Dreyer's Ice Cream has gotten smaller in size

This doesn't have anything to do with my site but I'm just not going to let this get by unnoticed. I was at the grocery store yesterday to buy some ice cream. Dreyers ice cream. The carton has shrunk in size from 1.75 quarts to 1.5 quarts!!!!! And they are asking more money for it! I declare war! What's next to shrink, the Snickers bar??

Website that finds recipes using ingredients in your pantry

I have a pantry full of canned foods and a freezer full of meats and other things I got while buying in bulk. Somehow, my mind becomes numb when I go to the grocery store and I seem to forget about my inventory. This summer I have made it my goal to use up as much stuff as possible in my pantry. I recently came across an incredible website started by brainchild Assaf Rozenblatt, named http://www.supercook.com/. What you do is type in the ingredients you have in your pantry and it spits out recipes that use up as many of these ingredients as possible. And, Supercook can automatically figure out what substitutions you can make in a given recipe. This dude is genius for coming up with this product.

Assaf is only 27, but already came up with the website http://www.brainboost.com/ when he was 24. Brainboost is a website that allows you to ask questions and it comes up with answers from a huge database. Assaf sold Brainboost to Answers.com in 2005 for approximately $10 million. Not too bad. In October 2007, Assaf founded Supercook. Assaf was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, and he’s had no formal computer training. Yes, this man was self taught since the age of 12. At age 14 when most of us were doing science projects to see how much a fish can eat in a day, Assaf was figuring out how to make a computer taste. This guy is way over my head, but I like his product, and plan to use this site regularly.

$1 franchise fee to sell Terror Free Oil

Would you spend more money to buy gasoline from a place where the oil came from a non-terror sponsoring nation? CNBC last year did a little survey and found several people were willing to pay more, even up to 30 cents more per gallon to buy oil from a terror free nation.

I was in Omaha last week, home to the only “Terror Free Oil” gas station. It was located on a street with a couple other gas stations. I feel somewhat un-American by saying this, but I elected to use Bucky’s gas, instead of the one called Terror Free Oil. Not sure why, but I think the name intimidated me, like I thought some terrorist was going to jump out at me or something if I went to the gas station. When I go back to Omaha, I will make sure I conquer my sillyness and buy my gas from Terror Free Oil.

The company was founded because they were sick and tired of funding our own demise by sending our money to the Middle East every time they fill up at the pump. Terror Free Oil gas prices are competitive with other gas stations. Since gasoline is a fungible commodity, international oil gets mixed into the pipeline. However, oil purchased from Sinclair, Cenex, and Hess comes from countries that don’t import oil from the Middle East. This is where Terror Free Oil imports their oil.

Terror Free Oil is offering a franchise of their stations for the price of $1, because they want every gas station in America to be terror free.

How to make money hosting ridiculous competitions

These days there is a contest for everything, I’ve found. Recently I published a post on Hot Dog eating contests, as well as blogger’s contests. The other night on the news I heard about an air guitar contest. The US Air Guitar website says it was founded in 2003 and it’s become a “major national event”.

The founder, Chris Jung, says in the following YouTube blurb that when the contest was founded, “We just all thought we were going to get drunk and just videotaped ourselves, you know, getting kind of crazy and stuff, but there was more media than there were competitors.” All you have to do is perform two 60-second songs, one you choose (freestyle) and another the organizers choose (compulsory).

This is a real competition, with regional and national champions, and apparently the regional competition comes to Phoenix tonight. Tickets for the event are ten bucks, but I see they are double that for the finals in San Fran. If you want to compete, there’s a $20 fee to enter, but if you win you could represent your city in the national championship.

As far as prizes go, if you win Nationals, you get a free trip to Finland for the World Championship, and if you win Regionals you get a $400 travel voucher to the Nationals.
You are judged on the following:

1. Technical Merit
2. Stage Presence
3. Airness

This guy must be making big bucks - the competition is sponsored by Cuervo Black, and they make money from the dozens of competitions they hosts. Can anyone think of another ridiculous competition to make lots of money?

Bucket Bagger invention makes man a hero

When we were watching the horrible affects of Hurricane Katrina on the news, there was a clip of several people filling bags with sand. I didn’t think a lot of it until my husband expressed his concern for how inefficient that process seemed. Then I realized there must be a better way. I of course didn’t act on the business idea, but I just read an article about Stacey Babiarz, a man who came up with the Bucket Bagger, sure enough, shortly after Hurricane Katrina. I bet he saw the same clip I did!

The Bucket Bagger fills 30 pound bags with sand in 6 seconds. The machine normally sells for $5400. When he designed the contraption, Stacey never dreamed he’d use it. He runs a small welding shop and storage business. Stacey lives in southern Wisconsin, an area currently devastated, like most of the Midwest, with lots of flooding. All of Stacey’s neighbors are frantically trying to save their houses by filling up sandbags. Now Stacey is giving away the Bucket Baggers to help the people of his community. According to CNN, so far, five homes have been destroyed in the flood. He and other volunteers have been producing 2500 sandbags an hour.

"I don't know how many countless homes we helped save," Babiarz said, choking up. "But I never dreamed I would become my own best customer. It makes me want to cry both ways, Cry out of happiness to be part of helping, and cry for the ones we lost."

Perseverance leads to candle success in small town

When I was a kid my mom made candles for our homemade Advent wreaths right before Christmas. She spent hours melting the wax and developing a color suitable for the candles to prepare for Jesus's coming. Then she would pour the wax into orange juice cardboard containers with a white string she kept in place with a pencil. She only made eight candles per year - four for our home wreath and four for the church wreath. From helping her make the candles, I realize this is a time consuming process and there is a fine art in doing it right.

Of course I have a huge appreciation for the heavenly candles from a company called Sugar Shack Country Candles. The company is committed to producing the best quality, best smelling and longest lasting candles available. Their candles are made by hand out of their facility in Edgar Nebraska (town of 539 people). Cyndie Schoof and Bridget Kenley started the company in 1994.

According to Cyndie, "The most difficult thing in starting our business was that it was a joke to almost everyone we ran it by. I would have to tell anyone starting their own business that perseverance would be the main quality you need. If your goals and dreams are within reason, continue to strive to attain them. Do not let others try to tell you any differently."
It took Sugar Shack three and a half years to "even begin to make any money but we knew we had a great product. Quality is everything to us and our employees. The whole process was far from easy. We almost threw in the towel several times."

In addition to candles, they offer potpourri and refresher oils, air fresheners, aromatherapy soy blend candles, soap cakes, candle wire holders, tarts, and old fashioned canisters.

Sugar Shack has future plans to come up with new fragrances and a more upscale candle line.

Developing a product out of frustration leads to success

When in Nebraska last week, I went to a local wine store that sold little greeting cards that fit around the wine bottle neck for when you give the gift of wine. When I saw them I immediately thought, “Why didn’t I think of that business idea???” Duh. What a fantastic simple idea this is.

According to their website, this company has been around since 1981. And I have never seen these cards before last week! Where have I been? The company is called Bottleneck Wine Cards. It’s a family run business based out of Alexandria, Virginia. The founders came about the idea out of the inconvenience of buying a bottle of wine in one store and the greeting card in another, only to find a card that didn’t have anything to do with wine. The cards they designed have wine related verses and fit around the wine bottle so that it doesn’t become separated from the gift. Additionally, the cards are sold in wineries and other retail stores that sell wine.
Bottlenecks offers 24 different cards and are available at 250 establishments throughout the country.

Business idea: Teach tourists how to make local foods

My husband and I were fortunate to visit Thailand the year before the tsunami hit. We were able to see Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and the island of Phuket. One of my favorite memories was a visit to the Chiang Mai cooking school. Before going, I couldn’t get my husband to eat Thai food. Since the cooking school, he loves it. In fact, we eat Thai food on the average of once a week. I make the recipes I learned in class often at home, using local ingredients.

The town of Chiang Mai is rather granola, in American terms: kind of a hippie, naturalistic style to the town. I will never forget the look on my husband’s face when the burlap covered pickup picked us up at our hotel on the morning of cooking school. It was a “what have you gotten me into this time, Rita?” kind of look. Part of me thought he wasn’t going to get in. That part was a little too much Thailand, not enough Scottsdale for him.

After a choppy ride, we arrived in their outside covered facility. Each of us got our own stove and cooking supplies, a cookbook, and several funny teachers to help us prepare five or six authentic Thai foods, using local ingredients. I’ve discovered when traveling abroad you meet other people who travel abroad. Several couples in cooking school had spent a year or more traveling throughout the world. One had just been to Kathmandu. How exotic. The day spent in cooking school was one of the best days of any vacation I’ve ever taken. I can’t recommend this place enough.

Chiang Mai cooking school was founded by husband and wife Sompon and Elizabeth Nabnian. Sompon claims he was born in a kitchen when his mom was cooking breakfast. After his experience as a novice monk, Sompon decided to be a guide, which involved taking tourists on treks and cooking three meals a day in the jungle. It was during his experience as a guide he met Elizabeth and decided he wanted to open a cooking school. Elizabeth is English, and they moved to England to get experience cooking Thai food abroad. They found Thai ingredients are available worldwide and those ingredients that are local can be substituted with other ingredients.

The school was founded in 1993, and has achieved international success. The couple has been featured on the National Geographic Channel and in Lonely Planet tour books. They also have opened a restaurant in Chiang Mai called the Wok, and recently opened a spa called the Jasmine Rice Village Resort and Spa, also in Chiang Mai.

17 Differences between AZ and NE

I spent the last week in Nebraska, visiting relatives and friends. Had a nice time, it was difficult to say goodbye to everyone. While there, I noticed several differences between Nebraska and the Phoenix area, where I live, and thought I’d share with my readers my observations. I'm not saying one place is better than the other. In fact, my preference would be to spend half the year in each place.

Things you find in NE

1. Smoking rooms and cheap hotels
2. Signs about Abortion Kills
3. Deer, raccoon and skunk roadkill
4. Rusty domestic cars
5. Restaurants: Valentinos, Runza, Amigos
6. Strawberry Orchards in bloom
7. College World Series and NE Huskers
8. Farmers Markets with homegrown foods
9. Flyswatters and mosquitos
10. Lawnmowers and green grass
11. White, yellow and blue houses
12. Neighbors who are friends
13. Professional weathermen
14. Catholic churches on every street corner
15. Rain/tornados/snow
16. Savers, as opposed to spenders
17. Bright yellow neon signs
    

Things you find in AZ:

1. Expensive resorts
2. Signs about Illegal Immigration
3. Snake, coyote, and rabbit roadkill
4. Shiny new foreign cars
5. Restaurants: Salt Cellar, Binkleys, Roys
6. Cactus Farms in bloom
7. Superbowl, Suns, Diamondbacks, Cardinals
8. Art and Wine festivals
9. Scorpions
10. Desert landscaping
11. Brown houses. Only.
12. Neighbors who are acquaintances
13. The news anchor doubles as the weatherman
14. Twenty minute drives to find a church
15. Seasons: Hot and hotter
16. Spenders, as opposed to savers
17. Signs that match the environment, in Spanish and English.
    

Making a company finding hard to find books, music, movies

There are only a handful of things I can think of that my husband is extremely “in to”. One of those things is the book “Napkin Notes: On the Art of Living” by Michael Durst. He feels the book changed his life. His copy of the book has about twenty markings and underlinings on every page, and several of the pages are coming out because he’s read the book so many times.

Needless to say, he’s given the book to a dozen or more people, most of whom have yet to read it. The latest victim, er, recipient was our babysitter when she graduated college a month ago. He knew immediately this was the book he wanted to give her.

Unfortunately, at the time, the book was nearly impossible to obtain, as it’s been out of print for a while. There are very few copies anyone is willing to give up. I spent hours trying to find a copy at a decent price. Of course today, a month later, I came across a very cool website that exclusively sells hard to find books, movies, and music. The site is called Alibris.com.

The company was started by Richard Weatherford, a bookseller with a PhD in English from UCLA, who sold old books through catalogs from his home in Seattle. In 1982, he wrote a business plan for a company he called Interloc to build an online database for old, hard to find books. Talk about cutting edge. However, Richard had a problem finding startup capital so he put the idea on hold.

In 1991, Richard was hired by a company to help keep Bookquest alive. This company had a similar concept to Interloc. Bookquest failed, but Richard learned from the experience and he couldn’t stop thinking about his Interloc idea. The idea now seemed timely, now that computer usage was becoming widespread. He was able to raise $50,000 and started the company in 1993, before the internet was mainstream.

Interloc was initially not open to the public. It was only used by professional bookstores.
Four years later, Marty Manley, Assistant Secretary of Labor for Bill Clinton, asked an author he knew to find a copy of his book. This author suggested he use Interloc to find the book. Marty fell in love with Interloc and immediately went on the hunt to find Richard Weatherford. The two met, and discussed how they could grow the business to independent booksellers. They spent three weeks touring the country, asking booksellers what they liked and disliked with their online booksales. At the end of their journey, Manley and Weatherford decided to found a new company using the technology of Interloc. This company, Alibris, has five new approaches to bookselling:

1. they have developed a partnership with independent bookstores


2. they sell to businesses, libraries, and end consumers.


3. they have specialized logistics which allow efficiencies in shipping


4. they offer superior market intelligence


5. it’s a great place to work.
   

Alibras has plans for expansion in overseas markets and hopes to connect people worldwide to the books they wish to locate.

Selling ads on a vehicle garners healthy income

In Scottsdale, static outdoor billboard advertising is not allowed. This statute has paved the way for some alternative forms of advertising. For example, car dealerships will have men in Uncle Sam costumes on their street corners waving people in to buy a car. There are balloons at every apartment complex, and usually someone with an arrow pointing the way to reserve your new home. At night when you drive down the main thoroughfare, you will see commercial vans strategically parked with the company name painted on them. Then there is the king of advertisements – the mobile billboard that drives around all day long.

A company called Go Mobile advertising seems to be the biggest player in the transit advertising industry. According to their website, the company was started when the founder was looking for a mobile advertiser for another business in Seattle Washington. He had a difficult time finding one, and finally met a man in Florida, Bill Ostergaard, who was building a prototype of one in his garage with his son. Go Mobile hooked up with Bill, and became the marketing arm of the partnership.

Today the company has over 45 employees, and has worked on mobile advertising campaigns for some of the leading companies in the US, including Ikea, Miller beer, McDonald’s and GM. Out of home advertising is a $6.8 billion/year industry, and Go Mobile feels they have just touched the surface of what they can do. They have so far sold dozens of vehicles at around $100,000 each. People can buy the vehicles without a franchise fee, and basically start their own business. Included with the price of the vehicle is a driver training manual, sales kit, website, and exclusivity in their own county. The company warns that if you purchase a vehicle you won’t immediately make a profit off of advertisers. There is about a $5000/month expense of hiring a driver, fuel costs, truck lease, insurance, etc. Because of this, they recommend $50,000 in working capital to get started. Up to ten advertisements can be run per hour on the vehicle at approximately 6 minutes each ad.

I think it's an interesting business concept. We see hundreds of advertisements everyday, and expect to see them in certain places so our eyes are somewhat trained not to pay attention to them. However, when I'm in a car I pay attention to the billboard ads driving around because they are unusual. What do you think?

Success comes when you do the little things right

There’s a book I’m reading right now called “Big things happen when you do the little things right”, by Don Gabor. In the back of the book it lists fifty ways to make big things happen. For this post, I’d like to focus on these four:

1. Look at each problem or hurdle you face as an opportunity.
2. Use all available resources to achieve your goals
3. Consistently press toward your goal without worrying about success or failure
4. Persevere when you reach an impasse or difficult hurdle

All these things sound good, but it’s very difficult to put them into practice. I’ve failed at all of these at some point in the recent past. So I look to find inspiration in others who have excelled at these “little things”. I have to look no further than to Dan Harkins, of Harkins Theatres.

Harkins has a new cinema opening in Tucson, according to AZnightbuzz.com, that is going to have a play center for kids while you watch a movie. That, by the way, is Genius. Dan knows a lot about movie theaters, his website says he was conceived in a movie theater, raised in a movie theater, even married in one.

His father, Red Harkins, wanted to make movies, so he moved from Cincinnati and headed to Hollywood. However, he ran out of money by the time he reached Arizona, so he decided to settle in Tempe for awhile. A couple years later, when he turned 18, he opened a theater in Tempe, then seven years later opened another. He died in 1974, leaving behind a bankrupt company.

Red’s son, Dan, was in college at the time of his father’s death, and had big plans to become a lawyer. When his father died, he had the choice of pursuing his education and to watch the company get sold, or to pursue his dad’s vision of developing a profitable movie theater. Dan aw his father's death as an opportunity to carry on his father's vision. He bought the business from his mother for $75,000, dropped out of school, and began working 120 hour workweeks. He would negotiate with utility companies to keep the lights on for late payments. Talk about using all resources to fulfill your goals! For the next eight years, Harkins theaters lost money every year, between $50,000 and $300,000 per year. Dan never regretted giving up his dream of being a lawyer, and was willing to do whatever it took to carry on the business after his father’s death. His father was an innovator, and believed nothing in life is meaningful unless you get along with people. The strong values his father left behind became the backbone of the company.

Harkins had a lawsuit with Hollywood, which was settled in 1991. Harkins felt there was a conspiracy in which theater chains would get together to determine who was the exclusive bidder of top name movies, and that would be the only bidder the movie studio would license their films to. The antitrust case was finally settled, and Harkins was given the opportunity to license motion pictures for his theaters based on merit. In this example, Dan met the third and fourth"little things" of consistenly pressing toward his goal without worrying about success or failure, and pursuing his goal when he met a hurdle.

The company has been profitable since 1993, and continues to expand throughout the Southwest, by building new theaters and by acquiring others.

Dan’s father Red would be proud.

Few predictions of businesses in the next ten years

There was an article on MSNBC a while back that talks about the businesses that probably won’t be around in ten years. I’ll do a quick rundown of their predictions:

1. record stores: world is going online


2. camera film manufacturers: world is going digital


3. crop dusters: too dangerous, and the average age of a crop duster is 60 years old


4. gay bars: homosexuals have increased acceptance in society, decreasing the need for gay bars


5. newspapers: world is going online for news


6. pay phones: everybody and his brother now has a cell


7. used bookstores: most buy books online


8. piggy banks: moving to a digital world and paperless society


9. telemarketing: Do Not Call list is very popular


10. Coin Operated Arcades: ever hear of the Wii, xbox, or playstation?

I’d like to get out my crystal ball and make some other predictions:

1. most golf shops: the excitement Tiger Woods has brought to the sport created a plethora of golf stores, especially in Arizona. I predict people will finally realize they have a long way to go to become the next Tiger, and golf shops and courses will be torn down.


2. Circuit City: no one is ever in that store when I’m there, and more and more people are buying products of this type online.


3. Revlon: nobody buys that anymore, do they? I think companies like Bobbi Brown, Clinique, Mac, and Sephora will dominate the makeup industry.


4. Airborne: I still see this in stores, even though it’s been proven it doesn’t work because it was developed by a SCHOOL TEACHER people!!!


5. half of the mattress stores out there. In one shopping center in particular, there are three or four mattress stores. How many mattress stores do we need??

Just some thoughts. Do you have any other predictions?

Making money selling to the government

Just read an AP article about the state of Illinois planning to leave behind a lot of roadkill this year because they spent more than double their $40 million budget clearing ice and snow from the streets due to the harsh weather and rising fuel costs. This leads me to the quote of the day:

“Dead animals in driving lanes and any deemed hazardous to motorists will be removed. But much of the rest will be left for scavengers. Kevin Gillespie of the Jackson County Health Department says the roadkill might be smelly and gruesome, but it shouldn't lead to any health risks.”

At the end of the article, there are of course a billion or so comments, my favorite, "looks like IDOT is missing an I. "

Not sure who the State of Illinois uses to clear roadkill, but this leads me to hit on an excellent business opportunity – selling goods to the government. Every state in the union and many city and county localities, as well as the Federal Government, offer tons of business opportunities your company can bid on. Often, the winning bid goes to the lowest bidder for any given commodity or service. Additionally, many locales offer preferential treatment to Women or Minority owned businesses. In overview, the process goes like this:

1. You can register your business online via state purchasing websites to be eligible to bid.
2. You submit what commodities you want to receive bid information for.
3. States send you requests for quotations and bid opportunities via snail mail or email, those bids you have registered to receive.
4. You submit your bids within the time frame they give you
5. Within hours of the bid opening, you find out whether you won the business or they have selected another company. Often you also find out at what price the purchaser bought the products.

There’s an excellent book called "Win Government Contracts for Your Small Business (Business Owner's Toolkit series)" that gives further details on government opportunities.

Building on the strengths of your twin to start an educational learning company

As a Stay at home mom, I spend lots of time with my kids. I try to keep them away from the television as much as possible, though my daughter loves to watch the Wiggles in the morning. Now that it’s blazing hot here in Arizona for the summer, we can’t go outside like we could during the winter months, so the other day we went to Target and got a bunch of toys in their dollar section – finger paints, sand tools, a toy tractor, doll accessories. When I was a kid her age, I didn’t have many toys at all, so I am somewhat against the idea of having lots of toys to occupy my kids. I would prefer something that we can do to interact together and the kids can hopefully learn and play at the same time.

A few weeks ago I received an email from the company Wiggle Giggle Learn. The company offers a program of learning games and educational activity plans for you to do with your kid from birth to age 5, every day. It’s a revolutionary “system” that has developed the activity plans necessary to teach parents HOW to teach their children to love to learn. I have to admit the first pass through the site didn’t grab my attention. I guess I didn’t really “get” what they were doing. Luckily I decided to give it another pass, and I’m extremely excited about the products they are offering. They offer several sample plans on the website to give you a glimpse of their product. For the price of a toy, I can get several months worth of activities for my kids. The plans tell you what the learning goal is, what everyday materials are needed (like water or a bucket or crayons or stuff you already have), the activity, and tips and expectations of the activity.

Stacey and Tracey Bryant have been working on this product for over a year. They are twins who had completely opposite careers – Stacey is in business management, and Tracey is in early childhood education. They came up with the business for the company when Stacey asked her sister, "If you could change our education system what would you do?" She said, "I would get them at birth." Thinking like an entreprenuer, Stacey said, "We Can!" She envisioned Tracey teaching parents how to teach their own children from birth and then they would come to kindergarten prepared to learn.

The twins spent $30,000 to start the company, and just went live last week. “We started by beta testing with 300 families July 2007 and we got an amazing amount of feedback from this group.” Stacey says. “ I would highly recommend that you start with a beta test to work the kinks out of your business system and/or products. These people are on our program for free, however, they are giving us feedback and we will track the progress of these Wiggle Giggle kids as they enter kindergarten This give us valuable data that will back up our stand that early education is the key.”

The most difficult part of starting up their business was finding the funding to keep it going. They were chosen as a potential finalist for the Seeds for Success grant sponsored by Yahoo and Carolyn Kepcher (from the Apprentice tv show). Additionally, Tracey's blog was chosen as the second best education blog in America by the EDin08 foundation founded by Bill and Melinda Gates.

Stacey’s advice to anyone starting up is Don't quit your day job too early.

Starting a business to relieve the stress of regifting

Christmas and birthdays often feel like a chore to me. Not only do I have to figure out what to get everyone, but then people ask me what I want. It’s at that moment my mind usually goes blank and I can’t figure out for the life of me what I want or need, usually until the day after Christmas. Yeah, I’m a scrooge.

I just discovered a new site, regiftmenot.com, which is a universal gift registry that allows me to preference which gifts I want for any occasion. I simply put in my “style file” my sizes for clothes and shoes (even bra size or undie styles – let’s see, will that be a thong or granny panties this year?), stores I like, styles I like, hobbies, and just about anything else you can think of. Additionally, I can download their “widget” and at anytime throughout the year if I see something on another website I want to have, I can click the button and my gift preference will be added to my wish list. Then I can send this list of preferences and items to anyone I choose, to make it easier for them to buy for me. Hopefully my other relatives and friends will make gift buying easier for me as well by filling out this form. Brilliant.

Kat Valentine came up with the business idea the day after Christmas, 2005. hmmm, do you think she may have gotten some gifts that year she wanted to take back? She says, “Like so many other global citizens, my friends and family live in different cities – and different countries! We don’t have the luxury of daily personal interaction and many of the gifts we give and receive on special occasions don’t fit body or home. Everyone likes to get great gifts, but even more everyone likes to GIVE great gifts. ReGiftMeNot was concepted and developed to meet that need in a fun, entertaining, and playful way.”

The business officially kicked off September 10, 2007. Says Kat, “I’ve been the owner of a web development company, WebMistress.com, for 10 years. The programming, creative, and marketing talent is right here and we’ve been making other businesses successful on the web for years. Starting our own web based, social networking / gifting business was a natural choice. The most difficult aspect of starting the business was, as is so often, finances. I purchased and sold a home to raise the capital to support the staff as we moved from billable hours to development hours. The easiest part of starting this business was the access to incredibly talented and creative individuals. Everyone who has been part of the development has participated with genuine enthusiasm and has brought amazing new ideas to the table. The idea is simple, but the execution is complex and could not have been done without them.

“The initial investment can be calculated in two ways - dollars spent and dollars lost. I’ve invested $50K supporting payroll and expenses, but the amount of billable hours lost exceeds $125K. Our primary goal is to build a successful social networking community. We have reasonable expectations and know this is a five-year commitment at least. The community is supported by affiliate sales, but the sales are secondary and I’ll be happy to break even in the first two years.

"We use a BBS to track development and have one forum specifically for new ideas for ReGiftMeNot. There are 20+ new ideas waiting in the wings, including photo albums for members, product comparisons, polls & ratings, personal shoppers, recipe sub-site for the cooks in the crowd, and many more. Our focus will always be to develop new services to make our site interesting and usable.”

Valentine’s advice to those starting up: “Chase the vision, not the dollars. Everything takes longer than expected and costs more than expected. Be realistic with your expectations, remain focused on your vision, and you will have a successful business. “

Coupons offer profitable business and ways for consumers to save

Here’s a statistic for you – shoppers last year redeemed over 2.6 Billion coupons last year. I clip them just about every Sunday. However, for some reason they always end up in the bottom of my purse, expired, or I forget to use them when I actually do buy the product. I even joined a website called The Grocery Game, that matched my coupons to products and told me how cheaply I could get the product for if I went to such and such grocery store.

Several companies realize my plight, and know that coupons create loyal customers. Consequently, grocery stores and other retailers are working with companies to develop ways to make coupons more accessible to buyers. AOL-owned website Shortcuts.com offers a way to link coupons from the internet to your grocery store loyalty card. Does anyone out there realize how HUGE this concept is?? Away goes the stigma of using a coupon, out goes those expired paper pieces in the bottom of your purse! And you won’t forget to use the coupons either, because you have already loaded them onto your card! Genius! SmartMoney.com lists four other coupon innovations, including:

• Coupon Kiosks – by swiping your loyalty card at certain stores, you can receive coupons based on your puchase history.


• Shopping Widgets like Mealbox, a downloadable software that allows customers to prepare shopping lists and automatically attaches available coupons


• Web coupons – now contain barcodes so more and more stores are accepting


• Cellphone coupons – the wave of the future. Company Cellfire was founded in 2005, using venture capital funding. It is privately owned, and Cellfire is the first and only company to allow customers to easily access deals from merchants anytime or anywhere through their cellphones. The company has so far issued over eight million coupons with over $29 million in savings. Their coupons are accepted at over ten thousand locations nationwide.

Someone needs to come up with a company that will link my pantry items to my shopping list and my recipes for the week along with available coupons and instore specials. There you go - free idea for anyone interested.

When making money on your business is the only option

A new Whole Foods opened in my area so I checked it out the other day. I carefully took notes of several of the products I had never seen before. Since I am celiac (can’t eat wheat and other products containing gluten), I tend to read the labels on foods more than the average person, yet don't consider myself a health nut. There was one product that grabbed my attention, called the Laughing Giraffe, and I have found there is an interesting story behind the company.

Justin Baumgartner started the company in April 2006. He had been working for a similar company in New York, but became very dissatisfied with his ideas being tampered with and how the company was run, so he moved back to Phoenix, Arizona, and started his own company.
Justin says the most difficult part of starting his own company is “being 100% responsible for the success or failure of my company. I had always been an assistant or played a support role in all the projects I was involved with. (Prior to this project), I was afraid to be held accountable. That was certainly the most difficult part, holding myself accountable. There is no one to point a finger at when it is just you.”

The Laughing Giraffe was started with $7,000 in seed money from credit cards, in order to purchase equipment and ingredients. The first year of business, the company took a loss of $10,000, but by year two they had a profit of $70,000. They have taken out another loan of $50,000 to grow the company quickly. However, they are currently in major distribution, having availability of products in every state west of Kansas. Current goals include stabilizing sales, and increasing their presence in the West. Getting their products into distribution has lowered profit margins, but by increasing outplacement they hope to recoup the money.
Justin says “It has been a crazy ride, I can't even begin to explain how unexpected everything has been. I just wanted to make a living selling things at farmers markets and now I am working toward $500K in sales this year.

"The best advice I have is if you are confident in your idea commit 100% and go for broke. You get out what you put in and if you're not completely focused and giving your idea 100% you can not expect a 100% return. You need to quit everything else and make the success of your business your only option. If your choices are succeed or be out on the street you have a lot more motivation to make it happen.” Amen!
Undergoing MyBlogLog Verification

How to turn old into Gold

A few years ago I attended a conference in Las Vegas on Multi-level Marketing. There were hundreds of people there looking to start their own party planning businesses, hoping to make it big and become the next Tupperware or Pampered Chef. Several people had CRAZY ideas - one was selling some purified water and others, vitamin supplements that probably didn’t work. The principle of a party business is you invite your friends over and they buy from you and then they register to become salespeople and host parties, and then the original host gets a percentage of the sales made down the line.

What about a party business, though, where friends come over and instead of BUYING, they are actually SELLING and making money??? Now that’s a party I would like to attend! What a concept. This is exactly the idea January Thomas came up with earlier this year. Yes, in January 2008. The business is called My Gold Party. The company sells kits on how to host your party, including a book, gold tester, scale, and magnification loupe.

Thomas had been recently married. She had held on to several pieces of gold in her drawer for fifteen years and wanted to get rid of it. Instead of taking the gold to a pawn shop, she asked her brother in law, who is in the jewelry business, what the jewelry was worth and he gave her $200. She figured, if she had a couple hundred dollars worth of gold sitting in her drawer, imagine what a 40, 50, or 60 year old woman had in her drawer? Lots of other women must be in the same boat!

Thomas, who had a background in sales, invested around $25,000 to get her business started, and within the first month she had already recouped her money. Her biggest concern with startup was whether or not there would be any interest in her idea. Apparently not. Her company was featured on March 17, 2008 on the NBC Nightly news, and there was significant interest immediately following.

The most interesting party she has hosted so far included one person selling gold dentures, and the same night someone else had 12 carat gold press on nails to sell back. Guess you never know what you’ll find at a party. Thomas’s advice for anyone looking to start their own company is: "Go for it! It is such an incredible feeling - working for yourself!"

List of Blog Contests to enter

We don’t have daylight savings time in Arizona, so this time of year the sun rises officially around 5:17am. However, I wake up at the crack of light, in spite of my heavy blackout curtains. This morning I was up at 4:29am. Everyday I try to read and leave comments on at least ten other blogs before my kids wake up. There are several advantages of leaving comments and visiting other blogs, I understand.

1. I’m able to see what other people are doing on their blogs and can possibly incorporate new ideas into my blog
2. Most bloggers check their comments and often then visit my site.
3. I can begin to develop relationships with other bloggers and network.
4. Many blogs offer backlinks for those who leave comments (backlinks are good for Search Engine Optimization) .

Recently while visiting other blogs, I have discovered lots of people are offering contests to increase readership, and to obtain backlinks. Until this morning, I haven’t registered for any of the contests, because I keep hearing the voice in my head that says “you never win anything, they just want your information”. The truth is, I’m giving these sites my “information” anyway (my email address and website) when I leave a comment. Also, most contests I’ve entered in the past offer horrible chances of winning – like one in ten thousand or something crazy. My chances on most contests are the equivalent of winning the lottery. However, most of these blogs have few visitors (though probably more than mine!), i.e. increased chances I will win. In fact, several of them I’ve come across only have a handful of entries. Today I registered for the following contests:

1. Sweethacks - Giving away $1300 in prizes, all you have to do is comment on their site, subscribe to their RSS feed and/or write a blog post about them. Ends June 13

2. DesignPal.org - Giving away $350 in prizes. To enter, either subscribe to their RSS feed, enter a comment, or blog about them. Ends June 20.

3. freefrombroke.com - Giving away $100 Amazon gift card. To enter, either subscribe to their feed and email them the secret phrase, write a blog post about saving money and send them the link, or leave a comment on their site with a summer savings tip. Ends June 30.

4. - I need Alex -Just subscribe to his feed and enter a comment. Ends June 15.

5. - IMBlogger - Win cash. Subscribe to his feed and leave a comment. Also, "You shouldn’t cancel your subscription at least until the contest is over". This guy is hilarious. Ends June 15.

6 DNXpert - This one has almost $9000 in prizes. Subscribe to their feed. Optionally, blog about the contest. Receive more entries by listing all the prizes on your blog. Ends June 19.

7. Life is Colourful - This is an interesting website that talks about how to make money online. They offer almost $6000 in prizes to celebrate their anniversary. To enter, do any or all of the following: Comment on their blog post, favorite them in Technorati via pressing a button on their site, Review the site on Stumbleupon, blog about the contest, subscribe to their feed (required), be a top commentator on their site. Complete directions are on their site. Ends July 1.

8. Newtotv.com - offering a free ipod to comment on their site. Ends June 12.

9. John Chow and Market Leverage- offering a bag of goodies. Either leave a comment or write about the contest in your blog. Ends June 30

The reason I'm posting this on Winning Startups: There are lots of people who make winning contests their career. This is a new avenue for people wanting to make some money, without a lot of effort. Assuming you are lucky.

Like hotdogs? Maybe this is the idea for you!

Last year on July 4th I was glued to the television set, watching the Nathan’s hot dog eating contest on ESPN. I mean, I was GLUED to the tv set. Yes, I’m a sick woman. Fascinating that many of the eaters were stick thin. How does that work? I know if you throw up you are eliminated, so this food must be going down, right?


Nathan's is now having the regional qualifying rounds. Last weekend a guy from Chicago, Tim “Gravy” Brown won the Tempe hot dog eating contest by eating 33 hot dogs in ten minutes. This allows him to compete in the National contest on July 4th in New York. Sorry, bud, you have a long way to go before you will place nationally, considering last year the winner ate 66 hot dogs in the same amount of time.

The reason I have included this on my Winning Startups website is because eating hot dogs can actually be a business. The winner of the national contest is featured on television and the news all around the world, gets a $10,000 prize, and even can obtain endorsements. About 1.5 million viewers tuned in during the 2006 competition, and it’s gaining momentum. It’s a big deal, there have even been documentaries and television shows based on this contest:

• A Different Story" (July 4 1996) - Jeannie Moos covers the contest on CNN
• "Red, White, and Yellow" (1998)
• "A Hot Dog Program: An All-American, Culinary Cruise Through Hot Dog History" (1999)
• Gut Busters" (2002) Made for TV - Discovery Channel
• "King of the Hill", "The Fat and the Furious" episode (2002)
• "Footlong" (2002) - not the 2003 short film of the same name
• "The Tsunami - Takeru Kobayashi" (2003) Japanese
• "Crazy Legs Conti: Zen and the Art of Competitive Eating" (2004)
• "The Most Extreme", "Big Mouths" episode (2004) (Animal Planet)
• "True Life" (2006) MTV documentary series
  

So if your passion is eating, look no further than becoming a participant in next year's Nathan’s Hot Dog eating contest.

Attending a divorce party leads to business idea

I remember reading People magazine a year or so ago that Shanna Moakler had a big party to celebrate her divorce from Travis Barker. Guess I followed their relationship because I’m a HUGE fan of Blink 182 – Travis Barker was the drummer. The party really brought to light the fact that in some cases, divorce can be celebrated. In fact, I just came across a woman who has a business centered around planning divorce parties. Christine Gallagher has a website, www.divorcepartyplanner.com, where she sells a guide for planning your party, which includes:

• Party themes
• Party favors
• Gift ideas
• Divorce party music
• Party food and drink ideas
• Invitations
• Decorations
• Divorce Party Etiquette
  

Additionally, if you live in the Los Angeles area, you can hire Christine to coordinate and personalize your party. The business has been around since 2003, after Christine “had attended a couple of parties marking the end of divorce and realized there is a need for this type of "celebration" marking an important transition in life.” Apparently Christine’s is the first guide of its type on the market.

Christine had a background in writing humorous non-fiction self help books for women, and also writes the website http://www.revengelady.com/. She says this helped her work out the kinks in terms of design and payment procedures. Her initial startup costs were less than a thousand bucks, and she was able to break even on this investment within three months of opening her business. Additionally, this business is going places – she’s been featured on shows like “Good Morning America” and “Today”. She's also working with a producer to create a reality show based on the site, and is working to expand the product into a party kit to sell to a publisher. Christine finds it interesting that certain parts of society become irate with her site and attach political overtones. She ignores all negative comments and letters, by the way, so don’t even bother.

Her advice to anyone looking to start a business is: “Go for it - find a niche that has not been exploited and believe in your own idea. I think if it truly appeals to you, then trust your instincts and go with it.”

Put the money where your mouth is. Literally.

Maybe all those cavities you have aren't so bad afterall.

In the Arizona Republic there was an article about people selling the dentalwork they had done years ago to make money, due to the recent rise in gold prices. Apparently, crowns, fillings, and bridgework used to be made out of 16 carat gold, which made the fillings soft enough to mold, but hard enough to maintain its shape while biting. Today, however, most dentalwork is made from different substances like mercury amalgam or other alloys. Those fortunate enough to have the old gold fillings can cash in if they are willing to part with the dental work. Gold reached a record high of $1038.60 an ounce March 17, though the price has gone done a bit since then. The gold from dentalwork can be melted down into coins.


Supposedly this is big business in Japan, where they estimate if all the gold thrown out from dentures was sold, over $70 million could be raised per year. The Japan Denture Recycle Association has collected over 30,000 dentures and made over $176,000 for charity since they began in December 2006. The gold from a set of dentures there is worth about $24.50, maybe more if gold continues to rise. The Association’s leader, Isao Miyoshi, came up with the idea of putting dropboxes in government agencies throughout Japan to collect the gold, when he found out millions of the dentures are discarded annually. With the aging population in Japan rising, more and more people will have old gold to get rid of. If the small country of Japan can collect this why doesn’t someone in the US work on this idea too?

If you liked this post, please share the love and Stumble it!

Lessons learned from other businesses

Since I’m approaching my 150th post on this site, I wanted to recap some of the lessons I've learned from the experiences of others pursuing their business startups. I’ve picked eighteen of my favorites so far:

1. domystuff.com: If there’s a chore you hate doing, maybe there are others who don’t like to do it either.


2. Horizon Software: you can overcome any difficulty in life and find success


3. Retire Early Lifestyle: you don’t need a lot of money to retire early, if you are willing to travel and live frugally.


4. 3 Amigos Tequila: it takes a strong work ethic and patience to be successful


5. Lice Squad: there’s money to be made in providing a service many others don’t like to do


6. Sprinkles Cupcakes: getting a celebrity to endorse you pays off royally, especially if it’s Katie Holmes.


7. Vala’s pumpkin patch: if you think outside the box, you can use your college degree in non-traditional ways and be successful.


8. Life is Good: By looking at things you see everyday in a different way, you may find a business idea that will someday make you rich.


9. Jibbitz: all it could take is one year to make millions


10. Famous Dave’s: it could take many years and lots of failures to make millions


11. Home Tenders of America: there are ways to make money in a down real estate market


12. Inn at Little Washington: attention to detail is very important


13. myyearbook.com: teenagers can make a lot of money


14. Stumbleupon: you can start a million dollar business out of your living room


15. Berkshire Hathaway: honesty and integrity are what it’s all about


16. Coffin Couches: you can turn a hobby into a business


17. James Arthur Vineyards: you can grow wine in the Midwest


18. SitterCity: if you can’t find an investor, invest your own money

If you liked this post, please share the love and Stumble it!

Profiting from a cheating ex-boyfriend

There’s a website that has been up since February, called exboyfriendjewelry.com. It is here you can sell jewelry given to you by an ex that you no longer want or wear. Megahn Perry came up with the idea after she and her fiancé broke up, and she wanted to get rid of the engagement ring he had given her. She started out at the local pawn shop in the sleazy part of town, where the proprietor freaked her out, and offered her only $75. She then tried the consignment shop down the street, but lacked confidence in them to hold onto her jewelry. She told her stepmom her dilemma, and that afternoon, they came up with the idea of a website where women can sell their goods, and along with the jewelry, must tell the story behind the breakup. The goal of the site is to be more personal than Ebay or other auction sites.

Seems fairly timely, as half of marriages end in divorce – what to do with the ring? Certainly most divorced women don’t intend to wear it again. Why not sell?

The website doesn’t charge commission or make money from people buying or selling. However, they do make money on advertisers on their site.

I’ve been on the site several times, and the site shows how many users are on at any given time. Looks like they have quite a bit of traffic, and currently over a thousand listings. Additionally, the site has gotten lots of press so far, from People, the Today show, and the New York Times.

How to make money from Soup Labels, UPC codes and Coupons

My ebay career of about 13 sales over ten years has pretty much come to a screeching halt after my last round of listings. Someone bought a Snugli from me for pennies, then complained I didn’t wash it well enough. This, after I spent half the day listing the product and half a day packaging it, plus I spent extra money on shipping. I think I actually lost money on the deal, certainly I did if you include my valuable time.

I do find it interesting, though, the types of things people sell on ebay. For example, I see thousands of coupons are sold daily. This is interesting to me, considering many coupons have clauses which say they can’t be sold. Hmm, maybe auctions don't count as selling? I wonder why ebay allows this. These coupons, though, are going for big bucks, sometimes full coupon value.

Another amazing product on ebay is sales of UPC codes and soup labels. It’s so popular, ebay’s even given them their own category. When I was a kid my mom would always save soup labels for the school fundraising campaigns. I would be in the doghouse if I accidentally threw one away back then. Now I see these are worth up to ten bucks for a hundred. Not bad.

It’s very easy to go into business on ebay – the barrier to entry is basically nonexistent. Ebay’s even purchased the site prostores.com to make it easy to set up your own company. Prostores offers five reasons to list your product through them:

1. easy setup – just takes minutes
2. no additional work
3. you can sell more
4. attract new customers with free submissions to Google and other marketing tools
5. they give you your own web address

With my past Ebay selling history, I can’t say it’s a business I will be starting anytime soon, maybe this will be helpful to someone out there!

Starting a business after the death of a Pet

With more and more people having pets these days, the time is right for a company called Angel Ashes. What do you do with your pet when it dies? Certainly you could bury it or put it in a pet cemetery, but if you would like to keep your pet closer to you, another choice is cremation. Angel Ashes sells urns for you to keep your pet ashes in. They have, in fact, patented their urns, and have a variety for just about every breed of dog or cat. You can customize the urn to include a nameplate or photo of your deceased pet. The urns are in the $100 price range.

According to Angel Ashes website, there are four types of pet cremations for you to be aware of:

1. “Private Cremation – With this selection, your pet alone is placed in the cremation chamber. Upon completion of the cremation, your pet’s cremains are removed from the chamber, processed and returned to you for transferring to the pet urn of your choice.
   


2. Viewing Cremation - Similar to a Private Cremation, but The Pet Owner, friends and family are permitted to be present during the cremation in a viewing room. This option is not available at all crematories.
   


3. Individual Cremation – During the cremation, your pet shares space in the cremation chamber with other pets, however they are separated so that you will be able to receive your pet’s cremains.
   


4. Communal (Mass) Cremation – With this alternative your pet is cremated along with a number of other pets, and the cremains are not able to be separated. No urn is returned to the Pet Owner. It is common practice for these cremains to be disposed of commercially.”

Angel Ashes got their start when one of the founders, Brad Ogle, was searching for an urn to honor his lost dog Abbey. He was unable to find what he was looking for, so he and his partner, Mark Greer, developed the Original Edition. They have since patented the product, and seem to have built a successful business based on Abbey.

Hard work pays off for Immigrant farmer

There was a fascinating article in the Arizona Republic last weekend about Santiago Gonzalez, the CEO of 3 Amigos Tequila. The Gonzalez family has a 5000 acre farm in Jalisco, Mexico, where they grow blue agave plants, the main ingredient for their tequila. The tequila is distilled and bottled in Mexico, then distributed and marketed from their Arizona headquarters – a couple trailers on a dirt lot adjacent some farm land in El Mirage, AZ.
Santiago feels that once people taste the tequila, people will tend to buy it. Throughout Arizona, he’s negotiated placing his product in several high end grocery stores, hotels, restaurants and even US Airways Center.
For the last forty years, the Gonzalez’s have been growing the blue agave plants, but they used to sell the plants to another tequila maker. Only three years ago, Santiago decided to bottle his own liquor. The first bottle was completed last year. Since then, Santiago has been going door to door to various businesses, selling his product. His annual production is 1 million liters of tequila a year, an amount equivalent to what some distillers produce in ten days. The most expensive bottle is under $40.
Santiago’s family has farmed in Arizona for four decades. Santiago was ten years old when he started working the fields in Arizona. He grew up with five brothers, and his parents couldn’t afford sandals for Santiago to wear, so he often worked barefoot. He didn’t attend college, but feels the lack of education has been a detriment to his company startup. He will make a college education mandatory for his own children.
G farms also farms watermelons, onions, and potatoes on his property, in addition to selling cattle feed. His three boys take care of the cattle after they come home from school each day. Santiago says the children no longer have to toil for financial reasons, but he feels the work is good for them, and will help them later on in life.
Cheers!

Mannequin Rentals make healthy returns on investment

Judi Henderson-Townsend was looking for an outdoor dummy to put in her garden one day when she came across a company, Mannequin Madness, that was going out of business. The owner had planned to move and close his shop. He had an inventory of 50 mannequins to sell her for $2500. On a whim in 2001, Judi decided to buy the inventory and his mannequin rental and sales business.

Mannequin Madness is based in Oakland, California. Judi had graduated from the University of Southern California, then worked at a corporate sales and marketing job for fifteen years. After reading the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki, Judi longed to have her own business. She operated Mannequin Madness part time until she got laid off from her dot com job.

Retail mannequins run between $400-$1100, but Mannequin Madness sells their used ones (including the heads) for between $250-$500. Talk about a smoking deal. Or, if you want just a part of a mannequin, that’s an option too. Parts you can buy include:

• Butts


• Torsos


• Single legs


• Pair of legs


• Headless Mannequins
  

Apparently, single legs are popular because people want to make lamps out of them. People have come up with lots of different uses for the mannequins, several of them x-rated, but we won’t go there.

Now, Mannequin Madness has an inventory of over 1500 mannequins, which she has cleverly obtained by successfully negotiating deals with major retailers to buy them for free or at low costs. Judi has been honored by the Environmental Protection Agency for recycling unwanted mannequins. Additionally, she has sales in the six figures, and has managed to grow her business through use of the internet and word of mouth. Eventually, Judi wants to open up stores in Atlanta and New York, and start a franchise.

Lots of money to be made Selling Extraterrestrial properties

One year I was desperate for a Valentine’s Day gift, and I bought my husband (before we were married) a star from the International Star Registry. I just found out it’s not scientifically recognized, the star called “Spankie” is only named in this company’s books. Yeah, I know I’m a sap. At least I’m not the only one, though. Apparently Nicole Kidman bought one for Tom Cruise way back when, so did Winona Ryder for Johnny Depp.

The company was founded in 1979, and they have sold over a million stars. Really, all they’ve sold is over a million certificates that say a star has been named for you (fine print supposedly says its only named at the international star registry), along with a booklet that explains the constellation in which your star is located. Apparently, the International Astronomical Union is the only body authorized to name astronomical bodies. Since there are around a trillion stars in this galaxy alone, this company has a long way to go before they are “sold out”. They claim they are not trying to mislead people, and have been given a clean bill of health by the Illinois Attorney General.

When I was researching this I saw a Google ad that said you can buy an acre of land on the moon starting at 29.99. Included in your “package” from Lunar Land Owner is:

• Lunar Deed
• Lunar Constitution Bill of Rights
• Lunar Plot Map showing the location of your property
• Mineral Rights
• Copy of the Declaration of Ownership filed with the United States, the USSR and the United Nations.

The website says it has sold over 300 million acres of land on the moon since 1980. What the hell! That means they have made $9 billion dollars?!!? Can this be? Why haven’t I heard of this before? There’s a warning on the website that says if you don’t buy from them you could be buying a worthless piece of paper. Uh huh.

The company says: "The UN Outer Space Treaty of 1967 stipulated that no government could own extraterrestrial property. However, it neglected to mention individuals and corporations. Therefore, under laws dating back from early US settlers, it is possible to stake a claim for land that has been surveyed and register it with the US Government Office of Claim Registries. In 1980, that is exactly what Dennis Hope did for land on the Moon as he established the Lunar Embassy to parcel and sell documented acres. The Lunar Embassy was obligated to inform the General Assembly of the United Nations, the US Government, and the Russian Government in writing of the claim and legal intent to sell extraterrestrial properties. These governing bodies had several years in which to contest the claim and they never did. This allowed Mr. Hope to take the next step and copyright his work with the US Copyright Registry Office and begin selling actual deeds for the land on the Moon. Probably the biggest support of Mr. Hope's claim has been in the form of actual Lunar land owners such as two former US presidents, NASA employees and many well known celebrities."

Genius site is a win win win for company, bloggers, and stumblers

Since starting this blog, I’ve visited several other blogs to gain tips on how to improve my site. There’s one in particular I find fascinating, called dailyblogtips.com. The writer convinced me there is a myth that you don’t need to spend any money to get publicity for your blog. There are tons of blogs, a new one being created on average every two seconds, and it’s very easy for your website to get lost in cyberspace if you don’t use a little bit of money on marketing. As a fom of advertising, Dailyblogtips turned me on to Stumbleupon.

Ever hear that Bruce Springsteen song “57 channels and nothing on”? To me, the internet can be like this. I have about six sites I visit daily, but beyond that, I’m kind of lost as to what sites I want to “surf”. If you register to be a (free) member of stumbleupon, you submit what types of sites you want to check out: business, news, entertainment, etc. You install the toolbar and then click the button and it sends you to a new supposedly random site to surf. Stumbleupon makes their money from people like me, who give them five cents every time they direct stumblers to my site. It’s an amazing product. So far I’ve spent ten bucks and they’ve sent me two hundred visitors. There are over 5 million "stumblers". The site was launched in 2002 by three 20 somethings in their apartment in Canada. Nothing short of brilliant. I see Ebay bought Stumbleupon last year for around $75 million.