a business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

[Via - Entrepreneur.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

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

The Most Cost Effective Way To Advertise Your Online Business

2011-11-06T23:49:00.001-08:00

Would you like us to write about your business? We are offering a deal that no other blog owners do – for $30, review of your business, site or service will appear on NicheGeek, Uncommon Business Blog, MadConomist, PickyDomains (News/Blog section) and Sahio.Com. Pageranks for these sites vary from 2 to 4 and combined daily readership is around 2500-3000 unique visitors.

So essentially, you are getting links and visitors from 5 different well ranked and widely read blogs for six bucks each. Our requirements are as follows:

1. Legitimate websites only. No MLM, no e-books, no scams
2. No SEO links (unless applicable). You’ll get a link that will be your URL address.
3. We do our own review
4. Payments are done via PayPal.
If you are interested, send us an email to david[AT]DepriceDotCom with URL of your website.

IWearYourThirt.Com Review

2011-11-06T01:48:00.000-07:00

Link Of The Day - Product Naming

http://www.iwearyourshirt.com/

Jason Sadler previous worked for advertising agencies, sports organizations, and co-owned a web design company. His desire to start a home-based business inspired him to launch IWearYourShirt.com, a website giving businesses the opportunity to be promoted via social media. While services like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Ustream are accessible to everyone, it's not always easy for businesses to have content created for them or to find an audience waiting to consume that content.

IWearYourShirt.com takes the simplicity of wearing a T-shirt everyday and combines it with content creation and social media promotion on a daily basis. The site launched on January 1, 2009 with a unique pricing model. The cost of January 1st was set at $1, and each day thereafter the price increased by $1 until December 31, which was purchased for $365. When 2010 sold out in August of 2009, Jason knew he needed a new twist, so he added a second shirt wearer and doubled the pricing. Two people wore shirts for the same company each day in 2010. Jason created YouTube videos and Ustream live video shows, took photos, and shared information about daily companies through Facebook and Twitter. 2011 has continued the trend in pricing structure and amount of T-shirt wearers. 5 people are wearing T-shirts for a living this year, all for the same company each day and at $5 increasing per day.

Jason promotes his home-based business primarily through word-of-mouth, with the exception of using small text-ad placements in Peter Shankman's HARO emails. His customers range from small mom and pop businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Wearing shirts for a living for two years has been quite an achievement for Jason Sadler, but so has being nominated for multiple Social Media awards, being featured on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric and being called "the entrepreneur of the century" by Fox Business.

Jason and his four new hires consider working from home both challenging and exciting. Without a strict schedule, they aren't held down by working until certain times, and it gives them the freedom to spend time trying to grow a community that their clients can benefit from. Jason hopes IWearYourShirt.com will become a strong alternative to other forms of advertising and continue to deliver excellent value to its customers for a fraction of similar advertising costs.

[Via - Home Business Magazine]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your business, too.

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

10+ Unusual Ways To Make Easy Money On The Internet If You Love Writing.

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 - Product Naming

Ban On Mobiles Leads To Unusual Business Opportunity

2011-11-01T01:26:00.000-07:00

School bans on cell phones are dialing dollars for one savvy entrepreneur.

Vernon Alcoser has cornered the mobile market at two Bronx schools, where students pay $1 a day to keep their cell phones in the trucks he parks nearby.

"It's better than trying to sneak your phone in," said Tatyana James, a freshman at Herbert H. Lehman High School who pays Alcoser's company, Pure Loyalty Electronic Device Storage, to baby-sit her BlackBerry during class.

As far as Alcoser knows, his phone storage trucks are the city's first. Parked across from Lehman on E. Tremont Ave. and DeWitt Clinton High School on Mosholu Parkway, they serve more than 700 students each day.

"It makes the students and parents feel better to know their phones are safe," said Alcoser, 38, a correction officer who lives on Webb Ave. in the Bronx.

The city Department of Education banned electronic devices in 1998, cracking down on cell phones in 2005, said spokeswoman Marge Feinberg.

But not all schools enforce the ban the same way.

For years, Lehman students brought their phones to school, hiding them during class, said Lehman junior Jenifer Espinal. But this September, the school installed metal detectors.

Alcoser hit on the idea of a mobile phone-mobile two months ago, after hearing Lehman parent Jeanette Millan complain about the ban. Her son calls to check in after football practice.

"I need to know where my child is at all times," she said. "He takes two trains and a bus to get home. It's dangerous out there."

Cell phones disrupt learning, said Feinberg. But students use their phones to stay safe and have fun after school, Alcoser said.

"I need my phone in case someone tries to hold me up or stab me," said Lehman sophomore Justin Ginorio. "I can call for help."

Tatyana, 14, is hung up on her smart phone. On her long bus ride home from school, she uses the phone to text message friends and post Twitter updates and says it "gives me something to do."

Local bodegas have provided cell phone baby-sitting for a fee since the ban went into effect. But Espinal called Pure Loyalty a safer and "more convenient" option.

To prevent theft, students are photographed with their phones every morning and use ticket stubs to retrieve them after school. Tatyana said some students sneak their phones past Lehman's metal detectors. But only parents are allowed to retrieve confiscated phones.

"I'd rather pay a dollar than take that risk," she said.

Pure Loyalty's success has surprised Alcoser, but not employee Jonathan Ortiz, who graduated from Lehman last spring. "These kids can't live without their phones."

Five Restaurant Name Ideas

How Six Famous Domains Got Their Names

Coupons For Godaddy

Product Naming

Business Name Help

Got A Tank To Fix?

2011-10-29T03:23:00.000-07:00

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://www.site.ww2mv.com/

Steve Gorham has spent most of his life renovating homes. Now, he restores World War II tanks.

"It's a one-of-a-kind job," Gorham said yesterday while taking a break from working on a Czech OT-810 halftrack at Northeast Military Vehicle Services in Milford. "I wake up every morning and am excited to go to work."

Gorham, 49, of Upton, was an unemployed carpenter three years ago when he discovered Northeast, a new company founded by Shrewsbury resident Andrew Sanclemente. The company started in Hopkinton but moved to Milford, near Interstate 495, about a year and a half ago.

Sanclemente, 41, a software engineer, has been collecting World War II vehicles since the mid-1990s. As he became immersed in his hobby, he realized there was a need for a business that restores the historic combat machinery.

"I was fascinated with the equipment," Sanclemente said as the buzz of a saw reverberated throughout the company's warehouse. "When you're driving these, you really understand what it was like for soldiers."

Sanclemente's father, Alphonse, grew up in the Plains section of Milford and was a mechanic in the Army Air Corps in World War II.

Repairs vary significantly in cost and can take a few days for quick fixes or several months for major jobs such as the Czech halftrack, which Sanclemente and his crew of four full-time employees and several part-time workers are turning into a German tank.

Most people collect tanks to display at parades, shows and other events. But the Texas man who owns the halftrack has a more unusual use: wild hog hunting.

Although the halftrack - an armored vehicle with wheels and tracks - is getting extensive renovation, tiny indentations made when the machine was peppered with enemy bullets will not be restored.

"They add character," Sanclemente said. "You remember what the soldiers went through."

His company repairs vehicles from throughout the world. The biggest challenge is finding parts for the equipment - any part that cannot be found is made from scratch, a process that often begins with making a wooden template.

Although rewarding, Sanclemente said collecting military vehicles is an expensive hobby. A World War II tank can cost between $150,000 and $500,000. German tanks, which are very rare, can cost more than $1 million.

The machines were among the first items some collectors sold during the recession, which hit as Sanclemente was trying to establish his new business.

"The economy has not helped at all," he said, noting the price of tanks has dropped 25 percent in recent years. "You've got to find that niche."

Joe DiAntonio, a Milford resident and World War II Navy veteran, praised the company for keeping history alive. Seeing the tanks at shows and parades should get people thinking about the sacrifices soldiers are making right now in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.

"By at least having these vehicles around, it makes people aware of what they are going through," DiAntonio said. "When you see the size of the tank and the gun coming out, think, 'This is what our boys are going through every day.' "

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

[Via - Milford Daily News]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your business, too.

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

10+ Unusual Ways To Make Easy Money On The Internet If You Love Writing.

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

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

10 Books Like Freakonomics

2011-10-28T00:28:00.000-07:00

Did you like Freakonomics? Here is a list of 10 books like Freakonomics

1. Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics

In Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets, Bonner and freelance journalist Lila Rajiva use literary economics to offer broader insights into mass behavior and its devastating effects on society. Why is it, they ask, that perfectly sane and responsible individuals can get together, and by some bizarre alchemy turn into an irrational mob? What makes them trust charlatans and demagogues who manipulate their worst instincts? Why do they abandon good sense, good behavior and good taste when an empty slogan is waved in front of them. Why is the road to hell paved with so many sterling intentions? Why is there a fool on every corner and a knave in every public office?

2. A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds, and the Perils of Financial Innovation

Why do markets keep crashing and why are financial crises greater than ever before? As the risk manager to some of the leading firms on Wall Street–from Morgan Stanley to Salomon and Citigroup–and a member of some of the world’s largest hedge funds, from Moore Capital to Ziff Brothers and FrontPoint Partners, Rick Bookstaber has seen the ghost inside the machine and vividly shows us a world that is even riskier than we think. The very things done to make markets safer, have, in fact, created a world that is far more dangerous. From the 1987 crash to Citigroup closing the Salomon Arb unit, from staggering losses at UBS to the demise of Long-Term Capital Management, Bookstaber gives readers a front row seat to the management decisions made by some of the most powerful financial figures in the world that led to catastrophe, and describes the impact of his own activities on markets and market crashes. Much of the innovation of the last 30 years has wreaked havoc on the markets and cost trillions of dollars.

3. Poop Culture: How America Is Shaped by Its Grossest National Product

Poop Culture is an excellent book about a topic that is largely (and unfairly) ignored. Perhaps the greatest asset and the greatest weakness of the book is its breadth. The author covers many different approaches to the topic–from the psycho-social elements of poop (i.e. shame) to the history of the toilet to cultural symbolism to poop in art to the economic/ecologic effects of the way we as a society deal with our poop. It’s at once odd and heartwarming to see a diagram of the best way to poop (squatting) or talk of South Park in the same book that also contains theoretical musings on Jonathan Swift and Marcel Duchamp.

4. The Logic of Life: The Rational Economics of an Irrational World

I think that I have read all of the recent “economics of everything” (Harford’s phrase) books and this one is, in my view, the best. I also try to keep up with recent research in applied economics and found some gems in these pages that I had missed. The author alludes to about 200 papers and books from recent economics research and presents them in the most reader-friendly way, all in about 200 pages. I call that very efficient. Harford’s summary is also a useful antidote to all the “behavioral economics” that the popular press has picked up. The idea that some of us depart from rational choice on occasion is hardly news. The point of this book, that the rational choice model, has amazing power range is worth reiterating.

5. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon warned that our minds are wired to deceive us. “Beware the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall–they are the real distorting prisms of human nature.” Chief among them: “Assuming more order than exists in chaotic nature.” Now consider the typical stock market report: “Today investors bid shares down out of concern over Iranian oil production.” Sigh. We’re still doing it.

6. The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas

The book indeed is like Freakonomics in that its purpose is to reveal the economic rational behind everyday matters. It is different from Freakonomics in that it follows a “top-down” approach: each of the book’s chapters corresponds to a basic economic principle (for example supply and demand for a chapter, and signals and asymmetric information for another) that is explained via real world examples. So if one can say that the goal of Freakonomics was in reaching the bottom reason/motive of particular phenomena, it can also be said that the goal of The Economic Naturalist is to elicit fundamental economic principles through questions and answers. In this sense the book is more educational.

7. Discover Your Inner Economist: Use Incentives to Fall in Love, Survive Your Next Meeting, and Motivate Your Dentist

The book is full of fascinating stories in which psychology meets economics. The author applies the above concepts and ideas to a wide, wide variety of everyday situations, such as chess, doing the dishes, UN diplomat parking violations, bonuses in the workplace, petty crime, expercise programs, student drinking, tardiness, RSVP’s, meetings, going to museums, buying paintings, reading, buying music, toilet seat positions (a very, very important topic), gift giving, pickup lines, personal ads, marriage, being tortured, recognizing liars, gym memberships, shopping, eating and restaurants and getting the best food, “The Seven Deadly Sins”, sexual intercourse, beggars, charitable giving, and tipping. WHEW! WOW!

8. The Wisdom of Crowds

In 1906, Francis Galton, known for his work on statistics and heredity, came across a weight-judging contest at the West of England Fat Stock and Poultry Exhibition. This encounter was to challenge the foundations of his life’s study. An ox was on display and for six-pence fair-goers could buy a stamped and numbered ticket, fill in their names and their guesses of the animal’s weight after it had been slaughtered and dressed. The best guess received a prize. Eight hundred people tried their luck. They were diverse. Many had no knowledge of livestock; others were butchers and farmers. In Galton’s mind this was a perfect analogy for democracy. He wanted to prove the average voter was capable of very little. Yet to his surprise, when he averaged the guesses, the total came to 1197 pounds. After the ox had been slaughtered, it weighted 1198. James Surowiecki takes Galton’s counterintuitive notion and explores its ramification for business, government, science and the economy. It is a book about the world as it is. At the same time, it is a book about the world as it might be. Most of us believe that valuable nuggets of knowledge are concentrated in few minds. We believe the solution to our complex problems lies in finding the right person. When all we have to do, Surowiecki demonstrates over and over, is ask the gathered crowd.

9. The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

Like Thoreau and the band Devo, psychology professor Schwartz provides ample evidence that we are faced with far too many choices on a daily basis, providing an illusion of a multitude of options when few honestly different ones actually exist. The conclusions Schwartz draws will be familiar to anyone who has flipped through 900 eerily similar channels of cable television only to find that nothing good is on. Whether choosing a health-care plan, choosing a college class or even buying a pair of jeans, Schwartz, drawing extensively on his own work in the social sciences, shows that a bewildering array of choices floods our exhausted brains, ultimately restricting instead of freeing us. We normally assume in America that more options (”easy fit” or “relaxed fit”?) will make us happier, but Schwartz shows the opposite is true, arguing that having all these choices actually goes so far as to erode our psychological well-being. Part research summary, part introductory social sciences tutorial, part self-help guide, this book offers concrete steps on how to reduce stress in decision making. Some will find Schwartz’s conclusions too obvious, and others may disagree with his points or find them too repetitive, but to the average lay reader, Schwartz’s accessible style and helpful tone is likely to aid the quietly desperate.

10. Crimes Against Logic

This book deserves the widest possible exposure in America, especially so close to the election, because it an excellent primer on how to guard yourself against the faulty reasoning that governs so much modern political discourse - and avoid adopting it yourself. I first heard about the book because one of its points was mentioned in an essay. The point was basically that just because someone has a motive to hold a certain position doesn’t necessarily mean that the position is false. This seemed pretty obvious, but as I turned to the media I was amazed at how often politicians use this method, and how easily I had accepted their claims if they lined up with my political preferences.

[Via - MadConomist.com]

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

Site X Review

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea

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

Coupons For Godaddy

Product Naming

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

SiteX Review

2011-10-26T03:13:00.000-07:00

Fwix.Com

2011-10-26T03:02:00.000-07:00

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://fwix.com/

Revenue 2010: $1 million
Revenue 2011 (projected): $5 million

Darian Shirazi was on a train in Bosnia during a trip through through Eastern Europe when homesickness set in. He not only wanted to know what was happening back in his native California, but also in the lands he was passing through. He began thinking of ways to organize news online by the places to which it was relevant. Shirazi, a veteran of Facebook and eBay who dropped out of University of California-Berkeley, launched Fwix in October 2008 as a news aggregator that attaches locations to online content, a process known as geotagging. “We take an article and determine that piece of content’s location or where it’s talking about,” Shirazi says. Fwix then sells that data to companies, including Groupon, the New York Times, and NBC, that use it to target online ads to local consumers. The 25-employee company has 10 clients and handles 300 million data queries per month, Shirazi says. Although he's raised $6.75 million in venture capital, the name Fwix is a mark of leaner days. “I didn’t have a ton of money, and I wanted to buy a cheap domain [name],” Shirazi says. It doesn’t mean anything

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

[Via - BusinessWeek.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

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

10+ Unusual Ways To Make Easy Money On The Internet If You Love Writing.

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

Site of the day - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

City Slips Shoes

2011-10-24T03:35:00.000-07:00

Post sponsor - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

http://cityslips.com/

What it does: Sells portable shoes
Founders: Katie Shea, 24, and Susie Levitt, 24 (pictured left to right)
Based: New York
Revenue 2010: $1 million
Revenue 2011 (projected): $1.2 million

After watching countless women walk home barefoot at the end of a long night in heels, New York University finance students Susie Levitt and Katie Shea started a company to make easily portable shoes. Working with contract designers and manufacturers in the U.S. and China, they created a pair of flats that fold up to fit into a pocket-sized zip pouch. When women pop on the shoes, the pouch unfurls into a tote bag to carry the high heels they just shed. The pair began selling CitySlips in 2009 and are now in 500 retailers, including Neiman Marcus, Dillard's, and Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY). Shea says they have broad appeal: “A 16-year-old leaving her senior prom will grab a pair of CitySlips and put them in her clutch bag, and then there’s my grandmother who will wear them leaving church." Launched with $15,000 in personal savings and a $100,000 private loan, CitySlips sells shoes that retail for $10 to $58, depending on the style and material. Shea says the company turned a profit in 2010 and now has about five independent sales reps, but Shea and Levitt remain the only full-time employees.

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

[Via - BusinessWeek.com]

* - do you own a web-based business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

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

Post sponsor - PickyDomains.com, world's first risk free naming agency

MyHolySmoke.Com - Shoot Your Loved One

2011-10-20T01:42:00.000-07:00

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

http://www.myholysmoke.com/

Sometimes, the best way to remember those who've passed on to the great unknown is to look at photographs. Or write a poem. Or leave flowers at their headstone. Or shoot them out of a gun.

Holy Smoke has a very niche business. For $1,250, they'll cram the incinerated leftovers of your dead amigo into a nice load of ammo. And there's something for everyone! One pound of human ash plus your bereaved cash will yield 250 shotgun shells, 100 rifle cartridges, or 250 pistol cartridges. But wait, there's more:

(Mantle-worthy, finished, wooden handcrafted boxes with labels are available for an additional $100.00 per box for either shotshells or cartridges.)

And what will those labels say, I wonder? "My aunt is in these shotgun shells."

An account of the company's creation by one of its founders reveals that he is clearly some sort of lunatic:

My friend smiled and said "You know I've thought about this for some time and I want to be cremated. Then I want my ashes put into some turkey load shotgun shells and have someone that knows how to turkey hunt use the shotgun shells with my ashes to shoot a turkey. That way I will rest in peace knowing that the last thing that one turkey will see is me, screaming at him at about 900 feet per second."

Yes, this sounds normal and not at all fucking creepy and sick. If I could have my ashes inserted inside a hydrogen bomb, however, then we'd be talking.

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

* - do you own a business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

[Via - Gizmodo]

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

Site X Review

2011-10-17T07:05:00.000-07:00

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

Site X is currently the most popular online design contest marketplace. Like others, it relies on the concept of crowd sourcing in bringing together a pool of designers from all over the world and small to medium-sized businesses, which needs design solutions. While it’s hard not to be impressed with Site X, it’s also hard not to realize that the “design crowd” concept is not exactly an innovation these days - having people work on your designs before you select which designer will get paid has become essentially commonplace.

If we’re going to give this Site X review all the attention it deserves, we’re going to have to judge it based on its own merits and compare how those merits stack up to others. And how does it stack up?

Cost.
Site X is definitely an invaluable site for anyone trying to start up businesses. The site runs on crowd sourcing – designers compete to win your business. The amount you will end up paying for the winning design (listing fee, 10% of the prize and the offered prize) will usually be cheaper compared to the amount you will be paying for hiring a professional designer, plus you get to see way more variety of designs.

Risks.
Money-Back Guarantee. This feature is available if you opted for holding a regular contest. With any regular contest, if you do not like any of the submitted designs, you have the option not to choose choose one and you get your money back.

Difficulty.
Easy To Use. The project creation area for contest holders is very intuitive and quite simple and user-friendly. One nice feature I like is how it gives you an estimate of the expected number of submissions based on the budget you entered.

How Many Samples Should You Expect?
Huge Pool of Quality Designers. Crowd sourcing is not crowd sourcing without a crowd. If there is one thing particularly impressive with Site X, it is that you get a lot of designer participation. Site X has a HUGE pool of actively participating designers, many who are quite good In fact, a guaranteed prize contest can have as much as 1100+ entries. This in itself beats paying one overpriced in-house designer.

BlackSocks.Com Review

New Domain Parking Strategy Increases Payouts Up To 1000%

Revolights.Com Review

Business Name Generator

IconWanted.Com - The Search For Free Icons Is Over

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

Socks By Mail

2011-10-16T05:50:00.000-07:00

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

http://www.blacksocks.com

Forget all that business about Twitter, BlackBerry apps, and the Palm Pre: the real news is that BlackSocks.com, which has sold over a million socks through the mail in Europe, has come to the U.S. For the not-too-bad price of $89 annually, you can get three pairs of men's calf-length socks mailed to you every four months.

That's not all the company sells. You can get a subscription for knee-length socks for $115, cashmere calf-length socks for $229, and ankle socks for $89. The company is locked into only selling black socks by a URL that probably seems a little limiting to them now. However, the site also sells Euro-style underwear by subscription, as well. You can order a "trial pack" of any items from the site, if you're not ready for the commitment of a year's subscription.

So far, over 80,000 people in 70 different countries decided to buy 'sockscription' to this service.

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

* - do you own a business? We'd like to profile your website, too.

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

We Want To Write About Your Business!

2011-10-15T08:45:00.000-07:00

10 Great Books About Underground Economy, Working Under The Table And Surviving When Economy Sucks

2011-10-13T03:02:00.000-07:00

1. Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor

In this revealing study of a Southside Chicago neighborhood, sociologist Venkatesh opens a window on how the poor live. Focusing on domestics, entrepreneurs, hustlers, preachers and gangs linked in an underground economy that “manages to touch all households,” the book reveals how residents struggle between “their desires to live a just life and their needs to make ends meet as best they can.” In this milieu, African-American mechanics, painters, hairdressers, musicians and informal security guards are linked to prostitutes, drug dealers, gun dealers and car thieves in illegal enterprises that even police and politicians are involved in, though not all are criminals in the usual sense. Storefront clergy, often dependent “on the underground for their own livelihood,” serve as mediators and brokers between individuals and gang members, who have “insinuated themselves—and their drug money—into the deepest reaches of the community.” Although the book’s academic tenor is occasionally wearying, Venkatesh keeps his work vital and poignant by using the words of his subjects, who are as dependent on this intricate web as they are fearful of its dangers.

2. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Economics is not widely considered to be one of the sexier sciences. The annual Nobel Prize winner in that field never receives as much publicity as his or her compatriots in peace, literature, or physics. But if such slights are based on the notion that economics is dull, or that economists are concerned only with finance itself, Steven D. Levitt will change some minds. In Freakonomics (written with Stephen J. Dubner), Levitt argues that many apparent mysteries of everyday life don’t need to be so mysterious: they could be illuminated and made even more fascinating by asking the right questions and drawing connections. For example, Levitt traces the drop in violent crime rates to a drop in violent criminals and, digging further, to the Roe v. Wade decision that preempted the existence of some people who would be born to poverty and hardship. Elsewhere, by analyzing data gathered from inner-city Chicago drug-dealing gangs, Levitt outlines a corporate structure much like McDonald’s, where the top bosses make great money while scores of underlings make something below minimum wage. And in a section that may alarm or relieve worried parents, Levitt argues that parenting methods don’t really matter much and that a backyard swimming pool is much more dangerous than a gun. These enlightening chapters are separated by effusive passages from Dubner’s 2003 profile of Levitt in The New York Times Magazine, which led to the book being written. In a book filled with bold logic, such back-patting veers Freakonomics, however briefly, away from what Levitt actually has to say. Although maybe there’s a good economic reason for that too, and we’re just not getting it yet.

3. Ragnar’s Guide to the Underground Economy

Through detailed case studies Ragnar shows you how carpenters, woodcutters, farmers, housecleaners, computer consultants, mechanics, lawyers, vendors, locksmiths and others are cashing in on today’s booming economy - and keeping what they earn by not paying taxes. From these undergrounders you’ll learn how to locate work, get paid without supplying identifying numbers, prepare a realistic budget, advertise your services or product and finance your project when you can’t go to the bank. You’ll also learn the pitfalls of working off the books and what you can do to prepare for them.

4. How to Survive Without a Salary: Learning How to Live the Conserver Lifestyle

I thought that this book was so funny in places that I haven’t laughed so hard, so much, for a long time. Charles is a skilled writer; the book is very readable, intelligent, thoughtful,and well organized. It contains a copious (even prodigious) amount of tips, for a 200-page book. Very practical, and at the same time touches on abtruse philosophical areas, especially at the end of the book.

Hey, I used to think I was cheap. This guy is CHEAP. His anecdotes include waiting for it to rain to take a shower instead of installing indoor plumbing. He had a big hole in the floor of his entryway, or somewhere in his house, into which the kids and a few guests fell. He refused to spend one cent covering the hole, until a neighbor told him about a steel grate they threw away years ago, so he went to the dump and found it.

The point is that you can learn from a top-notch “conserver”; an applied example I would give is to buy two gallons of milk when it’s on sale and freeze one for later use (works well!). This guy probably drinks powdered milk though.

I disagree with his economic analysis; prudence CAN be a vice, as any virtue most certainly is in its extreme, or even overdone. But Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations is not just about “McPimple Burger” or keeping up with the Joneses. Any system on a mass scale is going to have gaping faults, and the weaker of us might succumb to our basest impulses. But perhaps Long goes a bit too far the other way…

At any rate, he sounds like an economic anarchist. Very well thought out book, great advice.

5. Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets

In Freakonomics, many people were fascinated by a section that described how most crack cocaine dealers lived at home with their mothers. Why? They make less money than minimum wage. The source of that factoid was research conducted on site by Sudhir Venkatesh, author of Gang Leader for a Day, who describes in this book how he did that research and came to make decisions one day for part of the Black Kings gang in Chicago.

In the process of reading this book, you’ll learn more than you ever expected to know about the ways that the poorest people support and protect themselves. You’ll also find how drug-dealing gangs are both a help and a hindrance to the poor.

More powerfully, you’ll be exposed to the great difficulties involved in observing the lives of the poor and the gangs that spring from them. The moral and ethical dilemmas this book presents are almost beyond belief.

6. Under the Table and Into Your Pocket: The How and Why of the Underground Economy

Under The Table And Into Your Pocket: The How And Why Of The Underground Economy by Bill Wilson will provide the non-specialist general reader with a complete education on a facet of the American economy rarely (if ever) covered in school. Beginning with an introduction to just some of the ways governmental regulations strangle business, overtax the little guy, and enable Washington to be the drunken big spender that it is today (if you overpay your taxes by $7,000 and don’t reclaim it within three years you’re out of luck - but underpay it by $7,000 and the IRS can and will come after you no matter how much time has passed!), Under The Table proceeds to demonstrate how the little guy can circumvent taxes by doing business away from Big Brother’s prying eyes. From boarding houses and flea markets to roadside merchants and dominatrix work, Under The Table covers the benefits, disadvantages, tips, tricks, techniques and much more of common underground ways to earn a living. Under The Table is emphatically not a legal guide; neither the author nor the publisher assume any responsibility for the use or misuse of information contained within - but the eye-opening ins and outs of a truly free economy make for quite fascinating and advantageous reading.

7. Deep Inside the Underground Economy: How Millions of Americans are Practising Free Enterprise in an Unfree Economy

Are you fed up with giving so much of your hard earned cash to the government, then watching it get spent on ridiculous pork-barrel special-interest projects? Would you like to hold on to more of your money for your own special-interest boondoggles? The underground economy continues to grow in spite of ever-widening atttempts by the government to regulate and tax everything we do. Millions of Americans are practising fee enterprise in today’s increasingly unfree tax society. This is the most comprehensive how-to book ever written for those entrepreneurial individuals who have decided to end their slavery to a wage and to government taxation as well. Discover how you can keep more of what you earn for yourself. Here you will find complete and up-to-date information on the ins and outs of guerrilla capitalism and the underground economy in this country.

8. Empire of Scrounge: Inside the Urban Underground of Dumpster Diving, Trash Picking, and Street Scavenging.

In December of 2001 Jeff Ferrell quit his job as tenured professor, moved back to his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, and, with a place to live but no real income, began an eight-month odyssey of essentially living off of the street. Empire of Scrounge tells the story of this unusual journey into the often illicit worlds of scrounging, recycling, and second-hand living. Existing as a dumpster diver and trash picker, Ferrell adopted a way of life that was both field research and free-form survival. Riding around on his scrounged BMX bicycle, Ferrell investigated the million-dollar mansions, working-class neighborhoods, middle class suburbs, industrial and commercial strips, and the large downtown area, where he found countless discarded treasures, from unopened presents and new clothes to scrap metal and even food.

9. McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld

In McMafia, Misha Glenny draws the dark map that lies on the other side of Tom Friedman’s bright flat world. That connected globe not only brings software coders and supply-chain outsourcers closer together; it’s also opened the gates to a criminal network of unsettling vastness, complexity, and efficiency that represents a fifth of the earth’s economy, trading in everything from untaxed cigarettes and the usual narcotics to human lives and nuclear material. Glenny’s a Balkans expert, and he begins his story there, with the illicit–but often state-sponsored–underworld that grew out of the post-Soviet chaos, but he soon follows the contraband everywhere from Mumbai and Johannesburg to rural Colombia and the U.S. suburbs. It’s not just a hodgepodge of scare clips, though: Glenny reports from the ground but follows the leads as high as they go, showing how the dark and bright sides of the flat world are more connected than we imagine.

10. Living Well on Practically Nothing

Living Well on Practically Nothing: Revised and Updated Edition is for people who need to live on a lot less money. If you have been fired, demoted, retired, divorced, widowed, bankrupted or swindled - or you just want to quit your job and remain financially self-reliant - this book is for you. In it are hundreds of tips, secrets and necessary skills for living well on little money. Chapters include: Save Up to $37,000 a Year and Live on $12,000 a Year; Low-Cost Computers for Fun, Profit, and Education; Some Ways to Live on No Money at All; A Day of Cheap Living; A New Career or Business for You; Fix Things and Make Them Last; and Protect Your Investments and Make Them Grow. From cover to cover, this book is stocked with proven methods for saving money on shelter, food, clothing, transportation, entertainment, health care and more. The author left the “system” in 1969 and has worked for himself ever since. Let him show you how you, too, can live happily, comfortably and with complete financial freedom.

Woman Creates Fashion Line For People With Down Syndrome

2011-10-12T01:36:00.000-07:00

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

http://www.downsdesigns.com/

When Karen Bowersox’s granddaughter was born with Down syndrome, she saw the challenges her mother faced trying to find clothes that fit her properly. After extensive research she still could not find any clothes made specifically for people with Down syndrome and so took matters into her own hands, launching her own fashion line Downs Designs.

Bowersox’s goal is to produce clothes for people with Down syndrome that suit their body shape as well as being stylish. In 2010, she hired a designer to develop a new size of clothing which she calls “down sizing”. They started with a basic range of adult-size jeans and long-sleeved t-shirts, and used Down syndrome models to ensure the sizing was correct. Many factories were reluctant to produce their designs due to the irregular sizing, but they soon found a willing supplier in China. Sample garments were taken to the National Down Syndrome Conference in Florida, in order to get feedback and make final adjustments. The products proved popular — with easy-to-use fasteners and specific tailoring around the knees and elbows — and are now available to buy via the website. There are full instructions online about taking measurements and calculating sizes, and free phone consultations are available. Sale items start at USD 30 and the range covers adults, teens and kids. Downs Designs have plans to expand with more designs and a range of outerwear.

As we’ve seen many times in the past, personal experience is so often the catalyst for innovative solutions. One to be inspired by!

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

The Pioneer Woman

2011-10-10T01:43:00.000-07:00

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

http://thepioneerwoman.com/

Ree Drummond, known to many as the Pioneer Woman, is a mom with an amazing family on a ranch who decided to start a blog detailing their adventures. She didn’t spend tons of money to set up a website, and she didn’t have a major plan, except to share with others about her everyday life on the ranch, as a pioneer woman. She knew who her target audience would be, and she built an audience because she’s real. Ree Drummond can relate to many women, and people trust her. She has developed a large following from her website and blog. She was able to launch a cookbook, and this opens the door to reach even more people. She is now known all over the place, as a respected cook, a writer, a standout mom, and now has her own cooking show on the Food Network. She found her niche and went for it.

As a woman you have to figure out what your strengths are, and prove why you deserve to be standing by the men in your field. The most important thing is to be true to yourself, and that means being you. Stick to what you do best and you can never go wrong.

For more unusual ways to make money, read how PickyDomains.com helps find a business name.

[Via - Forbes]

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

BenePark Review

2011-10-04T04:06:00.000-07:00

http://benepark.com

BenePark.Com is a recently launched Finnish domain parking service where 90% of all accepted sites get at least $5 in ad revenue each and every month. This is 5 to 10 times the industry average. Most parking services (like Sedo.com, for example) simply load the page with ads, which immediately leads to Google downgrading domain to a ‘junk’ status. Which, in turn, leads to domain being omitted in the search engine results. And that means that such companies are capable of monetizing type-in traffic only.

BenePark.Com takes a different approach. First, domains have to be approved, prior to being accepted into the system. Then BenePark turns an empty domain into a regular webpage. This is done by placing relevant content onto the page, which is not limited to text only – videos, for example, are added as well. As a result of this ‘transformation’, domains parked with BenePark turn into regular sites. Because content is updated and new links are been placed for the parked domain, search engines start treating them as regular sites. Which means that type-in traffic isn’t the only type of traffic for BenePark domains, as over time domain’s pagerank and search engine traffic increase.

If you have domains you’ve purchased and don’t plan to develop soon, consider parking them with BenePark.com

Revolights

2011-10-04T01:39:00.000-07:00

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

http://revolights.com/

The idea for Revolights came to inventor Kent Frankovich as he rode his bike in the dark, and wondered why the headlight — meant to illuminate the path he was cycling on — was so far away from the ground. His research led him to some gruesome statistics revealing that the majority of nighttime bike-car collisions are due to cyclists’ inadequate side visibility, as well as drivers’ inability to recognize bicycles on the road. This pointed to a need for “a single product that combines path illumination and effective, unique signaling (I am a bike) to shared road traffic” with the aim of significantly increasing biker safety.

Frankovich and his team have been developing a prototype that consists of two hoops containing LEDs, that clip onto bicycle rims. The lights blink on and off at a rate controlled by the speed of the cyclist, and are powered by lithium-ion battery packs mounted to the hub. The effect is that front half of the front wheel and rear half of the rear wheel are illuminated, which projects light both in front, behind and to the side, increasing visibility for the cyclist while making them visible to others on the road. The project was launched on Kickstarter in August, where it quickly exceeded its funding target of USD 43,500 by over USD 160,000. Revolights hopes that the product will be available by the end of the year, at a suggested price of USD 220.

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

[Via - SpringWise.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

How Atomic Lead Extractor Can Help Marketing Specialists?

2011-10-02T03:55:00.000-07:00

What are the responsibilities of a marketing specialist? They plan, design and execute marketing campaigns that are meant to help the company increase their sales. They do market research and prepare reports about new products and new trends on the market. They also analyze effectiveness of various marketing campaigns and do lots of other routine work. Those who have first-hand experience with marketing know that the most tiresome and time-consuming task is searching for new contacts, creating a database of potential clients and partners. The time spent on these tasks can be used for a more creative work.

I know that marketing specialists hate such boring tasks as searching for new contacts! There are quite a few ways to automate it and Atomic Lead Extractorseems to be a very good solution. With this software sales staff and marketers can improve their efficiency and let the software find contact information of prospects and partners. Atomic Lead Extractorcan find and save email addresses, phone numbers, Skype, MSN, Yahoo, AIMandICQ usernames.

One way to use the software is to enter the URL of the website(s) you are interested in and have Atomic Lead Extractor scan them for contact information. You can also enter some keywords and the software will use search engines to find websites that match your query and then quickly extract the data you need.

Atomic Lead Extractor will be a good help for everyone who is interested in finding new partners and customers. With this software marketers can avoid manual search for information on the web. Since the process is automated it will take minutes and not hours.

With this product you can find clients for any business, for examples, an online shop, a café, hotel, real estate agency or a car wash. Imagine you opened a coffee bar and want to attract new clients. With Atomic Lead Extractor you can gather information about the registered users of your city forum and then send mass emails or bulk SMS inviting them to visita new place in their city. The key is to offer a promo code so that your message is perceived as valuable and you could track results.

The software can export the collected data to Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, text files or clipboard. In case you need more information about the prospect you can see the address of the page where each contact was found.

You can receive more information about Atomic Lead Extractorand download a demo on the vendor’s website.

Bloove.Com - Quite Possible World's Coolest Mobile Agent

2011-10-01T07:08:00.000-07:00

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

http://bloove.com

Bloove is a cool new free mobile backup and content management system. What makes it especially handy is the fact that it requires no hardware whatsoever – no cables, no Bluetooth, no IR ports, etc. The system is entirely is web based. Here is how it works.

First, you create online account. Then you download Bloove agent. Now you are able to manage contents of your mobile phones (contacts, SMS, settings, bookmarks) and save them online. This is also where you can edit things, because this is obviously more convenient than performing the same task with the phone itself.

Should anything happen to your phone (suppose, you lost it, when traveling abroad), you can get a new phone, go online via GPRS, 3G, Wi-Fi, etc, log into your account and have access to all that data. If needed, you simply synchronize or restore data to your mobile. This is MUCH more flexible than the usual ‘back it up onto your PC’ approach.

The only downside is that Bloove is free for one account/one phone only. If you want to have multiple phones linked to one account – that’s gonna cost you $60 a year.

[Via - Uncommon Business Blog]

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

5 Unconventional Ways To Monetize Your Blog

2011-09-30T01:15:00.000-07:00

There are thousands articles out there, teaching you how to monetize your blog. Register with AdSense, offer affiliate products through CPA networks like Commission Junction, place Amazon ads, sell links through TextLinkAds or similar service, etc. There are all acceptable and they do work. But why not get a little bit more creative. Here are five unconventional ways to monetize your blog.

1. Reader Ads

If your blog has a sizable audience, start offering reader ads. Reader ads, as the name implies, are a one line advertisement below a post that say something like ‘Reader Mike is looking to sell his site www.xxx.com for $YYY’. Or ‘Reader Joe is a professional SEO copywriter who charges $x per 1000 symbols’. Or ‘Reader Jane would like to notify everyone that she just started a new blog’. Or ‘Reader Mike is looking to sell his iBook for …’. The key to the success of reader ads and sizable audience and low price. Don’t ask for more than $10 per ad. And do offer two types of deals, $10 for a single reader ad vs $25 for a reader ad that will appear at the end of each post for a week. Do not accept SEO links as reader ads.

2. PickyDomains.com

PickyDomains.com is a risk free naming and branding service. When people can’t think of domain, name or slogan on their own, they place an order with PickyDomains. If PickyDomains contributors come up with a cool name, the client is charged $50. If clients like nothing, they pay nothing. Hence, risk free naming. Where is monetization here? PickyDomains.com offers bloggers up to $30 for a single review, if it meets their criteria (your blog must have PageRank and at least 100 daily readers).

3. oDesk/eLance/Anything Freelance Site

oDesk is a big online marketplace where freelance writers, designers and coders compete for orders. eLance is the same thing and there are many sites like that. Where’s money in that? If your blog is tech related, create a freelance section. Or ‘freelancer of the month’ – anything of that nature. Offer freelancers to get exposure to your audience for a reasonable fee. Only approach freelancers with perfect rating, you don’t want to advertise anyone who might do crappy work.

4. Sell Links/PR Directly

There is no shortage of SEO specialists and they are easy to find. Contact them directly (once again, freelance sites are good for finding them), telling them how much you charge for a link or an article, what you PageRank is, etc. All text link services mark up prices at least 100% (meaning that if you get $10 per link per month they are charging $20 for it), so this is a win-win situation for everybody. Same thing for PR specialists – tell them how much it would cost to publish a press-release on your website and what content you are looking for. PR companies are always looking for sites where they can get publicity inexpensively.

5. Proactive Advertiser Search

You probably have ‘Advertise Here’ section, but no one’s looking, right? Start looking yourself. Let’s say, you blog about startups. Go to KillerStartups.Com or any other site, where new startups are added daily. Find ones that you find interesting and contact them directly with a simple offer – you’d like to review their startup and it’ll cost them $X. Make sure you include all relevant information – what your PageRank is, how much readers you have, how much traffic they can expect, etc. Same approach works with software and mobile phone application developers – they always look for sites that will review their products and if your offer is reasonable, you are likely to get a ‘yes’.

The Ultimate Class Directory

2011-09-29T05:36:00.000-07:00

Myclasses.org is on a worldwide mission to ensure that you will always be able to learn anything that you need to. The website is a social network and a directory that lists various classes and courses in various locations throughout the world. There are also courses that you can take over the internet.

Both teachers and students register on the website and it is through the website that both parties connect and interact. Registering on the site is completely free but enrolling for the courses is usually not, so it is important for the students to look into this before picking a course. Anybody can enroll to take a course through the website and you can enroll for anything from academic and professional courses to dancing and yoga classes.

People hosting seminars and events that will be teaching various skills can also put up posts for these activities on the site. The site can include details such as date, price, location and any other information that will be relevant to those who would wish to attend the events.

10 things you really shouldn’t be doing yourself

2011-09-28T09:34:00.000-07:00

You’ve probably read all those outsourcing and personal productivity articles that give advice like hiring a virtual assistance in India, thinking ‘it’s all fine and dandy, but that has nothing to do with me and my job, I wish there was something to make MY LIFE easier’. Well, chances are, there is. Truth is, there are hundreds, if not thousands, small niche apps, products and services that can make just about any job easier. Here are 10 such services that you’ve probably never heard about. Obviously, you won’t need them all, but I wouldn’t be surprised that at least one on the list will come in handy for your future project.

1. Branding – PickyDomains.com

PickyDomains.com is a risk-free naming service. Here is how it works. If you need new domain/name/slogan, you place an order, deposit $50 and start getting suggestions. When you find the name you decide to use, the service will pay a portion of the money to a person who made the suggestion. If you don’t like any suggestions, you get your money back. No risk involved. PickyDomains has named over 1500 domains so far (DiskScout.Com, Xutta.Com, NadaPay.com, GymGenius.Com, Simplytics.Com, Coderria.Com, Nogeno.Com, just to give you a few examples).

2. Legal – BatesExpress.com

If you don’t have any idea what Bates numbering system is, you are a lucky person. That’s because lawyers, paralegals and clerks have to manually ‘stamp bates’ every single day (otherwise courts won’t accept their documents). Bates Express provides a solution that will automatically apply Bates stamps to any document – e-mail, image, PDF, Word file, HTML page, etc. Bates Express has both free and paid versions.

3. Web Design – 99Designs.com

99Designs is a crowdsourcing service that specializes in creating logos, templates, icons and other types of graphics. Its main advantage is a vast membership of web designers and fairly low prices – for instance, you can buy an original logo from 99Designs for 99 US Dollars. Most other design projects have $295 minimum. 99Designs was a recipient of 2010 Webby award and has been featured in many tech publications with mostly favorable reviews.

4. Intranets – BitrixSoft.com

What Drupal, WordPress or Joomla did for websites, Bitrix is doing to corporate intratnets. Bitrix is the biggest CMS maker you’ve never heard of – because it’s a Russian company (virtually every Russian media, government or corporate site runs on Bitrix – 60,000 in total). While Bitrix is struggling to get more attention abroad, its flagship product Bitrix Intranet 10 is really worth looking into. Essentially, with it, a competent programmer will be able to get corporate intranet up and running in one or two days, complete with employee pages, blogs, forums, messaging , video conferencing, e-mails, corporate wiki, etc. Pricing varies, depending on the size of the intranet.

5. Social Networks – Microworkers

It’s true that you can’t buy love, but likes are on sale at Microworkers.com. When you launch your FaceBook page, you have no friends. It’s easy to get friends and followers for personal pages, but corporate accounts are usually a different story. Nothing is as pathetic as a corporate PR manager with 30/hr pay wasting hours trying to get a few Twitter followers. At Microworkers.com you pay 10 – 15 cents to get people to ‘like’ or ‘follow’ you, so for $50-$100 total your page in a social network will have several hundred community members right from the beginning and have that credibility that leads to a bandwagon effect.

6. Marketing – oDesk.com

oDesk is a lot like 99Designs with a wider range of services offered. What it’s really good for is lead generation and business prospecting. Suppose, you are a lawyer, who works with software companies, writing EULAs, non-disclosure agreements, etc. At oDesk, you can hire a competent task-specific marketer from India, Phillipines, Thailand and other countries with low hourly pay. For instance, your assignment might look like this “You’ll be given a joint e-mail account and an invitation text for a free consultation. You’ll have to go through Yellow pages/Yahoo directory and contact software developers with my offer via e-mail. The pay is 10 cents per e-mail sent.” So now, contacting 1000 prospective clients that would take you several days work is only $100 and can be done by several people you hire in a matter of hours.

7. SEO/PPC – iSpionage.com

If you have a lot of online competition and plan to run a PPC campaign on Google, iSpionage will sure save you a ton of time. Simply enter your competition URL and you’ll find out if they are buying PPC ads or not, and, if yes, how much money they are approximately spending, which keywords they are bidding on, their position, actual texts for their AdWords ads, how much traffic they are getting from organic SEO, etc. The service lets you search up to 10 domains/keywords a day for free. Full access will set you back $59 to $129.

8. Scheduling/To-Do – RememberTheMilk.com

RememberTheMilk (what a perfect name) is a cool online scheduling/task management/To-Do service. The best thing about it is that it’s integrated with everything – iPhone, Android phones, PDAs, Twitter, MS Outlook, Gmail/Google Calendar, Blackberry, etc. So you can enter you schedule/tasks on your home PC and have access to those via phone anywhere. You can also use the app to manage your employees remotely this way. RememberTheMilk is mostly free, but there is a $25 charge for more advanced options (like iPod touch specific interface or synching RTM with Windows Mobile gadgets).

9. Invoicing/Business Processes – SideJobTrack.com

There are quite a few online services that take care of invoicing and other business processes for you. The unique thing about SideJobTrack.com is that it’s specifically designed for part-time contractors or people who do odd jobs on a very irregular basis (like few times a year) and don’t want to invest time/money in regular invoicing/billing apps. It’s very simple and fast, when it comes to creating custom estimate or invoicing templates. It’s also free, despite having most features that similar paid services offer.

10. Software Translation – Transifex.com

When software makers want to sell their programs in Europe, they need the app translated in at least 5 different languages, sometimes as many as 15. Most commonly, developers either ask their users to translate the app in their native language or hire individual translator for each language. Transifex is a free crowdsourcing translation service that was originally created for localizing open source projects (they’ve worked on Firefox, fedora, GNOME, Meego, django etc.) Transifex now offers its services for commercial applications as well – it’s very inexpensive (30 euros per month) and the quality/speed is generally higher than going through regular channels (like eLance).

IconWanted.Com - The Search For Free Icons Is Over

2011-09-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

http://IconWanted.Com

IconWanted.Com is a new cool startup that just might become world’s favorite destination for free icon seekers. As the name implies, IconWanted.com is a free icon search engine and directory and guessing from the 10000+ member Facebook community and 1000 followers on Twitter, the site is quickly catching on with designers.

IconWanted.com utilizes smart search technology for its icon search. For instance, if you need an icon for your play button, you can enter "play", "start", "play button", "run", "go", "execute" and you’ll get the desired result every time.

Currently designers, when looking for free icons, have to visit multiple websites and do multiple searches. Many sites don’t index their icon collections, simply providing names for the icon sets. IconWanted allows both icon creators and non-authors add new free icons and implements strict moderation process, during which all icons are properly labeled and categorized, their free status is verified and old low quality icons are weeded out.

All icons and icon sets are rated one to five stars by users, which further simplifies search, showing which sets and icons are most popular among designers. The directory classifies icons according to purpose (“Games”, “Mobile”, “Social Network”), date of addition, popularity, by designer or in alphabetical order. Also, icons can be browsed by tag, since all icons are tagged during addition. The search can then be further refined by size or desired technical parameters. New icons are added daily.

BatesExpress.Com - Bates Numbering Software

2011-09-21T07:13:00.000-07:00

BatesExpress is a new startup that develops electronic Bates numbering software thatautomates applying Bates stamps in law offices, hospitals, governmentalagencies and other places that rely on Bates numbering system. Invented in 1892and named after Bates Manufacturing Company it has since become a defactostandard for the US legal industry, as many courts will not accept documents,unless they are properly Bates numbered.

Stampingand numbering documents by hand, as practiced in most offices today, is a long,tedious and expensive process, when considering how much time is spent by paralegalsand office managers on this task daily. With Bates Express software, proper stampsare applied automatically to e-mails, images, PDF, Word and HTML documents.

Thesoftware comes with a set of pre-defined most commonly used stamps, but alsohas an option for easy customization of texts and images. And while bigcorporations like Adobe charge thousands for their Bates automation software,Bates Express offers pricing as low as $20 per one seat. The software is alsoavailable for a free 30 day evaluation and can be downloaded fromwww.batesexpress.com.

Short URL Profits

2011-09-14T02:26:00.000-07:00

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

http://nov.io/

Much the way shrtn pays users to shorten and share product links, so UK-based Nov.io does something similar. Whereas shrtn’s service is based on affiliate marketing, however, Nov.io uses ads to make its shortened links generate revenue.

Users begin by registering with Nov.io and then using the site to create shortened URLs for use on their blogs, forums, social networks and personal websites. Nov.io takes it from there by showing an ad before each shortened link loads. Users get paid for every visitor that views an ad; if Nov.io doesn’t have a matching advertiser for the visitor’s country, the shortened link will simply display a non-paying default Nov.io ad instead. Pay rates currently vary between USD 0.37 and USD 5.03 per 1,000 unique visitors in a 24-hour period, depending on country. Users also get 20 percent of the lifetime earnings of any friends they refer.

If there’s any lesson to be learned from the ongoing global recession, it’s that today’s sellsumers appreciate the chance to earn a little extra cash wherever and whenever they can!

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

[Via - SpringWise.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

Verbally App

2011-09-05T03:29:00.000-07:00

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

http://verballyapp.com/

Released in March as an iPad app that speaks typed sentences and words for users who are unable to talk, Verbally has been among the most downloaded free apps for the past few months in iTunes’s medical category. Verbally’s backers, brothers Anil and Gautam Godhwani and their cousin, Ajay Godhwani, are planning to release a more powerful $100 version by early July, though they say the free version will remain free. They’re also working on an assistive app for children for release by yearend. Having co-founded two venture-backed startups, AtWeb (acquired by Netscape for $95 million in 1998) and job site Simply Hired, and nonprofit India Community Center in San Jose, Anil says he structured Intuary, the software firm behind the app, as a social venture to make it easier to raise money and attract talent. While other apps and devices exist, the team says the potential market is big. "It’s definitely a fairly large challenge—not just for folks with ALS [amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; also known as Lou Gehrig's disease] but stroke and so many other illnesses. If you look worldwide, millions of people who need something like this," says Anil. He estimates Intuary will have $500,000 to $1 million in revenue in 2012.

For more unusual ways to make money, read how PickyDomains.com helps find a business name.

[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

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

Promethean Power Systems

2011-09-01T02:40:00.000-07:00

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

http://www.coolectrica.com/

Founded: 2007
Employees: 4
Revenue 2010: $12,000
Revenue 2011 (projected): $36,000

Betting poor dairy farmers in developing countries would benefit from a cheap way to keep their milk cool, the four-year-old business designs, builds, and installs industrial refrigeration systems that run on solar or traditional power. Right now it's selling its $3,000 to $12,000 systems to dairy processors in India, with plans to expand in Southeast Asia in the near future, and eventually Africa and Latin America.

It has sold one system so far to a private dairy processor in Tamil Nadu in southeast India that collects and sells milk from villages. With Promethean's systems it can store milk for longer periods in remote locations, reducing farmers’ expenses. "We saw the opportunity to build a profitable business in India and at the same time do good," improving the market so individual dairy farmers could charge more for their milk, says co-founder Sam White.

Promethean took second place in MIT’s $100K Entrepreneurship Competition in 2007, has raised around $1 million from investors, and could have up to $1.5 million in revenue in 2012, according to White and co-founder Sorin Grama. In June, the National Science Foundation awarded Promethean a $150,000 Small Business Innovation Research grant to "optimize the efficiency of its cold-energy-storage battery," White says.

For more unusual ways to make money, read how PickyDomains.com helps find a business name.

[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

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

Domain Name Ideas - Try Risk Free Online Naming

2011-08-30T02:38:00.000-07:00

Domain Name Ideas

Running out of domain name ideas? Have you tried all the usual online naming venues, like domain name generators and expired domain lists with no success? Time to consider PickyDomains.com – world’s first risk-free online naming agency.

Unlike domain name generators or expired domain lists, our domain suggestions are generated by real human beings, not some obscure computer algorithm. And risk-free means that you pay us ONLY if you decide to register one of submitted suggestions. If you don’t like any suggestions and decide to register none – you don’t pay anything.

Our service is very affordable - $50 for names and domains, and $75 for slogans. We’ve already come up with over 1500+ cool domains, like Geomium.com, GetMapped.com or Architexa.com, and have been featured in major publications, like The San Francisco Chronicle. Over 40000 people have signed up to become PickyDomains contributors with several hundred being active on any given time.

So if you are tired of trying to come up with domain name on your own, give us a try. To place an order, simply register as client, create an order and activate it.

Smaller Carry-On Luggage

2011-08-30T02:31:00.000-07:00

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

http://carryonfree.com/

Spirit Airlines made national news last year when it began charging customers for carry-on luggage. Critics saw the move as an attempt to gouge customers, but Brent Hopkins saw it as an opportunity.

Hopkins, who graduated from Western Michigan University last year, is president of CarryOn Free, a Rochester Hills-based online retailer that sells luggage specifically designed to help Spirit customers avoid baggage fees.

"I'm a pretty avid Spirit Airlines flier," Hopkins told MLive.com. "When they introduced the fee there was public outrage. But one day I was flying and I noticed you could still bring a free carry-on, it just had to be a smaller size."

When his flight landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Hopkins confirmed that Spirit Airlines does, in fact, still allow passengers to carry on bags for free so long as they fit in a 16" x 14" x 12" under-seat space.

"It's a really odd dimension," Hopkins said. "I realized that nobody was selling bags at that size, so I figured I'd start."

While Spirit is a relatively small company known for it's low-priced fares, it's the second-busiest carrier in Detroit. The airline charges between $30 and $45 dollars for each carry-on, and several competitors have followed suit and charge similar fees for larger bags.

"Delta's dimensions aren't much bigger," Hopkins said. "But since Spirit is the smallest, the bags can be used for every other airline that has a similar policy."

One year after implementing its carry-on policy, Spirit claims the fee has helped decrease boarding and deplaning times by more than 6 minutes per flight, as fewer customers struggle to fit large bags in small spaces.

"The carry-on policy was a bold move to address a real and costly boarding time delay concern and has proven to be a true win for consumers," President and CEO Ben Baldanza said last month.

Hopkins, meanwhile, is hoping his luggage line is a "true win" for the cost-conscious consumers who often fly Spirit.

For more unusual ways to make money, read how PickyDomains.com helps find a business name.

[Via - MLive.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

Magnetic Pots

2011-08-23T03:18:00.000-07:00

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

http://www.myurbio.com/

From bottle caps to spiral tubes, regular readers may have noticed the recent wave of innovative ideas for urban dwellers to grow plants and herbs in limited space, and the latest seed of inspiration comes from US company Urbio with their “magically magnetic urban vertical garden”.

Urbio is a collaboration between Beau Oyler and Jared Aller of Enlisted Design and Tim Cui of Volare Studio. They aim to enable those living in apartments and lofts or working in offices to exercise their green fingers by utilizing wall space. Pots made of eco-plastic contain a large neodymium magnet which attach them to each other as well as to the modular magnetic back plates which can be mounted onto walls or ferrous surfaces, creating a vertical garden. The magnets are strong enough to hold the pots to the wall when filled with plants, and pots can be removed with a firm tug to be watered. Designed with affordability in mind, back plates are USD 10 and pots start at USD 20. Urbio are taking pre-orders and expect to start shipping early October.

For more unusual ways to make money, read how PickyDomains.com helps find a business name.

[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

Child Safe Photo Albums

2011-08-18T02:13:00.000-07:00

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

http://www.boardbookalbums.com/

Money wasn't the motivator for Laura Miranti, who went from being a homemaker with four children to an entrepreneur with an award-winning product.

She simply wanted to use photos to help her developmentally delayed daughter, Lucia, learn vocabulary words.

But Laura couldn't find a photo album suitable for a toddler with small hands and sturdy enough to withstand rough treatment. So she invented one.

"I couldn't believe no one else had thought of this," said Laura, 36, who moved to Edwardsville from Texas in September.

"Kids love photos, but most parents aren't going to hand over their photo albums to their little ones. They don't want them to get messed up."

Laura filed for a patent, found a manufacturer and began selling her Take a Pix photo albums on the Internet in December of 2008.

The kid-friendly albums are made like board books with thick cardboard pages, rounded corners and notches for easing flipping.

"The windows have clear, protective coverings, so little fingers aren't going to touch the photos," Laura said. "Even if kids are chewing on them, the photos don't get wet."

Laura donated two albums to Lucia's early childhood special-education class at Glen Carbon Elementary School last year.

Teacher Jill Schulte filled them with photos of a fire-station field trip and students in Halloween costumes.

"Those books were probably read by 15 children on a daily basis, and nothing ever ripped or tore," she said. "They were used a lot, and they're still in great shape."

The albums are designed for all children, not just those with disabilities. They recently won a Dr. Toy's Best Vacation Children's Products Award and a Kidlutions Preferred Project Award.

Customer Vicki Sorrells, 65, of Glendale, Mo., ordered a pink album as a shower gift for her daughter last fall.

Today, Vicki baby-sits her 7-month-old granddaughter, Abby, on weekdays. They look at photos of Mom, Dad, other relatives and family pets.

"Sometimes she really pays attention, and sometimes not so much," Vicki said. "But it gives her a good feel for books."

Laura and her husband, Chris, live near Sunset Hills Country Club with their four children, Slone, 14, Marren, 11, Lucia, 5, and Loren, 20 months.

Chris is a former U.S. Marine who became branch manager for a tractor-trailer company in Troy last fall.

He helped his wife sketch her photo-album idea, but it has primarily been her project.

"I was behind her 100 percent," said Chris, 39. "It made sense. It wasn't some crazy idea for a plastic gadget that people may or may not want or need."

Laura has a bachelor's in finance and international business from Baylor University in Texas and a master's in accounting from University of Houston.

She was working out of her home as a financial analyst when she began noticing problems with Lucia.

"She wasn't meeting her milestones," Laura said. "All she did was roll over at age 1, and not very often."

Doctors diagnosed reduced white matter in the brain, which is key to central-nervous-system messaging.

Lucia learned to crawl, sit, walk and talk with the help of physical, occupational and speech therapy.

"(The disorder) affects development and balance," Laura said. "Lucia wasn't as as coordinated and didn't have the same balance as other kids."

Speech therapists told the Mirantis that some children are better at word association when dealing with photos instead of generic drawings. So it was Lucia who inspired her mother to invent Take a Pix.

Laura has sold about 2,000 albums for $19.95 each at www.boardbookalbums.com in the past 2 1/2 years. She hopes to get them in stores soon.

"Everybody is exited about it," she said. "It's a million-dollar idea, and I think it's just a matter of time (before sales take off). I'm very determined.

"It's a product that's fulfilling a need. It can enhance lives, and it's fun. What little kids don't want to flip through photos of themselves and their toys?"

For more unusual ways to make money, read how PickyDomains.com helps find a business name.

[Via - BND.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

Evan Savar - Vegas Inventor

2011-08-08T01:53:00.000-07:00

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

http://www.transvertise.com/

As a child, Evan Savar took apart his Christmas presents just to see how they worked. Now 21, he has invented a trophy picture stand, a talking gift wrap bow and a silicone flat-screen TV effect.

And he's only a few years out of high school.

"I was a little bit of a troublemaker in school," he said, "... voted 'class clown.' "

When he was in first grade, a substitute teacher had enough of his antics. She refused to let him go get a tissue to blow his nose. It was about that time the class was preparing for a science fair, he said, so he invented the "Evan 2000," a belt that held tissues and sanitizer, "so you'll always have those things handy."

Throughout grade school and middle school, he thought up other ways to make his life more comfortable, though none resulted into a marketable product.

Inventions, he said, just come to him. Take his latest one -- the Digital Photo Trophy. His invention is the box-like base that can be programmed to show a stream of digital photos, as many as 100 in a loop, great for team shots and those special moments on the field or court.

The idea for that one also came from necessity.

As a youngster, Savar enrolled in tennis camp, played basketball and baseball and was on the volleyball and soccer teams at Palo Verde High School, 333 S. Pavilion Center Drive. With each one, he got a trophy. They began filling up his bedroom.

"They all kind of looked the same, and I couldn't remember (which was for which)," he said. "I thought, "There has to be a better way.' "

That better way was to add the digital photo display, an idea already used on keychain fobs. Getting the prototype together took about a year and a half. Enlisting the help of a friend, Augsman Roy, an engineering student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, led to getting a patent for it. He did it all as economically as possible and spent a mere $500.

Prototype in hand, he approached the Awards and Recognition Association in February 2009. A meeting was set up in El Monte, Calif. The trip began badly when his car broke down.

Savar scrambled to get on a bus for a 10-hour ride to the meeting. He made it in time and was well-received, but his idea ... not so much.

"They told me it wasn't feasible, that no one would ever buy it," he said.

But his own research told him it was feasible. Back in Las Vegas, Savar contacted the keychain fob inventor, Lingtao Wang of TAO Electronics, and ended up partnering with him. As a result, the trophy idea got off the ground and sold about 4,000 units.

TAO Electronics had a booth at the annual ARA convention in Las Vegas. There, his trophy base garnered attention and was awarded "Best New Product."

"Here the whole industry was, like, 'It'll never work,' then they give me this award, " he said. "I thought it was hilarious."

Wang said he has been approached by at least 15 inventors in the past five years and seen promise in only two. The other was a keychain with the capacity to hold 100 photos.

He said Savar's idea was a needed commodity with a distinct appeal.

"People are kind of crazy with the iPhone right now ... they love multimedia kind of stuff," he said.

Savar's mother, Cindy Fox, said her son always has had a mind that looks for solutions. When his older brother Hal, a musician, was playing summer gigs on an aluminum stage in 115-degree heat, Evan borrowed an idea from marathon runners. He rigged a backpack with a water reservoir and ran a sipping tube around it.

Her garage, she said, is filled with his "dinosaurs" -- his not-quite-ready-for-prime-time inventions.

"He has one of the three bays," she said. "His car has to be parked outside because of all his stuff."

Since winning the award, his idea has morphed into the World's Greatest Trophy. It can be engraved with any title -- World's Greatest Dad, World's Greatest Golfer, World's Greatest Shopper -- and includes the World's Greatest People website, theworldsgreatest people.com, where family and friends can post comments, making the gift even more endearing.

Since then, he's added a talking gift wrap bow to his list of inventions and a silicone flat-screen TV wrap that complements one's decor when the TV is off. He plans to offer 100 different designs, everything from zebra stripes to polka dots.

Who knows what he'll invent next.

For more unusual ways to make money, read how PickyDomains.com helps find a business name.

[Via - LVRJ.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

10 Wackiest Ideas For Making Money Online

2011-08-03T07:33:00.001-07:00

1. Million Dollar Homepage

If I had to pick THE craziest idea for making money online, this would be one. A 21 year old student decided to raise money for college by selling pixels on his website. Alex Tew, that is. And, as they say, the rest is history. Alex got his college money and more – over a million dollars, media attention and countless interviews. Copycat sites immediately popped up and… failed all. Maybe this is the reason why we no longer hear about Alex Tew – all his new projects were variations of MDH. Time for a gradschool?

2. ShitMyDadSays

To some cranky father is a source of irritation. To Justin Halpern it was his ticket to stardom. Justin, a struggling comedy writer himself, had to move in back with his parents. His father just would not stop yapping about anything and everything, so Justin decided to start a Twitter account just for father’s words of wisdom. In just 30 days Justin’s microblog was mentioned on The Daily Show. It didn’t take for sitcom and book deal to materialize soon after that.

3. PickyDomains.com
We are all good at something. Dmitry Davydov was good at naming things. Anything, really. So he decided that he might as well make a career out of it. Dmitry started offering people a deal they could not refuse – I’ll come up with a cool domain, name or slogan for you, and you pay me $50, if you like it. And if you don’t - pay nothing. No risk involved. The San Francisco Chronicle picked up the story and Dmitry was swamped with orders, so he created crowdsourcing naming service called PickyDomains.com that operates via the same risk free principles.

4. BugMeNot.com
Don’t you hate when free sites, like NYTimes.com or YouTube require registration for full access? It bugged the hell out of Guy King. Unlike others, Guy decided to do something about it, so he started BugMeNot.com in 2003, a free web service that instantly provides logins and passwords for free sites to folks who do not want to waste their time on registration. BugMeNot got really popular after 2004, when Wired magazine reported on efforts to get the site shut down by the dark corporate forces that insist on registration, so they can send spam the hell out of it. But the light has won. BugMeNot has since branched out into similar niches, like RetailMeNot.com.

5. Doggles.com
There are some certainties in this life and one of those is “dogs don’t need sunglasses”. Sunglasses for dogs? That’s the stupidest invention ever. It is also the one that generated millions of dollars for Ken and Roni di Lullo. Doggles are now sold in (hold onto something) 4500 different shops in 16 different countris! One thing I do admit though – dogs look cool in doggles.

6. GeesePoliceInc.com
Chasing geese may sound like a metaphor, but it’s not for David Marcks, who makes $2 million dollar a year, well, chasing geese away. What’s his story? Back in the eighties, David worked at a golf course that suffered from “the geese problem” (read too much bird poop on golf balls). He could not kill the birds, but he did take note of the fact that his dog, a border collie, was good at chasing them away. He now owns 27 trucks and 32 dogs that do just that - chase geese away from private and public properties for money.

7. FindAGrave.Com
Have you ever heard of ‘tombstone tourism’, i.e. visiting graves of famous people, because you like visiting graves of dead people? To Jim Tipton it was a weekend well spent. One problem, though – he lived in Utah, a state not known for great population densities (dead or living), so he basically ran out of (dead) celebrities to visit. So he started FindAGrave.Com, a site that helps you locate a grave of any person in US. The hobby soon turned into a big business, providing multiple paid services, like genealogy research. “I see dead people” ©.

8. ShoppingCartAbuse.Com
Plain and simple, this one is impossible to explain, but the site has a cult following and more than likely started as a college prank. For some reason, the owner(s) of this one prefer anonymity. Here is a description the site provides – “The Center for Prevention of Shopping Cart Abuse is an organization dedicated to preventing the pervasiveness of Shopping Cart abuse”. Prank or not, ShoppingCartAbuse.com t-shirt became a must have fashion accessory for 2010 with several Hollywood celebrities spotted in one.

9. WheresGeorge.com
If you know this site, the owner profession should not be a surprise. No, Hank Eskin isn’t an accountant. He is a database consultant. Who else would think that punching serial numbers for dollar bills into a big online database is fun? If you are new to Where’s George, here is how it works. First, you log onto WheresGeorge.com and enter your zip code and bill serial number(s). Then spend your money and hopefully some other person will do the same – enter bill serial number and zip code into the database. As of this month, Where's George is tracking 192,623,138 bills totalingUS$1,040,594,634. This means that millions of people have logged onto Where’s George to find out where their money has been.

10. SantaMail.org
Male lifecycle is defined as “first you believe in Santa Clause, then you don’t, then you are one.” Byron Reese must have taken that literally, because in 2002 he decided to start Santa Mail, a website that that lets kids to send letters to the North Pole. There is a little twist, however, parents pay $9.95 to make sure little Johnny or Jane get a personalized letter back from the "big man" himself. Last year Santa Mail had responded to over 300,000 children. Multiply that by $10 and you get the picture.

No Packaging Groceries

2011-07-08T03:12:00.000-07:00

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

http://in.gredients.com/

Today’s grocery stores may feature more items with recyclable packaging than they used to, but the fact remains that there’s still enormous waste involved in the way individual goods are typically packaged and sold. So argues Brothers Lane, an Austin, Texas, company that’s gearing up to launch in.gredients — the first package-free, zero-waste grocery store in the United States.

The new store aims to be “a different kind of grocery store – one that is responsible to the environment and community and one that facilitates a healthy lifestyle,” in the company’s own words. Toward that end, shoppers at the store will bring their own reusable containers to fill with local and organic groceries ranging from dry bulk and dairy to wine and household cleaners. “Truth be told, what’s normal in the grocery business isn’t healthy for consumers or the environment,” in.gredients co-founder Christian Lane explains. “In addition to the unhealthiness associated with common food processing, nearly all the food we buy in the grocery store is packaged, leaving us no choice but to continue buying packaged food that’s not always reusable or recyclable.” Due to launch before year’s end, the store will exclude packaged and overly processed foods altogether as well as offering cooking classes, on-site gardening activities and a variety of community events.

For more unusual ways to make money, read how PickyDomains.com helps find a business name.

[Via - Springwise.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

Help Wanted!

2011-07-06T10:38:00.001-07:00

As you may (or may not) know, I own PickyDomains. After recent upgrade, we had a huge surge in orders, getting as many as 8 new orders in a single day. So basically we need your help and right away. What's in it for you? We charge $50 our clients for coming up with a cool domain. The person who suggests picked domain (that could be you, yes YOU) gets half of the fee. So if you are good with domains, names or slogans (you get more for slogans), go we need your suggestions right now. Here is registration link.

Here is a simple trick that will GREATLY increases your chance to get your suggestion picked. Most names are picked within two weeks, with day 2,3,4 most popular. Most new users work on the first three orders only. Because of difference in traffic depending on day of the week and time of the day, a new order may receive 200 suggestion during first few hours or 20. Then, as new orders are listed, old orders are pushed down and volume of suggestions for old orders goes down. So to increase your chances (after working on orders that we just added) go and work on ALL orders that were listed withing last 72-96 hours. These are going to be the first 15 orders on the Available orders list, generally speaking. And when you work on older orders, work BACKWARDS, submitting to order 15 first, then 14, then 13, because the owners of these are ready to make a decision. Do it even if you already made your suggestions to these when they initially appeared, because many clients feel overwhelmed when they receive several hundred suggestions within the first 24 hours. As the volume of suggestions drops down, they have more time too look at each individual suggestion - and if you are smart, these suggestions are going to be yours. This drop in volume is very significant, we've had one client tell us that they like the service, but here were too many suggestions and then the same person asked, why so few suggestions are coming in after the order was active for three days. Take advantage of that.

BioLite Stoves

2011-07-01T03:29:00.000-07:00

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

http://www.biolitestove.com/

Founded: 2009
Employees: 7
Revenue 2010: $24,000
Revenue 2011 (projected): $250,000
From left to right: Matt Nowicki, Alec Drummond, Clay Burns, Whitney Goodwin, and Jonathan Cedar

Half the planet cooks on wood fires that give off smoke responsible for about 2 million deaths a year from respiratory disease, says Jonathan Cedar, 30, founder of fuel-efficient cook stove maker BioLite. Its $40 stoves use cogeneration technology to capture waste heat to generate electricity. The electricity powers fans that cut toxic smoke emissions by 95 percent, Cedar says. It can also charge cell phones and LED lights. He says production at BioLite's contract manufacturer in China is scheduled for April 2012 (the stoves are being tested in India now). Cedar plans to introduce two higher-margin camping versions for around $100 and $120 targeted at outdoor enthusiasts in the U.S. around the same time and use profits to offset research and development costs for the developing markets’ stove. The business was conceived with Alec Drummond while working together at New York product development firm Smart Design. "While indoor air pollution reduction is obviously why we're doing what we're doing … we also want a product that delivers what users really want: fast, easy-to-use cooking," says Cedar. He says BioLite raised $1.1 million in venture capital in April and expects $1.5 million in revenue in 2012.

For more unusual ways to make money, read how PickyDomains.com helps find a business name.

[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

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

Charging By The Minute

2011-06-29T02:28:00.000-07:00

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

https://www.minutebox.com/

It’s one thing to tap the crowds for advice on general topics — that’s what apps like Crowdbeacon and Opinionaided are for. Sometimes, however, there’s just no substitute for the insight of a true expert. Enter MinuteBox, a service that lets those with a particular area of expertise monetize it by the minute using online chat.

Users of London-based MinuteBox, which is now in beta, begin by signing up with the site through LinkedIn and connecting it with their expert content on sites including Quora and Stackoverflow, which then gets incorporated into their profile. Next, they set a price for their time and, if they want, install a MinuteBox widget to help promote their service on their favorite social platforms. Then, when users seeking related expertise visit the site, MinuteBox notifies the expert user immediately so that they can connect. Experts are then paid by the minute for advice delivered through video, audio or text chat. MinuteBox retains a fee of up to 25 percent; payments are made immediately through PayPal.

Similar in many ways to the expert chat service available on Pet Architect, MinuteBox offers another nice way for sellsumers to earn extra cash — this time by making the most of their knowledge. One to emulate on a localized or niche basis?

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

[Via - SpringWise.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

Need to find business name? Give PickyDomains a try.

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

20 Ways Any Student Can Make A Few Bucks Online

2011-06-28T01:23:00.000-07:00

There are literally thousands of ways to make money online. They range from affiliate marketing, blogging, domain parking, web designing and many more. But most of them, like any other real world business require time and patience to bring in a decent amount of cash every month. Contrary to the general belief, there is no get-rich-quick scheme online.

Having said that, there are various ways which help you get started quickly and make a few bucks. These are great for college students who can spare a few hours every week to earn part-time income. Instead of delivering pizzas and serving coffee, they could now work from the comfort of their home and make money.

The following list contains 20 such websites/methods which can help teens and college students generate some cash quickly.

Sell Stuff

1.eBay

Buying and selling on eBay is probably one of the most common methods to earn money online. It's not that difficult to understand the process and get started. In fact a huge number of people around the world make their living by buying and selling stuff on eBay everyday.

College students can utilize eBay to sell old unused items and generate cash. Also they could trade on this site and make money. Here is an article which shows you how to do that.

2.BuyMyTronics

BuyMyTronics is a cool site which will buy all your gadgets including old and broken gadgets. They pay through paypal within 48 hours of receiving your gadget.

Since most of the college students love gadgets and usually have a repository of old ipods, zunes, cellphones etc, they could quickly sell them off on this site and make money in the process.

3.Zazzle

If you are creative and love drawing, painting and making designs, then you could use Zazzle to earn some nice part-time money . The process is simple and innovative. You sign up with them and apply your designs on products like t-shirts, mugs, cups and many other items. Once you are done, it can be published for sale which when bought earns you a royalty on that sale. Check how it works.

4.Craigslist

The potential of Craigslist as a money making tool is endless. Not only you can quickly sell just about anything on this site, you could also offer a service like writing, translation etc and get hired. Since it is the most popular classified ads site in the world, college students should not ignore it.

5.Cafepress

Cafepress is a site similar to Zazzle which lets you put your designs on different kinds of merchandise and earn a commission when they are sold. You can also sell books, audio and data cds using this service.

Writing, Reviewing & Blogging

6.About.com

About.com, the popular how-to and information site offers a become a guide program which college students can utilize to write on their favorite topics in their spare time.

You can set your own schedule and choose from a diverse range of topics to write on. They've got an attractive compensation plan too.

7.Elance

Elance is a marketplace where writers and freelancers can advertise their services and have people hire them. Article writers are usually in great demand on this site and it is a nice way to make a part-time income by writing articles for clients around the world.

8.Associated Content

Associated Content is a user-generated content site which publishes articles on almost all topics you can imagine. It pays the writers an up-front fee when they submit an article and also a performance based bonus depending on the traffic the article receives.

Check this article which describes how to make money by writing for associated content.

9.Paid Blogging Sites

Although making money from blogs isn't easy and it requires time and perseverance to make a consistent income through blogging, there are certain paid blogging networks like PayPerPost and ReviewMe which pay you immediately after creating sponsored blog posts.

Dosh Dosh has an excellent list of 17 such paid blogging sites.

10.Squidflix

Squidflix is a cool site by Squidoo which lets you quickly review movies and earn a monthly income based on the traffic your review receives. It might not be instant and huge income but for someone who loves watching movies, it could be a fun part-time activity that generates some cash too.

11.SharedReviews

SharedReviews is a user-generated review site where you can review a large number of products which includes movies too. Create reviews and get paid based on the votes and the pageviews it receives by the end of the month.

Consulting and Tutoring

12. Tutor.com

Tutor is, as the name suggests, an online tutoring and homework site where students could get tutored on various subjects by teachers over the internet. If you are enrolled in a college, can devote at least 5 hours every week and consider yourself well versed in your subject then you may check out their apply to become a tutor page.

13. H3

H3.com is a unique site which could get you good rewards for referring competent individuals for jobs. An employer can offer a reward to his network of friends on the site if they can refer the right candidate for the job. If the candidate you voted is selected then you stand to get a portion of that reward.

Check out their how it works page to understand the process better.

14.Ether

Ether lets you offer expert advice on the topic you consider yourself an expert in. Set your hourly rate, create an ether account, get a toll-free number with a unique extension, set the time when you want to receive calls and get pre-paid phone calls from people who need advice.

Ether takes only 15% so it's definitely a nice and viable option to generate extra cash in your free hours.

Programming & Troubleshooting

15.Scriptlance

If you are majoring in computer science and love playing with codes and scripts then Scriptlance should be your first target. It's an online marketplace for coders where they could earn as low as $5 and as high as $5000 depending on the kind of project they bid on.

16.Crossloop

If you've been helping friends and family over the phone in troubleshooting their computer problems, it's time you make some money out of the process. Crossloop is a marketplace for computer helpers which comes with a screen-sharing software. You can create a profile advertising your skills and get paid by hour while you solve computer issues of people all around the world.

17.Odesk

Odesk is a website where clients can find programmers, web developers, coders and people with various other computer related skills and assign them tasks and projects. Hence it is another way to earn freelance income while you are in college.

Other Interesting Ways

18.Pickydomains

Pickydomains is an innovative site which offers what's really a great way to make money online. You just have to come up with unique domain names which are not yet registered (yes, believe it or not there are many of them which are yet to be taken). If your domain is accepted then you get paid $25 via paypal which is good money for few minutes of a college student's time.

19.Video Sites

If you love making videos then there are a number of ways you can earn through them online. Video sharing sites like Metacafe, Revver and many more offer pageviews based compensation for the videos you upload to their site. Here is a nice page which lists various such video sites and the earning potential.

20.Buxr

Buxr is a discount coupons and deals site which thrives on its vibrant community of members who submit deals they come across on the internet to the site. The site rewards the most voted deals and the most active members so this is another way for college students to make money while having fun searching cool deals.

--------------------------------------------

About Get Degrees

Get Degrees?? is one of the most comprehensive online education destinations on the web today. Check out our entire selection of accredited degree programs including mba degrees, business schools, nursing schools, criminal justice degrees and more.

9 Sites That Prove You Can Make Money Online With Just About Anything.

2011-06-23T19:09:00.001-07:00

1. Million Dollar Homepage

This has to be THE craziest idea for making money online. Alex Tew, then 21 year old , decided to raise money for college by selling pixels on his website, $1 each. The rest is history – Alex got his million in less than a year, he got interviewed by all major television stations, hackers arranged a major DDoS attack on his site and hundreds of copycats followed. Alas, none of Alex’s new project enjoyed same success. Still, all he wanted for someone else to pay for his books and tuition.

2. ShitMyDadSays

This is another one that makes you go WHAT? An unemployed writer (Justin Halpern) had to move in back with his parents. His sarcastic father just couldn’t stop cracking jokes, so Justin decided to start a Twitter account just for those. In less than a month Justin’s microblog was mentioned by The Daily Show, with sitcom and book deal following soon after.

3. PickyDomains.com
Dmitry Davydov was good at naming things. This is when he thought that he might make a career out of it. So he started approaching people who could not come up domain name own their own with a simple offer – I’ll think of cool domain for you, if you like it, you pay me $50, if you don’t - pay nothing. No risk involved. The idea caught on and soon he was unable to complete all the orders on his own, so a risk-free crowdsourcing service called PickyDomains.com came into existence, where anyone could try a hand at naming and get paid for it. The San Francisco Chronicle picked up the story and other’s joined soon.

4. BugMeNot.com
Like many others, Guy King was upset with websites that required users to register in order to get full access (like NYTimes.com). Unlike others, Guy decided to do something about it, so he started BugMeNot.com in 2003, a site that would instantly provide logins and passwords for free sites to folks who did not want to waste their time on registration and expose their e-mail addresses to possible spam. BugMeNot got really popular after 2004, when Wired magazine reported on efforts to get the site shut down. BugMeNot has since branched out into similar niches, like RetailMeNot.com.

5. Doggles.com
Sunglasses for dogs? That’s crazy. Yet this invention made Ken and Roni di Lullo millions. Doggles are now sold in 16 different countries in 4500 different shops. The trick was to market doggles not as a fashion accessory, but a protective device that shields dogs eyes from harmful UV radiation. Despite being mocked as most useless invention ever, you’ve got to admit – dogs look cool in doggles.

6. GeesePoliceInc.com
Stictly speaking, Geese Police isn’t online business, but it proves the point – there is money in anything. David Marcks makes $2 million dollar a year chasing geese away. It’s not a metaphor, it’s the essence of his business. David worked at a golf course that attracted too many wild geese that were causing troubles. He could not kill them, but he noticed that his dog, a border collie, was successful at chasing them away. So he started offering his services to other golf courses, municipal parks and land owners. He now owns 27 trucks and 32 dogs that do just that - chase geese away.

7. FindAGrave.Com
How’s this for a hobby – visiting graves of famous people? This is how Jim Tipton liked to spend his weekends. When he ran out of dead celebrities nearby, he founded FindAGrave.Com, a site that helps you locate a grave of any person in US. This site has turned into a big business, providing multiple paid services, like genealogy research. Oh and that creepy hobby Jim has? Apparently it’s so popular, there is a special term for it – ‘tombstone tourism’.

8. ShoppingCartAbuse.Com
This one is impossible to explain. So here is a description the site provides – “The Center for Prevention of Shopping Cart Abuse is an organization dedicated to preventing the pervasiveness of Shopping Cart abuse”. Keep in mind that this is a successful commercial project with online ads and t-shirt store.

9. WheresGeorge.com
Money makes money and Where’s George makes money on tracking where your used-to-be-my money is now. Here is how it works. Take all the bills out of your wallet, log onto WheresGeorge.com and enter your zip and bill serial numbers. Then spend your money and hopefully some other person will do the same – enter bills serial numbers into the database. This way you can see online how your money travels. As of this month, Where's George is tracking 190,623,138 bills totalingUS$1,028,594,634

Out Of Office Ads

2011-06-21T04:41:00.000-07:00

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

http://outofofficead.com/

As much of the Northern hemisphere gears up for summer holidays, “out of office” email autoreplies are enjoying a seasonal surge in use. While such messages are typically purely informational in nature, Swedish ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi Stockholm recently created Out Of Office Ad — a way to monetize automatic email responses through sponsorship.

Saatchi & Saatchi hit upon the idea while planning for the paternity leave of art director Gustav Egerstedt, and tried out the concept by selling Egerstedt’s out of office reply to digital production company B-Reel. “This out of office autoreply is brought to you by B-Reel,” the message begins. “Gustav Egerstedt is on paternity leave and has sold his out of office ad space to B-Reel, the world’s leading digital production company.” The message then goes on to provide contact information at B-Reel along with Egerstedt’s own return date. Buoyed by the success of that first effort, the company is now getting ready to launch a service that provides the same capabilities to others. Using Out of Office Ad Systems, companies large and small will be able to earn extra revenue by accepting ad sponsorship on their vacation autoreplies, or they’ll be able to donate such advertising space to the charity of their choice.

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

[Via - SpringWise.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

Guard Dogs For The Rich And Powerful

2011-06-15T01:55:00.000-07:00

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

http://www.harrisonk9.com/

MINNEAPOLIS — Don’t call her a guard dog. When she costs $230,000, as Julia did, the preferred title is “executive protection dog.” This 3-year-old German shepherd, who commutes by private jet between a Minnesota estate and a home in Arizona, belongs to a canine caste that combines exalted pedigree, child-friendly cuddliness and arm-lacerating ferocity.

Julia and her ilk have some of the same tracking and fighting skills as the dogs used in elite military units like Navy Seal Team 6, which took a dog on its successful raid of Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan.

In fact, Julia was sold by a trainer, Harrison Prather, who used to supply dogs to Seal Team 6 and the British special forces. But then Mr. Prather switched to a more lucrative market.

“Either rich people discovered me or I discovered them — I can’t remember which happened first,” said Mr. Prather, the president of Harrison K-9 Security Services in Aiken, S.C.

He and others in the high-end dog training business say prices have shot up thanks to the growing number of wealthy people around the world who like the security — and status — provided by a dog with the right credentials. Moguls and celebrities now routinely pay $40,000 to $60,000 for a well-bred German shepherd that is certified as an expert in the sport of Schutzhund, which means “protection dog.” The price can go much higher if a dog does well at an international championship, as Julia did.

“She’s a top deal,” Julia’s owner, John Johnson, said as she escorted him around the grounds of his 15-acre estate outside Minneapolis. “She’s won awards. She looks at you, she’s got the most beautiful face.”

But $230,000?

“It’s a lot of money,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s the speed, the smartness, the quickness — and you would not believe the roughness that she has inside. She’s like a little pit bull when she bites. She has that model face, and then opens the gums up and lets you have it.”

Mr. Johnson said he got his first protection dog after receiving personal threats while he was running the Northland Group, a debt-collection company in Minnesota that he founded and eventually sold three years ago. Now he has six protection dogs, all German shepherds, and normally takes a couple in his car whenever he goes out.

“It’s for both security and companionship,” he said as Julia nuzzled his leg, looking like a gentle enough companion. But when an intruder emerged near the tennis court of his estate, all it took was one command, “Packen!” (the bite command from the German word for “seize”), to send Julia racing across the lawn.

She sunk her teeth into the intruder’s arm, which was encased in padding for a demonstration, and hung on even as he lifted her off the ground in a vain attempt to shake free of her. She let go only upon being commanded and then stood guard over her new prisoner, barking and threatening to bite again whenever he made a move to escape, which he wisely did not try.

Julia’s was a controlled ferocity, which trainers distinguish from the anger manifested by ordinary dogs. When two dogs try to intimidate each other, they stiffen, growl, bare their teeth and stare intently. Protection dogs are trained to continue looking around and protecting their owners, not establish their own dominance.

And, when commanded, they are supposed to switch instantly from attack mode to pet mode.

“The dog has to get along with children,” Mr. Prather said. “The client is often a guy on his second family. He travels a lot, leaves his wife alone with the kids in a large house — maybe 30,000 square feet, so big you don’t even know what’s going on at the other side of the house. He wants peace of mind and a dog that his wife can handle. We don’t sell tank-stoppers.”

The price tag for a protection dog has risen because of increasing demand in the United States, Latin America (especially Mexico), the Middle East, Asia and other places, said Mr. Prather and Wayne Curry, the owner of Kraftwerk K9 in Rochester, Wash.

“I’ve turned down offers of more than $200,000 for one of my champion dogs,” said Mr. Curry, who added that he knew of a dog that had sold for more than $400,000 because of its bloodline and breeding potential. (Although Julia’s offspring most likely would have commanded top prices, Mr. Johnson said he had no time to breed her and instead had her spayed shortly after buying her in January.)

To clients who can afford the $50,000 price for a typical well-credentialed dog, there are lots of ways to rationalize the price.

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

[Via - NYTimes.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

Harrison Harmonicas

2011-06-06T00:57:00.001-07:00

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

http://www.harrisonharmonicas.com/

The harmonica may seem as American as the blues. But for years, virtually every harmonica in the U.S. was made somewhere else, with Germany's Hohner accounting for most of them. Musicians now have a homegrown alternative. On Feb. 1, Harrison Harmonicas shipped its first batch of products from a workshop in a business incubator in Rockford, Ill. Its B-Radical mouth organ isn't for beginners—the hand-assembled harmonica sells for $180 vs. $25 for a Hohner Blues Bender—but Brad Harrison, the company's founder and president, says his harmonicas are built to last since every one of the 20 brass reeds can be swapped out for a new one. Harrison, 40, decided to start his own factory after 14 years of custom-building harmonicas for such celebrities as Bono and Bruce Willis and a short gig as a consultant in Japan for Suzuki Musical Instruments, which also makes harmonicas. In 2008 he entered entrepreneur competitions in Illinois and won $55,000. Harrison got further assistance from the Rockford campus of Northern Illinois University, which has lent him engineers to help him set up his shop. And he chipped in some $200,000 of his own, from savings and loans. He began taking orders through the company's Web site last year. Harrison Harmonicas now employs a half-dozen engineers and a half-dozen assemblers, who work an eight-hour shift. He hopes to produce and ship 30 to 50 harmonicas a day to start. At that pace, he says, his backlog alone will carry the company until April.

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

[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

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

Risk Free Business Name Ideas

2011-05-30T02:33:00.000-07:00

Business Name Ideas

Looking for business name ideas? Pickydomains.com is world’s first risk-free naming agency that opened its doors in 2007 and has come up with thousands of cool business and domain names, like GymGenius.com, Xutta.com, Geomium, Eyes On Fries Diets or GetMapped.Com since then.

The idea behind Pickydomains.com is brilliantly simple. If you need a business name that perfectly describes what you do and immediately stands out, you simply place your order. Right away you start getting dozens of suggestions from our contributors. If you find the name that fits you perfectly, you pay $50. If you don’t like any suggestions, you don’t pay anything. Hence, risk free naming service.

Currently, there are over 40,000 registered contributors, with several hundred being active on any given day. The system automatically tracks performance of each copywriter, by measuring how many submitted suggestions were liked or disliked by other clients. Based on that performance, each contributor is ranked 1 though 5. Higher ranked copyrighters receive better pay and can submit more suggestions. This way you don’t have to waste your time on sub par suggestions as the system automatically promotes best namers and pushes out the ones with little skills. We’ve also been told by several clients that they like our work better than that of branding agencies that charge anywhere between $10,000 and $100,000.

So if you are looking of business name ideas on a small budget, Pickydomains.com is the way to go. Hey, some folks even trust us to name their pets. And we named a strip club in Las Vegas too!

We Go Look

2011-05-25T01:06:00.000-07:00

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

http://www.wegolook.com/

Have you ever wondered about an item for sale, with no way to verify its condition? Whenever someone buys a product on e-bay, for example, they are putting themselves at risk. However, there is now a unique service which will do the looking for you.

WeGoLook is a service that helps protect their clients from being scammed by looking into the things they hope to buy. Their service is available for nearly any high-priced item you would like to purchase but want to check on first, from animals to vehicles. They travel to the location, confirm its existence, fill out a personalized report, confirm specific details, provide 10 photos, and answer customer questions. At a time when dishonesty exists in online sales, their service provides the peace of mind many shoppers need.

I recently had the opportunity to ask the co-founder of WeGoLook, Robin Smith, a few questions about their unique service.

Tell us a little bit about WeGoLook.

WeGoLook.com is an online service which features a unique community of over 7,000 nationwide people “Lookers” who are dispatched in their local area to verify an eBay/craigslist item, auto, property, pinball machine, vacation home, exotic pet, job site construction progress, online dates and so so so much more! The Looker will complete an ONSITE personalized report which includes CURRENT photos, video, observation of a working demonstration, measurements, VIN/make/serial number check, odometer/hours reading, arranging transport of the item or delivering the item to a UPS or FedEx location for shipping, custom tasks and more!

WeGoLook.com uncovers the truth about the item our customers wish to purchase. Our customers have access to information which helps in negotiation plus avoid becoming victims of fraud or misrepresentation.

WeGoLook.com also assists business owners and property owners of second homes. Lookers can verify storm or tenant damage, collateral assets, rent roll, job site construction progress, take site photos/video and more.

Overall, WeGoLook helps our customers save time, travel expenses, money and avoid headaches caused by fraud/misrepresentation/disputes

How does your service work?

The WeGoLook service is very efficient and effective. Customers simply click on the services or order button on the WeGoLook website. Complete the order form with details of “What you want us to GoLook at” and the order is automatically sent to Lookers covering the zip code of item location. The Looker logs into their dashboard on our site, accepts the order and reviews the order details then travels to the site to make their observations and take photos/video/etc. The Looker uploads this information into their dashboard and the Customer Service Representatives at WeGoLook quickly review the completed order for quality control and it is pushed to the customer’s dashboard. The customer automatically receives an email notification and is able to review, print, share, save and email their report.

All WeGoLook reports include embedded coding in case the customer wishes to post the report on their listing (Sellers and Daters gain credibility).

How much does your service cost and what is included?

The basic WeGoLook report includes 10 current photos, verification of serial or VIN numbers, markings, observations of any visible damage and, depending on the item, specifics of hours/mileage/odometer readings, etc. The basic report is only $49. Customers may upgrade their report with video, working demonstrations, measurements and more by adding a la carte items listed under “additional services”.

What inspired it?

The initial inspiration for WeGoLook took place when Mark Caywood, co-founder, wanted to purchase an expensive projector on eBay but was not sure if the item actually existed or if the seller’s claims were valid. He thought it would be great if he could send a local reputable agent to inspect the item for him. We based the WeGoLook business model on verification of auction items, properties, autos and dates. Once we began brainstorming, we realized there is unlimited potential of what our Looker Community is capable of. The crowd sourcing and business-to-business applications are very beneficial to consumers and business owners alike.

When someone submits an auction/sale item for verification, approximately how long does it take for the report to be generated?

Once a customer places an order, our typical turn around time is 24-48 hours. However, if the customer needs us to expedite the “Look” within a few hours, we can accommodate them with a rush order charge.

What separates you from the competition?

There are four main strengths which makes WeGoLook stand out above the crowd.

1. Coverage. Our Looker community is over 7,000 strong and is comprised of mostly mobile notaries, process servers and field inspectors. Our Lookers sign a three-year non-compete agreement with us, are professionals in their field, have the tools and intelligence to complete the orders correctly, and are background check verified. There is no inspection or verification company with the nationwide coverage that we have.

2. Price. WeGoLook is committed to helping consumers mitigate risk. We have kept our costs as low as possible so that many online consumers can afford our $49 basic report. Try searching for any type of onsite inspection/verification and you will find prices starting elsewhere at $100 minimum.

3. Category Coverage. There is NO COMPANY offering onsite verification services for multiple categories. WeGoLook covers almost any item, property or person. Our Looks are unique: cell phone towers which are disguised as pine trees, warehouse lots of items, engines, vintage Fiesta Ware, to your typical real estate, auto or online date. Other companies offer specific inspection/verification of only one category such as boats or autos. WeGoLook covers it all!

4. Customer Experience. Our customers are now able to purchase items “sight unseen” with confidence. WeGoLook wants to make the experience of purchasing online even more positive by providing transport arrangement of large items and shipping services for smaller ones.

What are some goals you’d like to accomplish over the next year or so?

A few goals WeGoLook would like to reach over the next 12-18 months include:

1. Offering the WGL platform to larger companies such as craigslist, AutoTrader, Match.com, PayPal, etc. WeGoLook offers safety to buyers, sellers and daters plus helps customers avoid fraud, misrepresentation and lessen disputes. It is a no-brainer for companies of any size to offer our services to their customers.

2. Offer franchise opportunities in other countries. I would love for global consumers to order “Looks” not just in the US (as they can now) but anywhere in the world.

3. Become the automatic choice for: A. consumers of online products, real estate or dates, B. business owner or banks needing verification of assets or projects, and C. property owners of second homes needing visual confirmation of storm or tenant damage.

What are some lessons your business has taught you?

I have learned so many lessons from creating and implementing this company but several stand out.

1. When the site developer says, “It will be ready in two weeks”….this is dev language for “two months”. Personally, my largest lifelong fault has been lack of patience. While working on creating this site, redesigning it twice, creating a back-end management tool and recruiting our Lookers/WGL team, I have learned to almost become patient. Without drugs or alcohol. ha ha Jokes aside, this has been a wonderful personal journey.

2. I have learned that some CEOs of large companies really don’t care about their customer safety and fraud issues. WeGoLook is an automatic solution to prevent much of the online fraud and crime. This has been quite a revelation but also makes me even more determined to help consumers.

3. Throughout this learning experience I have also met many incredible people and CEOs who do care…. and I am “Looking” forward to meeting more.

Is there anything else you’d like to add?

To all of the skeptics who believe that a “most promising startup” can only originate from Silicon Valley or Austin, I would personally like to invite you to Oklahoma City, visit our office and catch a Thunder basketball game! You will not only have a new NBA team to cheer on, you will become a fan of WeGoLook!

Do you have any advice you’d like to offer fellow entrepreneurs who are just getting started?

1. Don’t give up. Even when you feel you are only “trudging along”….keep trudging. Don’t quit.

2. Don’t be intimidated by asking for what you want. The worse thing anyone can say is, “No” but at least you asked for it. When someone tells me “No” I just find another way to get to it…. my dad has said this for years about me but he rolls his eyes when he says it. ha ha

3. Spice it up! Think outside of the box….get creative….if something is not working for you….change it up a little and have some fun.

4. But most importantly, before you purchase sight unseen, Verify Before You Buy at www.WeGoLook.com!

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

[Via - Business-Opportunities.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

PickyDomains.com - New Version

2011-05-18T01:21:00.001-07:00

We’ve finally upgraded PickyDomains.com to include more options and to make the whole process easier for both clients and contributors.

The biggest change is that PickyDomains.com is no longer about domains only. You can now use PickyDomains.com for names and slogans as well. The service remains risk-free and our principles have not changed. Our clients have requested this option on multiple occasions and we are happy to oblige.

E-mail notifications for both clients and contributors. Clients can now choose to be notified when their orders receive new suggestions. Likewise, contributors can be notified when a new order becomes available. Also, contributors can be notified when their suggestions change status (Liked, Disliked, Picked). You can access notification options by clicking your user name and then Edit tab.

There are now more feedback options for both clients and contributors. Clients can now ban contributors whose suggestions are too poor.

Ranking system for contributors. This is a major innovation, so the ranking system will be explained in details later on. Here is what you need to know. All contributors now receive a rank, 1 through 5, 1 being advanced, 5 being rookie. This is important, because we are moving away from a 50/50 split. Our best contributors will now receive 60% of the total order amount, while beginners will start at 40%. This is done intentionally, to encourage our best contributors to be more active. This activity will be rewarded with more money.

This is how your ranking system is calculated. If your suggestion is picked, you get a major boost. If client bans you, you get negative points. The system will also track now many suggestions you’ve submitted and know many of those are marked as liked or disliked. This is important. You’ll get BETTER ranking if you submit FEWER suggestions but of HIGHER quality. If you submit only 10 suggestion and 2 of those are liked, you’ll get more points than a person who submitted 100 suggestions with 2 likes. So think before you submit – does this suggestion have a good chance of being liked?

TOS and FAQ. We now have semi-formal TOS and FAQ sections. A couple of years ago somebody (most likely our competitors) has started spreading rumors that we are a scam. We get frequent e-mails from wannabe contributors who tell us, ‘I want to join, but I’ve read here that you are a scam’. Even worse, some contributors who submitted suggestions that did not get picked seem to interpret this as proof that we are a scam. This nonsense has to stop, so read TOS and FAQ, if you are concerned about this or other issues. We’ve been in business for 4 years, have 1000+ paying clients and hundreds of contributors who got paid. We are 100% legit.

Openness. We’ve been quite busy with this upgrade, so we had to limit communication options to support form only, because it takes time to respond to each comment, fight spam, etc. Now we can finally open comments, so you guys can tell us what you think about our new system, what works, what does not, which features you’d like to get implemented, ask us questions, etc. Feel free to do that.

Car Sharing A Success

2011-05-17T03:11:00.000-07:00

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

http://www.business-opportunities.biz/GoCarShare.com

A YOUNG entrepreneur is on the road to success after his car sharing business clocked up 5,000 users.
http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
Drummond Gilbert came up with the idea for GoCarShare.com after seeing queues of cars each carrying just one person.

The 29-year-old, from East Hendred, near Wantage, launched his firm 18 months ago to reduce the number of car journeys on Britain’s road.

Now GoCarShare has linked up with Steventon’s Truck Festival, and its spin-off event, Wood, along with Glastonbury and the Hay Festival of Literature to get visitors sharing their vehicles.

Mr Drummond, a former accountant, said: “Things have really taken off and we have seen a big rise in the number of people who have signed up to the service. It was something I had wanted to do for a while and it’s great to see it becoming a reality.”

Last year the firm was shortlisted for a European best environmental start–up award.

Mr Drummond said the website, which is linked to social networking site Facebook, means people can get to know their co-travellers before setting off.

He said: “If I’m being honest, I would be very reluctant to get into a car with somebody I knew nothing about. That’s why we have incorp-orated Facebook.

“It means that, at the very least, people can see if they have anything in common with the people, or share the same friends, or maybe listen to the same music.

“That is what sets it apart from hitch-hiking.”

With more than 38 million empty car seats on Britain’s roads every day, car sharing can reduce the impact of vehicles on the environment.

And Mr Drummond said a lot of people are signing up because of the soaring cost of petrol.

He said: “Fuel costs went up 16 per cent last year and driving is becoming increasingly expensive.

“Obviously sharing a car makes commuting and travelling to one-off events a lot cheaper in the long run, which is appealing to a lot of people using the service.”

He added that it was “extremely exciting” to be partnering some of Britain’s biggest cultural festivals.

The former Radley School pupil, who runs the website from home, said: “It is a big move forward for us.

“It makes sense really – if you are driving to Glastonbury, then it is very likely that others from where you live will be doing the same. Why not travel down together?”

Truck Festival organiser Drew Brammer said using the service would help reduce the event’s overall carbon footprint.

He said: “I think using GoCarShare is a brilliant idea because it will bring down our environmental impact. Not only that, our festival-goers will get to meet other people on the way up and make new friends.

“I’ve done it before and always found it works fantastically well.”

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

[Via - HeraldSeries]

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

5 Best Business Books For 2010

2011-05-08T01:23:00.000-07:00

Link of the day - I will pay you $25, if you come up with a cool domain name for me.

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.

Link of the day - I will pay you $25, if you come up with a cool domain name for me.

MixPanel Review

2011-04-29T00:03:00.001-07:00

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

http://mixpanel.com/

The average student sees an internship as an opportunity to earn credits, gain experience and penetrate social circles that may lead to referrals or future entry-level positions. But Suhail Doshi, the 22-year-old co-founder of San Francisco analytics company Mixpanel, is far from average.

In 2008, following his sophomore year at Arizona State University, Doshi interned at Slide, a developer of social media apps. His stint there resulted in a business idea--and an investor.

As an intern, Doshi became increasingly aware that companies such as Slide, Facebook and social media game maker Zynga all shared a common burden: the need to build custom analytics in-house, because existing alternatives didn't meet their needs.

While services like Google Analytics worked fine for tracking traditional usage metrics, Doshi realized that the new crop of social media, online gaming and application development companies needed a way to measure user engagement and interaction, not just page views. This discovery turned a conventional internship into a commercial idea.

Back at school the following semester, Doshi met the person who would help bring his idea to fruition: Tim Trefren, his classmate in a discrete math course at the time and now Mixpanel's 23-year-old co-founder.

In the spring of 2009, Doshi and Trefren applied for funding through Y Combinator, a California-based seed funder of more than 250 startups, including Reddit, Loopt and Justin.tv. They were accepted into the program and given $15,000 in seed funding, which allowed them to spend the summer building Mixpanel into a viable business.

Upon completing the Y Combinator program, they took an official leave of absence from ASU and used the connections gained from the Slide internship and Y Combinator experience to secure additional investments of around $500,000 from Max Levchin, founder of Slide and co-founder of PayPal, and Michael Birch, co-founder of social networking site Bebo and reminder and e-card site BirthdayAlarm.

The result was Mixpanel, a third-party analytics platform that allows customers to track--in real time--how their users interact with websites, social games, applications and more. Instead of focusing solely on page views, Mixpanel shows insight into user-defined events, such as buying virtual goods in a Facebook game. Mixpanel's clients can capture and compare the data to explore a multitude of variables, such as browser type or retention patterns.

"A lot of companies said they would never use third-party analytics software," Doshi says. "But we continued to build a strong product, and eventually the people who said no started saying yes."

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

[Via - Entrepreneur.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