In with the old out with the new

We went to Beijing, China a few years ago and the entire city was under construction as they were preparing for the Olympics. With each torn down building goes the history of the city, as it is replaced with new modern architecture. So sad, I think. The city is starting to look like every other metropolitan city in the world. I’m beginning to get the same feeling about the Phoenix metropolitan area as well. Many of the great Southwestern restaurants at local resorts are changing their cuisine to become prime steak houses. The kitschy car wash I loved in Cave Creek has been transformed into a sleek new one. Even Rawhide Western Town has moved from Scottsdale to Chandler and will be replaced with housing. However, there is still one beautiful jewel left in Cave Creek, AZ. It’s called the Town Dump. They call themselves one of the world’s most unusual stores. It’s outdoor and items are laying around everywhere. They sell some really cool stuff like full sized armor, wooden legs, even false teeth in the past. You just never know what you’ll find there. The store was founded in 1977 by Madelyn Hines, who says the store reflects the individualistic nature of the town. I hope they stay open forever. My out of town guests seem to love that place. Who knows, someday soon it could be all we have left to reflect Cave Creek’s uniqueness as a city.

How to make money from Lice and Scabies

My daughter’s had eczema since she was born. One day her eczema got worse and the steroid crème her dermatologist stopped working, so I took her back to the derm. I hadn’t even gotten her out of her car seat when the doctor took one look at her and told me she had a classic case of scabies. My stomach turned with horror and I got all teary eyed. He assured me it wasn’t a big deal, kids get it all the time and I just needed to apply a prescription crème on her at night and wash it off in the morning. Oh, and sanitize all her linens, clothing, and soft cloth items in the house. My husband and I spent the next two days, twelve hours each day, doing fifteen loads of laundry on the sanitizing setting, baggaging all of the items she’d sat in, played with, etc, in the last month. Nightmare, to say the least. If I could have found someone to do this for me I would have. I see there is a company in Canada, Licesquad.com, that offers a service to rid your kid and your house of lice (not scabies, but the procedures for removal are somewhat similar – cleaning bed sheets, linens). They charge $55/hour for their services, and they even franchise. Will someone please start this business in my area, and include scabies treatment as well???

From 0 to Ten Million in a little more than a year

I’ve heard this story before but didn’t understand the details until I read about it this morning in Hybrid Moms magazine. Sheri Schmelzer’s daughter had a pair of Crocs, and she added some ornaments to the shoes, showed them to her husband, her hubby thought it was a genius idea. They took out a home equity loan and began buying things at craft stores and pasting them onto cufflinks, making the ornaments by hand in their basement. The Schmelzers launched a website in August 2005 for Jibbitz. Almost immediately they found success, receiving hundreds of orders a day. The company moved out of their basement in January 2006 and only six months later they grew so large they were forced to again relocate. Within just a year, over eight million Jibbitz were purchased worldwide. One day Sheri’s dad took Sheri’s kids to the local pool wearing a pair of Crocs with the attached Jibbitz. Low and behold, the founder of Crocs just happened to be at the pool and he handed the girl a business card. Her daughter ran home and gave the card to her mom Sheri. By December 2006, Crocs bought Jibbitz for $10 million, plus up to another $10 million in bonus. Not bad for a little over a year’s worth of work.

Making money over the Holidays

I’m shocked. I just read that Americans spend $8.5 billion on holiday lighting every year. While driving by someone’s house with a nice Christmas lights display one year, I saw it was professionally installed, so I took down the number and called to see how much it would be to have them deck out our house in lights for the holidays. Since I was calling in December that year, prices were astronomical – like over thousand bucks to have them light a few cactuses. Guess every sucker in Scottsdale had the same idea at the same time, driving up prices. Then I got to thinking, wouldn’t that be a phenomenal business idea? Just work two months out of the year, hire people to hang lights and take them down. Genius. Unfortunately someone else already thought of this idea. There’s a company called Brite Lites, which was founded in 1989, with the goal of supplying full service Christmas lighting. They offer design consultation, installation, removal and storage of your lights. By 1996, the company was installing over 300 homes with lights. A couple years later they started offering distributorships and now there are over 250 distributors nationwide. I see on their website they offer business opportunity packages for people to get started with their own Christmas lighting businesses.

Suri brings cupcakes to life

I remember driving down the streets of Chicago, wondering what the names of some of the streets meant. Many were named after people, who were these guys and what did they do to have a street named after them? A friend used to say all they had to do was follow one dream and do it well. They could suck at fifty things and just do one thing right, that’s all it takes to create a legacy. While the founders of Sprinkles Cupcakes don’t have a street named after them (yet), they follow a similar philosophy of doing one thing and doing it well. A new Sprinkles Cupcakes shop opened this week in Scottsdale. I haven’t tried the cupcakes, but I'm looking forward to checking it out, after all the hype I've heard about these things. If Oprah and Suri Cruise like them, they must be good, right? The founders are former investment bankers Charles and Candace Nelson. While visiting NYC, the couple had tried the famous Magnolia Bakery cupcakes. They saw how big the craze was there, but the trend hadn’t taken off yet in the rest of the country. Plus, they weren’t that impressed with Magnolia’s cupcakes and thought they could make a better product. The Nelsons spent two years figuring out the best cupcake recipe, hired a great architect and graphic design artist and opened their first shop in Beverly Hills in 2005. Their first day they ran out of cupcakes in three hours and people were literally banging on their doors for more. A second location was opened a year later in Newport Beach, then Dallas, Scottsdale, and fifteen more stores are currently in the works.