Original Business Ideas That Made Someone Rich

How To Get Your Own Personal Requiem

2009-06-29T23:33:00.000-07:00

http://www.requiemforyou.com/

Grand funerals and eloquent eulogies are all very well when it comes to marking the demise of the wealthy and well-respected, but as the royalty and nobility of days gone by can attest, there's nothing quite like a requiem to cement one's name in the annals of time. Fortunately for today's moneyed elite, there's Requiem for You, an Austrian firm that can compose a personal requiem on demand.

Just launched last year, Requiem for You offers services on three levels, the most basic of which is the composition of an individually tailored requiem. The firm represents a network of composers, librettists and musicians who will write an individual requiem in advance, capturing the client's unique personality and accommodating preferences for balance among vocal, instrumental and textual components. Styles available include baroque, classical, romantic, jazz or Broadway musical, with text in German, Latin or English. A personal laudatio is also available.

In addition to composing the piece, Requiem for You can also produce an audio recording of it using a team of freelance artists, orchestras and recording studios, once again honouring the client's personal tastes in the CD's cover art. Finally, upon request the company can arrange a performance of the requiem, using anything from an audio presentation of the recorded version to a live performance with orchestra and choir. Prices reportedly range from EUR 20,000 for the requiem's composition to EUR 400,000 for the all-out live performance.

Custom Made Energy Bars

2009-06-28T23:32:00.000-07:00

http://www.youbars.com/

Customers of You Bar can choose every ingredient that goes into their nutrition bars: the base, protein powders, nuts and seeds, fruits and berries, sweeteners, seasonings, grains and infusions. One consumer might select cashew butter with shredded coconut, organic molasses and nutty rice cereal, for example; another might choose dates, soy protein, walnuts, ground cinnamon and dried banana. Special requests such as for organic ingredients or "extra crunchy" can also be accommodated. Consumers can choose a name for their specially designed bars, and You Bar will print it on each wrapper. For those feeling overwhelmed by the list of choices, on the other hand, You Bar offers three popular bar styles—"Honey Cashew," "Great Date with Chocolate" and "Breakfast Bar"—that are still customizable, but based on set ingredients. All bars are freshly made to order in You Bar's kitchens; pricing is USD 40 plus shipping for 12 fully customized bars, or USD 30 plus shipping for 12 of one of You Bar's popular styles.

Los Angeles-based You Bar was founded about two years ago by a mother-and-son team frustrated with the limited choices on the retail shelves. They're certainly in good company, as consumers have begun to expect having it their way, all the time. Because the bars fall into the realm of snack foods, they also lend themselves particularly naturally to use as gifts—promotional or otherwise. It's hard to imagine a health club, for example, that couldn't delight its members with specially concocted and self-named nutrition bars.

How An Ex-Prisoner Makes $2 Million A Year, Selling Frozen Water.

2009-06-05T05:21:00.000-07:00

Carl Rupp Story

http://www.snowie.com/

In the late 1970s, Rupp, a Salt Lake City teenager at the time, launched a wildly successful snow cone business, only to lose it all 15 years later to drug addiction. After a bitter divorce, a year in prison, and buried in debt, Rupp cleaned up and began rebuilding his life. Last year, Snowie, a second snow cone business he and his brother started from scratch, grossed over $2 million.

"There are a lot of things that will knock the wind out of your sails," Rupp says. "But you just have to keep plugging away."

Like many great ideas, Sno Shack, Rupp's initial venture, started with a simple question. On a hot summer day back in 1979 in St. Louis, Mo., Rupp, a young Mormon missionary who was the fourth oldest of seven brothers and a younger sister, came across a crowd lined up at an outdoor snow cone stand. "Why would anyone line up for a snow cone?" he asked dismissively. After hours of pounding the hot pavement all day, he tried one and soon had his answer. Rupp immediately went back to Salt Lake City and built his first shack out of old cedar boards.

For the first few years, Rupp not only built the shacks and ice shaver machines himself, he often manned them, too. But business, as they say, was snowballing. By the time he'd setup 13 outlets around town and hired a crew of local teens as attendants, things were getting unmanageable, he says. Luckily, by then, others were approaching him with offers to buy a single shack and shaver to run it themselves.

"It went from me thinking I was going to own and operated a ton of shacks, to me setting folks up to run their own business," Rupp recalls.

At its peak, Rupp had rolled out some 150 shacks, all with his custom-built shavers and stacks of containers with several dozen home-made flavors--from blue raspberry and cotton candy to a sweet red concoction called Tiger's Blood, all developed in his own experimental kitchen. At about the same time, Rupp--a born tinkerer--developed carpal tunnel syndrome building a new house for his wife and kids. Eventually, he got hooked on the pain killers prescribed by his doctor. When those ran out, he turned to heroin. "I started playing with it and played with it too much," he now says.

After failing to complete a court-appointed stint in rehab, Rupp was sentenced to a year in prison. There, he says, he had plenty of time to reflect on everything he'd lost: "I woke up one morning and thought 'hey, I remember Carl, I liked him and want him back.'"

In 1996, with his time served, Rupp tried working for his now ex-wife back at Sno Shack. When that didn't work out, he started rebuilding his own business with help from his little brother Gordon--this time calling it Snowie.

Concentrating on special events, like the local weekly farmers' market and nearby college football games, Rupp and his brother have sold almost 500 shacks--many outfitted with air-conditioning, hot and cold running water, and a retractable roof to load supplies.

Rupp also includes "Tips and Tricks," a 40-page booklet that walks operators through everything from scouting out locations to getting a business license. "These are the baby steps," says Rupp. "We do as much as we can to help make it work."

Today, Rupp's entrepreneurial advice, which might otherwise sound trite coming from anyone else, resonates with a kind of hard-earned wisdom: "You gotta hang in there and be persistent," he says. "Don't get knocked down by a mistake."

How To Make One Million Dollars A Year Selling Ecosystems In A Bottle.

2009-06-04T05:20:00.000-07:00

Dan And Michelle Harmony Story

http://eco-sphere.com/

Ecosphere Associates sells what appear to be plastic eggs full of bilge water. But look closer. Inside each Ecosphere you'll find a self-contained ecosystem - replete with shrimp, algae, and bacteria -that requires only sunlight to thrive.

The average Ecosphere lives for three to five years, says Dan Harmony, 53, who runs the Tucson company with his wife, Michelle, 51.

The Harmonys created Ecosphere Associates in 1986, after Dan - a former technical designer - learned that NASA was developing ecosystems that could survive in space and bought the right to commercialize the technology.

Last year they sold $1 million worth of Ecospheres - which retail at $58 to $450 - on their website, eco-sphere.com, and through retailing partners such as Brookstone. The Harmonys sell Ecospheres in Europe and are looking to grow the business in Asia.

How To Make $130,000 A Year As A 'Screenplay Coach'

2009-06-03T05:19:00.000-07:00

Lloyd “Skip” Press Story

http://www.skippress.com/

As a screenwriter, Lloyd Press has known only modest success. He has written scripts for children's TV shows and instructional videos since the late 1980s. His biggest claim to fame is a matter-of-fact 1987 video called A Woman's Guide to Firearms.

Nonetheless, he has had better luck in his second act as a guide to the masses who yearn for stardom. Some 4,000 students have taken his $129 online screenwriting course, offered through 1,040 colleges and universities in the U.S. and Europe. Bookstores have sold 40,000 copies of his Complete Idiot's Guide to Screenwriting. Aspiring writers pay him to edit their scripts and offer tips for selling them. A basic read-through costs $250, but an extensive rewrite goes for about $5,000. If a project seems promising - like the recent television pilot by a former Senate staffer about life on Capitol Hill - Press will cut a deal: a lower fee for a piece of the action.

But even if his clients never get their films produced, they can still make a living - or at least supplement one - when their scripts get optioned, sometimes over and over, every 18 months, for as much as $2,000. Clay Heery, a former comedy-club owner in Philadelphia, at Press's urging retooled a script he had been working on for years. Since then, Heery says, several producers have optioned it.

For Press, 55, coaching is a lucrative niche. In 2005, he says, he pulled in about $130,000, triple what he was making in the 1990s when he wrote children's books and magazine articles for Boy's Life and Disney Adventures. Then, in 2001, his Complete Idiot's Guide was published in the U.S., then in Russia. The book listed his personal e-mail address: skippress@charter.net. Weeks after the book hit store shelves, pleading messages started pouring in and his career as a coach took off.

How To Make $300,000 A Year With Card Stunts.

2009-06-02T05:19:00.000-07:00

Joe Kivett Story

http://www.cardstunts.com/

Have you ever wondered who's the brains behind those nifty card stunts at big stadiums-where each member of the audience holds up a card to create massive pictures and messages for the world to see? Joe Kivett, 40, organizes these fan-friendly events with his company, CardStunts.com. Kivett learned the card-stunt business as an employee of another company and branched out on his own in 1991 when word about his successful Super Bowl card stunts started to spread.

Armed with less than $1,000 in startup cash, he landed his first client by virtue of his reputation. Kivett says most of his startup money was for travel expenses to examine the site in Minneapolis where he was doing the card stunt.

His serious startup-cash coup was drafting an agreement with the organizers of Super Bowl XXVI to pay him half his fee upfront and half on the day of the event-this way, he was able to organize the event with no out-of-pocket costs. "I paid all my bills and had my little profit left over," he says. "I took that profit and used it to market my company."

Word-of-mouth is still a key element of his marketing efforts, and the years have seen him grow CardStunts.com from planning one to two big card stunts per year to about 10 yearly today. In addition to doing card stunts for two Super Bowl half-time shows, he's coordinated events for the World Series and the Daytona 500. With about $350,000 in annual sales, Kivett is definitely playing his cards right.

Making A Profit From Sleepy Co-Workers

2009-06-01T05:18:00.000-07:00

Arshad Chowdhury Story

http://www.metronaps.com/

While working grueling hours as an investment banker in New York City three years ago, Arshad Chowdhury noticed his colleagues' heavy eyelids and bobbing heads during meetings.

"Everyone was tired all the time," he says. "Some people were even sneaking off to the bathrooms to take a nap."

Knowing there must be a better way to combat workplace drowsiness than sleeping in a toilet stall, Chowdhury created MetroNaps.

Located inside the Empire State Building, MetroNaps (http://www.metronaps.com) offers rows of futuristic-looking sleeping pods, specifically designed for 20-minute "powernaps." From a $14 one-day pass up to a $65 one-month unlimited pass, sleep-deprived New Yorkers can refresh during their workdays in an individual pod, which features ergonomic design and an upper hood for privacy. Nappers are gently awakened by a combination of light and vibration. Patrons can also opt to order lunch to be ready when they wake.

"When all of your employees are tired, your workforce is losing productivity," Chowdhury says. "But most people don't have the real estate or the culture to have a separate area for resting. So employers can send their employees here."

Neuroscientists agree. In a recent study at Harvard, researchers found that adults who take short midday naps experience heightened mental performance, better alertness and improved mood.

Chowdhury hopes to expand the business by selling the pods to offices that don't have a lot of extra room, but want to offer a way to boost productivity.

But until MetroNaps pods become a widespread phenomenon, heavy eyelids will continue to flutter in cubicles across America.

The Wooden Doll Millionaire

2009-05-31T05:17:00.000-07:00

Alexander Krilov Story

http://www.newcrafters.com/

Alexander Krilov was a medical doctor by trade, but when he emigrated from Ukraine 15 years ago, his thoughts turned to entrepreneurship. After running a variety of businesses, ranging from athletic shoes to international distribution for online florists, Krilov landed on the idea for sports-themed Russian nesting dolls while working as a business manager for Los Angeles Lakers star Stanislav "Slava" Medvedenko.

Krilov, 40, and his wife, Julia Butler, 45, noticed sports fans would buy anything featuring their favorite player's likeness, so the pair decided to create a traditional-looking Russian nesting doll with the modern twist of a superstar's face. Obtaining licenses from the NBA took perseverance, but in the end, Krilov and Butler were able to make dolls with the renderings of Kobe Bryant, Rick Fox and Shaquille O'Neal.

Manufacturing the dolls in high-quality plastic with almost portrait-quality artwork, Krilov and Butler have since secured licenses from the NHL and Major League Baseball, in addition to Elvis Presley and I Love Lucy properties. With these unique collectible alternatives to bobblehead dolls now being sold nationwide in arena stores, specialty stores and online, sales passed $1 million in 2004.

How To Make Millions From Happy Campers

2009-05-30T05:16:00.000-07:00

Ari Ackerman Story

http://www.bunk1.com/

Happy memories from his childhood days at summer camp inspired Ari Ackerman to come up with the idea for Bunk1.com. He originally wrote the business plan for the company for his MBA training, but it seemed like too good an idea to pass up.

His initial concept was to provide a Web service that parents could use to watch their children's camp activities online, with camp administrators posting photos for the parents to peruse. Ackerman then added an e-mail service (called BunkNotes) and an online newsletter service, as well as a search engine to help parents find a camp for their kids.

At first, says Ackerman, 33, the camp directors were difficult to persuade. "To sell them on this concept wasn't easy," he says. But with his camp background, he knew the market well. He knew parents would be willing to pay for this convenient connection to their kids—and he was right. The first camps he sold his service to got good response from parents immediately—and the number of concerned phone calls from parents (the "What's my child doing?" sort) to the camps decreased, as moms and dads had tangible evidence that their babies were alive and well.

Word-of-mouth started to build demand for the concept, and, to date, the Bunk1.com service is offered to close to 2,000 camps nationwide. Camp directors either purchase the service and include it in the price of the camp or simply offer parents the option to purchase Ackerman's Bunk1.com service a la carte.

Revenues are projected to reach more than $3 million, and Ackerman has already expanded into other Web services, like CampAlumni.com (a service to reconnect old summer camp friends).

The Incredible After-Prom Business That Generates $1 Million A Year

2009-05-29T05:16:00.000-07:00

Yoel Silber Story

http://www.promtix.com/

Ah, remember the prom—the limos, the dresses, the late nights spent wandering around town looking for after-prom fun? Well, Yoel Silber has found a way to cash in on that market with Promtix (www.promtix.com), his one-stop shop for after-prom adventures. He sells tickets to cruises, comedy and dance clubs, and the like—and has made many a prom-goer happy with set plans for after prom. Says Silber, "In New York, especially, kids went to Manhattan for their after-prom partying, but they couldn't get into the nightclubs because they didn't have ID."

Silber combats this common problem by booking clubs and cruises specifically for the underage high school crowd. "Now they have a place to party, and the parents know where they're going," Silber explains. Parents can sleep even better knowing that all Promtix events are nonalcoholic.

With a background in party promotion, Silber knew there was an underserved market of high school students who spend big bucks on prom night. He markets his events via fliers at local malls—where he's likely to find lots of prom-goers—but he's also found that word-of-mouth really helped to grow sales to $1 million a year.

He notes that teenagers were fast to buy into the Promtix concept—and luckily, Silber's received nothing but positive responses from club owners. He's currently in New York City and Philadelphia, and would like to make Promtix a presence in 10 major U.S. markets, including Atlanta, Boston and Los Angeles.

Helping Former Military Personnel Find Civilian Jobs Can Be A Six Figure Business

2009-05-28T05:15:00.000-07:00

Karin Markley Story

http://www.militaryexits.com/

Finding a job is one of the biggest challenges for people coming out of the military. Karin Markley, founder of Military Exits, knows this well—she has 15 years of experience working in a civilian employment agency. She knows companies value employees with military backgrounds, and she wanted to provide a one-stop link between the two.

Setting up MilitaryExits.com out of her home, Markley, 40, contacted the Department of Defense for permission to use its seal on her Web site. It took months to get it, but MilitaryExits.com is now linked to all the military bases.

It costs nothing for servicemen and women to post their resumes and search for jobs; employers pay for the listings, which reach service personnel in the United States and overseas. The site also includes information on relocation and education, as well as military support chat groups.

Markley, who projects annual sales of $600,000, points to her biggest reward: "Helping the military. Getting the letters and phone calls from these people thanking me so much for what I'm doing for them."

$300 Hot Sauce

2009-05-27T05:14:00.000-07:00

Nick Lindauer Story

http://www.hotsauceblog.com/

Hot sauce enthusiast turned entrepreneur Nick Lindauer is on fire. In 2001, while still in college, he launched the online store Sweat 'N Spice out of his Springfield (Ore.) apartment. He sold a few dozen types of hot sauces, packaged each order by hand, and shipped everything from his local post office, barely eking out a profit during his first year of operation.

Today, Lindauer sells over a thousand products from some 300 manufacturers. His inventory goes beyond sauces to include seasonings, relishes, and snacks with clever names, oddly-shaped collectible bottles, celebrity-endorsed offerings, along with concoctions that are so blisteringly hot customers must sign a liability waiver upon purchase.

Prices run from $4 for El Yucateco brand sauces to $300 for hand-signed, limited-edition bottles of Blair's 16 Million Reserve, the hottest chili powder extract known to man. Lindauer and his two full-time employees operate out of a Midtown office in New York City. In 2005, the business grossed around $130,000. He forecasts $200,000 in 2006.

Lindauer says he owes much of his success to his blog (http://www.hotsauceblog.com/) where he dubs himself "Sultan of Sauces," and offers the hot sauce community news, reviews, recipes, contests, and interviews with prominent vendors.

He explains that the blog is a separate entity from his online shop—it has its own domain name and advertising—but it helps build his credibility and drives traffic to his store through a few strategically placed links on its navigation bar. Lindauer also establishes relationships with many of his vendors in person at industry events and helps in the creation of smaller manufacturers' sauces before they go to market.

Making a living from hot sauce wasn't his original goal, says Lindauer, a longtime champion of spicy foods and an avid collector of exotic hot sauces. The whole enterprise was more a labor of love. "I got really into collecting and decided if I'm doing this, there's got to be other people out there doing it," he says. He figured they'd want a place to trade opinions, and perhaps order a hard-to-find bottle.

Lindauer was right. At industry gatherings like the annual National Fiery Foods and Barbeque Show, in Albuquerque, N.M., he discovered a subculture of superhuman eaters who call themselves "chileheads;" a class of connoisseurs with a passion for rare and intense hot sauces.

Lindauer felt right at home. He had also stumbled onto an industry that is worth close to $2 billion, according to the estimate of leading spicy foods authority Dave DeWitt, editor of Fiery-Foods & BBQ magazine.

Lindauer is now making plans to open a brick-and-mortar shop, even though he and experts in the industry acknowledge that the niche market is too small to make it a sure success. "You've got to sell a lot of hot sauce to pay rent in Manhattan," says Dave Hirschkop, owner of hot sauce and specialty foods manufacturer Dave's Gourmet, one of Sweat 'N Spice's premier brands.

Small Houses Can Make Your Rich?

2009-05-26T05:13:00.000-07:00

Jay Shafer Story

http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/

Bigger isn't always better. Just ask Jay Shafer, founder and owner of Tumbleweed Tiny House Company (http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com), who lives in a 70-square-foot freestanding home. No, that's not a typo-his entire house has less space than most people's bathrooms.

"I had a hard time finding a place that suited my needs without exceeding my needs," says Shafer, who built his first tiny house in 1997. "So many American houses are so huge-they're oversized for the actual needs of the occupants."

Longing for less space, Shafer first designed a 100-square-foot house that was recognized in a home of the year contest by Better Homes and Gardens magazine. Exposure from the award prompted Shafer to go into business-suddenly he found a market for miniature mansions. Today, Tumbleweed offers more than 20 floorplans ranging from 70- to 500-square-feet. Half the customers use the buildings as their primary residences. Others buy them as freestanding additions to their existing homes, for use as an office or studio.

"Almost no assembly is required," says Shafer. "The houses arrive in one piece. All you have to do is connect the utilities."

A bonus to living so little: It forces you to be neater, says Shafer, who even works out of his 70-square-foot abode. Downsizing also makes you reevaluate your concept of home sweet home.

How A $4,200 Domain Name Investment Brings In $900,000 Each Year.

2009-05-25T05:11:00.000-07:00

John Drummond Story

http://www.unicycle.com

Unicycling enthusiast John Drummond, a technical writer at IBM, decided it might be fun to sell a few cycles over the Internet. Seven months after unicycle.com debuted in 1999, Drummond, of Marietta, Ga., was so overwhelmed by demand that he enlisted the help of his wife, Amy.

The pair soon sped sales up from $150,000 in 1999 to $900,000 in 2006. No, there wasn't an inexplicable uptick in the clown population. They attribute their success to a straightforward Internet domain name.

"Customers found us at the top of their Google searches," he says. So in 2003, when Drummond looked to profit from his other hobby, banjos, he naturally sought to pluck banjo.com. He had paid $4,200 for unicycle.com, but the owner of the banjo address wanted $150,000.

Drummond won't say how much he ultimately paid, but he's happy with the deal. Banjo.com pulled in $120,000 in sales in 2003.

How Broken Arm Led To A $2 Million A Year Business

2009-05-24T05:10:00.000-07:00

David Reynolds Story

http://www.showersleeve.com/

David Reynolds, a contractor by trade, had broken his arm while remodeling a bathroom in 1998. Keeping the cast dry proved to be very difficult, and when he tried looking around for a product to help, he was unable to find anything that was both effective and affordable. That's when the light bulb went on.

After doing a patent search for such a product and finding nothing, Reynolds, an inventor since childhood, designed a plastic covering with an adjustable fastening mechanism on one end to keep arm and leg casts dry. He enlisted the help of his longtime friend and fellow contractor, Marty Ceccarelli, to build Mar-Von LLC and the brand.

But even with their innovative product in hand, it wasn't easy to get it on store shelves. "I just started going to the local drugstores," says Reynolds. "I had a real hard time. Most people don't want to give you the time of day."

Determined to succeed, Reynolds and Ceccarelli continued to develop the Cast Cover and sales strategies for two years, and eventually landed their product on the shelves of Albertson's/Osco Drug and 12 local Walgreens stores. The reaction from consumers spoke volumes-their product was a fast seller.

Today, the pair sells not only Cast Covers, but also the waterproof Shower Sleeve-open on both ends, they are designed for patients with IVs. Today, the products are sold via wholesalers and distributors and on their Web site. Reynolds, who expects $2 million in annual sales by the end of the year, has this advice for other aspiring entrepreneurs: "I had a vision of inventing something, [but] it didn't happen overnight. Don't give up, and don't take no for an answer."

How To Make Money Selling School Spirit

2009-05-23T05:09:00.000-07:00

Linda McMahan Gunning Story

http://www.bagalogos.com/

Linda McMahan Gunning was inundated with compliments on the University of Texas handbag she used to carry to university events. Though the bag, which she picked up at a local store, was roughly made and not properly licensed with the college, it drew a lot of attention from other women and fans.

As an attorney, McMahan Gunning soon realized that if she could obtain the licensing rights for collegiate logos and design her own line of high-end handbags emblazoned with school emblems, there would be quite a demand for her products. She decided to cold-call the University of Texas to pitch her unique concept.

"They said, 'If you can do all this, we think it's a great idea. We'll take a chance with you,'" recalls McMahan Gunning, 55. With those encouraging words in mind, she enlisted the help of her sister-in-law and avid fashion lover, Sue Craft McMahan, 36, to join her in the logo handbag venture.

Interestingly enough, obtaining licensing agreements wasn't the biggest challenge during start-up; finding a manufacturer and researching what women really want in a handbag proved to be the major hurdles. They canvassed not only college-age women, but also alumni and families of students.

When the pair designed four different types of bags—a large tote bag, a smaller baguette bag, a crescent-shaped handbag and a bolder game-day bag—all marked with the University of Texas emblem, the favorable responses they received were overwhelming.

Today, with sales into the mid-six figures, Bagalogos! bags can be found at www.bagalogos.com and at high-end boutiques and college bookstores. Schools on the company's roster include the University of Alabama, Oklahoma State University campuses, Texas A&M University campuses and Texas Tech University. They've also set their sights on other big-name schools with high-profile and loyal alumni. Talk about higher learning.

Bald Is Beautiful?

2009-05-22T05:08:00.000-07:00

Rick Mikles and Joe Acebal

http://www.idealimage.com/

Chiropractors Rick Mikles, 49, and Joe Acebal, 48, sensed that they could build a business with staying power by focusing on laser hair removal. After all, the process for removing hair permanently is the top nonsurgical cosmetic procedure for folks under 35. In 2005, Ideal Image's sales grew to $50 million from $8 million the year before.

The co-founders had been selling Ideal Image franchises one by one since 2004. That approach "now seems about as smart as selling individual sticks of chewing gum instead of the whole pack," says Acebal. The Tampa entrepreneurs soon switched to a cluster strategy requiring franchisees to simultaneously open numerous stores--a more efficient use of marketing dollars.

The former school pals expect franchisees to nearly double the number of units, to 75, this year. Company-owned units will grow from six to 25. Bald really is beautiful.

Media is Ideal Image's highest expense at a whopping 25 percent to 30 percent of sales. It has a five-person creative department that can produce TV and radio spots and marketing collateral.

The company does extensive market analysis and demographic research. It wrote software to tell it where to place locations. It's more than just census data. It focuses on buying habits and other details and uses Arbitron TV ratings.

"We know where they hang out and what they do," Akers said. "But it's really important to have points of sale open to cover that media buy."

To get the locations open, the company spends a lot on infrastructure, dropping $200,000 on hardware to support its homemade proprietary clinic management software. It has developed detailed training systems and manages its own financial group.

A $2 Million A Year Admobile Business

2009-05-21T05:05:00.000-07:00

James Riseborough Story

http://www.turtletransit.com/

Here's something that will catch your eye--a grown man driving a larger-than-life green turtle up the highway. The driver is James Riseborough, owner of Turtle Transit, which brought in $2 million last year by transforming ordinary cars and trucks into promotional vehicles.

Riseborough, is the talent behind a company that specializes in 3-dimensional graphics and mobile display. In short, they transform unassuming cars into eye-popping, sculpted advertisements.

"Anything you can imagine, we can build," says Riseborough. And he's not kidding. To date, the company has created a rhinoceros, a fleet of monster cars, and a mechanical chair-sized hand replete with gaudy fingernails for local rockers Aerosmith.

Only a year from its inception, Turtle Transit boasts a formidable client list that includes among others, Monster.com, Arnold Brand Promotions, Harley-Davidson Café and Stonyfield Farm. The company cleared $500,000 the first year and expects to triple that in the next three years.

"I never think of myself as an entrepreneur. That's more of those guys who drive into Boston and sit behind a desk and call the shots--the guys in three-piece suits," says Riseborough.

As an industry, outdoor advertising includes billboards, wrapped buses, taxi tops and other promotions in public spaces. The Outdoor Advertising Association of America estimates that it's a $4.8 billion industry and growing.

Riseborough pulled together a small-business plan and sought the advice of accountants. He came up with the name Turtle Transit because, "I wanted something with some playfulness--turtles are slow, they creep along and they have a big back for advertising,".

With his own funding and talents, he created marketing materials including "Cecil," their turtle car. Cecil is a Volkswagen Beetle refashioned, or morphed, as the Turtle Transit team would say, with layers of sculpted foam and fiberglass to create dimensional turtle-shell detailing. Add to that myriad green paints and a larger-than-life reptilian turtlehead poking out from the hood, and you've got turtle transportation.

With Cecil on the road, Turtle Transit is turning some heads. "To wrap the graphics is very safe, everyone is doing it. We wanted to take it to the next dimension. The turtles and the monsters are definitely catching people's eyes over any wraps," says Riseborough.
"There is risk in creating a monster or a turtle, but without risk there is no reward. You've got to stick your neck out sometimes."

For a full morph, the company estimates projects at approximately $20,000 to $30,000. That excludes the initial price of the car, which the client assumes. Smaller projects, such as adding a 3-dimensional element to a vehicle can be in the ballpark of $10,000 to $15,000.

That's not a lot of money when you consider the cost of traditional advertising, says Michelle Silk, account supervisor at Boston-based Arnold Brand Promotions. "With the state of the economy, budgets are slashed and people just don't have the money to spend on a 30-second commercial. We try to think of different ways to bring brand to the consumer," she says.

Together with Scott Betty, director of nontraditional marketing at Maynard-based Monster.com, they came up with the idea of a fleet of monster-morphed vehicles. "The program, for us, is a way to localize the brand and bring the brand to life."

The Monster cars are stationed across the country and tow interactive workstations with unique IP addresses. Monster.com can be virtually anywhere, including career fairs, public events and even in neighborhoods that happen to have high concentrations of health care workers, for example.

The program provides Monster with flexibility and something even more cherished by marketing executives and that's data. "We can track it from the broad stroke and look at overall account registrations and resumé posting monthly by markets we are present in. We can also go granular and look at specific events," explains Betty.

The cars themselves are real "head-turners" says Silk, who credits Turtle Transit with "A-plus quality." "These guys don't know how to say `no,' " she adds.

Turtle Transit attributes its success to hard work and an intense commitment to quality. All the work is done in-house using foam, fiberglass, auto paint and a variety of creative techniques. The company guarantees its work for the life of the vehicle.
This attention to detail has led to some pretty long hours for the team. Riseborough reflects that the many late nights cost him precious time with his newborn son. "He's the biggest event of my life, and I couldn't be there. But you know, I can put him through college, and that matters too," he adds.

The Richest Piano Player You've Never Heard About

2009-05-20T05:04:00.000-07:00

Lorie Line Story

http://www.lorieline.com/

After ten years of university training in classical piano, Lorie Line finally landed her first job as a professional musician. For $40 a day she was hired to tickle the ivories every afternoon at Dayton's department store in downtown Minneapolis. Wedged between handbags and lingerie, she serenaded shoppers with a seamless stream of pop tunes--and occasionally gave directions to the restroom--without missing a note. But the young pianist in the glamorous black gown was definitely resourceful. After noticing shoppers lingering around the girdle racks listening to her play, she figured she had the start of a fan club. So she cashed in her husband's 401(k) and used the $2,000 to record a CD, which she stacked on a corner of the piano to sell. It proved to be as popular as the push-up bra. Within three years she had sold more than $1 million worth in Dayton's.

From that unglamorous start more than a decade ago, Line has built an unlikely little music empire as the piano phenom of the Midwest. In towns and cities from Sioux Falls, S.D., to Appleton, Wis., the 47-year-old entertainer is packing thousands of fans into concert halls for 80 lavish music and dance productions a year. Since releasing her first CD in 1989, she has sold more than five million through her independent record label. Her sheet-music books are popular too. Released in 2003, Line's $35 Music From the Heart has been a bestseller for two years; her 17th songbook, it features her arrangements of show tunes and movie themes such as "Phantom of the Opera" and "Wind Beneath My Wings." She brings in annual revenues of $5 million, netting about $350,000, working out of her palatial home on the shores of Lake Minnetonka in Orono, Minn.

Like many other artists (even gravelly voiced Rod Stewart), Line is cashing in on a baby-boomer craze for lush, soft-jazz versions of classic romantic standards that were popular in the '30s, '40s, and '50s. Without "Moon River," she'd never be such a star in Sheboygan. But Line knows that the music is only half the appeal for her target market, which largely consists of women between the ages of 35 and 70. "Fans aren't coming to my concerts just to hear my piano," she says. "They want two solid hours of spectacle, and we give it to them." The theme for last year's holiday show--her biggest show every year--was Old Hollywood, and it was loaded with razzle-dazzle.

Line wore seven costumes during the two-hour show, including a strapless black sequined gown with a fishtail train, topped off by a ten-foot-long black-fox stole. Even the 12-piece orchestra had five costume changes, from tuxes to velvet smoking jackets. The show's annual costume budget alone comes to $190,000. Line's stage sets are just as elaborate. On every tour she brings one of her two concert grand pianos, as well as a massive ballroom-sized crystal chandelier that hangs over the piano at center stage.

Line has built her business without any help from the music industry establishment, which snubbed her early on, deeming her too square for the big time. She performs, publishes, and produces her CDs through her company, Lorie Line Music. She has a payroll of 30, including a choreographer, musicians, a costume designer, a dressmaker, and a staff of five who run the small retail shop where she sells her music, books, and tickets. Tim Line, her husband of 19 years, is president. Lorie Line is CEO. "I am the talent," she says. "At Christmastime, when we sell a lot of CDs, I'm also a shipping clerk in the backroom if necessary."

Cutting her first CD provided Line with a quick education in the business side of music. When she called to rent time in a recording studio in San Francisco, she innocently asked the manager how much time she would be allotted to make the CD. "Till your money runs out," he said, laughing. "It's your dime, lady." She assured him, "I'm a department store pianist. I have to get it right the first time." She cut the CD in two days. Total bill for studio time: $9,558. When she got back to Dayton's, she asked the department store manager for permission to sell her music. He refused. Undaunted, Line found a higher-up willing to let her give it a try. The deal proved a moneymaker for Dayton's, which got a percentage of sales.

After that success Line decided to stage a concert to test her appeal outside the lingerie department. Several months later she rented a small hall in Minneapolis for $5,000 and sold out all 400 seats. (That's when her husband resigned his sales job to help her manage her business.) Now her shows sell out regularly in 2,500-seat concert halls in Denver, Fargo, Indianapolis, Omaha, and Toledo. She has tried to broaden her fan base by appearing on the East Coast and in Florida, but ticket sales were low, and the concerts were costly missteps--as was an attempt to gain national recognition through a concert on PBS.

Her fans in the heartland remain loyal. Every Aug. 1, when tickets go on sale for her 47 holiday concerts, fans start lining up outside her Wayzata, Minn., store before the box office opens at 8 A.M. Last year police had to be called in for crowd control because the line disrupted traffic downtown. The star served the crowd coffee and doughnuts.

Line has successfully leveraged her fans' passion into a merchandising opportunity. Ten years ago she sent out a mass mailing announcing her holiday concert series. "Be there with bells on!" was the merry tag line on the brochure. Then she had a thought: Why not sell commemorative bells for her fans to jingle during the show? In fact, why not a new bell every year? She ordered up a set of small silver-plated bells with her name and the year engraved on them and sold every one. Last year Line sold 30,000. At $5 a bell, she rang up $150,000.

Shortly after finishing her spring tour, Line began rehearsing for her holiday extravaganza. So what if she never does get to see the klieg lights of Carnegie Hall in New York City or the neon jungle of Vegas? "I could live happily ever after as the most popular entertainer in the Midwest," she says. "If I have to choose between being rich or being famous, I'd rather be rich."

$5 Million A Year, Selling ‘Ice Towels’.

2009-05-19T05:04:00.000-07:00

Mike Fanning And Bill Sammon Story

http://www.himaicetowels.com

There's nothing like a hot product--or, in this case, a cold product with hot sales. Just ask Mike Fanning and Bill Sammon, founders of the Hima Ice Towel Corp., which sells prepackaged cotton towels soaked with refreshing mixtures of essential plant oils that promote evaporation and cooling.

Sammon got the idea after a trip to Asia, where he noticed mothers wiping down their babies with towels dipped in isopropyl alcohol to cool them off. With the help of another partner, Koy Thummaskra, Fanning and Sammon developed their own version of the towels, which come in different sizes and colors. Says Sammon, "It gives your average person an affordable luxury in hot climates."

Fanning and Sammon marketed the towels, which need to be frozen for 12 hours prior to use, to amusement parks and sporting events. The towels sell from $1.29 to $4 each, depending on the venue. The pair also markets to corporate clients. Now that sales are expected to hit $3.5 million to $5 million, it's clear these entrepreneurs have cornered the market on cold relief.

Fashionable Fanny Packs

2009-05-18T05:03:00.000-07:00

Kristy Sobel Story

http://www.laneigepurse.com/

What began as a solution to her chronic back and neck pain is now a line of purses for women who share Kristy Sobel's condition--or simply want a fashionable fanny pack. After three car accidents that resulted in extensive back and neck surgeries, the 35-year-old entrepreneur realized she couldn't do the traveling her then-job required. That's when "life took a very different direction," she says, and even the simplest tasks, like holding her favorite purse over her shoulder, became a burden.

To ease the weight on her shoulders, Sobel searched for a fanny pack that would accommodate her condition, but realized fashionable ones were nonexistent. So she created one. Before long, family, friends and even strangers were requesting this one-of-a-kind purse. She approached boutiques with her design after successful test runs at her friends' shops, but the door-to-door routine eventually took a toll on her body. Sobel continued her venture from home, found a rep to promote her bags at a trade show and used her and her husband and co-founder Eric's savings to launch LaNeige Purse. Her woven nylon bags appeal to a wide scope of women, from teens to those in their 80s. Sobel has since added larger bags to the collection and, in 2004, she introduced a leather line. With items priced between $54 and $200, LaNeige had sales of $210,000 in 2005.

"The most wonderful thing about LaNeige is being able to help people with chronic back pain," she says, pointing out that the product is also ideal for active women who need both hands free. Her bags are sold in over 60 gift shops and boutiques across the country, and on her website, www.laneigepurse.com.

Despite the physical struggles she faces daily, Sobel's entrepreneurial spirit is anything but broken. "It's a huge challenge for me to get up each morning, let alone run a company," she says. "But I take it one day at a time and create as I go along."

Fixing Firefighters Boots As A Business

2009-05-17T05:02:00.000-07:00

Mike Flood Story

http://www.shoetechinc.com/

Running into burning buildings is hard on the sole. That's where Mike Flood comes in. Though not a physician, Flood is a healer of sorts. As owner of Shoe Tech Inc., Flood heals ailing footwear for firefighters across the country. Wilmington, Del.-based Shoe Tech (http://www.shoetechinc.com) is one of just a handful of shops that specialize in warrantied fire boot repairs. Following pre-established fire-safety guidelines, Flood and two employees re-sole, repair and restore this critical gear.

This business niche resulted from a random drop-in by a salesman for a fire boot manufacturer in the mid-1990s. He asked whether Flood would consider warrantied fireman boot repairs. One job led to another, and the specialty grew. Firemen ship their boots directly to Flood, who repairs, bills the manufacturer and returns the boots to their owners. Repairs range from $20 to $50, depending on the job.

Much of Shoe Tech's boot work is straightforward, except when the waterproof inner bootie must be moved. Flood explains that, after repositioning the bootie, gluing it from the outside is difficult. Through trial and error, Flood discovered that an unlikely surgical instrument-a heavy-gauge hypodermic needle-solves the problem. The needle delivers glue perfectly through the leather upper to the bootie. "The needle looks like the size you'd use on a rhinoceros," says Flood. "I feel like a doctor, sometimes."

Flood admits his process leaves a bit of glue on the upper. "But these guys don't wear their boots to church," he says.

How To Make A Few Million Dollars Transproting Kids Luggage From Summer Camps

2009-05-16T05:01:00.000-07:00

Stuart Seller Story

http://www.camptrucking.com/

This week, thousands of kids will be returning home from summer camp -- without suitcases, duffel bags, tennis rackets, or even their dirty clothes.

Much of the baggage will be delivered back to their homes by small firms that have made a business of transporting campers' bags to and from the camps.

Typical is Camp Trucking, based in Denver. Employing an army of college students on summer break, the firm picks up baggage at the homes of campers and delivers it to camp just before a session begins. It charges a flat rate, with no restrictions on size or for bulky athletic equipment and duffel bags that sometimes weigh more than 100 pounds. At the end of the session, bags are returned -- with some parents even arranging drop-offs at laundries and dry cleaners along the way.

"We really are service companies that happen to be trucking companies," says Camp Trucking's 39-year-old owner, Stuart Seller.

The service is useful to the camps, too. They receive bags for a session all at once, a few days before the kids arrive, allowing the camp staff to focus on getting kids settled in, rather then keeping track of arriving luggage. The services often deliver the bags directly to a bunkhouse and the bunk assigned each camper.

For younger children, the camps have a chance to unpack the bags, and make "them feel like they're coming home," says Cole Kelly, director of Camp Wicosuta, a girls' camp in Bristol, N.H., which uses R&B Camp Baggage, of Plymouth.

There are 10 million children attending about 12,000 resident summer camps around the U.S., according to the American Camp Association, a nonprofit industry group, but Camp Trucking, and firms such as R&B, and Camp Baggage, of Tequesta, Fla., concentrate on serving higher-end camps where parents can spend thousands of dollars for a full summer session.

The camps are concentrated in the Northeast where the population is denser, making it more economic for the firms to serve, especially with the high price of gasoline. Campers from outside the region usually have their bags shipped by other delivery services, but the companies do pick up baggage for a growing number of kids in Florida who attend summer camps in New England.

Although based in Denver, Camp Trucking is the largest camp-delivery operator in the Northeast, and Mr. Seller expects that by the end of summer his company will have transported 30,000 to 35,000 bags for 12,000 to 15,000 kids attending several dozen camps.

With the average delivery price ranging from $120 to $150 a child, Camp Trucking's revenue will be $1.4 million to $2.3 million.

Mr. Seller has seen steady growth since he took over the business in 1998. "It used to be you didn't need to turn on your phones till April and then turn them off in September," he says. "Now it's almost a year-round business," talking to camps and sending out mailers in late November, and starting hiring in January and mapping routes in May.

At R&B, Rick Bogin, 52, started his business 37 years ago with his brother Robert, using the family station wagon and a U-Haul trailer to tote 60 bags. This year, R&B will transport 7,500 bags for 3,200 kids at 14 camps, at a cost ranging from $145 for New England residents to $175 for Florida families. A smaller operator, Camp Baggage, founded by former camp counselor Hal Sheppard, 45, in 1993, will transport more than 2,000 bags for 1,000 kids across eight camps, for an average cost of $150 a camper.

The firms usually have agreements with the camps, and, although campers aren't required to use the services, the camps either recommend them exclusively or include information to the campers in their packets. The firms don't charge camps anything; in fact, says Camp Baggage's Mr. Sheppard, shippers give the camp owners a commission in exchange for exclusive access to camp rosters. The other companies didn't disclose contractual arrangements.

With nearly all of the delivery work in the summer, the companies mainly use temporary employees. At Camp Trucking, much of the work is done by college students. Camp Trucking starts first-year drivers at $115 a day. Mr. Seller has a summer crew of 120 to 150, of which a quarter are women. Camp Baggage pays college students $115 to $200 per day depending on experience.

R&B's main staff of 35 is made up of educators, former executives and other professionals who have been with the company for a decade or more.

All three companies place a driver and navigator in trucks rented from companies such as Ryder System, Penske Truck Rental and Budget Truck Rental.

For camp haulers, one hurdle for the businesses has been streamlining the baggage-tracking process with its mounds of paperwork trailing from doorstep to bunk and back again.

Technology has made the process easier over the years, with computers, walkie-talkies and cellphones, to software and GPS systems to map out the runs.

It used to take R&B workers four days to pick up bags for 40 campers, but now they can pick up 80 to 90 campers' baggage per truck each day.

As the season nears an end, the work at R&B provides a separate benefit. Yesterday, Chuck Lenahan, head football coach at New Hampshire's Plymouth Regional High School, and his assistant coaches, put aside their game plans to direct nearly 100 football and baseball players on loading camp-baggage trucks. They'll receive a $4,000 check for their only fund-raiser, and, Mr. Lenahan says, they know that today he'll give them an easier practice.

How A Starving Musician With 78 Cents Started A Million Dollar Business

2009-05-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

Billy Cuthrell Story

http://www.progressivepercussion.com/

In 1992, Billy Cuthrell says, he was starving and had 78 cents to his name. He knew he needed to find a steady income since he wasn't making any money being in a band. Teach-ing drum lessons seemed like a smart way to capitalize on his talents.

After a breakfast of pork and beans one morning, Cuthrell walked to Kinko's, where a friend printed copies of his hand-drawn fliers decorated with magazine clippings. "This thing was ragtag," says Cuthrell, 32, of his business's first ad.

Despite its looks, the ad drew several responses. At first, Cuthrell drove to students' homes, loading his run-down Isuzu Trooper with drum equipment. "I was like the musical ice cream man," Cuthrell says. "The only thing I didn't have was the music playing outside the truck."

Eventually, Cuthrell rented space from a local music store and found he could teach more students at a physical location, so he opened his own. As business grew, Cuthrell hired instructors. He now has two locations offering lessons in guitar, bass, piano, drums and percussion, with 2006 sales projections of $1 million.

Despite Progressive's growth, Cuthrell still relies on word-of-mouth marketing, though he's branching out with a commercial that will run like a preview in local movie theaters. And his marketing materials have come a long way: The hand-sketched fliers have evolved into brochures-which Cuthrell hires someone else to design.

From Zero To Twenty Millions In Four Years

2009-05-14T04:57:00.000-07:00

Founder Mike Fitzsimmons Story

http://www.deliveryagent.com/

Those coveting the latest fashions worn by the casts of Desperate Housewives or General Hospital need look no further than Delivery Agent Inc. Founder Mike Fitzsimmons saw a need for an easy way to sell products seen on TV, sports shows and films, so he built a business to do just that. Now, four years after its 2002 inception, sales are projected to reach $19.3 million for 2006.

Essentially, Delivery Agent enables TV show production crews like wardrobe and set designers to catalog the products used in shows. Delivery Agent then makes contact with the vendors of said products and provides the e-commerce platform to sell them through each show's official website. When viewers desire Martha Stewart's crocheted poncho or a particular Swarovski crystal ring worn by Teri Hatcher's Desperate Housewives character, the show, the vendor and Delivery Agent all profit. The company hopes to make it even easier for viewers to find on-screen fashions with the recent launch of its consumer brand, SeenOn.

Getting his foot into the entertainment universe, says Fitzsimmons, 32, was possible largely because he brought on team member Kim Marder, now chief marketing officer, who had an entertainment industry background and serious connections. Creating an advisory board full of entertainment industry veterans helped open even more doors. "We're sort of a slow-growth, high-growth story," says Fitzsimmons. "For the first three years, we got to $1 million in revenue on three full-time employees and six [contract workers]. The challenge in that phase was sticking with it--there were so many temptations to quit." The company secured a round of financing last year and has since grown the business to 44 employees.

Continuously adding to its already high-profile roster of 70 properties such as Will & Grace, The View and even Monday Night Football, Delivery Agent's big challenge now is training employees quickly enough to handle the growth. Says Fitzsimmons, "You need to find people who are self-sufficient and can hit the ground running."

Ever up for a challenge, Fitzsimmons and his crew are looking for even more growth and revenue opportunities. "We take a balanced, score card approach to how we set strategy and measure ourselves," he says. With plans to increase awareness of SeenOn shopping and roll out applications for the mobile market to allow consumers to purchase from their cell phones, Fitzsimmons sees a stellar future for Delivery Agent. Good thing--he's used to life among the stars.

How To Make $100 Million Selling Other Peoples Stuff On eBay

2009-05-13T04:55:00.000-07:00

Rick And Elise Wetzel Story

http://www.i-soldit.com

It's no secret--eBay has become tremendously popular, and strategically positioned right alongside the world-famous online auction site is eBay drop-off store iSold It LLC. Elise Wetzel and her husband, Rick, founded the Pasadena, California, business in December 2003 and started offering franchises just a few months later. They have already sold more than 800 units and expect 2006 gross sales to exceed $100 million. The numbers speak volumes; their story explains how they did it.

Elise was trying to raise money for her children's school by selling items on eBay when she was struck by what she calls "the big aha!" She had been buying on eBay for years, but soon realized that the process of selling an item was much more complex than buying. So she went in search of a business that would sell merchandise for her. When she came to a dead end, she knew she had stumbled on something big.

Selling other people's secondhand items for a fee is a golden idea with endless potential, but how this husband-and-wife team is managing the company's growth is what landed them on this year's Hot 100 list. Aware that the business could take off if given the chance, they knew when to step aside and pull in outside resources.

"We needed somebody who knew how to run this business at the speed it could run at," explains Rick, 47, who already had extensive franchising experience as the founder of fast-growing pretzel franchise Wetzel's Pretzels. "You have to set your ego aside. It was challenging to sit there and say, 'This is too big for me; we need a stronger team.'"

Rick singled out Ken Sully, former executive vice president of Mail Boxes Etc., for his impressive track record of building solid company infrastructures. Rick brought Sully onboard as iSold It's CEO in 2004. Thanks to this decision, the operation is running at top speed. A complex coding system for the stores is in place, and the build-out of each location is impressively standardized, enabling a store to be installed and set up in a mere 48 hours.

The company continues to grow strong with 3,000 franchise applications flooding in every month and recent international expansion to Australia, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom. The future promises limitless opportunities, and the Wetzels are ready for it. "We've created this brick-and-mortar interface to the internet," says Elise, 40. "E-commerce will continue to evolve, and I think our stores are in an excellent position to capitalize on that."

How To Makes $2 Million From College Interns

2009-05-12T04:54:00.000-07:00

Jason Engen Story

http://www.corporateinterns.com/

When Jason Engen was an undergraduate student at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, he and his friends knew the challenges students faced in finding worthwhile internships. So for one of his business classes, Engen wrote a business plan detailing a concept for an internship placement service--one that would interview and screen students and match them with local companies that needed interns. "We hit a nerve in terms of the marketplace and focused 100 percent of our efforts on students," says Engen. "We started a week after we graduated, and it took off."

Still, it wasn't easy to peddle the service to local firms in the beginning. For one thing, it was a challenge to uncover how different companies structured their internship programs and how Engen and his partners could sell their service to these firms. "I don't think we were approaching companies the right way," says Engen. But as he began to spend more time learning about the companies' needs, he felt more confident in selling his service. "It's win-win," he explains. "The student gets the experience, and the company gets eager talent."

The real success came in carving out a niche--Corporate Interns Inc. specializes in placing interns only--so the company doesn't compete directly with large staffing firms. "Specialization is important," says Engen. "You have to stay focused on that niche." Especially when that specialization propels you to $2 million in yearly sales.

Making $700,000 A Year By Letting Customers Design Their Own Jewelry

2009-05-11T04:53:00.000-07:00

Lindsay Cain Story

http://www.femmegems.com

Nothing can take away the glow a woman gets when she sees that perfect piece of jewelry-nothing except for an exorbitant price tag, that is. But when customers come to Lindsay Cain's Femmegems store, they're able to bring in pictures of exquisite designer pieces and replicate them at a fraction of the original cost.

Initially, Cain designed and sold jewelry herself, but this 29-year-old found her niche when she realized that other women not only liked to design their own jewelry, but also enjoyed emulating the jeweled adornments they'd see in fancy, high-end department stores. "They'll come from [the department store] across the street and design a piece like the one they just saw," explains Cain, who offers her patrons a wide selection of semiprecious gems. "People feel the value they're getting."

With her Femmegems idea in mind, Cain went hunting for retail space in New York City's NoLIta neighborhood. After finding the perfect location, Cain opened her store's doors in November 2002, and just six weeks later, the store was featured in an article in the "Style" section of The New York Times.

The resulting business kept Cain and her staff busy for weeks-and even garnered attention from buyers at upscale department store Henri Bendel who asked Cain to open a similar setup in one of their boutiques. Now with two locations, Cain expects about $700,000 in sales this year.

How A Business Started With A Credit Card Got To $25 Million In Annual Sales

2009-05-10T04:52:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Elting And Phil Shawe Story

http://www.transperfect.com/

Right after receiving her MBA, Elizabeth Elting was ready to put it to use. With experience at a translation company, Elting saw a need for a one-stop translation service in the fragmented industry. After teaming up with fellow MBA student Phil Shawe, Elting started TransPerfect Translations with a $5,000 advance on her credit card. Shawe's college dorm room became TransPerfect Translations' office, and they bought a phone line, a fax machine and office supplies, and they rented a computer. Though the partners focused on marketing in the beginning, their material was minimal and inexpensive.

With no full-time employees for the first 18 months of business, Elting and Shawe handled all aspects of the company except for linguistics, for which they hired freelancers. Taking no real salary in the first year, the founders took only what was necessary to cover their rent, reaching sales of $250,000.

Now as one of the top five translation companies worldwide, TransPerfect Translations has evolved from Shawe's dorm room to 19 offices on three continents and now includes a network of 4,000 freelancers. The firm specializes in the finance, pharmaceutical and legal industries and is also the world's largest legal translation company.

With projected sales of $25 million a year, Elting, 37, and Shawe, 34, now have a small staff to help out with TransPerfect Translations' daily operations, but they continue to run lean in order to ensure profitability and reinvestment. "That's the culture of our company," explains Elting. "We're very much focused on making sure we have money before we spend it, so we never have to lay off people." In any language, that translates to success.

How To Sell $1.2 Million Worth Of Product In 40 Minutes

2009-04-20T07:31:00.000-07:00

Denis Simioni Story

http://www.ojonhaircare.com/

Denis Simioni, 38, had owned an advertising and graphic design firm for 15 years in his native Oakville, Ont., when he first happened upon a substance called "ojon." Seven years later that little word has transformed his life, along with the lives of thousands of indigenous Hondurans, who supply ojon oil to his hair-care company, Ojon. Simioni, whose company employs 32 people full-time and projects $40 million in sales this year, says managing an operation with employees spread all over the globe is both exhausting and rewarding.

Here is his story:

How did you go from advertising to hair care?

My ad agency specialized in the beauty industry, so I learned all about launching a brand in this industry. One Saturday my wife came across a little jar in the bathroom with something in it that looked like peanut butter. It had been sitting on our shelf for two years. She called her grandmother, who lives in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and is always sending us natural cures and native remedies. Silvana's grandma told us that the product was ojon oil she'd purchased from an Indian. Silvana's hair was really brittle and broken from swimming and coloring it, so she put some of this stuff in and with just one treatment the difference was incredible.

So you decided to figure out what exactly this mystery goo was?

We changed our vacation from Disneyland (DIS) to Honduras that year so I could track down this Indian. Turns out he was from the Caribbean side of the country, from a Mosquitia rain forest. I contacted a nonprofit group called Mopawi that helps preserve the rain forest and the indigenous tribes who live there. They agreed to take me to meet the Tawira people, whose name actually means "the people of beautiful hair." You could hardly get a better testimonial. What was even better was that I flew into the jungle and was traveling downriver in a mahogany canoe for 5½ hours. Suddenly, we started to see people who weren't wearing any hats. All the other tribes use hats to protect their hair from the sun, but the Tawira put ojon oil in their hair and don't need hats. I met them, saw the process they've used for centuries to collect nuts from the ojon tree and produce the oil. The women unraveled their long hair and showed me how beautiful it was.

Did you know immediately that you could commercialize this product?

Yes. It took several years to secure intellectual-property protection and collaborate on the formula with some skin-care manufacturers from Italy that I'd known from the ad agency. I had fallen in love with this company, Origin Italian, because they were all about passion and purity of ingredients. They didn't have any experience making hair-care products, but they had a laboratory and a boutique manufacturing facility and they specialized in organic ingredients. We formed a partnership with them covering manufacturing costs, and we self-financed the startup.

How did you get the word out about your new product, given how saturated the hair-care market is already?

I had a friend who had a relationship with QVC. I got me a meeting with them, they loved our story and invited us to launch our first product on Dec. 27, 2004, at 10 p.m. As soon as the show aired, we sold out our initial inventory and had a wait list of 3,100 units. A year later, on the same day, we launched our first one-hour show on QVC, and within 40 minutes we sold out $1.2 million of product.

Why has television been so successful for you?

I realized that TV is the medium we need to tell our story and the story of the Tawira. Being on QVC drives our sales month-to-month. We're now their fastest-growing hair brand.

The story of the indigenous people is key to your sales and marketing. Do people ever wonder if you are exploiting these natives?

Yes, we're always fighting that perception because of all the past exploitation. That's why we've continued to work through the nonprofit organization, whose president is a Tawira himself and speaks their language. Because we are buying so much product from them, at a price about 230% higher than what they used to get, we've provided full-time work for more than 1,000 Tawira in about 30 villages in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. We've also provided them with scholarships, safety equipment, and education. They have elected indigenous committees to negotiate with Mopawi and with Ojon Corp., mostly made up of the women who produce 80% of the oil. Now they are purchasing land in one of the larger villages that has schools and a hospital, so their kids can have better lives.

How much have their lives changed because of your company?

They are still incredibly, incredibly poor and their development is decades behind what we know. But they used to support themselves by subsistence farming and deep-sea diving for lobsters, which was very dangerous. The children used to dive instead of going to school. Now that each of them can earn about $300 a year making ojon oil (they made about $67 annually in the past), a lot of them have switched over to that. I'm looking into building schools in their villages. I want to do that in partnership with the government, so that they'll have qualified teachers and materials.

You could have set up an operation to harvest the ojon nuts and produce the oil with modern technology, bypassing the indigenous producers. Why not do that?

I fell in love with these people. They have absolutely nothing in the world, but spend a week with them and you'll see that they are always smiling, calm, and peaceful. It's difficult because of the language barriers, their lack of education, and their remote locations. There's no telephone in these villages, and everything moves slower there. They're not on any time clock. But they believe that I was sent by God to help them and they've put me on this pedestal. I feel it's my calling to live up to that.

Poop Scooping Millionaires

2009-04-18T07:25:00.000-07:00

Matthew Osborn

http://www.pooper-scooper.com

Matt Boswell

http://www.petbutler.com

The most noted pioneer in the poop-scooping business is Matthew Osborn, who runs Pooper-Scooper.com. He never knew that this business would one day make him a millionaire. Osborn got started back in 1987 when he opened Pet Butler in Columbus, Ohio. "I had been interested in small-business ideas since I was a kid," he says. "My friends thought it was an interesting but far-out idea, and many of them just couldn't grasp the concept. They all said, 'People aren't going to pay you for that.'"

At the time, Osborn was working two full-time jobs and making less than $6 per hour at each. He had a wife, a daughter and a son on the way, and was desperate to make some extra money. Osborn began doing research at the local library, studying the area's demographics and census data. He eventually contacted the county auditor and learned that there were about 100,000 dogs within 15 miles of his home."I just happened to be in the right place at the right time and got started with very little money," he says.

The business slowly took off, and despite the dirty work, Osborn says he enjoyed satisfying the customers and working outdoors in some of the nicest backyards in Ohio. However, it wasn't all fun and games. "I didn't enjoy driving around in my little Honda Civic with hundreds of pounds of dog poop in the back," he says. "It sort of gave me nightmares until I was able to buy pickup trucks for the business."

Eventually Osborn employed seven people and owned a fleet of six trucks serving about 700 regular customers. "I was making more money than ever before and spending most of my time with my family doing the things I enjoyed," he says. After a nearly 10-year run, Osborn sold his business in 1998 and started Pooper-Scooper.com, which contains an international directory of pet waste removal businesses. His newest business venture is that of writer. He recently released a book, "The Professional Pooper-Scooper: How to Start Your Own Low-Cost, High-Profit Dog Waste Removal Service."

While Osborn may have put poop scooping on the map, Matt "Red" Boswell is taking it into the future. Boswell owns the Texas-based Pet Butler. He recently moved the business out of his house and into a 1,200-square-foot office just north of Dallas. Today, Pet Butler is the largest pet waste removal service in the country, and serves about 3,000 clients.

"Most of our customers are middle and upper-middle income," says Boswell. "But can you think of anyone who wants to clean up dog poop or cat poop?"

Boswell explains that at an average of just $10 per visit, nearly anyone can afford Pet Butler's services. "Rarely is Pet Butler considered a luxury service by those who use us," he says. "Most consider Pet Butler a mandatory and highly valued staple for their yard maintenance needs."

Boswell, 35, hasn't always been the poop-scoop king he is today. Back in 1997 he was near bankruptcy after his Internet start-up venture crashed and burned. After months of false starts and dead ends, his girlfriend suggested starting a poop-scooping business. "I was quite offended she thought I would even do it," Boswell says. But figuring he had nothing to lose, he launched Pet Butler in 1998. "It failed miserably," he says. "But I was done quitting. I didn't care if everybody on the planet thought I was an idiot. I dropped all pride. I was determined to make it happen."

Two years later Pet Butler was still struggling, but through relentless marketing, a little press, and word-of-mouth referrals, he finally started making some headway.

Boswell, who refers to himself as Pet Butler's "chief excrement officer," is quick to point out that he's not just some executive in a suit, but that he's paid his dues and gotten his hands dirty -- literally. "I have personally scooped over a million piles of poop," he says proudly. "I have had more than a few make me literally gag. Even the dogs wouldn't go near them."

The company has seven employees working in the field scooping poop, and six in the office who help run the day-to-day business operations. Boswell admits it's not what'd you call a glamorous job, and there are some occupational hazards.

"This job has caused some guys to lose more than their share of girlfriends," Boswell says.

And Boswell says that most of his "Fecal Matter Removal Technicians" have to occasionally deal with temperamental "clients." "Most technicians will normally get bitten sometime in their first six months because they get lazy and too trusting," he says. "Fortunately that is all it takes for the tech to never let it happen again."

Boswell is in the midst of launching Pet Butler Franchise Services Corp., and foresees Pet Butler franchises popping up all over the country. And despite his unorthodox and some would say unsavory career choice, Boswell says he has long gotten over any embarrassment he had over his job, and actually relishes the attention. "I love when people ask what I do for a living," he says. "People just can't get enough of the idea that we actually scoop poop for a living."

Of course, when your company is projected to gross over a million dollars and you have nearly 20 franchises sprouting up all over the country, including 10 in the Dallas/Forth Worth area, it helps ease the embarrassment. In fact it was Boswell's success story that landed him a gig as guest speaker at last year's Pooper Scooper Round-Up in Houston. Boswell was also awarded the Golden Shovel for winning the Turd Herding contest. However, there was some controversy over his technique. "He decided to forgo tools, and just grabbed the turds and stuffed them inside his slacks," says aPaws president Ewing, who came in second. "This is not a technique that is used in the field, so I protested his win, but the board voted against me."

Boswell says he's put the controversy behind him and is focusing on the future goals of Pet Butler. In fact they're posted on a big bulletin board in the new office above the printer: "By June 2010 Pet Butler will support at least 100 franchises across North America. We will serve more than 50,000 clients each week, and offer service to over 50 million people in North America and collect in excess of $500,000 each week and donate $100,000 to pet-friendly organizations each year."

"We've got some huge goals," Boswell says. "It's an industry that's untapped. We plan on becoming the Microsoft of dog poop."

Profiting From Lost Baggage Big Time

2009-04-16T07:24:00.000-07:00

Bryan Owens Story

http://www.unclaimedbaggage.com/

In Scottsboro, Alabama, Bryan Owens, 44, is CEO of Unclaimed Baggage, a store started in 1970 by his retired father, Doyle. It may be one store, but what they sell brings in more than 1 million customers per year. Unclaimed Baggage is just what it suggests: a store selling airport luggage that has gone unclaimed. There is so much of it, the retail outlet has expanded over a city block and now attracts visitors from around the world.

Owens, who bought the company from his father in 1996 and watched it grow 400 percent, says Unclaimed Baggage has exclusive long-term contracts with airlines around America, Asia and Europe, ensuring his store is the only one of its kind. It's also proof that the word "trash" should be used with wide latitude.

Every year thousands and thousands of wayward suitcases end up in Scottsboro—specifically, at the Unclaimed Baggage Center. Once an airline has tried and failed to reunite suitcase and owner (a process that varies according to airline), it will compensate the owner and sell the suitcase—and all its contents—to the UBC, which buys suitcases by the truckload and hauls them to its 50,000-square-foot complex in Scottsboro. There the UBC staff sorts through the bags and puts their contents in a showroom (or some of them: others are given to charity, still others discarded), where they can be seen and bought by members of the public. But are people really interested in buying other people's, uh, lost stuff? "We'll have close to a million people come to the store this year," says Bryan Owens, the owner of the UBC, "from every state in America and thirty foreign countries. This is kind of the Mecca for lost bags."

Owens's father started the UBC in 1970, with a rented old house, a borrowed old truck, and a $300 loan. Today the center gets nearly 7,000 new items every day, and Owens says that people can't seem to get enough. "It's a treasure hunt," he says. "Every day is like Christmas here—we never know what we're going to find. Just last week we found a twenty-eight-thousand-dollar tennis bracelet and a one-point-six-karat diamond ring. We've had a medicine-man stick adorned with a shrunken head, and a Nikon camera that was in the Space Shuttle. Back in the eighties we got a well-traveled Gucci suitcase that was packed with artifacts that dated back to 1500 B.C. And once we found a guidance system for an F-16 fighter jet, in a shockproof case from the Department of the U.S. Navy. It was labeled 'Handle With Extreme Caution—I Am Worth My Weight in Gold.'" The UBC sent that one back.

Sport Fans Score $1 Million From A Bright Idea

2009-04-14T07:23:00.000-07:00

Dominic And Brennan Latkovski Story

http://www.zooperstars.com

This wacky mascot troupe makes crowds at games laugh, while behind the scenes is a serious effort to run a professional, respected business.

It's not safe coaching third base -- or any base, for that matter -- when the ZOOperstars are in town. Just ask the countless coaches who have been swallowed whole by 10-foot-tall Clammy Sosa, one of the most popular of the ZOOperstars.

In the mascot troupe's signature bit, the impressively tall inflatable clam clad in a Sammy Sosa jersey greedily "devours" opposing coaches, bat boys, or whoever else happens to be around, then spits out his meal's shirt, shoes, and cap, all while Weird Al Yankovic's Eat It plays in the background.

"Yeah, the Eat It skit is a real favorite," says Dominic Latkovski, who founded ZOOperstars with his brother, Brennan, in 1998. "The crowd loves it."

It's just one reason why the Louisville-based ZOOperstars have turned into one of the hottest sideline acts in the sports world. The company's goal is to perform in 300 shows at various events this year -- from the hardwood of the National Basketball Assn. to the fields of Minor League Baseball, the company's biggest sport. Latkovski says revenue from ZOOperstars may hit $1 million this year.

While event attendance in general has sagged as of late, Minor League Baseball continues to surge in popularity, in large part because teams have set out to create a "fan experience" that includes extra entertainment like ZOOperstars. In 2004, minor league teams drew a record 39.8 million fans, up more than 800,000 over the previous year, according to league statistics.

The ZOOperstars have tried to set themselves apart from the competition (and yes, there is competition, such as the Raymond Entertainment Group, out of Newark, Del., best known for Reggy the Purple Party Dude) by taking a serious approach to business -- despite making a living wearing giant, inflatable costumes. Their attitude is greatly appreciated by harried team executives, who would rather not spend time worrying if the guy in the clam costume will show up late.

"They're real professionals," says Jeff Ney, assistant general manager with the Kane County Cougars, a Class A minor league team in Geneva, Ill., which has hired ZOOperstars seven times during the 2005 season. "They return my calls quickly. They send me the right paperwork and documentation. They send us posters far enough ahead of time so we can promote their appearances. Those little things make all the difference."

"Even though this is nothing more than dressing up in funny costumes, we run this like a business," says Dominic Latkovski (he's the family member who speaks about the startup in this story). "We do everything that is necessary to run a successful business, from marketing to customer service. People look at what we do and think it's easy. But they have no idea how difficult it is to run a business like this."

Among the challenges he cites: coordinating travel across the country, juggling scheduling dates, and constantly dreaming up new characters to keep the shows fresh. Staffers also regularly attend sports trade shows.

But the Latkovskis have always had a fondness for mascots. Dominic, for instance, started performing in 1990 as Billy Bird, the mascot for the Triple-A Louisville Redbirds. He soon started his own character, BirdZerk (one he still appears as, though the manic bird is a separate entity from the ZOOperstars cast).

Like many entrepreneurs, the Latkovskis can trace their big idea to small beginnings. Dominic, Brennan, and their father were snacking at an area restaurant when the trio began tossing around ideas for mascots based on existing players, with emphasis on humorous animal concoctions. The idea for the ZOOperstars was born.

The act now consists of 30 giant inflatable animal characters, with such names as Ken Giraffey Jr., Shark McGwire, Shaquille O'Seal, Cow Ripken Jr., and Tiger Woodschuck. The company recently introduced its first female character, Mia Hammster, based on soccer great Mia Hamm.

These creative characters have helped give the ZOOperstars an edge over other mascot troupes. They've been a boon, too, to general managers and promotions staffers who need to fill large home schedules with unique acts.

"Visually, to me, the ZOOperstars are the best act and entertainment there is out there," says Mike Nutter, general manager for the Fort Wayne Wizards, a Class A minor league team in Indiana. "Before they even get into their skits, some of the kids absolutely lose it just seeing the appearance of these characters. They're larger than life. It's like a live cartoon."

Adding to the entertainment value, a dozen or so of the performers -- playing Clammy Sosa, Harry Canary, Stallion Iverson, and other characters -- are former gymnasts or cheerleaders who already know how to play to a crowd.

Like the the four-person office staff in Louisville, the troupe members out in the field have received high marks for their customer service -- a lifeline for this small business that, like many, relies on word-of-mouth advertising.

"They're so well organized with what they need, everything from how many breaks they'll need in a game to how many towels or bottles of water they'll need," says Ney. "They'll tell us if they need an umpire's uniform for a skit, whatever it is, so that we'll be sure to have it when the time comes."

The ZOOperstars also take notes while working for a team. That way, when the troupe comes back for a return engagement, they'll already know the names of the team's officials, where the dugouts are located, and where the entrances and exits to the field sit.

"That may not seem like much of a big deal, but believe me it is," Nutter says. "A lot of times you'll have worked with people for years, and they'll come up to you and say: Now, what's your name again? That doesn't happen with these guys."

The ZOOperstars characters can attribute their popularity in part to their high level of detail. Mackerel Jordan, for example, features a tongue that lolls out of his mouth, just like his real-life counterpart, basketball legend Michael Jordan. Dennis Frogman and Stallion Iverson sport tattoos, just like the real Dennis Rodman and Allen Iverson.

And when Ken Griffey Jr., was traded from the Seattle Mariners to the Cincinnati Reds, his ZOOperstars alter ego, Ken Giraffey Jr., also switched uniforms.

This leads to some tough decisions. When Michael Jordan came out of retirement to join the Washington Wizards, the ZOOperstars decided to leave him in his Chicago Bulls uniform. The reason? Far more people associate Jordan with his championship days in Chicago than with his two seasons in a Wizards jersey.

Such attention to detail doesn't come cheap. The average ZOOperstars costume costs $5,000, estimates Latkovski. They're not easy to lug around, either. The inflatable outfits measure a minimum of 6 feet in height. Shaquille O'Seal stands close to 15 feet. The costumes weigh about 35 pounds -- including the battery packs and motors that keep them inflated.

But without such elaborate and intricate costumes, Latkovski says, the ZOOperstars would hardly stick out in the minds of team officials. "People think they can just get a costume and be a success," notes the entrepreneur. "But it's a lot more than that. People are paying us good money to perform for them. You have to be professional, and you have to offer them something unique. That's the real challenge."

The Most Incredible Record Company You Never Heard About

2009-04-12T07:23:00.000-07:00

Andrew Rallo Story

http://www.subwayrecords.com/

Andrew Rallo was standing on a New York City subway platform in his nicest suit, waiting for the B train to take him uptown for an interview at a marketing outfit when he heard music in the distance. The guitarist across the platform wasn't much to look at, but his talent was obvious. "People just started coagulating around this guy," Rallo recalls. "They were talking to each other and smiling and giving him money. They were doing things that New Yorkers don't normally do." And so the idea for Subway Records was born.

For the next two years, Rallo worked as a technical sales engineer for an online advertising company while saving money and scouring the subway for musical talent. He finally launched his fledgling record label and Web site in the fall of 2002. His vision is to create a comprehensive search engine -- a "Google for subway musicians" -- to get their music heard and market its energy to the public.

How does a 26-year-old launch a record company with no experience, no marketing, and no capital behind him? Well, for starters, Rallo has always believed in his mission to bring that unique subterranean energy above ground -- he's committed to helping those who have a surplus of talent but no voice. And he knew he had to take advantage of the most accessible and inexpensive media outlet out there -- the Internet -- while tapping a product that markets itself constantly to the 3 million to 6 million people who ride the New York City subway every day.

Many artists on Rallo's label, like Lorenzo LaRoc, an electric violinist who has played the subway for years, already have their own promotional Web sites. They just need someone to work on their behalf. With Subway Records' backing, LaRoc was able to trade the screech of passing trains for the screams of Madison Square Garden fans. "Playing the halftime show for the Knicks game was a dream come true," he says. "And I got paid $500 for two minutes of work."

To book the performance, Andrew Rallo relied on the age-old practice of cold calling. "To me, it just made sense," he says, "Subway music and Madison Square Garden are the perfect match. I just didn't stop calling until I made it happen."

Believed to be the only search engine for subway musicians, Subway Records delivers its service in tiers. First, it gives musicians Web-based exposure by listing and marketing their music online. Most times, artists have already produced their own albums, and Subway Records sells them on their behalf. However, unlike traditional record labels, the Subway Records musician pays nothing for this service. For its cut, the company charges the consumer an extra couple of dollars on top of the musician's asking price.

Rallo also acts as agent, booking his artists' paying performances at gallery openings and other events for a negotiated fee, generating additional revenue. He's constantly networking to find opportunities for his musicians to perform, and many times event hosts find him via his all-important Web site.

The second tier comes after judging an artist's marketability. If Rallo notices that a musician is working hard to sell CDs online or they're driving a lot of traffic to the site, then he will spend more time and energy on the artist. He'll even fund production of an album for musicians he feels have the potential to sell enough CDs online to be profitable, and the artists take it from there. After all, they're constantly performing -- simultaneously promoting themselves and Subway Records.

Down the line, a select few will be raised to the highest tier -- into the hands of upper-level record executives, who may mold them into bigger sellers. Through his networking skills, Rallo has already seen larger outfits express interest in forming marketing and production partnerships with Subway Records.

Don Gorder, head of the music business/management department at Boston's Berklee School of Music, says Subway Records' model -- using technology to promote a particular niche -- represents "the wave of the future" in the industry. But he warns that the approach remains very much the exception rather than the rule. "We have yet to see a really hot, successful label marketed entirely over the Internet," he says. "But I think it can be done."

Rallo says Subway Records is in the black, and he confesses that much of its growth has come from simply filling a void. "No one else wants to do what we do," he says. "No one has been willing to work with these musicians because of the deep-rooted stigma they carry with them of being bums or beggars."

But Steve Ciabattoni, editor of CMJ, one of the most prominent magazines supporting independent music, says Subway Records shares qualities with some of the most successful indie labels: "They appeal to a loyal fan base because the artists all come from one community and are chosen because the people supporting them really love their music." Ciabattoni, who admits to missing trains after becoming so engrossed by musicians on the platform, adds, "I believe Subway Records will succeed if they keep that spirit." He had been keeping tabs on one of his favorite subway acts, a tribal percussion band called Mecca Bodega, when he learned of its integration into Rallo's growing network.

By the end of 2004, Subway will represent over 200 musicians. And the site's traffic keeps increasing: With no outside marketing, it garners 2,000 to 20,000 hits per week depending on the level of recent media coverage, and fans have purchased almost 200,000 CDs online to date. Rallo is also looking beyond the Big Apple, with plans to sign musicians from Boston, San Francisco, Toronto, and Tokyo over the next few years.

Still, the process remains rooted in simplicity. All subway musicians are subject to the same test: If people interrupt their commute long enough not only to listen but to fork over their hard-earned money, then Rallo knows he has found a winner.

Getting Rich From Dog Manikins

2009-04-10T07:22:00.000-07:00

Craig Jones Story

http://www.rescuecritters.com/

To many people in his inner circle, creating life-size models of pets seemed like a silly business for Craig Jones to start. But to him, it made perfect sense.
Jones, 41, sensed a business opportunity after completing a pet first-aid class with the American Red Cross. He discovered that the unrealistic dog manikin they used for training was offered by only one company in the U.S.

Jones, a former emergency response instructor, knew that his background in emergency medicine for humans, coupled with his contacts in the special-effects industry, were the resources he needed to create lifelike animal manikins. Together with his wife and co-founder, Jacqui Pruneda, 39, Jones began designing a true-to-life dog manikin that would fit the training needs of veterinary professionals. "We didn't want it to look like a stuffed animal you would buy at a toy store," he says. "We wanted it to look realistic."

In 1998, Jerry, Rescue Critters' first dog manikin, was born in the couple's garage. The American Red Cross became their first customer, and response to Jerry was so positive that word soon spread throughout the veterinary field. Other manikins quickly followed: Fluffy the cat; Lucky, a life-size rescue training horse; and Critical Care Jerry and Fluffy, more advanced versions of the originals that train students in life-saving techniques such as IV insertion, suturing wounds, intubation, and listening for heart and breath sounds. Primate manikins, birds with real feathers for trimming, and manikins that let users draw blood are in the works.

Rescue Critters has since moved from its garage location to a storefront and now sells its manikins to customers worldwide, including veterinary technician programs, fire departments, U.S. Army canine hospital units and police department K-9 units. Each animal model is made to order, and customers can add features to base-priced models according to their needs. With 20 to 25 requests per year for manikins and projected sales of $1.3 million, it seems like Jones' idea wasn't so silly after all.

How To Make $100000 A Year Uploading CDs To iPods

2009-04-08T07:21:00.000-07:00

Catherine Keane Story

http://www.hungrypod.com/

Apple Computer's iPods are everywhere these days, and they're hungry. Just ask Catherine Keane, 24, who started her business, HungryPod, shortly after an acquaintance offered her $500 to load his CD collection onto his iPod. Keane took the offer and determined that with two more customers paying similar prices, she could launch a business for $1,500--enough to buy a computer that could handle large volumes of data transfer.

Loosely based on what its first client paid, HungryPod charges $1.75 per CD for the first 50 CDs, and $1.50 for each additional CD. Keane will pick up both the CDs and iPods at her clients' homes or offices in Manhattan for an extra $15--unless they have more than 100 discs, in which case pickup is free.

Keane, who interned at a top 40 radio station in Florida prior to starting HungryPod, also recommends music to clients based on their collections for a fee. According to Keane, 1 in 4 customers requests this service.

Thanks in part to a small story in The New York Times, Keane's advertising efforts on Craigslist and word-of-mouth, HungryPod has expanded to three employees and four computers, and has annual sales that exceed $100,000. Now others want to get involved, so Keane has hired a marketing/sales employee and hopes to start HungryPod centers nationwide in the near future.

Celebrity Cookies? It Made A Million Dollars For This Person.

2009-04-06T07:20:00.000-07:00

Chuck DiRocco Story

http://www.likeums.com

When former investment analyst Chuck DiRocco noticed that cookies were missing from the wide variety of snacks sold in video stores and at theater concessions, he started searching for a way to link cookies to Hollywood. Then the idea hit him: Create cookies in the form of popular movie stars, such as Renйe Zellweger and Jack Nicholson. One cup of flour, two cups of sugar and three eggs later, the first cast of LikeUms was formed.

DiRocco, 33, spent months surveying moviegoers, analyzing feedback and researching the industry to find out which stars were most popular. Although theater and video chains were initially reluctant to carry his product, he continued to send samples and mass mailings to them in hopes of making his new cookies more recognizable. Before long, in July 2004, DiRocco landed a deal with Regal Entertainment Group, the world's largest motion picture exhibitor, to release LikeUms in select theaters.

As DiRocco continued to market aggressively nationwide, he managed to get LikeUms on the shelves of convenience stores and in amusement parks and gift baskets, pushing sales to more than $400,000 in the first year. Realizing the cookie characters had potential in other venues besides theaters, DiRocco began marketing them to international exporters, school fund-raisers, charity events and corporate offices. Some NBA teams have even sought to create a version of LikeUms to help market their athletes and sporting events.

With sales of more than $1 million in 2005, you can bet DiRocco is enjoying the sweet taste of success. Coming attractions: He plans to expand the line to include more celebrities, including pop singers, radio personalities and entertainers.

Bachelor Party Business That's Anything But Cliche

2009-04-04T07:20:00.000-07:00

Darren Hitz Story

http://www.adventurebachelorparty.com/

Darren Hitz knew there had to be something better for bachelor parties than a weekend filled with booze and exotic dancers. Looking beyond this cliche, Hitz, 29, decided to plan a bachelor party around a weekend of adventurous white-water river rafting in West Virginia.

The trip was a blast, and Hitz knew there had to be others looking for the same kind of thrill--and their future wives' approval. After searching for companies that catered specifically to guys' pre-wedding bashes and finding nothing, he took it upon himself to fill the void.

In 2004, Hitz launched Adventure Bachelor Party with about $8,000 of his own money. Hitz's niche market is one he's intimately familiar with--because it's his own. "Guys are lazy," he says. Hitz gives guys nation-wide the chance to do something they may not think to do on their own and also gives his other client base--local adventure outfitters--a chance to be seen on a national level.

Although the cost doesn't include airfare, just about everything else is taken care of once the group lands at its destination: three- or four-star accommodations, lavish dinners, the adventure itself and transportation throughout the trip.

With over 20 adventures, including cattle herding in Texas and fishing off the San Francisco coast, Hitz is looking to expand his trips while keeping them intimate. He has also created three separate businesses under the parent company he formed, Hitz Adventures, for bachelorette parties, corporate team-building trips and weekend adventures.

Not only is Hitz's business taking off--he expects sales of over $300,000 in 2006--but he's having fun, too. Says Hitz, "I enjoy being able to provide a service where everyone has a great time and is happy."

Trashbag Millionaire

2009-04-02T07:19:00.000-07:00

Terry Feinberg Story

http://www.repellem.com/

Terry Feinberg was seeing red. "I can't count how many times I went outside and found my garbage ripped apart in the street," Feinberg says. He was tired of having pests and animals snooping around his garbage bags, so he decided to come up with a new type of bag that would discour-age them by both scent and color.

He says his Repellem Garbage Bags are "light red, almost pink"-a color that doesn't appeal to animals and pests' visual spectrums. "Typically, manufacturers make white and black kitchen garbage bags," says Feinberg, 44. "But animals and pests are attracted to white and black."

Feinberg, the owner of a health-care and beauty product distribution company, began researching his product three years ago. He asked a chemist friend to help him create a scent offensive to animals and insects but pleasant to humans. By taking out a home equity loan, he was able to get the $50,000 he needed for startup costs. The all-natural scent, which Feinberg describes as "peppermint-citrusy," is patent-pending and features a combination of botanical oils and other natural ingredients.

Feinberg is currently testing his Repellem Garbage Bags, which sell for about $13 to $15 per box, in more than 100 Petco stores and is negotiating to have his product appear on QVC. He predicts 2006 sales will be between $1 million and $2 million.

Six Figure Business Setting Up Pajama Parties.

2009-03-30T07:17:00.000-07:00

Melody Biringer Story

http://www.craveparty.com/

Women want to network with other women while wearing pajamas, getting spa services and shopping—at least this is what Melody Biringer, 41, found out when she founded Crave Party.

Inspired by a pajama party at a friend's home, Biringer got the idea to create fun business networking events for women on a larger scale—at fancy hotels and ballrooms with champagne and strawberries. She secured local spa professionals (massage therapists, nail techs and so on) and merchants to provide the pampering services and shopping, and charged women a $35 fee to register. Her first three nights of Crave Parties sold out in two weeks.

Thanks to word-of-mouth marketing, her parties have grown in popularity. "[It's] networking in your pajamas in a swanky environment—that makes it even more fun to walk into this place," Biringer says. With parties under her belt in New Orleans; Phoenix; Portland, Oregon; and Seattle, Biringer would like to bring the concept to every major city—and even create annual parties themed around events such as holiday shopping or the Oscars—to push annual sales into the mid- to upper-six-figure range.

DNA, Your Ancestry And A Great Business Idea

2009-03-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

Dr. Rick Kittles Story

http://www.africanancestry.com/

As an African-American, Dr. Rick Kittles wanted to know who his ancestors were and their countries of origin. So the geneticist decided to create a database of African lineages.

After working on this database for several years, Kittles, 38, who holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology, joined forces with businesswoman Gina Paige, 38, to start a company that allows African-Americans to confidentially obtain information about their genealogy.

By using DNA technology, the company aids individuals in determining maternal or paternal ancestry. Customers go online (www.africanancestry.com) to order a $349 kit, use swabs to collect their cheek cells and then send their samples to the company via Express Mail. After the DNA is extracted from the swabs and sequenced, Kittles matches the sequence to his database of more than 25,000 African lineages and 389 ethnic groups.

Upon receiving their results, many clients feel they've received a priceless gift. "For many of [our clients], there's a sense of connectedness," says Paige, who adds they have a 95 percent success rate. "There's a sense of completion because this answers a question people thought they'd never be able to answer in their lifetimes."

African Ancestry has more than 3,000 clients, including celebrities such as actor LeVar Burton, director Spike Lee and Congresswoman Diane Watson. The company earned $300,000 and they expect to increase sales by 50 percent this year.

Making Dough Selling To Fratboys.

2009-03-26T07:16:00.000-07:00

Joseph Tantillo Story

http://www.greekgear.com/

Reading a business magazine in the doctor's office inspired Joseph Tantillo to try his hand at online retailing. At the time, he and his wife were expecting their first child and wanted to work from home. An article about starting an online store jumped out at him, he recalls—and, as a member of a fraternity in college, he decided to sell personalized Greek apparel to that market.

After setting up shop for just $79.95—the cost of a merchant account with Yahoo!— he began researching what kind of products his former fraternity brothers might like. Tantillo then located suppliers who would work with him on a drop-ship basis and began selling. He opened his online doors in May of 1999 and had his first three sales by June.

He and his wife moved into a farmhouse owned by their family so they didn't have to worry about a mortgage. That gave Tantillo the freedom to go full time and research the market. "I spent a lot of time online—hours, all through the night—e-mailing people about linking to our website, e-mailing people about our products, asking friends for criticism and suggestions," says Tantillo, 36.

His persistence helped him become the preferred vendor for a few national Greek organizations. Tantillo then secured partnerships that would allow him to advertise on their websites in exchange for a sales commission to the organizations for every click-through purchase.

Using the strong Greek network worked, as he's built GreekGear.com's yearly sales to $1.9 million. In addition, the company recently moved into its own 5,000-square-foot facility, complete with its own screening, embroidery and printing equipment. With success like this, Tantillo's frat brothers should be proud.

Wedding Insurance Millionaires

2009-03-24T07:14:00.000-07:00

Karen and Roger Sandau Story

http://www.wedsafe.com/

When planning their wedding in late 1999, Karen and Roger Sandau were struck by how risky it was to give large, nonrefundable cash deposits to vendors without any protection if something were to go away on the wedding day. From a vendor going out of business to an important family member being stricken ill and unable to attend, the Sandaus thought of all the things that could possibly go wrong on their wedding day and wished they could find some way to protect their investment.

Finding wedding insurance available overseas but not in the United States gave the couple a great idea—they figured there were many people like themselves who would feel much more calm before the big day if they knew they were covered for unforeseen circumstances. Karen, had a background in catering and event planning, and had heard of event cancellation insurance; and Roger, had a background as an entertainment attorney, so he knew the ins and outs of events in general.

The newlyweds combined their expertise and started detailing the types of things the insurance would cover, such as severe weather emergencies on the wedding day, a damaged or stolen wedding gown, and lost or damaged wedding rings, to name just a few. They also decided to offer liability insurance for any damages incurred at the wedding site (something many venues require).

They went about finding an underwriter for the policy as well as developing software that would enable them to organize and sell their insurance cheaply. Their product has resonated with couples and especially wedding planners.

In fact, marketing to wedding professionals has helped the Sandaus grow their business to between $2.25 million and $2.5 million in sales. "Everyone has heard of a wedding story gone awry," Roger says. But now, with WedSafe at the helm, mishaps don't have to spell catastrophe.

Millionaires Who Started Out With Nothing, Part III

2009-03-22T07:13:00.000-07:00

Joe Bushey Story

http://www.posworld.com/

Company name: POS World Inc.
Location: Atlanta
Estimated annual sales volume: $10.8 million
Description: Point-of-sale online retailer

This IT manager for a concessions management company loved working in the POS field, but was so burnt out by the intense work hours that his doctor recommended a career change. One day, while reading a catalog with reseller pricing for receipt printers, cash drawers, bar-code scanners and other POS items, Bushey realized that not only was the markup outrageous, but also that there was nowhere to purchase POS hardware online. His vision: to create an online marketplace offering fair pricing on these items to the end user. "I wanted to be the Dell of POS," says Bushey.

"I didn't have a dime to spare," says Bushey, who continued at his full-time job while starting POS World in 1999 in his off time at home. "It was a virtually no-cost startup." Early on, he focused on establishing vendor relationships and developing a website. His brother Jim moved into his apartment to handle website maintenance.

One investment--a high-end Nortel phone system with voice mail--presented a professional image to callers, even though Bushey was handling calls for every department. It seemed to work--in 2001, when the Los Alamos National Laboratory's hard drives containing sensitive material went missing, they contacted POS World for recommendations on item-tracking technology. "I realized then we really had a presence," says Bushey, who moved to an office and hired his first nonfamily employees in 2000.

Most customers do business through POSWorld.com, but they can also visit the office or call in. Customers include many Fortune 100 companies, the Federal Reserve Board, Lockheed Martin and the U.S. court system. POS World is expanding into auto ID, warehouse operations and the biomedical field, and will partner with Microsoft to sell retail-management software in combination with the company's hardware.

Being Organized Can Make You $100000 Richer

2009-03-20T07:12:00.000-07:00

Lisa Zaslow Story

http://www.gothamorganizers.com/

It was both an interest in and a knack for organizing that inspired Lisa Zaslow to forgo the daily grind of an office job to start her professional organizing business. Officially founding Gotham Organizers in 2000, this New York City dweller had a background in HR and consulting. While on vacation at a friend's home in 1999, she went looking for a napkin in one of the cabinets. "It was just a mess, with candles, Christmas ornaments, Easter things, soup tureens . . . and I rooted around and finally found a napkin. I looked around and said, I have to organize this," recalls Zaslow, 40. "As I was [organizing a cabinet] on this beautiful, sunny day, a hundred yards from the beach, I realized maybe this was the work that I was meant to do."

The more Zaslow learned about organizing, the more she liked it. She got in touch with her local NAPO chapter to learn more about the business side of it and started organizing for friends and family free of charge just to grow her skills. "I knew I liked organizing when it was my agenda, but I really wasn't sure if I would like it when it was [for] somebody else," she notes.

This is an important distinction to make in the startup phase of any organization business. According to Izsak, "There's a big difference between organizing for yourself and your family, and organizing for everyone else. Many people are not [conscious of that]." Because professional organizing is such a customized business, it's important for entrepreneurs to really find that right solution for each customer. Though Izsak notes that the proliferation of home makeover shows has certainly raised the profile of professional organizers, "They [also] perpetuate the notion that organizers come in, clean up, and [that] everything is OK." On the contrary, he says, professional organizers must work closely with clients to help them achieve their own ways of organizing.

Though it's not as personal as a therapy session, Izsak has observed the sentimentality that people often have about their things. "We're dealing with hoarders," he says. "They have psychological issues that are impairing their ability to make a decision." That explains all the boxes in the corner--people hang onto things because they can't decide what to keep and what to let go of. A professional organizer needs a keen eye for detail and a good ear for listening to his or her client's specific needs.

Zaslow's HR skills certainly helped her tune into her clients' needs. "There's often a lot of shame [about being disorganized]," she says. "But once they let you into their home, they're really grateful to talk about it to someone who's not judgmental." A unique challenge of this business is getting people who are perpetually disorganized to keep appointments with her, so Zaslow confirms and reconfirms with clients before each meeting.
She was doing HR consulting and organizing on the side until 2002, when she decided to go full time with the organizing. Her profile grew rapidly after an appearance on HGTV's Mission: Organization. After hearing in her local NAPO meeting that producers were looking for organizers, she submitted a few proposals. She was chosen, and the half-hour show profiled how she organized the home of one of her clients--a young, single guy in the city. After that, Zaslow positioned herself as the go-to organization expert for local media and has gained massive exposure that way.

Zaslow, like many professional organizers, charges by the hour-- although the amount varies per job. Izsak agrees that fees vary widely, depending on an organizer's level of experience as well as the nature of the job, although he points out that many charge between $50 and $200 per hour.

Even with her company growing and sales projected to hit $100,000, Zaslow still finds time to teach professional organizing to other aspiring entrepreneurs at an adult-education organization, The Learning Annex, in her area. It's her passion, after all. "[There's] an immediate sense of results," she says. "It's a dramatic change both visually and in your life."

Santa Pretender Makes $1 Million A Year

2009-03-18T07:12:00.000-07:00

Byron Reese Story

http://www.santamail.org

Byron Reese Started his company, SantaMail.org, which sells fully personalized letters from Santa Claus all across North America (they're even postmarked from North Pole, Alaska, to give them an authentic feeling). Reese sold 10,000 letters in 2001, his first year in business. Though holiday sales have increased every subsequent year, he still looked for ways to expand his offering. Now, parents can order birthday cards for their children from Santa as well. The strategy pushed 2005 sales to $1 million.

Still, the key to Reese's success is organization. After realizing he and his staff didn't want to pull the marathon 36-hour shifts they did the first year, he looked to outside vendors to help with the yearly rush. He also deals with any problems as soon as the rush is over, and then starts planning for the next year. By February, he's up and running. "The temptation is to not start working until you get close to that season, and we've made that mistake in the past," says Reese, 37. "Things always take a lot longer than you think they're going to take. We find it much better to work steadily."

"When I was a child, my parents would give us letters from Santa. My mom died three and a half years ago, and I wanted to do this to honor her," says Byron. "I entered it with low expectations, but we sold 10,000 the first year." The magic of Christmas is a serious trust to Byron, so he implemented a rigorous quality-control program that has multiple people (his elves) checking each letter, ensuring complete accuracy on each one, as well as on a birthday card from Santa and the post-Christmas 'Greetings from Hawaii' postcard from a tanned, beach-bound Santa.

Byron's childhood Christmas memories include installing 200 strings of Christmas lights and decorating dozens of Christmas cookies each year. He loves the look on the postman's face when he goes to buy 40,000 Santa stamps at the post office each Christmas. What's next on this Christmas devotee's agenda?

"Someday I hope to deliver coolers of snow to people in hot climates."

Veterinarian Makes $3 Million A Year With A Crazy Pet Fountain Idea

2009-03-16T07:04:00.000-07:00

Mary Burns Story

http://www.petfountain.com/

Dr. Mary Burns, 49, is a former veterinarian and the founder of Veterinary Ventures Inc. based in Union, Kentucky.

The Drinkwell is a pet fountain with free-falling water, a one-gallon-plus water reservoir, a pump and a charcoal filter for removing bad tastes and odors. Burns initially got the idea because her cat, Buckwheat, would only drink running water from a faucet. Tired of getting up during the night to give Buckwheat a drink, Burns created the Drinkwell after observing a decorative desktop water fountain that seemed to offer a solution for faucet-drinking cats.

The initial investment was less than $3,000 for a vacuum-formed mold, some initial inventory and an ad in Cat Fancy magazine

The sales really took off, with just over $3 million a year. Most sales are made through pet superstores such as Petco and Petsmart, and through independent pet stores, as well as specialty and pet catalogs nationwide

Pets can be an important part of people's lives, so it's not surprising that every year, individual inventors come up with dozens of new pet inventions. But the days of the independent pet store are over--and nearly all small shops have been replaced by category-dominating stores like Petco and Petsmart. Inventors can enjoy big-time success once they learn how to penetrate the big pet-store chains.

"I knew the key feature on the Drinkwell was the free-flowing water," says Burns. "I started by reading the book Patent It Yourself by David Pressman. I wrote up much of the patent description myself, but I had an attorney write up the actual claim to be sure I had strong protection." Burns' protection paid off--she sold the product without competition from 1995 to 2001 and, even after a competing fountain was introduced by a major pet-products company, the Drinkwell held its sales level because she had the market's only free-flowing water fountain.

Burns explains her sales success: "I started out in December 1995, selling directly to consumers through small ads in Cat Fancy, Cats and I Love Cats magazines. Then, in 1996, Hammacher Schlemmer called and wanted to carry the product, and Alsto's Handy Helper catalog picked the product up at the end of 1997. In 2000, I started to promote the product in trade magazines like Pet Age and started to pick up independent pet stores." Burns didn't just have some initial success; she had $2.2 million in 2002 sales, which also included Petco sales of her product.

Burns started with a functional product that was not stylish. "My initial vacuum-formed tool was very cheap (less than $1,500), but the product didn't have aesthetic appeal," she says. "In 1999, before approaching pet retailers, I decided to convert to an injection-molded product, which had a six-figure tooling cost, but which also provided a professional-looking product. That look was essential to Petco and Petsmart."

Burns' growing business was starting to overwhelm her in 2000. "My investment counselor suggested I contact Howard Consulting [a business management consulting firm in Reno, Nevada, now called Meridian Business Advisers], who initially provided help with my financial books," she says. "But they came to my rescue when dealing with Petco and Petsmart. I didn't know how to fill out vendor qualification forms, deal with allowances and discounts, or negotiate final agreements."

Howard Consulting helped Burns get the initial orders, and Burns went one step further in 2002. "I ended up selling the company to [Meridian's parent company] for an upfront fee and ongoing royalties. I felt that I was out of my league negotiating with the big retailers, and was also overwhelmed by the concepts of producing the product overseas and dealing with a major pet-company competitor," Burns says. "I felt turning the company over to experienced businesspeople was my best choice."

Big retailers will want at least a 50 percent discount from the suggested retail price, and they will also want allowances, which are a percentage of their purchases--typically 2 to 6 percent--to cover the costs of damaged products and advertising. You won't make any money if your manufacturing costs are greater than 30 percent of the suggested retail price.

T-Shirt Sellers That Make Over 30 Million Dollars A Year

2009-03-14T07:03:00.000-07:00

Jules Leaver & Tim Slade Story

http://www.fatface.com/

Founded: 1988

Annual turnover: £25 million

At first glance they are not the most likely people to become successful entrepreneurs, but when two skiers decided to sell T-shirts at a ski resort to finance their lifestyle, they laid the foundations of a very successful clothing empire. That was in 1988. Today, Jules Leaver and Tim Slade have just opened their 50th Fat Face shop, selling outdoor clothes and leisurewear. The company is estimated to turnover in the region of £25 million this year and is recognised as one of the fastest growing companies in Britain in The Sunday Times Fast Track 100.

After completing a business degree at 21, Leaver decided to indulge his love of skiing by becoming a "self-confessed" ski bum in Meribel, France. But rising early to get the best skiing and working late in a bar to earn enough to live on was not a viable lifestyle for a long period of time. Together with fellow bar worker, former policeman and friend, Tim Slade, Leaver decided to exploit the gap in the market for 'been there done that' T-shirts to sell to holidaymakers.

The pair chose to manufacture their own T-shirts to enhance appeal, rather than buying them off the shelf, and found a company in Leicester that did short runs at a reasonable price. The T-shirts were then printed up with the 'Meribel 88' back prints at a company in East London. While Leaver stayed in Meribel to sell the merchandise behind the bar, Slade travelled back and forth transporting the goods.

"We began by getting small batches of 100 or 200 T-shirts printed, based on the minimal capital we had to invest," said Leaver. "They sold well because no-one else was doing anything similar, and we gradually increased the quantity to 400 then 800 and so on." Their bold approach paid off and when they left Meribel to travel the world they continued to sell T-shirts, and later fleeces, at different ports of call.

"It wasn't until we got back to the UK in 1993 that we realised what a good business idea it was," explained Leaver. "So I sold my VW Combi van and Tim cashed in some shares, and with £12k we opened our first shop in Fulham."

Leaver and Slade knew that by appealing predominantly to the skiing and snowboarding market they would only be in business for half of every year - not a viable option. So the pair built on the success of their T-shirts and fleeces by developing a range based on another interest of theirs - sailing and windsurfing. It proved to be a successful formula. "Having a mixture of High Street and activity-based portfolio has worked very well for us, yet it isn't something that would fit most brands," said Leaver.

The nature of its target audience also carried with it inherent benefits. "The average age is early 30's, with an even split between men and women. Because people at this sort of age are often into a profession, coupled with the fact that watersports and snowsports and generally enjoyed by people with more disposable income, it has kept us in good stead. We are reasonably recession-proof because of that. When the cards start to fall it takes a while to get to us."

But while Leaver makes it sound like a fairly seamless rags to riches transition, there have been problems along the way. "It's been a rollercoaster ride and the hardest part is probably the first few years when you don't have any track record. You have ultimate belief in both yourself and the business concept and you know you can make it. But you are the only person on the planet that does.

"Banks want guarantees on your house or your father's house, every supplier believes you won't pay them and every landlord tells you they also want a personal guarantee - there's no way round it. In fact, I still have one that is a hangover from those early days."

The gamble paid off for Leaver and Slade, but how have they managed to sustain the appeal of their brand to a relatively fashion-conscious audience over a decade of change? "By continuing to understand your customer," believes Leaver. "At the beginning you are very close to what you do, but as you grow it is easy to lose touch. We gather feedback from customers by email, panels, face-to-face or whatever and the info comes straight to the design team and myself. We discuss it as soon as it comes in - we don't believe in waiting for monthly meetings - and reflect it in our product. By being disciplined about this we have built up a reputation as an approachable company that listens. Tim and I still take direct calls too - it's amazing what you learn."

Getting Rich Off A Simple Idea

2009-03-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

Ron Lando Story

http://www.clicgoggles.com

Lando's six-year-old, six-person company, with headquarters in Tiburon, Calif., had a breakout year in 2005, generating more than $5 million in U.S. sales and another $2 million overseas. CliC glasses have been spotted recently on CSI, Nip/Tuck, Will & Grace, Freedomland, and the Rolling Stones, who donned CliC reading glasses and sunglasses when last year's tour brought them to San Francisco.

Which means Lando, 52, who looks like Paul McCartney (he plays guitar in a '60s Brit-rock cover band, the Whining Bullies), is living a distinctly American dream: The one where you wake up one morning with an idea so simple, so right-, uh, over-your-nose obvious, you can't believe nobody ever thought of it before. You arm yourself every which way with patents. You take your invention to market. Voila, you're rich.

Of course, a lot can go wrong between ah-hah! and ka-ching!

Someday Lando may go head-to-head with a well-heeled copycat. He has, after all, no secret ingredient. Lando - a 20-year industry veteran who previously worked for his father's eyewear-design company - came up with the idea after just a week of focused fiddling. The only part missing was the fastener. "I was originally thinking about a hook or a snap," he says. He even considered Velcro. Regular magnets wouldn't work because they'd have to be as big as silver dollars. Then someone showed him a powerful neodymium magnet, which had just come on the market, and the whole thing snapped into place.

To protect himself, Lando went to Steve Schneider, director of the Sawyer Center in Santa Rosa, a SBA-sponsored resource center for California inventors. Schneider did a patent search (the coast was clear), introduced Lando to a patent agent and patent lawyers, and showed him how to file for trademark protection, all at no cost. (Ultimately, Lando says, he spent about $250,000 on fees, lawyers, and other startup costs.)

In March 2000, Lando took a suitcase full of prototype goggles to the Ski Industry Association trade show in Las Vegas and came back with a sheaf of orders, including one for $100,000 from a national sporting goods chain. Suddenly Lando was in business, even though he had yet to secure a manufacturer.

"I immediately flew overseas," says Lando, "brought them my prototype, and said, 'Make this for me.' "

Originally Lando focused on ski goggles. Then Harley-Davidson proposed a licensing deal, and he moved into motorcycle goggles. In 2003 Lando had the bright idea of expanding into reading glasses; now they account for two-thirds of his business. The latest: sunglasses - a nearly $2 billion market.

"Everybody tells me that will be bigger than readers," Lando gushes. (He's staying away for now from prescription frames, which he views as a boutique business.)

Whether Lando can hang on long enough to reap the full benefit remains to be seen. What's clear is that he's willing to risk everything to maintain absolute control. Lando manufactures up to 360,000 units a month at a factory in Taiwan and prepacks for quick shipment by the dozen from a warehouse in San Francisco. He's cautious ("Whenever you act quickly, for some reason you make mistakes"), and he's not greedy ("I'm very comfortable right now with my size"). His salespeople are all independent reps he's known for years. He has no PR machine, no marketing staff, and no ad budget in the U.S.

"I've got basically one product," he says. "You want it or you don't. And we're the only people who have the product."

For now, anyway. But despite the risks, Lando doesn't listen to those who encourage him to sell his business before it gets snatched away.

"It's like my own baby," he says. "Nobody tells you how to raise your kid. This is my patent, and I'm going to do what I want to do. Somebody wants to give me 50 million bucks, I'll pull the pin. But I ain't pulling the pin for five million or ten million bucks." Lando fiddles with his glasses. He straightens his shoulders and puffs out his chest. "I'm doing everything right," he says. "Shame on me if I screw this up."

Selling Pickles Online? Actually, It's A Great Business

2009-03-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

Rick Field Story

http://rickspicksnyc.com/

On the surface, Rick Field, a Yale graduate and former TV producer for Bill Moyers, would not seem the most likely candidate to become a pickle peddler, much less spearhead a new pickling movement. But he has done just that. The entrepreneur behind Brooklyn (N.Y.)-based Rick's Picks is offering New-World twists on an Old-World condiment, inventing a whole new pickle palate in an industry whose heyday was a century ago -- and creating a market in the process.

It started as a hobby. Field learned the art of pickling when he was growing up in Vermont. About eight years ago, gripped by a sense of nostalgia, he took up pickling again. In his tiny kitchen, Field made family recipes and then quickly began experimenting.

Inspired by the trend in ethnic food fusion, he infused his brine with new flavors and essences such as coconut and dried cherries, dreaming up innovative varieties of pickled cucumbers, cauliflower, and string beans. "In food, people were interested in new flavors and creating new ideas," he says. "I put that into my pickles."

Field gave his offbeat hybrids to friends and family. Their wildly enthusiastic response to his Windy City Wasabeans (soybeans in wasabi brine) and Slices of Life (sliced pickles in aromatic garlic brine) told him he was onto something. So four years ago, Field entered the annual Rosendale International Pickle Festival in upstate New York and won six ribbons, including Best in Show.

After defending his title for two successive years, Field decided to go pro. "It galvanized me to take my hobby more seriously," he says. At the end of 2003 his job with Moyers ended, and Field says he decided "to go for it."

Initially, Field gained a local following selling his wares at the Union Square Green Market in Manhattan and on his Web site. Culinary nods from New York magazine and Food & Wine soon followed, and Field found himself in the brine full-time.

The challenge, he says, came in converting a personal passion into a viable business without losing the artisanal spirit in translation. "It was really an issue of scalability," he says. "From home canning to making 80 cases in multiples of 40 was not straightforward. I made this first massive batch of brine that was incredibly vinegary. I had to throw it out."

That was a relatively inexpensive mistake. Field says he blew $1,000 on labels that were not refrigerator-grade. Furthermore, he chose square jars that he says looked great, but the labeling machine couldn't roll properly. Field ended up hand-rolling 3,000 jars.

In one year, Field says, his sales have increased 200%. He sells 10 different varieties (nine more are in the works) online and in specialty stores in nine states including Whole Foods and Dean & Deluca. Now, he says, "My issues are not of pickling but of taking a small business and nurturing it into an intelligent business."

He's not the only one facing that challenge. Until recently, pickling was a dying art. The number of pickle merchants in New York City, once the cuke capital, had by the late 1990s dwindled to less than a handful. By 2000, only Guss's, established in 1910 on Essex Street, had survived.

Across the country there were a few outfits, such as Minneapolis' fifth-generation family-owned Gedney's, which celebrated its 125th anniversary this summer. But for the most part, the descendant of the Eastern European culinary tradition could be found only on supermarket shelves in mass-produced jars.

However, in the past five years, the pickle has made something of a comeback. Fueled in part by the artisanal movement, an interest in unprocessed foods, and the trend in ethnic flavors, a new crop of pickle merchants have revitalized the iconic cuke. Borrowing from Eastern European customs and marrying them to those of Indian, Chinese, Korean, and other pickling traditions, the new picklers offer both an urban sophistication and a folksy, homespun allure.

Sold at farmer's markets across the country and in gourmet specialty stores, these new pickle crossbreeds are finding their way onto the menus of trendy, upscale restaurants and pickle bars. They've also given rise to a number of shops devoted to the making and selling of homemade pickles.

"After 100 years, pickles were on their way out," says Lucy Norris, the author of Pickled: Preserving a World of Tastes & Traditions and the commercial kitchen manager at the Food Innovation Center at Oregon State University in Portland. "Now you see people in their 20s and 30s reclaiming their food heritage, making pickles accessible and combining Old-World flavors with ethnic ingredients and a making a completely new pickle."

TV Show Fan Finds A Unique Niche To Profit From Other Fans

2009-03-10T07:01:00.000-07:00

Georgett Blau Story

http://www.sceneontv.com/

Linda O'Brien and her 16-year-old daughter, Tess, are devoted fans of Sex and the City. They watched it religiously during its initial TV run, and now relive all the Cosmo-fueled moments on DVD. So it should come as no surprise that on their first trip to New York, the Australian duo have forgone some of the usual hotspots for a different type of sightseeing experience: The Sex and the City Tour.

Creator Georgette Blau introduced the tour a month after the September 11 terrorist attacks, hoping to give a boost to businesses in the same neighborhoods where much of the show was shot. Since then, the three-hour tour, which runs twice a day, has been a sellout.

Visitors from all over the world, most of whom learn about the tour online, eagerly shell out $37 a ticket for a chance to photograph themselves on the stoop of the building where Carrie, the series' central character, lived and to buy the girls' favorite cup cakes from the Magnolia Bakery.

You would think that the business of showing homes, parks, restaurants, and other real-life locations from TV shows and movies would be a given. Glance at a newsstand today, and it's clear that the fascination with celebrity culture only continues to grow. But when Blau moved to New York in 1998, a 24-year-old Skidmore College graduate and newly minted editor at Prentice Hall, she was star-struck and keen to indulge her passion.

What she couldn't find, however, was a tour that could show her famous New York movie and TV landmarks. Often walking past the apartment building featured in The Jeffersons, she came up with an idea. "Imagine my surprise when I couldn't find a single tour," Blau says.

So, in 1999, with $3,000 from her savings, she started what initially was a weekend hobby -- the Scene on TV Tour, starring Blau as tour guide. Soon after, she renamed it the Manhattan TV & Movie Show, with tourists paying $15 to see sites from hit TV shows and movies.

Like many entrepreneurs, Blau identified a way to turn her passion into a business capitalizing on the passions of others who share her enthusiasm for the big and small screens. The pool of potential customers is deep. In 2005, New York welcomed 17.2 million tourists, each spending an average of $190 per day, according to NYC & Company, the city's official marketing and tourism organization.

Blau realized early on that she had stumbled upon a potentially great business idea. New York is one of the most-filmed cities in the world, where many of prime-time hits are based. Of course, it would almost seem like a no-brainer, considering that Hollywood has had tours of movie stars' homes for years, and Hawaii has its own movie tour featuring locations in Kauai from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, and other blockbusters. Even California's Monterrey has a own movie tour that includes a scene featured in Marilyn Monroe's Clash By Night.

Blau's company, On Location Tours, now runs four tours -- the Manhattan TV and Movie Tour, the Central Park Movie Tour, The Sex and the City Tour, and The Sopranos Tour.

But it was tough going initially for Blau, who barely made $400 during the weekends showing visitors places such as the building from The Nanny on the Upper East Side, the Lower East Side police precinct from NYPD Blue, the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld, and the Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis High School on 46th Street from Fame. She continued her day job as an editor.

But as the popularity of the bus tour increased, Blau began stepping up her marketing and PR efforts -- handing out brochures at the Museum of Television & Radio and other tourist-stomping grounds, establishing a Web site, generating as much word-of-mouth buzz as possible.

Real success came to Blau when she quit her job as an editor and started a tour based on The Sopranos in March, 2001. The HBO mobster sensation was in its third season, and media interest was at its peak. When Blau started the tour, which features various spots filmed in New Jersey, it generated a major buzz, including a spot on the Today show. The tourists went crazy, and Blau was easily filling up the two buses' 100 seats, even though the tour ran on Sundays.

She later launched The Sex in the City Tour, which has also been a tremendous success. Now 31, with five full-time employees and 18 part-timers, Blau brings in more than $1 million in revenue each year. With a full-fledged operation on her hands, she eventually decided to hang up her tour-guide hat and hire others.

In March, 2005, she advertised on Craigslist to hire guides for The Sopranos and Sex in the City tours. The response was stunning -- 300 people showed up for the interviews, which lasted two weeks. "We're in New York, so we had to pick from beautiful struggling actresses to standup comedians," Blau says.

For the comedians or actresses, the tour is a great forum to practice their craft. Lisa Perlman, a tour guide on the Sex and the City bus, is a standup comic at The Gotham Comedy Club. And it shows. She keeps the tourists entertained and well-humored during the three-hour tour.

"The bus is just like the club -- you're never quite sure how the audience reacts to my jokes, and it's great practice," says Lisa, who peppers her banter with knowledgeable tidbits about New York architecture and questions like: "Are there any shoppers in this bus, or alcoholics, or virgins, anyone?"

The O'Briens can barely contain their squeals of delight as tour guide Perlman fields the question -- "which one among you is a Carrie, a Charlotte, a Samantha, a Miranda?" -- the show's four main characters. Daughter Tess admits that her friends from Down Under have often referred to her as a Charlotte, the well-bred, eternally optimistic brunette.

The tour's fanatical fans are nearly all women. Once, Blau recalls, actor Kyle MacLachlan, who played the role of Trey McDougal, was buying cupcakes at the Magnolia Bakery -- one of the tour hot spots -- and was surprised to see a horde of women rushing toward him. "I thought they'd get his autograph," Blau says. But to her surprise, the women all went up to him wagging their fingers and shaking their heads at how poorly his character treated wife Charlotte in the show.

The success of The Sopranos Tour taught Blau the need to constantly update her tours to attract young tourists. So, while You've Got Mail, the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romantic comedy filmed on the Upper West Side, was part of the tour until just two months ago, it has now been replaced with a stop at Rice to Riches, the rice-pudding store that makes an appearance in the Will Smith's Hitch. Of course, the classics like Breakfast at Tiffany's and the house from Wait Until Dark are always shown, as is the Empire Diner from Woody Allen's Manhattan.

Next up, Blau plans to start a tour in Washington, D.C., within the next few months that will show the sites from movies and TV shows filmed there. Fans of The West Wing and Commander in Chief needn't wait too long before their own "on-location" experiences.

Fishing Lures Go High-Tech

2009-03-09T07:00:00.000-07:00

Chris Podlewski And Michael Armbruster Story

http://bikinilures.com/

After working long hours doing contract engineering for space systems, Podlewski looked forward to relaxing with friends on the open water. But with the cost of live bait on top of another $60 to gas up the boat, his hobby was also a bit pricey. That's when Podlewski came up with the idea for an artificial lure, designed to attract fish as well as live bait.

His day job eventually brought him to New York. There, Podlewski tried to make a business out of his artificial lure but could never get past the prototype stage -- until he met Michael Armbruster, an engineer for a consumer-products company in Buffalo, N.Y. The pair started Bikini Lures and is just now bringing their innovative fishing aid, a reusable electronic product that mimics the sound of live bait, to market.

Q: How did you and Chris meet?

A: We met in July, 2003, through mutual friends. Chris was looking for a job. He's a contract electrical engineer, and I was working for a local consumer-products company, so he was looking for a job at that company. First, we started talking on the phone. We didn't know this at the time, but we were both adopted from the same orphanage in Korea.

When we started talking, we had no idea. I thought I was talking to a Podlewski, and he thought he was talking to an Armbruster. When we met, all of a sudden we were like, "Were you adopted?" That's where we just kind of hit it off.

Q: Did you both fish frequently?

A: Growing up in Long Island, I used to fish when I was younger. As I grew up, in college and high school, I had all these miscellaneous activities, so I didn't have time to devote to fishing, but Chris got really interested in fishing when he was doing contract engineering in Florida.

Q: Did you plan to go into business together?

A: We first started off as friends. We didn't really think about starting a business together. He [had] the concept down in Florida. He tried to do something with it with various other people, and he wasn't successful.

When he met me, that's exactly where my background was, in consumer products from conceptualization to the finished product on the shelves. He definitely has an edge with R&D, having worked [on space systems]. He has an electrical engineering background, combined with fishing. We met in July, we started talking about it in the fall of 2003, and then we went and started a corporation in December, 2003.

Q: What was the biggest challenge in making this?

A: Our recharge circuit is what makes it powerful. We've been approached by other lure manufacturers, and they all said the same thing: "We thought of this idea, it's not a noble idea." The thing that's noble is that we were able to do this idea.

There are electronic lures out there. There are electronic lures that have lights, one or two LEDs, and there are electronic lures that have a little speaker inside that buzzes. The reason why a recharge circuit is so critical is when you're putting a microcomputer inside a lure, it's not cheap. The other electronic lures out there are either disposable, meaning once the battery runs out, you have nothing but a plastic body left.

The other option is that there are a few lures out there that have batteries [you can replace] instead of two- to three-button cell batteries. But everyone who fishes knows that once you compromise the seal, electronics and water don't go well. Because our integrated recharge circuit is inside, enclosed, you don't have to compromise the seal or open up the lure -- everything is 100% sealed inside the body.

Q: How do you recharge it?

A: The product comes with recharge cables, and you have many options. Consumers connect the 9-volt battery to the clip, the other side has two cables -- a red and black cable that they connect to the lip and to the tail end of the lure. The tail has a hook on it, and the lip is where you put the line.

Q: So, after a day of fishing, consumers are able to go home and plug it in?

A: Absolutely. Our lure can be used for more than 12 continuous hours, but that's all we're claiming because we want to be conservative, especially if we start changing the programming and it starts reducing the battery time.

Hats Off To This Business Woman

2009-03-08T06:59:00.000-07:00

Fiona Markowitz Story

http://www.partyhats.org/

At a birthday party 14 years ago, Fiona Markowitz, 40, rolled up paper bags into hats and let her children paint them for fun. Encouraged by party attendees who were wowed by her creativity, she and her husband Steve, 45, took a chance at making it a business. Now Party Hats Entertainment offers pre-made hats and many decor options, such as feathers, buttons, beads, silk flowers and more.

Fiona credits some of their success to The Special Event, a yearly international conference and expo for event specialists that she began attending seven years ago. "That's where I learned who the [event] industry people were, what their greatest needs were and what we'd be able to accomplish with [our business]," she recalls.

The Markowitzes honed their business skills while learning about the preparation and psychology that go into planning events. "We try to understand who's going to be there and what the needs are," says Fiona. Initially, there was resistance from event planners who thought the idea wouldn't appeal to adults, but the Markowitzes began sponsoring hat-decorating events at the conventions they attended. Says Steve, "Once those event planners saw the energy and realized that it's for [all] cultures, all ages and both genders, it sold 10 times over."

Party Hats has been hired around the country for events of all sizes and purposes. Requested themes are tied into the service. Customers can also throw a Party Hats event on their own with the company's Party in a Box product. The business, with projected 2006 sales over $1 million, isn't just about hats, however. The Markowitzes have made flip-flops, gloves and handbags, all of which can be pre-decorated on request. The latest product: Pimp Your Tux, which gives men the chance to decorate some tuxedo pieces.

"People say, 'This is the best thing ever,'" says Fiona. "Our best source of work is the people who spread that message to others."

Homebusiness Millionaires: Jennifer Gonzales and John Gonzales

2009-03-07T06:58:00.000-08:00

Jennifer Gonzales and John Gonzales Story

http://www.procharms.com

Company name: Procharms Inc.
Location: Sacramento, California
Estimated sales: $2.5 million
Description: Sports charm wholesaler

Courting period: When Jennifer Gonzales' husband, John, gave her an Italian charm bracelet for Valentine's Day in 2002, Jennifer--a huge Sacramento Kings fan--searched in vain for a Kings charm before deciding to create one herself. Jennifer visited the Team Store at Arco Arena (home of the Kings) to ask about licensing, and a helpful employee called Kings' co-owner Gavin Maloof and let Jennifer leave a message. She was stunned when Maloof returned her call and directed her to someone at Arco, eventually leading to a $7,000 order.

Sports nut: After talking to local jewelry-makers and suppliers and doing many hours of online research, Jennifer found a company that could manufacture the charms and was a licensee for Major League Baseball, the NBA, NFL, NHL and professional players associations. Jennifer recruited her first rep--a charm-store business owner--and collected a 20 percent deposit from interested charm retailers. The deposit, in addition to maxed-out credit cards, paid for ProCharms' first shipment.

Domestic charm: Jennifer and John set up a work space in their living room and placed shelves on the wall for the charms. "Everyone who knew us thought we were crazy," says Jennifer. But in addition to the advantage of keeping costs low, operating from home also allowed the mother of three to stay close to her children throughout the workday, with the eventual assistance of a nanny. After four months, they moved into a small office and began hiring employees. John handles ordering, inventory and product development, while Jennifer oversees everything as president.

Team spirit: ProCharms now sells to charm retailers, e-tailers and approximately 20 professional sports teams/venues. The company has also done very well expanding into the collegiate sports market, counting 65 college bookstores as customers. New products include a silver-toned, Tiffany-style heart bracelet; cell phone charms; and leather cuff bracelets, all with team logos.

Homebusiness Millionaires - Laura Dahl

2009-03-06T06:57:00.000-08:00

2006 Sales: $1 million

After earning a master's degree at New York City's Fashion Institute of Technology, Dahl worked for couture designers like Anne Bowen, who creates high-ticket beaded sensations with semiprecious stones. On a whim, Dahl bought some beads to adorn her "wife-beater"-a tank-top undershirt. After receiving scores of compliments and gauging the interest of friends who worked for Vogue and In Style, Dahl started Wifebeader with the shirt on her back in 2003.

Dahl created eight different designs with the help of a beader from Anne Bowen. "I'd be on my couch, in front of the TV with a needle and thread," recalls Dahl. After selling out several trunk shows during her research period, Dahl approached boutiques and took orders on every single visit. "They liked that it's all handmade," explains Dahl. "We use the finest stones and beads from all over the world."

When Bloomingdale's picked up her first collection, Dahl wanted to "pop a bottle of champagne and say, 'We've done it--we've captured New York and the country!'" But she's hesitant to say that she's made it. "It's my personality to always want more and not be satisfied."

Dahl has expanded to 12 silhouettes, new fabrics and a customized Build Your Own Beader option. Wifebeaders are carried in 130 boutiques across the U.S., London, Puerto Rico and Paris; Fred Segal bought her fall 2005 collection; and Dahl is the Sundance Film Festival's exclusive gift-bag designer, for which she's launching a higher-end line, Laura Dahl.

Millionaires Who Started Out With Nothing, Part II

2009-03-05T06:56:00.000-08:00

Tara Krapes Story

http://www.vesta1.com

Tara Krapes, 33, has a business that made at least $2.5 million in sales by the end of 2004. Not bad, considering she began her company in 2002 with $1,050 from her own savings.

Vesta Executive Housing, based in Cincinnati and named for the Roman goddess of hearth and home, offers executives temporary housing for 30 days or more. Krapes has relationships with 42 top-notch apartment complexes in the area. When a client comes to Vesta, Krapes either has space ready for them, or, more often than not, she has to lease a new apartment for 12 months and hope that after her tenant leaves, she can fill it quickly. She almost always does—she currently has zero vacancies.

It seems impossible that she could have funded this business—with 12 employees and a second office in Lexington, Kentucky—with a paltry grand. Until you learn how she did it.

It helped that Krapes had experience in her field already. All she needed was one customer to begin, she figured. Once she found one, she signed a lease at an upscale apartment complex and paid the first month's rent—$1,050. From then on, whenever she worked with any client, she always asked for the money upfront.

Krapes would invest the money back into her business by purchasing furniture and other necessities for the living quarters or her company. And the more apartments she would rent from a complex, the cheaper the rent and the more revenue her company could pocket.

But most important, by coming up with a formula that allowed her to always get her money first, she says, "We avoided cash flow problems. From that $1,050, we've been able to grow very fast. We've never had any debt or loans." Krapes quickly took on two partners, Paul Pelnar, 39, and Joel Makela, 30, friends and colleagues who both had experience that she didn't. They were also able to contribute some other items, like computer equipment, but no money.

"Eighty-five percent of people get their money from savings or the three F's: family, friends and fools," says Sutton Landry, director of Northern Kentucky University's Small Business Development Center in Highland Heights, Kentucky. "For the [others], some kind of bank loan is involved. Very few people get VC funding or angel funding."

If you're wondering what the "slam-dunk qualifications" are for getting a big bank loan, Landry reels some of them off: "Typically, it's someone who is between the ages of 35 and 50, college-educated, and who has a net worth of a quarter of a million dollars—plus a Beacon [credit] score of 700-plus—with a business plan. It almost doesn't matter how good the business plan is, as long as they have one. Ideally, they're going into a business where they have five to 10 years of experience—half of it in management. Most banks will look at that type of profile, do the credit scoring, and say 'Yeah, these people would rather die than not pay a loan back.'"

But what if you're 26, utterly broke, and wishing you had gotten an MBA instead of a degree in American folklore? Landry says if your credit is halfway decent, you might be able to find somebody to cosign a loan—and "you'll need a business plan, a good business plan," he says.

Beyond that, you're simply going to have to rely on that can-do spirit. "Starting your own business involves sacrifice," says Landry. "Unfortunately, we're not a society that's much interested in sacrifice. But on a practical side, that's how most startup businesses begin. They start part time, and they're constantly re-investing money into the business. It's the same model that a lot of immigrants have when they come to this country, where people work three jobs to build the savings they need. But instead of getting a second job, you're running your business in the evenings and on weekends."

Krapes echoes that thought. She had one serious cash crunch when she discovered how few people need housing during the end-of-the-year holidays: "We didn't pay ourselves for a few months."

Millionaires Who Started With Nothing, Part I

2009-03-04T06:55:00.000-08:00

Sanjay Parekh and Rob Friedman story

http://www.digitalenvoy.net/

Believe it or not, IP intelligence technology provider Digital Envoy Inc. was spawned from two serious sweet-tooths. Sanjay Parekh, 31, started buying candy from Costco and reselling it to his telecom co-workers when he struck up a friendship with Rob Friedman, 38, general counsel at the company and an Atomic Fireball enthusiast. Soon, their friendship moved beyond candy cravings, and they were bouncing around business ideas.

Parekh made an interesting discovery when visiting the FedEx and Ikea websites in 1999: both prompted him to enter what country he was in. "I thought that was kind of stupid," he recalls, and the extra step slowed down his home dial-up session. "So I architected a solution to that problem using IP addresses." Friedman agreed that the technology--which provides general information about an online user, such as the city, local demographics and type of internet connection being used, based only on the IP address--would help businesses. They launched Digital Envoy Inc. in 1999, bringing along senior finance manager and co-worker Dennis Maicon, 40.

Filing fees for corporate documents cost $100, and Friedman drew up all the legal drafts. An article on the Red Herring website about their business led to their very first client, Advertising.com (now owned by AOL). Since they worked from their homes, Friedman quips, "I negotiated that deal in my bedroom." They also hired an intern and Friedman's cousin to do programming work in the beginning.

After moving into an office in 2000, they hired three more employees. Friedman found $10 chairs, and opted for modular desk setups rather than expensive cubicles. In their newest office, they have cubicles, bought inexpensively from the office's previous tenant. When it comes to traveling to trade shows and to see customers, they've also found ways to save their Norcross, Georgia, company money, using slightly out-of-the-way but much cheaper flight options.

Digital Envoy now works with many major ad networks and sites, and estimates last year sales at less than $10 million. The company's latest product, IP Inspector Fraud Analyst, allows companies to fight identity fraud by verifying user identity in real time. They are also combating fraud with a product that analyzes whether an e-mail is really a phishing attack. Digital Envoy continues to grow, but in many ways remains the same. Says Parekh, "One of the philosophies we've always had is to do more with less people."

Come back tomorrow for part II

Doctor Makes $25 Millions Selling ... Toothbrushes

2009-03-03T06:54:00.000-08:00

Puneet Nanda Story

http://www.drfresh.com

Puneet Nanda was like many parents: He couldn't get his five-year-old daughter to brush her teeth properly. But unlike most parents, Nanda is a toothbrush manufacturer with an irrepressible entrepreneurial drive. Knowing that his daughter was fascinated by her sneakers with flashing lights, he ripped the lights out of her shoes and put them on a toothbrush. That didn't work, so "I went to Disneyland that evening and bought everything that lit up," says Nanda, now 38. The second prototype was more successful. His daughter brushed for a good two minutes before asking: "Dad, will this ever stop, or should I brush my teeth off?"

Bingo. Nanda added a timer so the light would blink for exactly a minute, and the Fire Fly toothbrush was born. The brightly colored Fire Fly -- the newest version sports a see-through handle showing off a tiny toy and a bunch of floating glitter -- is making a name for Dr. Fresh, Nanda's Buena Park (Calif.) company and his medical school nickname. In 2004, Nanda got the original Fire Fly into Target, and by 2005 it was bringing in 20% of the 50-employee company's $25 million revenues.

Nanda, who holds 58 patents, is seizing on the success of the Fire Fly to create other dental products with flashing lights. "I'm building brand equity," says Nanda. "If I have to do something I have to do it the best." He already has a foothold with more conventional wares, such as private-label dental floss sold nationally in Walgreens and Target stores.

Nanda's path to dental success hasn't been easy. The New Delhi native left medical school to join the family toothbrush business in 1989, after his father had a heart attack. Two years later he began hawking toothbrushes to Russians who'd come to India looking for products to sell back home. Nanda moved to Russia in 1993, leaving his wife and son in India and selling toothbrushes out of a warehouse. He soon felt unsafe doing a cash business in Russia and returned to India for 18 months before heading to New York. Having little luck in New York, he tried Los Angeles, where he landed a $180,000 contract with a 99 cents store. "I'd never seen that big of a deal," says Nanda, who then moved his family to L.A.

Nanda knew he needed something clever to grow in an industry dominated by heavyweights such as Colgate-Palmolive and Procter & Gamble. The Fire Fly may do the trick. It initially flopped at Walgreens, so Nanda began selling it directly to dentists he met at conferences. "The flashing light encourages kids to brush a little longer," says San Francisco pediatric dentist Bergen James, who gives it to her patients. "It gets children to brush, and it gets them excited about it."

The positive feedback from dentists encouraged Nanda to recommit to direct sales. He hired 40 women in India to call dental offices in the U.S. and pitch the Fire Fly. And he kept knocking at Target's door, a company he'd been pitching since 2001. Once Target took it, Walgreens was willing to give the Fire Fly another try.

Nanda now spends more than half his time ginning up new ideas. Next up: mouthwash and toothpaste with kid-friendly add-ons. If all goes well, that may turn Dr. Fresh into a big company with a lot of flash.

A Billionaire Junk Man?

2009-03-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

Brian Scudamore Story

http://www.1800gotjunk.com/

IT was a misty Thursday in the suburbs of this sprawling city, and inside a recently vacated house, Austin Atkins and Stefan Meissner were up to their elbows in junk.

The detritus was the usual: ratty couches, empty paint cans, old mattresses. In a closet sat a dusty upright piano. Out back, in the weeds, lay a rusted hydraulic car jack.

Mr. Atkins, however, was undaunted. "Time to clean up," he said. Over the next 90 minutes, the cleanly uniformed duo grunted and grimaced as they carted every ounce of junk out to their flatbed truck. When they were finished, they toweled off, shook hands with the real estate broker who hired them, accepted payment and headed for the dump.

The routine was typical for this tag-team of Mr. Cleans, junk haulers from the local franchise of 1-800-GOT-JUNK ?, a company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, that has jazzed up the traditionally impersonal act of carting away trash.

Since it was founded 17 years ago, the company has grown from a sole proprietorship in Vancouver to an international corporation that expects revenues of $120 million this year.

The secrets to this success are uniformed haulers, shiny Isuzu trucks and service with a smile. While most carting companies send scruffy men to retrieve refuse from the curb, 1-800-GOT-JUNK ? sends haulers right into customers' homes, removing not only the trash but also clean up when they're done.

For Cameron Herold, the company's chief operating officer, the approach is nothing short of revolutionary. "We've done for garbage what Starbucks did for coffee," he said, noting that most of the company's franchises charge a flat $500 per truckload, which includes gas, labor and dump fees. (There are smaller fees for one-quarter and one-half of a truckload.) "We think of ourselves as the FedEx of junk."

But there's more to this story than a bold brand. As many small businesses are turning to angel investors or venture capitalists for help, 1-800-GOT-JUNK ? has done it alone, bootstrapping the business exclusively on cash flow, and sharing 25 percent of profits with employees through a bonus program.

The company has also built itself around technology, centralizing call-center operations and dispatching new orders through a proprietary Web-based processing system that will soon use Global Positioning System data for better service.

"When a customer calls, we want to be able to get to their junk and remove it as quickly as possible," said Brian Scudamore, the company's founder and chief executive. "Once you've decided to get rid of this stuff, you really don't want it lying around."

Like many small businesses, 1-800-GOT-JUNK ? was born on a whim and youthful enthusiasm.

Back in 1989, Mr. Scudamore was waiting for food in a McDonald's drive-through when he spotted a pickup truck with the words "Mark's Hauling" on the side.

"I looked at the truck and said, 'Now there's an idea,' " he remembered, noting that he was a freshman at the University of British Columbia at the time. "I needed a way to pay for college, and I thought hauling junk was a good choice."

Mr. Scudamore acted immediately, shelling out $700 for a 1976 Ford F-100 pickup, and distributing fliers to spread word that he was the new hauler in town.

Slowly, gigs trickled in. The first year, he earned $1,700; the next year, he broke into five digits. By 1993, the business was taking so much of his time that Mr. Scudamore dropped out of school altogether.

Later that year, he bought two new trucks, and pulled in $100,000. By 1995, the company earned $525,000. Business was booming, yet Mr. Scudamore began to grow wary of complacency.

He dealt with those anxieties by reinventing his company under a franchise strategy, beginning with a pilot in nearby Victoria. When that office teamed with headquarters to top $1 million in revenue in 1997, Mr. Scudamore realized he was on to something. In 1999, he sold another franchise, to an entrepreneur in Toronto.

"By relying on franchise owners to come in and share some of the risk, I realized I could expand the firm without having to turn to outside investors or other funding sources," Mr. Scudamore said. "To me, this was a solid plan for growth."

In 2000, the same year that Mr. Scudamore hired Mr. Herold, 1-800-GOT-JUNK ? dipped into the United States. The first franchise sprouted in Portland, Ore.; shortly thereafter, some friends from Canada opened a franchise in San Francisco.

Since then, the company has grown like a pack rat's National Geographic collection, blossoming into 40 franchises by 2002 and 214 by 2005. Last month, 1-800-GOT-JUNK ? opened its 242nd franchise, in Spokane, Wash. It recently opened a franchise in Sydney, Australia, and will open one in Birmingham, England, this summer.

Many of these franchise owners are thriving. Alan Remer, owner of the company's outpost in Philadelphia, paid $28,000 for his franchise in 2002. Last year, the enterprise earned $900,000, and he predicts it will earn $1.5 million this year.

"I honestly believe I have bought into McDonald's in the 1960's," said Mr. Remer, who retired as a Wall Street stockbroker after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. "People want their basements back, and we're the cheapest way to create space in a home."

The haulers, too, are sharing in the success. Each truck tandem receives credit for the money it brings in, and profit sharing is tied to a bonus program for the peak performers. Mr. Herold said that the company gave its top workers bonuses of 17.4 percent last year.

Smaller rewards are offered as well, like items that seem too good to wind up in a dump or a recycling center. At the house that Mr. Atkins and Mr. Meissner were cleaning out in San Jose, the spoils included a BMX bike.

Mr. Scudamore expects 1-800-GOT-JUNK ? to become a $1 billion company by 2012. To help achieve that, the company will invest millions in JunkNet, its centralized Web-based system that is used to dispatch orders from Vancouver to franchise owners. Currently, franchise owners must call to keep up with truck locations. But by September, Mr. Scudamore says, the company will begin using G.P.S. in many trucks, enabling dispatchers to send new orders right to the trucks based on where they are.

"The new technology won't only make us more responsive to our customers, but it also will make scheduling easier for our franchise partners," he said. "When's the last time you heard a junk company say something like that?"

Thinking Small Can Make You Rich

2009-03-01T06:52:00.000-08:00

Mike Cayelli Story

http://cuff-daddy.com/

Think small. That was the basic starting point for Mike Cayelli when he decided to open an online retail business two years ago. With a tiny house, little capital to invest, and only "spare time" to devote to the project, Cayelli knew his big dream had to stay manageable. The Washington (D.C.) entrepreneur still hasn't quit his day job, but he's projecting $500,000 in sales this year for his company, Cuff Daddy.

You have a full-time job. Why start your own company?

About two years ago, I was working for [a hardware chain] as a manager in the regional professional contractor division. I still work there, in fact. But there was some reorganization going on, and I became concerned about my future. So I wanted to hedge my bets by starting my own company.

How did you settle on becoming an online retailer?

I wanted to emulate my cousin, who's been enormously successful selling mobile phone accessories online. He imports products from Asia and realizes a substantial profit margin. I also wanted to do something purely on the Internet so I could keep working at my "real job" and develop the company in my spare time.

Your major concern was finding a niche product that was physically small. Why?

Well, we had a small house that I planned to use as headquarters. So I needed inventory that I could store in a footlocker, have my wife ship out of a home office, and haul around in a car instead of a truck or trailer. As for shipping, about 90% of our orders can be mailed first-class with two stamps in a .13-cent padded envelope.

How did you settle on cuff links?

It was not easy. I spent several months looking at things like buttons, watchbands, shoe laces, and collar stays. Every time I thought of a small, niche product I'd write it down on a scrap of paper and shove it into my pocket to research later.

I wanted a product that could produce high sales volume and a high profit margin. I didn't want something that sold one unit per week. So when I got an interesting idea, I would search for it on eBay and run it through a research tool called Andale. For $7.95 a month, you subscribe to this Web site and you can get diagnostic information about any product's online sales volume and average selling price.

One morning about 6 a.m., I stumbled onto some cuff links for sale on eBay and noticed there was tremendous action on that listing. I ran upstairs and woke up my wife and told her I'd found the right product.

Once you zeroed in on a product, you had to find suppliers. What was that process like?

Again, I went to the Internet. I found two great places that help you source products overseas. One is Global Sources, and the other is called Alibaba.

I looked through thousands of vendors that are listed on these sites, found products I was interested in, e-mailed the manufacturers, and got them to send me samples. I never even had to pick up the phone.

When I put the first samples up for sale at eBay and they sold extremely quickly, I knew I was onto something. We wound up with six regular vendors based in China, Hong Kong, and India that provide us with a product line that we buy for between $1 and $6 a pair and sell for $15 to $55 a pair.

How much money did it take to start the company?

We started very small with a $500 investment, though it felt like a lot because I was worried about losing my job, and my wife was home taking care of our two little boys. We used that money to buy 100 pairs of cuff links. The minute I felt comfortable that they'd all sell, and we could reinvest the money we made, we doubled that order. Sales were quick right from the start, so we started adding more products pretty fast.

What about the cost of establishing a Web site or online store?

We didn't do that right away. For the first nine month, we sold strictly through a store we set up on eBay. We wanted to have minimal startup costs, and we only had five products. With that small a product line, if you open a Web site you're going to look like a joke.

By the time we were selling about 50 items, we figured we were ready to establish our own Web site. We outsourced the development to a friend who charged us $500. We host it on Yahoo!Stores because they have virtually no down time, it's easy to use, and they offer good metrics, so I can analyze things like who is buying our products and who are our repeat customers. I can also see how well things like coupon promotions work.

What's been the toughest part for you?

The marketing is really hard, and I still haven't gotten good at it. I could have a cure for cancer, and nobody would know about it because it's very, very difficult to get the word out. We've paid people to do search engine optimization for us, but it hasn't really helped.

We got completely burned once by a salesman who took us for $1,000 for a marketing product that was useless. We are doing some pay-per-click campaigns with Google and Yahoo! now that seem to be working a bit better, and we're also going to start an e-mail marketing campaign, so we'll see how that goes. But overall, I was surprised by how much the barriers for starting a company have come down. I was lucky that my cousin shared his recipe for success with me, and now I'm trying to do the same thing. I'm mentoring a guy I work with who's also starting a company thinking small: He's selling fishing lures.

A Person Who Sold Over A Billion Dollars Worth Of Stuff Tells How He Did It.

2009-02-28T06:48:00.000-08:00

Ron Popeil Story

http://www.ronco.com

Seven years ago, entrepreneur Ron Popeil, the silver-tongued inventor of such iconic products as the Pocket Fisherman and the Food Dehydrator, introduced the Showtime Rotisserie BBQ.

Marketed in the seductive TV infomercial format he pioneered, Popeil demonstrated the durability, versatility, and appeal of the oven -- a contraption equally adept at producing a "scrumptious, flavorful rib roast" as it was a "mouthwatering pork-loin roast" -- before a rapt studio audience (and at-home insomniacs).

After prepping a chicken and placing it in the oven, Popeil delivered his next legendary tagline. Like most of his pitches, it blended pithy salesmanship and utter simplicity. And almost immediately, the catchphrase -- "Just set it and forget it" -- entered the pop-culture vernacular.

Indeed, the compact countertop oven (purchased for four easy payments of $39.95, plus tax and shipping) turned into the biggest hit in Popeil's hugely successful home-gadget empire. Since the launch, Popeil says he's sold about 7 million Showtime ovens, generating nearly $1 billion in revenue. "People just love it to such a degree that strangers walk up to me and tell me, 'I love my rotisserie,'" he says.

If ever there were an entrepreneur who defined unbridled passion, Popeil is it. Fueled by a salesman's gift of gab and the innate ability to create broadly appealing products that reinvent or improve upon household products, Popeil has transformed his raw zeal for inventing into one of the most successful entrepreneurial ventures in recent memory.

For more than 40 years, Popeil has sliced, diced, and sold a collection of quirky, unforgettable items (among them, the Buttoneer, Smokeless Ashtray, Mr. Microphone, and the Ronco compilation albums such as Disco Daze and Disco Nites), all of which he estimates has pushed his net worth to "more than $100 million."

In August, the 70-year-old Popeil announced that he had sold Ronco, the Chatworth (Calif.) company that made him a household name, to Fi-Tek VII, a Denver-based holding company, for $55 million. As a result of the acquisition, Ronco became a publicly traded company listed on Nasdaq Over-the-Counter (OTC) Bulletin Board. The newly formulated Ronco retains first right of refusal over any new Popeil inventions.

"We liked the strength of the brand that Ron had built in 40-plus years," says Emerson Martin, managing director at Sanders Morris Harris, the Houston financial services holding company that brokered the deal. It has a grand old name, but one that is not fully exploited in the retail market place." Martin, who also sits on Ronco's new board of directors, says that one of the new management team's main goals is to increase its retail sales.

According to Popeil, the deal frees him up to spend more time with his two youngest daughters (ages 4 and 6) and, he says, "It allows me to work on what I really enjoy, the inventing of new consumer products."

He is already at work on what he expects will be his next blockbuster -- a turkey fryer that he plans to launch early next year. Ever the salesman, he explains: "Nobody has created a fryer that is safe to use. I'm in the process of exhaustive testing. We're talking a turkey fryer that can be used for chicken and fish, and it fries up tempura. It will compete with anything that fries food in the marketplace."

"Ron is one of a kind," says Len Green, CEO of the Green Group, and a professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass. "He is different from the rest because he not only invents, but he sells. Most entrepreneurs come up with a concept and then give it to others to manufacture or sell. He's his own best salesman."

Born to a family of inventor-marketers, Popeil had a hardscrabble childhood. For a time, he and his brother were alone when his parents divorced. At 3 years old, he lived in a New York foster home before his grandparents brought him to live with them in Florida. At 16, he went to work for his father, selling his products at Woolworth's and on the Chicago fair circuit in the 1950s.

Popeil learned the art of the sale during this period. His time with consumers helped him understand what products would click, what features worked, and which ones didn't. He did so well, he says, that his weekly take from his percentage of sales at Woolworth's eventually eclipsed the store managers' monthly salary. So he decided to go out on his own.

Popeil made himself into the entrepreneur for the dawning Media Age. In the 1950s, he began advertising on TV, a move that decades later would later help him usher in the era of the infomercial. One of his first stand-alone commercials was for his Ronco Spray Gun, a gun-shaped garden-hose nozzle with a chamber in the handle for tablets of soap, wax, weed killer, fertilizer, and insecticide. The 60-second spot on a Tampa TV station cost him $550.

"Going on TV allowed me to reach tens of millions of people, and I could make more money then standing for 8 to 12 hours at Woolworth's," he says.

While many entrepreneurs have come up with a best seller, few have created a whole business around that item, let alone come up with more than one success. Popeil has done both -- many times over. "I have an innate talent," he says. "I used to think it was luck, but after one success after another, I realized that I know what is needed in the marketplace. Most people don't understand the market. Most people have no clue. All they know is 'I got an idea, and I need a patent.'"

For example, Popeil came up with Showtime after noticing the popularity of store-bought rotisserie chicken. Years earlier, he created GLH (Good Looking Hair) -- aerosol spray-on "hair" -- after he noticed a thin patch on his own head.

A hands-on micromanager, Popeil begins his day with a 6:30 a.m. workout, then tinkers in what he calls his testing facility: his Beverly Hills kitchen and garage. He shops at discount warehouse Costco for most of his supplies. He's never hired a marketing team, and says he puts his touch on everything from the packaging to the infomercial sets.

Popeil's uncanny products are matched perhaps only by his exuberant pitches. For instance, that of the Inside-the-Shell Electric Egg Scrambler: "Gets rid of those slimy egg whites in your scrambled eggs." The GLH infomercial -- "Nine different colors...I use it all the time" -- made Entertainment Weekly's list of TV's 100 best moments.

His TV statements -- "But wait, there's more," "Price so low," and "Operators are standing by" -- have made Popeil and his products synonymous with TV marketing. Popeil insists his catchphrases are unscripted, but says he recognizes when he's uttered a zinger. Then he puts the phrase into heavy rotation.

Over the years, however, a few bumps in the road have cropped up. Popeil has had some notable misses, such as a home glass-froster and a compact trash-can that converted into a stool. In 1987, Ronco went bankrupt after it couldn't cover a bank loan. About two years later, Popeil bought his company back and made his big return to TV, re-introducing the hot-selling Food Dehydrator in 1990. His one regret: not inventing Velcro.

Popeil says his recipe for success is simple and extends to entrepreneurs of all kinds. "If you have that passion, it is conveyed through marketing," he says. "People see it. I get up before them and show them something new and wonderful."

But, he, adds: "I don't know if I could sell insurance. It's something that I didn't create. When I create something, I believe in it, and I am very passionate about it." Operators are standing by.

How To Get $750 For A Five Dollar Item On EBay

2009-02-27T06:47:00.000-08:00

Randall Pinson Story

http://www.rocketauctions.com

When Randall Pinson took a full-time job as manager of a cell phone store during college, he expected to earn some extra money for school. He didn't expect to learn how to start an online retail business that would ultimately support him and his family.

Pinson, 29, had only vaguely heard of eBay in the spring of 2000, when his boss asked him to try to sell some phones on the website. So he followed the step-by-step instructions on eBay.com and listed a shipment of phones for sale. Less than an hour later, a woman in New York offered to buy 15 of the phones for $125 each, making Pinson's employer $100 in profit on each phone.

The 400 percent markup the store earned got Pinson's attention. He started selling cell phones and accessories on eBay himself on a part-time basis, and in 2002, he quit his job at the cell phone store and started his own online business using his last paycheck and a $2,000 American Express line of credit. By his college graduation a few months later, he was earning close to $60,000 a year selling on eBay.

Always aiming for a 50 percent markup on his sales, Pinson (eBay User ID: rocket-auctions) occasionally does much better. "My most profitable eBay sale was a piece of telecom equipment I bought for $5 without really knowing what it was. I sold it for $750."

Five years after starting, Pinson says confidently, "Anyone can make a living on eBay." His company, Rocket Auctions, based in Farmington, Utah, generated $400,000 in sales in 2005, with 2006 projections of $500,000.

To bring in that kind of money, Pinson has one full-time employee who handles the day-to-day logistics of inventory management and shipping the 400 or so items that are sold in completed auctions from the company's warehouse each week.

Two Scopists Find A Way To Turn Court Records To Gold

2009-02-26T01:47:00.000-08:00

Judy Rakocinski and Cathy Vickio Story

http://www.bestscopingtechniques.com/

In 1994, Judy Rakocinski was looking into a home based career as a scopist, a person who edits legal transcripts from home for court reporters. That's how she found Cathy Vickio and contacted her about getting started. They have only met in person once since Judy lives in Florida and Cathy lives in Texas. Regardless, a friendship immediately bloomed and has grown since. Cathy helped Judy start her successful career and they continued to be friends.

After several years, the pair realized that the ratio of scopists to court reporters was about 1,000 to 60,000. It was clear that the need for professionally trained scopists was great and Judy and Cathy decided to develop a training program for that specific purpose. Thus, they began to develop their online business at BeSTScopingTechniques.com where they offer an online, self-paced course designed to teach people to become professional scopists. They just celebrated their three-year anniversary in business together in March 2006.

The two credit their home based business success to offering legitimate services at fair, competitive prices that still allows them to make a living. Before embarking on their new venture, they ensured that there would be a large enough potential client pool to make this a viable business. These ladies did their homework before starting, as anyone starting a business should.

Working in a partnership has been very rewarding for the two. "Cathy and I talk all day long using email, instant messaging and the telephone," says Judy.

"Judy and I love to brainstorm together," states Cathy, "Sometimes one idea generates ten more...Also, we value each other's opinions, so we don't get our feelings hurt when one spots something the other doesn't care for."

Both say the only drawback is that they are so far away from each other. They have become great friends and feel very close to one another, but both wish they could truly get to know one another in person.

From Trailer With No Running Water To Her Own Business

2009-02-25T01:46:00.000-08:00

Wendy Newmeyer Story

http://mainebalsam.com/

Wendy and her husband Jack moved from East Brunswick, New Jersey to Maine in 1979 with a dream of building their own home and have a simple, natural life. Wendy, then 24, even went back to college to study the newest methods of farming in anticipation of their new life because “that's what we thought we would do when we came up here.” Their hope was simply to lead a self-sufficient life. As she puts it, “we didn't want to become big farmers.” The reality, however, was not easy.

They first ventured into several businesses - from selling Christmas trees, to breeding German shepherds, to growing vegetables and herbs - all with limited success. To save money, they lived in “very primitive conditions” in a run-down old trailer without electricity, telephone or running water. The Newmeyers took showers at a local health club and sometimes took a plunge into Moose Pond Brook, which runs through their land, with a bar of soap.

Out of necessity, Jack began harvesting and selling lumber from their 111 acres of land. Jack bought a used bulldozer and cut spruce and fir for pulp. Wendy, seeing all the waste that was made in the wood-harvesting process, soon realized that she could make use of her expert seamstress skills and extensive education in drying herbs and flowers to produce a second moneymaking item. Their savings, however, were almost depleted that even the $700 needed to buy the shredder (the heart of the operation) was a sacrifice. A $10,000 inheritance from her grandfather who passed away helped the family tide the difficult times.

Wendy started her foray into the balsam business by selling the cut branches of the balsam fir trees for a local incense factory. Quite coincidentally, she had read in a book that Native Americans used balsam trees as herb for many different home remedies. With her long-standing interests in herbs “that got me excited into thinking about it [balsams] in a different way,” said Wendy. She became a supplier to the incense factory, which used her balsam fir boughs to stuff souvenir pillows.

She found other clients who wanted her balsam to make products such as decorative pillows, potpourri and other by-products. One client, a publisher of Herb Quarterly that Wendy subscribes to, was so happy to have found Wendy. This client was buying pillows from the incense factory that Wendy supplies and takes the pillows apart to get the balsam. The publisher, who needed balsam to make pillows, paid Wendy $1.75 a pound, compared to the $0.07 a pound paid by the incense factory.

Wendy then launched into a mailing campaign, sending 300 targeted mails to herb businesses nationwide, asking them to buy balsam from her. The response was impressive: 125 placed orders. For about six months, the balsam fir boughs were her only products.

However, Wendy realized that filling orders for raw balsam wouldn't keep her busy year-round. She then saw the potential of balsam pillows, and began to wonder why no one was making nicer pillows, as the stores that she supplied balsam with only produced plain pillows. She figured that the tourism industry of Maine, with about 10 million visitors annually, could be a big market for souvenir products representative of the state such as balsam pillows. “I just want a tiny piece of that pie,” she said.

“One morning, I woke up with a 'BFO' (blinding flash of the obvious), that it was up to me to make those 'nicer' pillows! Using skills and interests I had developed which until then seemed to have no correlation to each other, I began my company!” She opened Maine Balsam Fir Products in 1983, producing a line of balsam fir pillows with scenes of Maine embroidered on them.

Success for Wendy did not come easily. Nonetheless, she willingly embraced the difficulties and challenges faced of an unknown start-up with hardly any marketing capital. As she looks back, she says, “I was at a place where I can say that I had nothing to lose. I was living very poorly, and my husband was having some problems so he wasn't able to support me.”

She started stitching together on her home sewing machine silk-screened fabric pillows that a graphic artist designed for her. She then filled them with her own fragrant dried balsam.

To sell her balsam, she traveled across the state a couple of days a week with a trunk load of pillows that smelled like Christmas. She took a door-to-door approach, traveling throughout the state asking stores if they were willing to carry her product. According to Wendy, “The early customers did NOT beat a path to my door … I had to go out and find them.” Personally cold-calling the “best” stores in each town, she would show them her pillows, not wanting to give anyone a chance to say no before they could see what she was offering.

It was exhausting work. Nonetheless, the long hours and difficult start did not deter Wendy's spirit. “I wasn't just working eight hours a day: I was working for 18 hours, or even 20 hours a day. I remember in my first year when I was waking up at 4 o'clock in the morning and working until midnight taking breaks only to eat. I was working almost every waking hour in such a variety of tasks.”

After only two months, she knew that she made the right business decision. While her product line is very limited, “I was already supporting my family and was able to keep the business moving forward as well.” Shop owners, who had seen her products in other shops, started calling her to supply them as well. By the third month, Wendy hired her first employees to help her fill the orders. She enlarged her product line, introducing more designs for her stuffed pillows, and started looking for customers outside of Maine. She sold to 169
stores that year.”

Through the years Wendy has experimented with trade shows, catalogue sales, the QVC home shopping network, and many other avenues to showcase her products. She recently set-up a web site, to widen her market reach and take a dip on Internet retailing. Her worldwide outlets now exceed 4,400 stores and her employees have increased to 12. Sales of Maine Balsam Fir Products have reached well over $500,000 per year.

The first years in Maine were very difficult. The isolation of living in a rural area, loneliness and poverty proved to be the biggest hurdles in her life. “But my parents gave me a very good self-image and confidence. And so once I got into this direction, there was no turning back.” She credits her qualities of being a woman as a significant reason for her success. “Women, first of all, are very tireless workers. We're very frugal by nature, and not complaining. “Almost all her early contacts were women, who proved very supportive to her. “It was a good thing, because the male encouragement was lacking. ”Her own husband was critical of her for a long time, expecting her to fail. Instead of wallowing in disappointment from her husband's lack of support, “I became much more determined to succeed.” Today, her husband Jack had built her a huge barn serving as the company's headquarters and acts as her Raw Product Manager.

Her greatest joy from being an entrepreneur, however, comes from being able to help her community. “I feel very good about the support I could give into my community. “She relates the story of one of the ladies who work for her, Denise. Since Wendy also employs Denise's mother, the girl, who was then eight years old, complained that her mother didn't have much time to play with them since the mother worked for Wendy. “I was feeling sorry about it,” said Wendy, until the little girl said, 'But she just bought me new shoes!” The company has since won numerous awards and recognition for their economic impact on the community.

Today, she volunteers to talk in classes for other new small business owners, sharing her experiences and acquired wisdom. “People say I am very inspiring, because I am an experiential type of teacher and has tackled all sorts of problems.” Her main advice to entrepreneurs? “Never give up. Be determined. When a door shuts in your face, look for an open window.' She likewise stresses the need to be flexible: “People who are fixed mentally set themselves up to fail. You have to be flexible. You have to have at least three plans - Plan A, then if something happens, you have Plan B and C.”

Wendy still has a long way to go. She is planning to build a new facility to allow her to increase production. But her goal now is to have more balance between her life and her business. “For a while, I was working too hard and not taking time to smell the roses - or the balsam!”

Seven Million Dollar “Boring Business” Secret

2009-02-24T01:44:00.000-08:00

A. J. Wasserstein Story

http://www.archivesmanagement.com/

While attending business school in New York, A. J. Wasserstein looked at various business opportunities to start his entrepreneurial venture. After graduating from the Stern School of Business at New York University in 1991, A. J. Wasserstein, then 24, returned home in Southbury, Connecticut to raise money and start Archives Management, his newly hatched file-storage company. He was attracted in the records storage business in large part because it is a steady business. "The model is, once you get a customer, you have a customer for life. It's a long-term decision for our clients. We'd like to think we have them forever - if we live up to their expectations."

OK, so keeping files for customers is not glamorous. It does not even sound sexy. But as company president, Wasserstein probably finds nothing dull about earning $7.0 million in annual sales. As he himself admits, “Yes! It is a boring business. We’re a boring simple business that makes a lot of money, which is fine!”

Every business has its own economic characteristics, and his research showed that records management is a solid business model. Consider these: recurring cash flow; long term contracts; high capital barriers to entry so there are few competitors; and high switching costs for customers if they want to move to another company. As Wasserstein contends, “When I wake up on January 1st, I know what my revenues will be for the next 12 months.” While capitalization costs may be high, there is also a built-in growth rate, allowing the company to grow internally at about eight percent a year even without making incremental sales. Boring as the task of keeping other people’s files maybe, you can understand what made Wasserstein fall in love with this industry.

To turn this “boring” business into something exciting, Wasserstein and his management takes a creative approach to customer and employee relations, and makes it fun. According to him, “We have wonderful people programs in place. I think we are cutting-edge technology.”

So why is Archives Management successful?

“I think we’re good sales people. We are successful because of our creative sales people,” he is quick to point out. While other companies cite their advanced technologies and innovative products, Wasserstein credits their ability to differentiate themselves by bringing creativity, energy and ingenuity into the sales process as the main reason for their success.

Another strength of Archives Management is the efficiency in the way it handles and delivers the files and paperwork they store for their clients. The speedy and accurate retrieval of stored records is made possible by the company’s use of cutting-edge technology.

“We’re in a situation where technology and customer service coincide,” he said. “We are great users of technology. We are extremely, extremely computerized.”

Archives Management has made significant investments in the past four years on new technology to improve the business. Employees use sophisticated hand-held scanners, costing about $2,000 each, to keep track of orders on the delivery run. They also have printers costing $1,000 each that can print receipts with activity records for each document, so they know exactly where the paperwork has been.

So what is the secret of his personal success? “None! There is no secret,” Wasserstein chuckles.

To be good in business, however, his first advice is to always start out with a good business. As his own experience shows, a good business is one that has good economic characteristics and fundamentals, and covers a lot of business sense.

Second, an entrepreneur must be energetic, optimistic and full of passion about his or her own business. “Your business will not succeed on 20 or 40 hours a week. It’s got to be your number one priority probably for at least the first 3-5 years. Then maybe after 5 years, it is a real business and will have some energy and progress on its own. But initially you are the driving force behind your business.”

An entrepreneur also needs to be success and development-oriented, possessing sheer energy and persistence to just keep going. Sometimes, business owners need to call a customer 20 to 50 times just to follow-up, and this requires persistence. “I think some people fail to recognize that the persistence factor is what really drives a lot of people to success in all walks of life,” says Wasserstein. Persistence, creativity, ingenuity, coupled with a thick skin to handle all the rejections -- these are the tools of entrepreneurial success.

Mailroom Clerk Becomes Clinton's Favorite Christmas Decorator

2009-02-23T01:45:00.000-08:00

Christopher Radko Story

http://www.christopherradko.com/

Janet Adams is giddy with excitement. She had trekked all the way from New Hope, Ala., to Bloomingdale's flagship store in Manhattan and made sure she was the first in line to have her newest silver-sleigh ornament signed by its designer, Christopher Radko. "I just can't wait to meet him," Adams says, clutching her shiny bauble -- tag on and still in the box.

She has been collecting the coveted hand-painted glass baubles for more than a decade and this season decided to set up a separate 12-foot Christmas tree just for "my Radkos." And she's far from alone. In his 20 years as an ornament maker, Radko has inspired a loyal following for whom December is the time to showcase.

Radko, 44, has fans around the world, including Oprah Winfrey and Robert DeNiro. Former President Bill Clinton even had him decorate the mantle at the White House. By the late 1990s, the popularity surrounding Radko's ornament empire was so huge that he seemed poised for potential burnout. His delicate glass ornaments and their famous glitter detailing, which send some shoppers into a frenzy, could have easily gone the way of Tickle Me Elmo and other "must-haves" of past seasons.

But it's his knack for personalizing the Radko brand -- with signings and public appearances, high-quality workmanship, and a focus on what he calls the "emotional side" to collecting his creations -- that has allowed this self-made ornament king to turn a holiday trend into a beloved tradition that has lasted nearly 20 years.

He got the idea for his business back in 1984, when he insisted on replacing his family's old rusty Christmas tree stand with a newer aluminum one. The stand gave way, the tree fell over a week before Christmas, and Radko was left with the task of restoring the collection of antique, European glass-blown ornaments. He sketched the shattered ornaments as best he could from memory and ultimately traveled back to Europe to scout for ornament makers who could recreate them. It didn't take long for Radko, then a mailroom clerk, to realize there might be a business idea there, too.

Nineteen years and 10,000 designs later, he's in the midst of a cross-country tour, visiting more than 50 locations across the country, including various Macy's, Bloomingdale's, and Saks Fifth Avenue stores before Christmas, to sign ornaments and meet his legions of fans.

At Bloomingdale's in New York, the soft-spoken holiday guru, clad in a pumpkin-hued sweater and corduroy blazer, was greeted with applause from dozens of people in line and even a plate of cookies from one fan. The collectors, it seems, enjoy the man as much as his ornaments.

Though many devotees have collections numbering in the hundreds, the ornaments aren't cheap -- around $50 for a medium-sized piece. Long Beach (Calif.)-based retail expert Bob Phibbs says specialty markets thrive on the more expensive items. Resisting the urge to discount, even after almost two decades in business, signals to the customer that they're getting "something unique and of good quality," says Phibbs, author of You Can Compete: Double Sales Without Discounting.

Listen to the designer's fans, and and you'll hear the "emotional side" that Radko speaks of. One woman in line at Bloomingdale's found a portly red ornament of a chef in a pearl-white apron for her restaurant-owner son in Portland, Ore., while a New York woman picked out two small snowmen to add to the collection she started for her young twins when they were born.

"Her tree will be like a family diary now," says Radko, who enjoys "recreating [Christmas] in a sparkly way." He currently commissions 3,000 workers in cottage workshops in Poland, Germany, Italy, and the Czech Republic to make the ornaments, along with 108 corporate employees.

"The collectors...they go crazy for this stuff every year," said Chris Wang, a sales associate at Macy's in San Francisco, one of over 2,500 Radko retailers across the globe.

The author of three holiday decorating books, Radko added dozens of new ornaments in this season's collection and rolled out a line of dinnerware and chocolates as well. Revenues reportedly have exceeded the seven-figure mark, a vast improvement from the $75,000 he made back in 1986, with just 65 ornament designs. Demand for earlier models continues to rise year after year. His 1993 "Partridge in a Pear Tree" ornament, originally priced at $38, has sold on the secondary market for as much as $1,000.

Next up, he plans to further address the male market by adding more retailers like Brooks Brothers. But for the most part, Radko will keep with the same formula that has worked for the past 20 Christmases "because tradition is what I depend on." For Radko and his fans, it really is the most wonderful time of the year.

Can Three Students Become Millionaires Teaching SAT?

2009-02-22T01:43:00.000-08:00

Avichal Garg, Karan Goel and Joseph Jewell Story

http://www.prepme.com/

Getting into a top college seems tougher than ever these days, and even the best high school students stress out about the SATs. Joseph Jewell, however, approached the test with a different mindset, treating it as a game. "It was fun to try to beat the SATs. I looked at it as a challenge to accumulate as many points as I could," he says. His strategy worked. He scored a perfect 1600, enrolled at the California Institute of Technology in 2001, and that same year co-wrote a book, Up Your Score: The Underground Guide to the SAT.

Confident that other students could profit from his approach, Jewell--who became a 2005 Rhodes Scholar and is now earning a master's degree in engineering and science at Oxford University--launched an online SAT-preparation service in January called PrepMe. He teamed up with partners Avichal Garg, who recently graduated from Stanford with a BS in computer science, and Karan Goel, an MBA student at the University of Chicago, both of whom he met on the Princeton Review message board.

Unlike Kaplan and the Princeton Review, the giant SAT prep companies that teach a single test-taking methodology, PrepMe offers several ways to tackle the questions. First it gives the student a diagnostic exam to identify her weaknesses, and then it uses relevant, repetitive drills to conquer them. To gain an edge over Kaplan and the Princeton Review, PrepMe provides 20 to 60 hours more preparation material for about the same price. It also offers live essay coaching via e-mail, instant messaging, and phone. "With the exception of expensive private tutors, what's out there has always been a mass-market approach," says Goel, the company's CEO. "We're changing the way test preparation is taught."

Timing seems to favor PrepMe. The number of students taking the SAT has increased by 17% since five years ago, according to the College Board, which administers the exam. Last year students took 1.4 million SAT tests. Another factor: the College Board this year added a new personal essay section to the SAT and included more advanced algebra questions. Many students are frantic to know what they're all about. At the same time, the $6 billion online education market is growing by 25% to 30% annually, and there is room for new players, says Eric Bassett, director of research at Boston-based Eduventures, a research firm. "To establish a small revenue stream in this market is very possible."

PrepMe face tough rivals in the $700 million-plus test-prep market. Kaplan and Princeton Review each control about 25% of the sector. "For a startup to move beyond a few million in annual revenues is going to be quite challenging," says Bassett. And the behemoths in the industry are paying attention to the online market. The Princeton Review recently launched its own handheld gadget, which helps students prepare for the SAT with a 5,000-word vocabulary list.

PrepMe's co-founders say they are confident that both the company's curriculum, based on the test-taking approaches of top scorers, and the use of tutors close in age to their target customers will help them stand out. They spent three years developing their teaching methods, interviewing dozens of recent, high-scoring SAT test takers and having each write two or three practice questions. The firm also plans to compete on price, charging $500 for its course. Rival companies typically charge $1,000 a course, and tutors command fees of $70 an hour and up.

PrepMe's efforts have already begun to pay off. With a 12-person staff, including tutors, the company has so far attracted plenty of clients. In the next few years, PrepMe's founders hope to roll out curricula for additional standardized tests, such as the PSAT. The company is also hard at work on a new technology that will allow its students to prepare for the SAT on the run via cellphones and text messaging.

Co-founder Goel notes that PrepMe's young team has a powerful advantage over its more established competitors: "We don't sleep."

Surfing Industry Faces Technological Dilemma

2009-02-21T01:43:00.000-08:00

Randy French Story

http://www.surftech.com/

In a recent issue of Transworld Surf, a trade magazine, Randy French was listed as the third-most-powerful person in the $4.5 billion industry. But if there were a list of the most controversial players in the field, French would probably come in No. 1.

Through his Santa Cruz, Calif., company, Surftech, French is dragging surfboard manufacturing into the age of mass customization. For decades boards have been built by hand, shaped by craftsmen who cut and sanded blocks of polyurethane foam into the desired forms (longer for more stability, shorter for more maneuverability), then coated them with fiberglass and resin. Unfortunately, even the best shapers often couldn't predict how their boards would perform in the water. French, 53, who shaped boards in this way for nearly 35 years, had a rule: "I always got to ride the board first," he says. "One time I rode a board that I liked so much, I gave the friend who'd ordered it his money back. I think he's still mad at me."

French kept the board because he knew how hard it would be to replicate what he had done: create what surfers call a "magic" board. But in surfing, as in so much else, technology is changing everything. Last year French's company produced 50,000 "magic" boards. By using computer-aided-design programs, injection-molded technology, and a factory in Thailand, Surftech takes proven boards from the best shapers in the world and mass-produces them in a stronger, lighter material. Some 47 legendary shapers now sell their best designs through Surftech in exchange for licensing fees of about $35 to $50 for each board. With sales of more than $17 million in 2004, Surftech ranks as the largest manufacturer of surfboards in the world.

The company's modern approach has put it in the cross hairs of opponents. Critics say that by designing a board on a computer and producing it from plastic in an overseas factory, Surftech is destroying the soul of the sport. Purists also say that in the water, Surftech products lack the feel of traditional polyurethane boards; the new ones are stiffer and more buoyant (though they also don't break as often).

Two recent developments should help Surftech's image. Earlier this year six-time world champion Kelly Slater lent his name to a series of Surftech boards. Slater, one of the most famous surfers in the world, has publicly expressed frustration with the fragility of polyurethane boards (he once broke three in a session in Indonesia), though he still rides them in contests. Perhaps more important, a top professional surfer recently used a Surftech board in competition. At the 2004 Quiksilver Pro contest in Australia, former world champion Sunny Garcia became the first pro to win a heat on a Surftech. He didn't win the event, but the surf press and online chat groups took note of his equipment.

French got the idea of mass-producing surfboards in 1985, when he crafted a sailboard for a top-ranked windsurfer. Applying his knowledge of surfboard design, French built a smaller, lighter sailboard. The model performed well on the World Cup Tour and brought French an avalanche of orders. He knew he couldn't fulfill them if he had to produce the boards by hand. Another local business, Santa Cruz Yachts, was using composite plastics to mass-produce fast, ultralight boats (one of which set the speed record for sailing between Los Angeles and Honolulu). French realized he could employ a similar process for sailboards. Within a few years, he had two factories operating at full capacity to produce his sailboard designs. (Windsurfers, less tradition-bound than surfers, didn't gripe about mass-produced boards.)

Despite that success, French yearned to return to making surfboards. He also believed that the technology he had pioneered with sailboards could cross over to surfboard manufacturing. In 1989 he approached Cobra International, a manufacturer of plastic products in Thailand. In 1990, Surftech's first year in business, the company manufactured just 50 surfboards. For 2005 it is on track to make 75,000.

Surftech works with independent shapers, each of whom provides a master board--usually based on a popular existing model. (For more on how the manufacturing process works, see the box above.) The Surftech versions are called Tuflite--the brand name of the plastic from which they're made--but are sold under the name of the designer on whose model they are based. They cost substantially more--a six-foot Town & Country Tuflite model will cost about $600, compared with $500 for the foam version. But surfers are willing to pay a premium for what many consider a more consistent and durable product.

Not everyone agrees. "Board manufacturing has always been a hand-shaped industry," says Matt Biolas, head of surfboard manufacturer Lost and one of French's most vocal critics. "Surftech just softens the aura of what we have as a surfing culture, a sport based on individualism." Another critic is Gordon "Grubby" Clark, owner of Clark Foam, which makes the polyurethane blanks used by most U.S. surfboard shapers. Clark has written about the damage that mass-production can have on domestic surfboard sales, but he declined to comment for this article.

Criticism of Surftech's Thailand factory and allegations in the surfing community that the company was using sweatshop labor reached a peak in 2003. "The surfboard business is like junior high," says French in his Santa Cruz office, where an artist's model is posed behind his desk, making an "up yours" gesture familiar to Italians. "A lot of people don't function using sophisticated, refined business tactics. It's more like 'If you try to get in our business, we're going to kick your ass.'"

In response, French invited surf writers to visit the Cobra facility in Chonburi province, Thailand. A reporter from Surfing magazine wrote that he found a modern factory in an immaculate industrial complex located near companies such as Mitsubishi, Sony, and Toyota. In addition, French boasted that Cobra employees are unionized, earn above-average wages for the region, and receive health care, transportation, and subsidized meals.

At the outset, the shapers working with Surftech--almost all sole proprietors or small businesses--were concerned that their Tuflite models might cannibalize their higher-margin custom business. Their experience has been just the opposite, says Channel Islands Surfboards founder Al Merrick. "I think it has markedly helped sales in our core product," he says. "Tuflite is just 5% of sales, but it puts more product in the water, and more people see the logo. You get a customer that tries the Tuflite, and it's restricted in size by molds, so they may want to move to a custom board."

Another gripe is the difference in feel between the two types of boards. Yet, says French, "naysayers in the 1960s said the same thing when boards changed from balsa to foam." He points to sports such as auto racing and tennis, both of which saw enhanced performance after adopting composite materials.

At a recent trade show in San Diego, the Surftech booth was a hive of activity. The company introduced four new Kelly Slater signature models (different sizes for taller or shorter surfers, and for varying wave conditions) based on masters produced by Al Merrick, Surfing magazine's shaper of the year. There was also Robert August, star of the 1960s movie Endless Summer, who has models in the Surftech line. In the middle of it all, French moved easily among the celebrities of the surf world and the potential customers who asked him about the boards.

When asked what he's proudest of, French doesn't hesitate. "Last year we paid out a million dollars in royalties," he says. "Before Surftech, the pioneers of surfboard shaping had to be chained to their sheds to make any money. And shaping boards is hard work. Now these guys have something of a golden parachute, and surfers get to enjoy the legacy of their perfected shapes." If that makes French the most controversial person in the sport, he can deal with it.

Device From 1980s Makes Phishing Attacks Impossible

2009-02-20T01:42:00.000-08:00

Kendal Halt Story

http://www.vasco.com/

A recent survey estimated that almost two million Internet users in the U.S. inadvertently gave personal information to cyberscammers last year. Increasingly the weapon of choice is a "phishing" expedition, in which a con artist poses as your bank and asks you to go online and confirm details such as your account number or password. Such attacks cost credit card companies and banks some $1.2 billion in 2004. But a small technology firm came up with a security solution to stop phishing attacks years ago. Only recently, says Kendall Hunt, the founder and CEO of Vasco Security, based in Oakbrook, Ill., has the market come around to the login security pass that Vasco has been selling for nearly a decade.

Launched out of Hunt's basement in 1984, Vasco is now among the hottest firms in the data-security industry offering computer security solutions. Its projected revenues for 2005 will climb 74%, to $52 million, while profits are on track to rise 20%, to $33 million. Vasco's stock, which trades on Nasdaq, has surged nearly 400% over the previous 12 months, to nearly $11.

The anti-phishing technology Vasco developed is called two-way authentication. It uses a small token, called Digipass, that shows a six-digit number that changes every 30 seconds. To log on to a bank's website, a user must enter the number from the token. A server at the bank or credit card company keeps track of which numbers are currently valid for which users. In other words, no Digipass, no access.

To be sure, Digipass hardly boasts cutting-edge technology. Similar security products are sold by larger firms, such as RSA in Bedford, Mass., which has 65% of the market. And as Internet security rivals contend, two-way authentication is "only a small piece of the security pie," says Brad Miller, CEO of Milford, Conn.-based Perimeter, which provides data-security services ranging from firewalls to spam to phishing prevention and content filtering. What sets Digipass apart is its price, about $7 a user on average, compared with $10 or more for rival models. It's a no-frills version, safer than passwords alone and good for tasks such as online banking and e-mail. Whether this technology will finally end phishing attacks is yet to be seen.

During the past decade most of Vasco's clients were overseas. (It does business in about 80 countries.) "A lot of U.S. companies simply weren't that interested in data security," says Hunt, 60. "I guess the market wasn't quite ready." But with phishing and other online fraud on the rise, the market here is more than ready now.

Bad Fishing Trip Makes A Florida Man Rich

2009-02-19T01:41:00.000-08:00

George Goodwin Story

http://www.heartpine.com

Great business ideas often come from strange places, but no one expects to find one at the bottom of a river. Yet that's what happened to George Goodwin. When he went fishing in shallow Florida riverbeds during the early 1970s, Goodwin often caught more logs than bass. "I used to snag my lures on them," he remembers. Most fishermen would have cursed their luck; Goodwin, now 59, reeled in a multi-million-dollar business instead.

What Goodwin found are known as deadhead logs. In the 1800s loggers felled centuries-old cypress and pine throughout the South for use in construction. They would float the logs downstream to the nearest mill, but often the heaviest logs--those filled with the most resin--sank to the muddy riverbed. At a time when the South was blanketed by tens of millions of acres of untouched forest, it wasn't much of a loss. But today overharvesting has reduced that old-growth forest to just 5,000 to 10,000 acres, most of it protected, and the logs once lost to the rivers have newfound value.

As Goodwin got interested in logs, he discovered that, although the outside decomposes after being underwater for nearly a century, resin keeps the inside perfectly preserved. Prized for flooring and paneling, this interior wood is known as "heart pine" and "heart cypress."

Goodwin spent $105,500--his entire savings--to purchase 20 acres of land in Micanopy, Fla., ten miles south of Gainesville, and move an old sawmill to the property, where he and his wife, Carol, the company's 59-year-old vice president, live and work. They pay divers $2 to $3 per board foot of wood in the logs recovered from Florida riverbeds. Then they clean up the logs and mill them into flooring that sells for $5 to $20 a foot. Carol estimates that the demand for antique wood has risen tenfold in the past decade, thanks to the housing boom and changing tastes. That has sent the company's annual revenue on a steady climb, from $5,000 in 1977 to $3 million in 2004.

By last year their company had 25 employees and enough cash flow to take out a $140,000 loan to build a 15,000-square-foot warehouse for the nearly two million board feet of wood it has in inventory. That saved a lot of aggravation when several hurricanes tore through the area just months after the building had been completed. (The Goodwins were unaffected by Katrina and Wilma.) Had the logs been soaked, the company would have had to spend months drying them out.

Goodwin Heart Pine has supplied flooring for the homes of celebrities such as Paul McCartney, Morgan Freeman, and Ted Turner. The wood is also popular for historical sites, including the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Fla. Six years ago the termite-infested flooring in the 150-year-old structure needed replacing. "Goodwin flooring was the closest to what Hemingway had originally," says Hemingway Home event director Linda Mendez.

The growing popularity of antique wood, however, has more would-be entrepreneurs flocking to the business, not all with the best intentions. "There's a joke in the South that anyone with a pickup sells a little bit of heart pine," says Carol Goodwin. "But you never know what you're getting." Because there are no up-to-date guidelines on what constitutes heart pine--the most recent standards were published in 1924--unwitting customers may purchase heart pine from younger trees, which is not nearly as dense and durable as what the Goodwins sell.

When a hurricane knocks down any of the remaining old-growth forest--as happened last year--the Goodwins often buy that wood. They also buy and resell antique heart pine salvaged from old barns and buildings. Branching out from flooring, George and a local cabinet-maker have teamed up to craft and sell a line of wood furniture. In July the Goodwins opened a showroom in Palm Coast, Fla., for both their furniture and flooring.

While George Goodwin jokes that "cashing the checks" is one of his favorite parts of the business, he loves the other parts more than he lets on. "If George had $1 million in the bank, he'd just go and buy more wood," says Carol, laughing.

Cistercian Monks' Jesus Ink Business

2009-02-18T01:40:00.000-08:00

Father Bernard McCoy Story

http://lasermonks.com/

Like many entrepreneurs, Father Bernard McCoy loves to talk about his industry. But as a Cistercian monk, he has a time frame longer than most.

"Nine hundred years ago my brothers were making ink, making their own paper, and copying manuscripts," says McCoy. "We were the original social entrepreneurs. We were the first multinationals."

McCoy is CEO of LaserMonks.com, an Internet retailer that sells discounted printer cartridges and other office supplies. Customers include individuals and churches, along with giants such as Morgan Stanley (Research) and the U.S. Forest Service. It's a lucrative business. Sales have risen from $2,000 in 2002, the company's first full year of operation, to around $2.5 million in 2005.

LaserMonks.com is a for-profit subsidiary of the Cistercian Abbey of Our Lady of Spring Bank, an eight-monk monastery in the hills of Monroe County, 90 miles northwest of Madison. The Spring Bank brethren wear robes, sing Gregorian chants, and eat their meals in silence.

"We're monks," McCoy says cheerfully. "We do monk things."

Like all Roman Catholic monasteries, the abbey is responsible for its own upkeep, receiving no financial support from the Vatican. Hence LaserMonks.com. Father McCoy estimates that it costs around $150,000 to maintain the abbey and its 500 acres of grounds. The rest of the company's profits help support charities that range from a camp for kids with HIV to a Buddhist orphanage in Tibet.

The idea for LaserMonks.com came to Father McCoy one day when his printer ran out of ink. He shopped around for a new ink cartridge but couldn't find one that was reasonably priced. That's because printer manufacturers make most of their money by imposing stratospheric markups on printing supplies. As a result thousands of small companies were cropping up all over the Internet, selling reconditioned ink and toner cartridges. Despite legal challenges from the established printer manufacturers, the industry is now firmly established.

In the beginning LaserMonks.com consisted of a few monks sitting around with black powder and empty plastic cartridges, filling a few orders a day. Today the monks say they have served more than 50,000 customers, and process 200 to 300 daily orders for a broad range of school and office supplies.

The website also accepts online prayer requests.

And in a fiercely competitive commodity industry, McCoy and his brethren have thrived on the sheer novelty of their story. The company spends relatively little money on advertising, benefiting instead from media coverage and McCoy's frequent speaking engagements around the country.

Father McCoy recently started selling printers, cables, and surge protectors, and plans to offer a full line of office electronics later this year. He expects LaserMonks.com's 2006 sales to exceed $5 million.

How To Make $25000 A Month Using Sail As Billboard

2009-02-17T01:40:00.000-08:00

Troy Sears Story

http://www.nextlevelsailing.com/

After 10 years managing his family's pest-control business, Troy Sears was antsy. An avid sailor and San Diego native, he had always dreamed of ditching the family trade, buying a few boats, and putting them out to charter. But Hydricks Pest Control provided a steady life, and Sears, the father of three, feared the risks that would come with branching out on his own. "I was making a good living for my family, and that was a lot to give up," says Sears. "But I just didn't enjoy what I was doing day in and day out."

A member of San Diego Yacht Club, Sears knew the two prized 80-foot America's Cup boats docked there would be perfect for the kind of venture he had in mind, but he also knew getting his hands on them would be tough. "It's like a golfer who dreams of playing Augusta," Sears says of Abracadabra, a former America's Cup competitor, and Stars and Stripes, which won the Cup in 1988. "No one could get on these boats."

The boats are tailor-made for specific waters, and until they are retired, remain in the hands of America's Cup teams. Design and construction reportedly runs upwards of $10 million.

But when the Swiss won the Cup in 2003, the race would shift back to Europe, and Sears knew the boats would finally be put on the market. Once the race moves to new waters, their value drops, and the vessels are usually sold off to the highest bidder. Recognizing the opportunity, Sears sold his pest-control company, bought both boats, and founded Next Level Sailing.

Sears says "a lot of crazy, fortuitous things" in his life contributed to his success with the new business. Thanks to a three-year stint on Wall Street after college, he has maintained relationships with a few New York investors, one of whom signed on as a silent partner when Sears needed help financing the purchase of the boats. Though Sears won't disclose the sticker price, estimates run from $300,000 to $500,000 each.

Initially, he was only able to take out groups of six or less until he got the boats approved for passenger excursions by the U.S. Coast Guard -- something that had never been done on a modern carbon-fiber vessel. But the head usher at Sears' church happened to be a retired Coast Guard captain who used to train inspectors, and he helped get the ball rolling on the inspection process.

"It was expensive and a lot of trips to Washington," Sears says. But as a sailing enthusiast, he admits testing and examining the boats so intricately was an education in the technical aspects of the craft that he had never considered before. "Pursuing this was fascinating," Sears says. "I enjoyed putting all the time and energy into it."

After nearly a year of refinements, the boats were approved to take on more than six passengers at a time, and Next Level was finally poised to make some real money. Sears now takes up to 20 passengers per sail -- and, yes, everyone gets a chance to steer the boat out on the water.

At $99 per person for a two-hour sail (or $1,980 to rent the whole boat for four hours, for up to 20 passengers), it's not exactly a bargain. But Sears says his upscale recreational outfit works because it's unique and makes use of San Diego's recently revamped waterfront, including a string of new hotels, a floating museum, and the San Diego Padres new baseball stadium, Petco Park. His clientele is split between tourists and executives, who often book a sail as a team-building exercise for groups of employees. "It's cheaper than a round of golf," Sears says.

But even in the early days, when he could only take out a handful of passengers, Next Level found itself in the national spotlight, garnering months of free publicity that proved to be a boon. Producers of MTV's long-running reality show, The Real World, approached him about having its San Diego cast work for Next Level during the taping of the show last year.

Friends warned Sears about the show's reputation for housing unmotivated party-animal types, but with his company still in a fledgling stage, he figured the publicity benefits outweighed the risks. "It's a numbers game," says Sears, who was banking on the producers' promise of millions of viewers each week.

The viewers turned out: The Real World: San Diego landed in the Nielsen Top 10 for cable programming each week it was on air, and despite a near-mutiny among the cast, which debated quitting at one point, Next Level was flooded with inquiries. After the first few episodes aired in January, 2004, Sears had requests for reservations from 43 U.S. states and eight foreign countries.

With two 11-story masts, the multimillion-dollar yachts are attention-getters in and of themselves. When the aircraft carrier SS Reagan docked in San Diego this summer, Sears wanted to personally welcome the Navy fleet, so he made a 35x63-foot American flag and hung it between the masts. CNN featured the flag and an interview with Sears in their coverage of the event. "Sometimes just doing a good thing generates publicity," he says.

CBS uses blimp shots of the boats on the way to commercial breaks during broadcasts of San Diego Chargers football games, and the Travel Channel shot an entire segment on the boats as part of the special series, Maria Shriver's California. "She thought the boats would be a great way to show San Diego," says Sears, who says he did nothing to solicit the network's business.

Aside from passenger fees, the boats also generate about $25,000 a month from ads on their massive sails. Sears is working to obtain a liquor license for the boats and has plans to acquire Abracadabra's sister ship.

With little traditional marketing, Next Level's growth has come largely through word-of-mouth, which Sears attributes to the one thing he demands of his 25-member crew -- "make sure every passenger has a good time." For Sears, it has been a high-seas adventure.

Making Millions Cleaning Other People Garages

2009-02-16T01:39:00.000-08:00

Marc Shuman Story

http://www.garagetek.com/

GarageTek was a no-brainer when Shuman founded it in 2000. He got the idea when he and his father, with whom he outfitted department store interiors, designed and built a set of slotted wall panels with moveable shelves for a retail client. When several of his employees began using the panel systems to organize their own garages and basements, Shuman realized he had a potential hit on his hands. And the timing seemed perfect: The housing market was heating up, garages were getting bigger, and closet organizers were all the rage. Shuman decided to sell the display business and open GarageTek.

Rather than simply selling the panels at home-improvement stores, Shuman decided to build a garage-makeover business. GarageTek would perform in-home consultations, then design and install the systems--complete with shelves, cabinets, bike racks, and work benches. Homeowners, Shuman figured, were likely to pay a premium for the service. The biggest risk was competition. After all, anyone could have the same idea. But if Shuman could establish a foothold in markets around the country, GarageTek had a better chance of survival. Franchising seemed like the best way to pull off such an ambitious expansion.

In early 2001, Shuman placed an ad soliciting franchisees in The Wall Street Journal, and phone calls poured in. His attorney advised him to choose carefully. But Shuman, eager to get started, approved anyone with a business background, a $25,000 franchise fee, and $200,000--which, according to Shuman's calculations, was enough to purchase supplies, buy newspaper ads, and turn a profit within 18 months. Each franchise would pay GarageTek 8 percent of annual sales, a portion of which would help fund national advertising campaigns. In exchange, they received three days of basic training and a manual written by Shuman. "If they had the money and they had a strong sales and marketing background, we felt they were qualified," Shuman says.

At first, everything seemed to go according to plan. In the first half of 2001, GarageTek franchises opened in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. By 2003, 57 franchises had sprung up in 33 states, and annual revenue at the corporate office was on track to top $12 million. That summer, however, Shuman began to realize that while many franchises were thriving, 15 were struggling.

He and his team moved quickly to correct their mistakes. The first step was to create more stringent criteria for new franchisees. To pass the initial screening, candidates now need a net worth of $1 million, with at least $250,000 in liquid assets; their proposed territories must boast at least 250,000 single-family homes, occupied by owners. They're also required to run the franchises themselves. GarageTek also decided to administer a 350-question personality test, looking for candidates with traits similar to GarageTek's top performers, who tend to be enterprising and not overly accommodating--a sign of independence. Finally, all candidates fly to New York to meet with Shuman and his corporate team. To identify problems early on, he installed software that enables him to track each franchise's financial performance.

So far, the strategy seems to be working. In 2005, GarageTek's sales jumped 33 percent, to $20 million, even though the company had 21 fewer franchises than in 2004. Now that he has a streamlined system in place, Shuman plans to add 55 new franchises during the next few years, for a total of 100. But he admits that he has more to learn. "We're not, by any stretch, done," he says.

Lost Election Makes Man A Multimillionaire

2009-02-15T01:34:00.000-08:00

John Zogby Story

http://www.zogby.com/

In 1981, John Zogby, a 33-year-old history professor and founder of the Utica Citizen's Lobby, decided to add another credential to his resume: mayor of Utica, N.Y. Then a curious thing happened: He lost, but he knew beforehand how much he would lose by. He and his students had conducted a preelection poll that showed him getting 14% to 15% of the vote. And that, says Zogby, is exactly what he got.

As a smart guy who knows how to capitalize on success, Zogby gave up office-seeking and turned to polling. In the years following, Zogby International grew to an organization with 52 full-time employees, $5 million in annual sales, political and corporate clients of all stripes, offices in Washington, D.C., and Utica, and an international reputation fostered by the founder's knack for spotting opportunities, taking risks, and calling the cards right.

Zogby International is currently polling the 2004 presidential race for NBC News and Reuters and conducting statewide and national polls for the Miami Herald, the Toledo Blade, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Here is his story:

I truly backed into this business. I was a history professor and a liberal political activist. All that merged when I ran for mayor in the Democratic primary in Utica, where I was born and raised. After my loss there, I went to work for a national Arab American organization with my brother Jim. A number of us had some philosophical differences with the chairman of the board and were fired on September 10, 1984. Two days later, on September 12, I became an independent political and fundraising consultant with one client, a Forbes 400-type character from Boston named Sam Phillips. Ten weeks later, Sam Phillips dropped dead at the age of 54.

These setbacks reinforced what I had learned at home from my father, a Lebanese immigrant who worked with his brothers in their grocery store 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., six days of the week. He taught me that a man can do anything he wants to do. He also taught me that if the customer wants it, find a way to do it.

To survive I had to branch out into retail advertising, public relations, and nonprofit agencies. Then, in 1987, I made a momentous decision, though it may not sound like it. I decided to poll the households of Watertown, N.Y. The Army had decided to expand Fort Drum, moving in the 10th Mountain Division, which meant bringing 10,000 personnel and 20,000 civilians into a declining region. It was the most dramatic story in upstate New York in the 1980s.

The Fort Drum steering council, a public-private consortium, underwrote quarterly household surveys. We wanted to know whether the newcomers were voters, had ever marched in a demonstration. When they shopped, did they look for certain brands of cereal, soft drinks, detergent -- or did they buy on sale? I began doing studies for housing developers, shopping malls. There were plans to build townhouses, but that was a complete bomb. Our surveys showed that when people move to a place where there is a lot of land, they want a house with a yard.

I couldn't compete in Washington in the '80s, so I took the blue highways approach, going into local communities that had never done polling and capturing the imagination of the local media.

The next benchmark came in 1991 when we decided to launch -- out of pocket -- a statewide Zogby poll. Well, I say I funded the poll out of pocket, but I didn't have anything in my pocket. There was only one other statewide poll in the Empire State. The timing was perfect. Our poll in early December showed that President Bush would defeat Mario Cuomo, then governor, even in New York State. The poll came out the day before Cuomo's plane would fly him from Albany to New Hampshire to file. Cuomo decided not to go.

In 1996, after we got all the political primaries right, I got a call from Reuters. We went on to produce the Reuters-Zogby Poll. Now the whole world is watching, and we get the Clinton-Dole race right, with the least margin of error. We said Clinton would win by 8.1%. The actual margin ended up at 8.4.

In polling, you need to ask the kinds of questions that will determine what is important to people. In 2000, we were polling 10 states and the nation as a whole for Reuters and NBC. Whenever Gore would go up in the national, he'd go down in the battleground states. Same with Bush. Tim Russert asked me, "How can this be?" I had headquarters add a new question to the poll: You live in the Land of Oz. There is an election for mayor between the Tin Man, who has all brains and no heart, and the Scarecrow, who is all heart and no brains. The next day, Gore and Bush were almost tied. But, more importantly, the Tin Man and Scarecrow were tied, 46.2 to 46.2. That told me everything.

Most polling is still done by phone, but it's now taking a lot more phone calls to get a sample. The Do Not Call Registry doesn't affect us, but it's indirectly killing us. It emboldens people to hang up. For the presidential race we're going to do all 50 states interactively. By getting e-mail addresses of a representative sample of the electorate, we can invite 50,000 to 100,000 people to participate at once. In seconds, we can have 1,000 responses.

I want to be the Gallup of my generation, the household word, the generic. I have plans to make this a $40 million corporation, partly by pursuing licensing agreements with partners around the world. We're getting ready to poll Swaziland. We've completed Botswana and Malawi. Most of these polls are corporate-sponsored. We want to know the investment climate, the path to reform.

Once I was a very liberal professor activist, and I saw a political career for myself. But I managed to be cured of that disease.

Helping Yourself By Helping Others Get $750 Million Worth Of New Contracts

2009-02-14T01:33:00.000-08:00

Laura Ricci Story

http://www.1ricci.com/

At a time when few consultants used the Web, Laura Ricci dared to start a company that required customers to work with her virtually.

After 20 years helping engineers and scientists win government grants, Laura Ricci knew two things. She knew she hated flying all over the country to client sites, where she would spend days or weeks advising technical teams about how to write their funding proposals. And she knew that her customers used the Internet -- and had, in fact, been using it long before the World Wide Web bounded onto center stage.

So in 1996, Ricci decided to launch a grant-writing consulting company from a spare room in her home. She would do practically all her work there, posting customized training manuals on a Web site and FTP-ing proposal drafts for both sides to mark up. Vendors, contract employees, and even customers would be required to work with her virtually. Face-to-face interaction would be almost eliminated. "It was an experiment," says Ricci. "I was designing against being a road warrior."

The first virtual project Ricci managed was the construction of her own Web site by a developer in Albany, N.Y., that she had never met. She also took advantage of her early-mover status by snagging free prime placement in the consultant and marketing categories of Yahoo.

But Ricci's temerity was most evident in what she didn't do. She refused, under any circumstances, to print brochures. "If people ask me what services I offer, I refer them to the Web. If they insist on a brochure, they're not worth pursuing," she says. In fact, in 1999 she broke off talks with a large computer company -- one with a growing E-business specialty, no less -- because it required printed marketing material.

On the other hand, companies like Radian International and Lockheed Martin have been more than happy to play by Ricci's rules. "Lockheed Martin is a big organization with a massive bureaucracy around contracting with new people," says Ricci. "Yet it made a decision to pick me based on the Web site alone. That proves this can be done."

And done it is. Since she started, Ricci helped her clients get $750 million worth of grants and new contracts.

Lawyer Declares War On Termites an Makes Some Money on it

2009-02-13T01:32:00.000-08:00

Pete Cardillo Story

http://www.cardillolaw.com

Lawyer Pete Cardillo can still remember the horror of lying in bed one night while termites gnawed his house out from under him. "They were eating into the floorboards and eating toward me," he says. Thankfully, that was just a nightmare. But such scenarios have now entered Cardillo's daily life.

Sixteen months ago Cardillo, 48, left his post as a managing partner in the Tampa office of Pittsburgh-based Buchanan Ingersoll, one of the country's largest law firms, and opened his own practice exclusively dedicated to termite litigation. In 2005, Tampa-based Cardillo Law brought in revenues of about $550,000, with profits of an estimated $400,000. Cardillo goes after large extermination companies that he believes fail to detect or remove termites, and insurers that refuse to pay for damage.

He is busy; subterranean termites cause more than $2 billion in property damage each year in the U.S., and that number is expected to rise, in part because of the growth of an especially aggressive termite species.

A lawyer for 22 years, Cardillo began his "termite odyssey" in 1996 when, on behalf of a real estate developer, he brought a claim against extermination giant Orkin, charging that the company did not deliver on its promises and was unresponsive to his client. Orkin settled. Cardillo currently has 25 active cases--most are multimillion-dollar suits on behalf of developers and condominium associations.

One lawsuit, expected to go to jury trial in July, charges that Orkin falsely advertised a guarantee to prevent and stop termites. (In fact, the bugs in question ate through the outer walls of a condo complex until the stucco fell off in chunks, according to Cardillo.)

Another action accuses Orkin of forgery and racketeering and seeks $60 million in damages. (The balconies were so eaten away that residents had to vacate for emergency repair work--and, evoking images from Cardillo's nightmare, the bugs also built a mound under one apartment dweller's bed.) Orkin spokesperson Martha Craft declined to comment on any of the specific cases.

But she emphasized that "less than 1% of Orkin's termite customers file claims. Of those claims, well over 98% are resolved to the customer's satisfaction without setting foot in a courtroom." Cardillo is also taking on insurance companies for not giving their customers the right coverage on properties that have been ravaged by wood-eating insects.

Cardillo charges $400 an hour, but most often he works on contingency, earning 50% of the final settlement. His niche demands some pricey--and unusual--expenses. An entomologist (who provides expert advice and testimony on insects) costs him $13,000 a year. He pays $35,000 to a structural engineer, who helps "prove the state of collapse" and offers repair estimates. Then there is the $36,000 bill from a contractor who cuts holes in termite-infested buildings to expose the damage. Such expenses will probably be reimbursed by his client.

While most of Cardillo's cases are in Florida--where extermination ranks among the largest industries--he plans to expand farther into the "termite belt," which snakes south from Virginia to Texas. Cardillo pledges to fight the steely-jawed pests--and those who falsely vow to eliminate them--wherever they are. "When you find out how evil and powerful termites are," he says, "they creep into your subconscious."

Making Great Money Reselling Old Mannequins

2009-02-12T01:31:00.000-08:00

Judi Henderson-Townsend Story

http://www.mannequinmadness.com/

Inside a dreary warehouse in an industrial section of San Francisco, the floor was littered with bodies. Some lay in piles while others had been dismembered, their legs, heads, and arms carelessly strewn about. Judi Henderson-Townsend had come to buy a mannequin to use as a backyard sculpture after seeing one advertised online. The seller, it turned out, was a former window designer who collected and rented old mannequins. He was moving East and closing up shop, so Henderson-Townsend impulsively bought all 50 mannequins for $2,500. She stood them in her basement, then named her new business Mannequin Madness. That was four years ago. Today her mannequin inventory fills a basement, a two-car garage, and a separate storage facility.

Henderson-Townsend, 47, builds her stock—generally department store mannequins made of fiberglass—by helping stores dispose of their unwanted models, which go in and out of fashion much like the clothes they showcase. (In the past year, for example, headless has been the rage.) She rents and sells them to a customer base that includes clothing stores, brides, eBay vendors, photographers, and theater groups. Men often want a female torso to pose on a bar or at a fraternity house (the Asian ones sell out first). Lawyers sometimes use mannequins in court in order to demonstrate gun or knife wounds. Artists use them for projects or for sketching. And once a warehouse owner who couldn't afford a breathing overnight security guard bought a mannequin, dressed it in a uniform, and posed it at a desk near a window.

In the past year Henderson-Townsend grossed $150,000, an increase from nearly $100,000 in 2003. At least 70% of her business derives from sales, and the rest from rentals. One-third of customers come via her website (mannequinmadness.com) and another third from eBay, and the rest consist of those who shop by appointment at Henderson-Townsend's home, which is located in an upscale Oakland neighborhood. That is where Swati Kapoor, a clothing designer in Milpitas, Calif., bought her first mannequin. "Judi gave me a lot of information about how mannequins could help my business," says Kapoor, who owns nine.

What surprises Henderson-Townsend most is the high demand for body parts. Jewelry designers often want hands, and leg lamps are strangely popular. "I get an awful lot of people asking about them," says Henderson-Townsend. So many, in fact, that she offers assembly instructions on her website.

Profiting From The Disabled

2009-02-11T01:30:00.000-08:00

Stacey Strother Story

http://www.diversity-services.com/

Nobody wants to hire a guy who has to go to the doctor all the time--or so W. Devin Sartin thought. Honorably discharged from the Army because of his asthma, debilitating migraines, and inflammation of his chest, Sartin, a veteran of the last Gulf war and the Panama conflict, managed to land an accounting job with a firm that graciously accommodated his many medical appointments. But when he was laid off for economic reasons, Sartin worried that his next employer might not be so generous. His expectations were low when he walked into Diversity Services, an employment agency based in New York City.

As it turned out, the agency specialized in providing work for those marginalized by the labor market because of disabilities, age, or sexual preference. Only about 30 for-profit agencies in the U.S. focus on placing workers with disabilities. And Diversity Services practiced what it preached. Sartin, 38, was pleasantly surprised to walk out with a temporary position as a payroll assistant at the agency, rather than at one of the client firms for which it finds employees. He has earned two pay raises in less than a year. "There is no issue with Diversity about my disability," he says.

Sartin is among more than 2,000 workers who have found temporary or permanent jobs in the past year through Diversity Services. Some 40% of those workers had disclosed a disability, ranging from schizophrenia to blindness. Founded in 1996 as part of a small company called Rainbow Staffing, the agency was inspired by the death of the sister of co-founder Jeff Klare. She died earlier than he expected from a serious illness after an employer forced her onto disability and cut her off from the work she loved. Stacey Strother, a former policy analyst for the city government, bought a 51% stake in Diversity Services in 2000 and brought the company under one name.

By expanding from helping client firms fill office support and graphics jobs to making placements in other fields, Strother boosted the agency's annual sales from $2.6 million to $7.8 million by 2004. Like other employment agencies, the company receives a percentage of the salaries of the workers it places in jobs from client firms.

To make sure that her employees' medical issues don't disrupt the work of clients who hire them, Strother quickly provides substitutes for any workers who become sick and have to take time off, giving clients a number where they can reach her around the clock. She pays the workers their full salaries on the days that they must be out, allowing them to use vacation days they have accrued. She understands their situation firsthand. "Because I live with depression, I empathize with candidates with disabilities," she says. "My job is to find the balance between the candidates' being able to demonstrate their professional abilities while giving the clients exactly what they need."

Kelly Thurston, a contracting officer for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, regularly hires temporary office workers from Diversity Services. "If one temp doesn't work out," she says, "we tell Stacey, and she sends a new one."

Relieved of the stress of hiding their disabilities, workers such as Sartin express strong loyalty to Diversity Services and its clients. When he took a few days off recently because of a migraine, he says, he was paid and didn't worry that he would lose the job to another temp. "I didn't feel any stress at all about it," he says.

Broken Teeth Lead To An Original Business

2009-02-10T01:23:00.000-08:00

Simon Purchall Story

http://www.smilesavershungary.co.uk/

For most people, a trip to the dentists is a potentially painful experience to be avoided unless absolutely necessary. Simon Purchall’s trip to face the whirring drills and mouthwash was much like any other, except that it gave him the inspiration to set up a groundbreaking business.

Purchall cracked his teeth in a biking accident and was horrified when his dentist told him over £20,000 was required to repair the damage. There seemed little option other than to pay the hefty dental bill until his Hungarian wife, Veronika, suggested that he get the work done in her native Budapest.

“Like most people, I had a few reservations about going to an ex-Communist country for dental work, but it was amazing,” Purchall recalls. “The level of service and expertise was fantastic. I decided to have all the treatment done there and saved about £16,000.”

Back in the UK, Purchall realised that such trips could form the basis of a potentially viable business. An IT freelancer for the previous decade, he admits that becoming an entrepreneur was a long-held ambition.

With Veronika being a qualified dental nurse, and the obvious candidate to provide translation in negotiations with Hungarian dentists, the couple decided that the opportunity should be exploited.

After plumping for a suitable name, SmileSavers, Purchall was confronted with an array of tasks to get the business off the ground. Starting up a UK-focused company presents entrepreneurs plenty to chew over – adding the Hungarian element left the duo with a tangle of extra concerns that needed to be thoroughly ironed out.

Purchall had to undertake research into the legal and insurance ramifications of recommending dentists to UK patients, as well as working out what qualifications the Hungarian dentists had, and what they meant.

Luckily for Purchall, when Hungary joined the European Union in the formative days of SmileSavers, Brussels decided to accept all of the country’s qualifications without demanding further training.

“We looked at prices and what was available on the NHS compared to Hungary,” Purchall explains. “Fortunately, the dental systems in the UK and Hungary and very similar.

“We got legal advice and contracts drawn up with dentists so that we were covered and patients got a decent level of service.”

Several trips to Hungary followed, with Purchall running the rule over various clinics he’d found via the internet.

“We networked with Hungarian dentists and took plenty of expert advice, but we also considered our own experiences as to what a good dentist should be,” he says. “We wanted people whop could fully communicate with clients. The moment we had a hint that someone wasn’t right, we didn’t use them.”

Purchall funded the set-up costs of the business with his own savings and continued working while Veronika dedicated herself full-time to the venture – a move he admits was a mistake: “I probably should’ve stopped working much earlier, but it was a big leap I was taking.”

The couple approached their bank for advice, but were told that would be little financial assistance required as their outlay was comparatively small. The website development costs, potentially the greatest burden, were negated by Purchall’s IT expertise, allowing the job to be done in-house.

SmileSavers was initially publicised by Google ad words, despite the expense of the search terms Purchall needed. However, the website now has a good page ranking and is positioned properly, allowing the business to cut costs on ad words.

Purchall also invested in magazine advertising after the business’ launch in 2003, opting for publications such as Saga in the belief SmileSavers had a greying target market. However, it was only after the hiring of a PR company did he see results – eventually. SmileSavers has recently been covered in several national newspapers.

“We were naïve, because our target market is broad, it isn’t just older people,” Purchall explains. “A friend of ours worked at Westbury Communications – we hired them for six months and we got virtually no coverage out of it. They were tearing their hair out because people weren’t biting.

“It’s only now that contacts they made are coming off, so it was certainly worthwhile.”

Purchall has struck deals with several Budapest hotels and apartments, further cutting down the cost of the trips. Despite originally planning to refer patients to large numbers of practices across Hungary, Purchall now works with just two large Budapest clinics that are able to cope with demand.

Although contractually prevented from talking about how much commission SmileSavers has made from referring clients to Hungarian dentists, overall sales were over £600,000 last year, with expectations of a £1 million turnover in the next 12 months.

Customer numbers have rocketed, prompting plans to expand the business significantly in the forthcoming year.

“We need to get the message across that Hungary is the centre of excellence for dentistry,” Purchall says. “Saying that, we don’t want to alienate ourselves from British dentists.

“We’d like to forge better links with dentists here so that they feel completely comfortable referring patients to us.”

How Any 13 Year Old Kid Can Become A Millionaire

2009-02-09T01:30:00.000-08:00

Dominic McVey Story

http://www.viza.com

At the age of just 13, Dominic McVey exploded into the public’s consciousness when he started importing collapsible scooters from the USA, making him a reported £5 million. Now 19, McVey has sought to find other lucrative niches in the market, with varying success. Here the outspoken entrepreneur talks about his astonishing rise, his views on UK business and his plans for the future.

How did you first come up with the idea for importing the scooters?

I had been looking round the internet and was looking for the credit card website Visa, but I spelt it wrong – Viza, and I came across this website which was manufacturing scooters and I really wanted one. But I couldn’t afford one, and neither could my parents, so I emailed them and said “I think you should send me a scooter, I would sell loads over here.”

They said no, but if you buy five, we’ll give you one free. So as I really wanted one for free, I saved up to buy five, which I did by organising under-18s discos, buying stocks and shares and selling mini disc players in Japan.

So I got five over, and got one for free, which I was really happy with, but then I thought I should sell the other five, which I did within a week, to family and friends. The next week I sold 10, and it just went on from there.

I never really saw the potential until the product landed on my doorstep, and I guess I had to move on it. A lot of people say it was luck, but if you look at football teams they can score a goal one week, but they are not going to score goals every week if they’re bottom of the Premier League.

I looked at in a very childish and naïve way, which is probably the best way to do so at the time because you weren’t bombarded with stress and issues and problems.

I was very, very competitive. I guess I was very mouthy about other products out there, but all the others out there were crap and expensive. The press really liked me and everyone liked the product, so that really helped.

You’re quoted as saying you weren’t very keen on the scooters, but you saw the business potential in selling them, which must be quite unusual for someone quite young?

After a week, I guess I was bored of the product. What really shone to me was that I could see everyone in London going to work on one, everyone needs one in the boot of the car if they got stuck in traffic, I really drove that message home.

I used to go up to Liverpool Street station and get chased around by the security for handing out flyers, I’d shoot of on my scooter in my lunch break from school. I sold to a lot of city executives as toys, but people began to commute on them, which caused a bit of a fuss with road safety people.

Did you find your age was a problem in terms of being taken seriously?

I blagged it a lot – a lot of the business I did was over the phone or on the internet. I was very good with computers at the time and had friends who were great with IT, so I had great presentations.

Whenever I did meet companies, even if I thought I couldn’t get any business out of them, I asked them a million and one questions about how they did business. They loved telling me because they felt like the other brother telling the kid what to do.
The added advantage is that the money you make is in a sense all yours, because you don’t have a mortgage or bills, all I was paying for was the internet and my mobile phone.

So you overcome the age gap with technology?

Yes, everything was done from my bed!

You didn’t go on to university – do you feel there is too much to pressure for young people to do that rather than start up a business?

It’s all wrong. The only reason that the government are pressuring people to go to university is because of the banks. Banks make more money from student loans and overdraft than anything else.

The banks tell the government they will not employ anyone without a degree, the banks being the biggest employers in the UK, the government reacts to this.
A lot more people should be encouraged to take their own steps in life and encouraged to go into apprenticeships and traded skills. There is a huge skills shortage, especially women.

Do you think there’s enough support for young people who want to start up their own business?

I think there’s a huge lack of support. What I’ve noticed about young people trying to get into business is that they aren’t really my cup of tea.
There are very few young people who are trying to start up a business and there doesn’t seem to be enough of the right sort of people. Back in the 40s, 50s, 60s, they would’ve been working on market stalls, that to me is the tight kind of entrepreneur, ducking and diving, trying to make his money to get into the bigger picture.

But a lot of the new breed of young entrepreneurs they don’t have to seem to have this streak in them, they seem very middle to upper class, parent may have a lot of money and not much to do with it.

What more could the government do to help young entrepreneurs?

There’s far too much red tape, there’s nowhere for people to go. I went down Walthamstow High Road the other day and I went into a local frame store, which is opposite Waltham Forest Town Hall.

I said to him, “you’ve only been here six months, how’s it going? Are the council helping a lot?” He said, “What? I only hear from the council when they want their fees paid.”

I said, “is there no forums, no networking groups, no grants, helping you out?” He said he wouldn’t even know where to call and they probably don’t know he exists. It’s the same for everything in this whole street, which is a nice street and is beginning to buzz a bit.

How To Start Successful Online Translation Business

2009-02-08T01:22:00.000-08:00

Jurga Zilinskiene Story

http://www.todaytranslations.com/

Jurga Zilinskiene can genuinely claim to being nothing else but an entrepreneur. Jurga has her first business brainwave at the age of six, after finding some old packets of seeds in the loft of the family house.

The fact that she went from living in a Lithuanian town to own Today Translations, managing over 1,500 linguists across the globe, in just five years, makes her story even more remarkable.

“There were beetroot seeds, onion seeds and 10 or 15 other types,” she explains. “They were very old. I took them down to the market and sold them. I had quite a queue. I think that I was selling them very cheaply.”

The young Jurga wasn’t happy building up a seed-based empire, however, and at the ripe old age of 10 went into the pet breeding business with a little help from the family pets. She would also buy sweets and sell them onto her schoolmates.

By the age of 16, she started making serious money by importing cloth from the United Arab Emirates and selling it on. A year later, she was running her own small supermarket. She somehow found time to get married, but the relationship turned sour and she moved to the UK aged 19 to study law.

“I eventually completed part two of the law degree, before I decided that I didn’t want to become a lawyer, but I liked the idea of understanding the law,” she says. “My legal knowledge has come in very useful in my current business, since about 80 per cent of our business currently comes from law firms.”

The current business in question is Today Translations, which Jurga set up in August 2001. In a short period of time, Today has gained a portfolio of over 200 clients, with Jurga in charge of a huge team of linguists who translate, interpret and proof-read documents in over 160 languages, from Arabic to Yoruba.

Jurga is setting her sights high for Today – she plans to double the company’s turnover every year, not a mean achievement when the business is set to make $900,000 this year.

The twists don’t end there though – Jurga has managed this success despite the fact she has not borrowed a penny in startup funding.

“The investment I made in the business was gradual,” she explains. “The final figure was about $20,000. It was my own money – money I had made and saved from previous ventures.

“I never borrowed from the bank. I don’t like borrowing from the bank, some people might say that I am old-fashioned in that way, or maybe un-British, but I believe in natural business growth.”

Using a business sense honed since her seed-selling days back in Lithuania, Jurga realised that there was an opportunity to set up a translation business in the UK that offered a truly personal service to clients.

Jurga, seemingly in a bid to work in every profession that exists, was working as an interpreter at the time.

“I had been working as an interpreter myself, mainly interpreting in Russian, but when I was working as an interpreter, I found it hard to plan my time.

“I also saw that there was a real opportunity to start a business that would offer a better, more personal service than other agencies seemed to be providing.

“There has never been a better time to consider a career as a professional linguist, whether as a translator or interpreter. The British armed forces in Iraq and elsewhere are also crying out for more Brits able to speak Arabic. There is such a shortage that they are turning to students taking Arabic degrees,” she says.

In another example of her determination to succeed, Jurga learnt how to design her own software, after not finding a developer who could meet her needs.

“I initially wanted to buy or commission a database,” she explains. “I consulted about 10 companies and individuals, but after failing to find a programmer to meet my needs, I decided to do it myself.

“So, I hired a tutor and had training in visual basic. But when my tutor told me that particular type of programme could not be designed, I bought a book and found a way to design it, until I ended up with precisely the database I wanted.”

Having shown such dedication and versatility in her entrepreneurial career, it’s not surprising that Jurga is slightly disappointed by some of the British press coverage of Eastern European migrants.

As she points out, not only do new arrivals start up new companies, they also provide much-needed labour which would push up prices and staff costs if removed from the UK workforce. However, Jurga hasn’t encountered any prejudice herself.

“I have not found it a problem being an outsider or an immigrant. In fact, it has sometimes seemed almost an advantage. People – both individuals and organisations – have been extremely welcoming and helpful.

“Also, being a foreigner has certain advantages in my line of work,” she says.

Making Millions Selling Diamonds For 99 Cents

2009-02-07T01:21:00.000-08:00

David Wirtenberg Story

www.outrageousdiamonds.com

David Wirtenberg, 28
Outrageous Auctions (eBay User ID: outrageousauctions)
New York City
Projected 2006 Sales: $8 million to $10 million
Description: Engagement rings, wedding bands and other jewelry

Turning Talk Into Sales: David Wirtenberg loves to talk. "I could talk your ear off," he says. "I love what I do. I'm a very passionate person." His ability to make sales, and his prior experience in sales for Bear Stearns and Auto Data Processing, helped him build his business from scratch in 2003. His father-in-law became his inspiration and behind-the-scenes mentor. "He said, 'Let's see if we can sell jewelry on the internet,'" Wirtenberg recalls. "I went to 47th Street in Manhattan. I knocked on every door. I didn't know anything about diamonds at the time. I was looking for suppliers, for an education, anything." He ended up buying a couple of diamond rings, and he immediately sold them for a profit on eBay. "I thought, 'This could be something.'"

Many Facets to His Business: Today, Wirtenberg sells through his websites (www.outrageousauctions.com and www.outrageousdiamonds.com) and through eBay. "I use eBay to get new customers and new traffic," he says. "Most of my diamond auctions start at 99 cents. Sometimes I lose money; sometimes I make money. Whatever makes the customer happy, I do. Our packaging is second to none. Sometimes we pack our diamonds in Faberge eggs [for free]. Once you have customers, you have those customers for good."

Personal Touch: Wirtenberg speaks fondly of the personal connections he has made and recalls the time he and his wife, Danielle, personally delivered a $14,000 ring to a customer in California. "The fringe benefits touch you deep inside," he says. "You play a huge role in people's lives. I have provided advice on people's engagements. I feel I am blessed every single day with the direction this business has taken."

Online Logo Creating Business Is Booming

2009-02-06T01:20:00.000-08:00

Morgan Lynch Story

http://www.logoworks.com

Sarah Hawley, a 10-year public-relations veteran, was moving from a job at a large agency to launch her own business, Mockingbird PR, out of her home in Gilbert, Ariz. She soon discovered that her experience bringing in clients wasn't enough. Appearances mattered too.

"Freelancing without a logo or Web site or identity really hurt me going up against agencies or even small boutique firms," she says. "If I went to pitch business to someone, I would give them my proposal. But if they wanted to check me out, there was no image to put in front of them. I had to do something to be more professional. I was committed, but I looked like someone just doing it on the side."

It was time to get a logo. More than just printing up business cards, a logo can create the kind of brand identity that becomes instantly recognizable to customers and also communicates that this is a serious business. Hawley analyzed a few different logo vendors and decided upon Logoworks.com, a five-year-old online provider of logo services for small businesses based in Lindon, Utah.

"I liked that their designers were spread out [across the country]," she says. "So none of the designs looked the same, and they weren't influencing each other." She also liked the ease of the process and the turnaround time. But most importantly, she really liked the cost. Hawley chose the firm's Platinum Package, which gave her 10 designs to choose from and unlimited revisions for $600 -- a fraction of the cost of getting a logo from an agency, which can start at $5,000.

But until recently, distinctive, well-designed logos were the province of large companies. Extremely costly and time-consuming to produce, they were for the most part out of reach of small businesses. Logoworks was launched specifically to address the needs of small businesses and offer them high-quality logo design solutions at an affordable price.

The company got its start when Morgan Lynch, Logoworks' CEO, was working in software development for an insurance company. He was in charge of rebranding the company, and found the experience frustrating and expensive. "We ended up spending a lot of money on agencies, designers, etc.," he says. "Hundreds of thousands of dollars and a few years later…they came up with [something] I thought was O.K., [but] I wasn't really excited about it."

In 2001, after investing millions in building software and a design platform to do what he calls the heavy lifting, Lynch launched Logoworks.com. "We took a lot of the processes -- the meetings, the relaying of information between what businesses were looking for and graphic designers, what images they wanted, what colors -- and put it all online," says Lynch. "It's very efficient and eliminates the inefficiencies in the real world -- and we can do it at a fraction of the cost."

It works like this: Customers fill out an online form providing information that will be incorporated into the designs, such as color and style preferences, type of business or product, and how the logo will be used. Next, they choose from among package options, with prices ranging from $299 to $1,499. The packages are based on number of designs, as well as the option to create stationery and Web sites.

Based on these selections, initial design concepts are made and returned within three days. Next comes the revision process, and then the design is finalized. Although the process is Web-based, at every step along the way a customer can consult with his or her personal-account manager.

Logoworks.com is another example of how the Internet is dramatically changing the landscape for small businesses. In this case, it allows them to have a logo worthy of a multinational corporation at a reasonable cost. "Small businesses are waking up and saying they too can have a great brand," says Lynch. "Ten to 15 years ago, it would have been cost prohibitive and unattainable for [them]. They can look like a national chain even if the business is only two people working out of their home."

To date, Lynch says the company has come up with 45,000 logos. While the company doesn't disclose sales figures, Lynch says the firm's sales have increased 100% each year since its launch five years ago. While the majority of the company's clients are based in the U.S., Lynch says that about 10% to 20% of their business comes from overseas businesses that want a Western marketing look. Currently the company is plowing profits back into more R&D and software development to expand their capabilities and offerings.

Last year, the company got some bad publicity when a couple of its designers were accused of stealing others' logos. Following the accusation, Logoworks.com issued a statement saying it has fired the designers and taken steps to ensure such a situation wouldn't be repeated in the future.

Still, the company says 98% of their customers are satisfied with their experience. In her case, Sarah Hawley says the decision to get a logo really kicked her business up a notch. "I had a client in Atlanta, and they were skeptical about how committed I was," she says. "Once I put a logo in front of them, it registered with them that this was not some fly-by-night thing -- it was a full-time job. I was able to show them a professional image, and they're now a full-time client.

Moreover, Hawley recently returned to Logoworks to have them design her stationery letterhead. Clearly, first impressions for a small business can make a big impact on the bottom line.

Test-Driving Your Dream Job

2009-02-05T01:19:00.000-08:00

Brian Kruth Story

http://www.vocationvacations.com/

Just one year ago, David Ryan was an international banker with HSBC. He had done stints in Bahrain, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Turkey, and London over the course of 17 years. However, by the time Ryan had landed in New York City two and a half years ago, he says, "the buzz for me was gone." Exciting as a two-decade spin around the globe once was, Ryan says, his chosen profession was simply, "not as exciting as it had been."

Ryan entered into what he calls, "a pretty long period of reflection" regarding his career path and future. Like many suffering from job ennui, Ryan was ready to do something new, the question was how to do it. Having nursed a lifelong love of dogs, Ryan realized that he was interested in potentially moving in that direction but was unsure of how exactly he could turn his passion into a sustainable career.
Enter a two-year-old Portland (Ore.)-based company called Vocation Vacations, a business that gives people the opportunity to "test drive" their dream jobs. Creating temporary but intense mentor/apprenticeship experiences, Vocation Vacations enlists professionals from a variety of fields -- everything from winemakers and makeup artists to architects and sword makers -- and pairs them with people who fantasize about leaving their day jobs and want spend a few days in a profession that they had previously thought beyond their reach.

Last April, Ryan signed up to do a two-and-a-half-day vocation working with a doggie day-care provider in Massachusetts. The following month, he spent three days working with a dog trainer in Oregon. Fairly quickly, Ryan figured out that he preferred training to day care and was confident that he could start his own business in the field.

Moreover, Ryan says the experience helped him to realize that he didn't have to abandon the skills he developed as a banker. Rather, he says: "It became obvious to me that there were a lot of kennels and trainers that were very good with animals, but business was not their specialty."

In June, Ryan resigned from HSBC and enrolled in a dog-training school in Missouri for five months to get certified. In January, he launched Beyond Dog Training in Rye, N. H. "It really sounds weird," he says. "But that two- to three-day experience has really been a lynchpin."

Vocation Vacations was started by Brian Kurth in 2004 after he made the leap from unhappy employee to dream-job entrepreneur. At the time, Kurth says he was burnt out working for Ameritech in Chicago and logging in three hour commutes.

"I didn't hate corporate life, or my job or my boss," he says. "But I hated the lifestyle. I wanted to do something more fulfilling. I was tired of going to dinner parties [where] people would talk about their exciting lives as architects or photographers and I worked at the phone company. People's heads hit their spaghetti plates when I told them. Nobody cared, and neither did I."

So in 2000, Kurth quit his job. In quick succession, he worked for a dot-com, got laid off when the economy imploded, and then sold his house and spent six months driving across the country, eventually settling in Portland. That city didn't have much in the way of industry and was in the midst of a recession, so he ended up working on a vineyard doing product marketing and sales for a family winery. Kurth found that there was something immeasurably rewarding about stepping outside of his routine and trying something new. Inspired, he came up with the concept and business plan for Vocation Vacations.

The idea is relatively simple. Participants pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand (transportation, lodging, etc., aren't included) to experience life as, say, a chocolatier, a fashion designer, or a race-car driver. The time spent immersed in their fantasy job allows them to get a 360-degree perspective without the risk of quitting their own jobs or investing heavily in a new career.

Laura Thomas says she's "miserable" in her job as a business-operations developer for a government contractor in Alexandria, Va. "My boss knows I'm not happy, and he's looking for something else [for me at the company], but there isn't a lot of opportunity for growth."

Not quite ready to quit altogether, Thomas recently took a turn through Vocation Vacations, shadowing a hotel concierge and a hotel general manager for two days. "It was really great. I got to be completely immersed in the environment. I got to see the good, the bad, and the ugly." And best of all, she says: "I really got to see it firsthand before taking the plunge and quitting my job."

Kurth, something of a dream-job rainmaker, has created a niche industry built on the hopes and aspirations of people like Thomas. Catering to the unhappily employed, Kurth has discovered an untapped market. Indeed, according to a survey by the Conference Board, a management and marketplace information nonprofit agency based in New York, less than half of all Americans say they're satisfied with their jobs. Taken in 2002, the survey reveals the highest level of discontent since they first conducted the study in 1995 -- with job satisfaction dropping from 60.9% then to 47.2% presently.

To date, Vocations Vacations has placed hundreds of people in the U.S. and Britain in occupations ranging from brewmaster and art-gallery director to music producer and cattle rancher. "We're on our way to thousands," says Kurth. The company has doubled the number of its available mentors to 500, with another 40 to 50 new possibilities in the works in such fields as Broadway producer, meteorologist, and zookeeper.

Kurth attributes much of his success to listening to prospective clients and addressing their areas of interest with relevant mentors and programs. Recently, there has been a growing demand and interest in marine biology, aquarium managers, and voiceovers. However, Kurth says there's a limit to the types of career vocations he will pursue. For instance, he says he recently turned down an offer from a pornography producer who wanted to become a mentor.

Kurth himself is expanding his own dream. He just signed a deal with Warner Books for a how-to vocational lifestyle book. On April 27, the Travel Channel is debuting a new series based on his "vocationers" called This Job's a Trip, chronicling the vacationing adventures of his clients. Kurth is also working on what he calls "ancillary products," such as DVDs, T-shirts, and a possible magazine. He says his expansion is all based on the "vacationing" lifestyle -- no longer daydreaming but living the dream.

Just ask David Ryan, who has had to hire additional trainers for his fast-growing business. "I get a lot of broad smiles when I tell people that I went from a million-a-year banker to a dog guy," he says. No doubt he's smiling back, all the way to the bank.

You'll Be Shocked To Find Out How Much Eyeglasses Really Cost

2009-02-04T01:17:00.000-08:00

Murray Wells Story

http://www.glassesdirect.co.uk

Murray Wells was studying at the West of England University in Bristol when he discovered he needed reading glasses.

So he visited his nearest high street optician but was appalled when he found that his new metal frames, ‘essentially some wire and two pieces of glass’ cost £150.

"I was managing on a student loan and £150 was a fortune – half a month's rent. I just couldn't understand why my glasses were so expensive, and my curiosity led me to investigate further."

He began to call manufacturers, opticians and industry insiders but he was met with a ‘wall of silence’.

But then a disgruntled employee at a laboratory in the north of England gave him the lowdown.

“He talked me through the industry,” says Murray Wells. “And it turned out that my £150 pair of glasses probably only cost about seven pounds to make.”

Murray Wells was supposed to be hammering the books in preparation for his finals but instead found himself immersed in the glasses industry.

He learnt about optometrical testing, how the frames are made and the lenses are cut.

He discovered that the market is around 70 per cent controlled by just four high street retailers: Vision Express, Boots, Dolland & Aitchison and Specsavers.

But, most significantly, he leant that he could make glasses for a fraction of the price that they were being sold on the high street.

Murray Wells enlisted the help of some students at his university who helped him build the website and design the logo.

He then used the final instalment of his student loan and some money from his father to establish Glassesdirect.co.uk, they began trading in September 2004.

Manufacturers were initially reluctant to endanger their relationships with high street opticians but eventually they relented.

In a year Glasses Direct had sold 22,000 pairs of spectacles and Murray Wells believes that this has saved UK consumers an estimated £2m.

“People generally can't believe our Glasses Direct prices,” he says. “As the high street shops are maintaining retail prices at 10 to 20 times the cost price.

“What I'm giving people is choice, and they are delighted,” he says. “An average pair of glasses is manufactured for less than £7, so I charge just over double. Even with advertising and overheads, I still make a profit.”

His business has gone from strength to strength and he now employs 17 staff and turnover is around the £1m mark.

“It’s all been a bit of a whirlwind,” he admits. “But I have always been determined to get very big, very fast”.

To aid this expansion Glasses Direct are now seeking investment from Venture Capitalists, however he says that they are also seeking him.

“It’s been a lot easier than I ever thought it would be,” he says. “We’ve literally been getting new calls from potential investors every day. It’s wonderful and we’re in a very enviable position to choose who we want to work with.”

It’s not just a decision who to take money from. Murray Wells knows the next move is crucial.

“It’s not only about the investment, we need someone who will be helpful at board level and is experienced in dealing with big organisations, large marketing campaigns and has e-commerce expertise.”

Talks are ongoing, but Murray Wells expects a deal to be struck soon and says press reports of raising £5m “aren’t far off”.

A large bulk of the money will be spent on marketing.

“We’ve made massive strides but still only occupy 1% of a £1.7bn industry so we’re really still just a drop in the ocean. I want to move as quickly as possible as we know it’s only a matter of time before competitive entry occurs.”

The big players in the optical industry appear to have accepted Glassesdirect.co.uk is here to stay too – even if they’re not happy about it.

“They’ve changed tack a little and aren’t rubbishing us in the press as much as they were,” says Murray Wells.

Murray Wells remains undeterred by the high street’s desire to stamp him out, but is looking to shake off the David vs. Goliath tag.

“As well as marketing ourselves to the mass market we’re in talks with several major retail organisations and expect to announce a number of partnerships by the start of 2006.”

Subsequently, Murray Wells is strapping himself in for another 100mph 12 months and expects turnover to triple to £3m, and reach £10m by 2008.

An Employee Fires His Employer, Starts A Forty Million Dollar Business

2009-02-03T01:16:00.000-08:00

Patrick Martucci Story

http://www.unitedasset.com/

In 1980, Patrick Martucci, just out of high school, left his hometown of Cleveland with $300, pointing his Trans Am toward Dallas. He landed a $6-an-hour job at a company that was launching an odd, new product at the time -- "voice forward mail."

When he tried to explain voice mail to his grandmother, she thought he was a postal worker. Others, however, caught on. He was soon in the sales department, where he was a natural. "I had the opportunity to watch a product go out the door and gain world-wide acceptance," he says.

He leapfrogged to increasingly challenging jobs across the telecom industry, setting up distribution channels, running sales departments. A stark opportunity stared him in the face when he worked at a company that provided maintenance on Rolm phone equipment. Mr. Martucci was thrilled to pitch a sale to J.C. Penney, which, after a trial, offered him the maintenance contract for the entire retail chain's phone service. But his company could handle only Rolm equipment in specific geographic areas, not the full sprawl of a retailer with a mishmash of phone systems. Mr. Martucci says he saw what could have been "a $10 million contract go to $1.5 million, and that bugged me from that day forward."

From Chicago, he launched United Asset Coverage, which could have struck that deal. It would informally stitch together a network to fix anyone's office equipment -- no matter the brand, and no matter the place, a sort of managed-care approach to the frustrating world of office-machine maintenance.

Mr. Martucci unveiled the concept to a small venture fund, where he worked at the time. "It's a $36 billion marketplace, and I'm familiar with it," he told his partners. They jumped in, investing a total of "a couple million" dollars, he says.

He called the best salespeople he knew from previous jobs and hired 17. They told potential customers that UAC would handle all the maintenance chores for less if they paid upfront. Just like explaining voice mail to grandma, the new business model, part insurance, part repair clearinghouse, wasn't an easy sell. "There is nothing more boring than telephone maintenance," Mr. Martucci admits.

It took six long months in 1997 for the company to secure its first customer: A TGI Friday's in St. Louis signed up for UAC to maintain its lone copier. By 2001, UAC installed a call center in Chicago so that anyone could call and order service. Establishing a network of service providers proved easier. Once they saw that UAC provided steady revenue, acting as a sort of agent for them, many agreed to discounts on their services to be part of the network.

Though new competitors are sprouting up, today UAC is the largest telecom-maintenance company in the world. The closely held firm doesn't disclose revenue, but earnings reached $40 million this year.

How To Make $4 Million A Year In Sales With An Ugly Website.

2009-02-02T01:15:00.000-08:00

Joel Boblit Story

http://www.bigbadtoystore.com/

Joel Boblit parlayed nostalgia for his childhood toys into big-time business when he discovered how much Transformers--robot action figures whose popularity has continued since the 1980s--were being sold for online. He launched BigBadToyStore.com in 1999 shortly after graduating college, while he was reliving fond memories of trading his favorite childhood toys--GI Joe, Masters of the Universe and Transformers. The biggest challenge in those early days? Boblit admits: "Being teased by my friends."

While in college, Boblit sold action figures as a hobby for extra money, but when he decided to turn his hobby into a business, his parents supported him on all levels. They went heavily into debt to finance the business, and worked 100-plus-hour weeks alongside him for BigBadToyStore. Housing his inventory at one point, his parents had to create aisles in their home to navigate around the ceiling-high boxes. Says Boblit, "They have been instrumental throughout all this and worked just as hard as I did to keep it all together during the tough early years."

BigBadToyStore caters to specialty toy buyers with vintage favorites like Star Wars figurines and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Boblit also branched out to comic- and movie-related items, earning loyal customers around the world. Serious collectors prize mint-condition toy packaging, so Boblit guarantees his toys by using a grading system to distinguish "standard grade" (mint or near-mint condition) from "substandard grade" packages.

He also offers a premium packing service that ensures an item is in tiptop condition and handled with extra care when it's shipped. Another big draw is the "Pile of Loot" function, which allows customers to stockpile items they've already paid for in a virtual storage bin. Upon the customer's choosing, the company will ship out all the items at once, reducing shipping costs. Future plans include distribution to approved retailers, who can view volume pricing online. Boblit says, "We've got the competitive edge for convenience."

Joel made $4 million dollars in sales in 2005, so the strategy seems to be working.

How About A Few Million Dollars For Clubbing In New York?

2009-02-01T01:14:00.000-08:00

Andrew Fox Story

http://www.clubplanet.com/

In 1995, this oft-rejected newcomer to New York City's club scene found a way to get past the doorman of every hot club he longed to enter--start a website offering club-goers free club reviews and information. The now-savvy Fox recalls his earlier, awkward days: "I showed up at a club wearing green shorts, and everyone was in black. The bouncer looked at me and said, 'There's no way.'"

Working on the website in his off hours at first, Fox chucked his investment banking job in 1997 to give Clubplanet.com (then ClubNYC.com) his all. Volunteers provided early club reviews, until Fox hired a full-time editorial staff in 1999. Then he came up with a new idea: Start a guest list on his site for access to otherwise hard-to-get-into clubs. By offering a discounted cover charge to those who both signed up on the site and arrived at the club before midnight, Fox helped enhance the exclusivity of the clubs as well as increase revenue. Club owners were dubious about Fox's concept at first, but when hundreds of club-goers who signed up showed up at their doors, the owners gladly forged relationships with the innovator and paid him a "bounty" for every head he brought in.

Fox installed a management team for Clubplanet.com so he could focus on two other businesses he was involved in, but he admits giving up control was a mistake. Upon learning of Clubplanet.com's mismanagement and financial woes, Fox engaged in a bitter struggle to regain control. He ultimately won, but the battle took its toll on the company. He was forced to lay off employees he had never met. With only two employees, Fox started back at square one, selling his other companies to refocus on his "baby."

Clubplanet.com has grown to include thousands of club listings around the United States and the United Kingdom, and now syndicates its content to Citysearch, newspapers, Yahoo! and other third-party clients. Fox also recently launched NocheLatino.com, an upscale, urban Latino version of Clubplanet.com, and is working on a version for the gay community. He's since expanded his empire to include a New Year's Eve event ticketing site, NewYears.com; an exclusive club access site, CoolJunkie.com; a ticketing company, WantTickets.com; and an offline event and marketing company, Track Entertainment.

How much money do these sites generate for Andrew Fox? Last year it was a cool 22 million US Dollars.

How To Turn $5000 To $25 Million In 5 Years Selling To … Babies

2009-01-31T01:13:00.000-08:00

Julie Aigner-Clark Story

http://www.babyeinstein.com/

Most great ideas are born from a need. The Baby Einstein Company LLC based in Littleton, Colorado, came from Julie Aigner-Clark’s need for a learning tool for her infant daughter. In 1995, this former teacher and new mom read the latest research regarding babies’ capacity to learn. Finding nothing in stores that used the research and that was developmentally appropriate, educational and fun, Aigner-Clark (pictured with daughters Sierra, 3, and Aspen, 6) decided to create something herself. Her first video, Baby Einstein, featured intriguing pictures and mothers speaking different languages.

Says Aigner-Clark, “I wanted something that was not only entertaining but stimulating and engaging that would give [my daughter] exposure to things that were lovely.”

As a mom, she knew her product was good, but “nobody was returning my calls,” she says. “I knew if I could get it into the hands of a mom or an executive who had a baby, [that] would sell it.”

Two years later, with no responses to her many queries, Aigner-Clark finally hit pay dirt: She went to the American International Toy Fair in New York City determined to get her product into the hands of a buyer from The Right Start, a high-end baby retailer. She searched the huge show for two days without luck. When she finally found the buyers, she says, “I ran up to them [and said,] ‘You’re going to love this video! You have to watch it! It’s perfect for your store!’ ” Aigner-Clark’s instincts were right on: Baby Einstein soon became the store’s fastest-moving product. Here initial investment - $5000

She’s followed up with more books and videos—Baby Bach, Baby Mozart, Baby Shakespeare and Baby Van Gogh. She’s also developed Baby Santa’s Music Box.

Still, even with 1999 sales of more than $4 million, $10 million in 2000 and $25 million in 2001, Aigner-Clark’s best rewards are being able to organize her schedule around her daughters and reading the stirring letters she gets from Baby Einstein viewers. How does she define success? “That I’ve made these kids—who are so special—happy . . . that I’ve made them smile.”

Using the philosophy that the infant brain thrives in a child who is positively stimulated emotionally, physically and intellectually, Aigner-Clark incorporated puppetry with sounds, foreign languages, poetry and classical music. Baby Einstein's productions emphasize "real-world" images over computer graphics or animation to more accurately reflect the world that babies see.

Despite Baby Einstein's phenomenal reception, the company has never employed more than seven people. Clark (Julie’s husband) also notes Baby Einstein never took out a loan or equity capital. In fact, Baby Einstein operated from Aigner-Clark's home until 2001.

The secret to Baby Einstein's success, Clark said, has been "a good concept and a brilliant branding strategy."

"[Julie] did a marvelous job of catching a trend and building it," Clark said.
That’s when the business got Disney’s attention. In 2002 the couple sold the company for an estimated $25 million dollars.

With Disney, the characters that Aigner-Clark created would not only get a wider audience, but better production values.

As for Julie Aigner-Clark, she’s looking for another big idea.

Million Dollar Home Business

2009-01-30T00:52:00.000-08:00

Tamara Carlisle left her successful career as an independent film and commercial producer to distribute videos for kids. She has found a niche distributing her own videos as well as those of other independent producers all over the United States. Success, however, did not come easy. Customers were slow to discover her wonderful videos. There even came a point that she had to call herself just to hear the phone ring.

Now, she ships a 44-page catalog featuring over 250 videos, software and audio products to a growing number of customers around the world. To complement her print catalog, she opened a web site in 1996. However, it was a dud. She did not know how to tap the Web for her business. Relaunching her site three years later, BigKidsVideo.com has become an important source of educational and fun videos for parents, libraries and schools.

Tamara Carlisle Story

http://www.bigkidsvideo.com

I was in the film business as a film producer for 10 years. I produced high-end commercials. I was completing a two-month shoot, which was very tough. At that point, there was a surge of independent live action production being done for children's videos. My father, who has a construction company in Cincinnati, said, “You need to make a children's video about
construction.” And I thought, “Oh my gosh. Here I was working with 400 extras on the set and a 50-man crew. A children's video was totally different from where I'd been for many, many years.”

But I did do it. I produced a children's video called “What Do You Want to be When You Grow Up”; and it was called “Heavy Equipment Operator.” It was a very big success. It was written up in all the papers around the country, and it was in schools and libraries, and a lot of retail
stores.

So I followed up with other 30-minute videos called “Railroaders” and “Zoo Crew.” Basically the videos are a behind the scenes show.

Upon completion of “Heavy Equipment Operator” we quickly discovered how difficult it was to distribute a children's video in a market dominated by multi-million dollar corporations. We also realized that there were many fabulous children's videos out there but their producers, many of them working mothers, were not able to find adequate distribution.

So we decided to start our own distribution company through Big Kids Productions, Inc. Big Kids Productions, Inc. and BigKidsVideo.com have become important parts of the children’s entertainment industry. We search out the very best live-action, independently produced video and audio products for our catalog, web site and other distribution efforts.

It was just a tough situation in 1994 and 1995. I was getting out into the distribution world, which I had never been in, and I found out that it was very hard to distribute against powerhouses like Nickelodeon and Time Warner.

So I started with a small brochure of about 9 videos and did the direct mailing. I started to make my way through the maze of distribution in the country, both retail and other wholesale distribution companies.

After many months of making calls and waiting for the phone to ring, we gradually developed strong relationships with our wholesale outlets and expanded our retail customer mailing list. We have since grown into a company with a few hundred audio, video and software titles, and we pride ourselves on customer service and quick, accurate order filling.

BigKids started distributing in late 1995. Since then, our sales were approximately $45,000 that first year and we'll probably do a million in sales this year. We have worked very hard.

But, here is what people might me surprised to find out – it’s still a home business. One of the biggest advantages to having a home-based business is that I am able to spend a lot of time with my two children. When we started, I was working out of a rented space. When we really had to dive into this, and I was also pregnant, we decided to build a separate building outside of the house. So it has worked out real nice because I'm a mother of two. I know that I am so lucky because I am just 30 walking steps from wrapping my arms around my babies.

Hidden Link Between US Comedian Chris Rock And Iran Exposed

2009-01-29T00:58:00.000-08:00

Jamie Masada Story

http://www.laughfactory.com/

In 1977, at just 14 years old, Jamie Masada found himself alone in Hollywood. A native of Iran, he didn't know anybody and spoke only Farsi. The American producer who had promised to look after him and give him a shot at success had abandoned him. With the $850 his parents had given him long gone, Masada was taken in by a compassionate apartment manager who let him sleep on a couch.

And so began Masada's journey to becoming one of America's top comedy impresarios. Supporting himself through a series of odd jobs at comedy shops on the Sunset Strip, Masada was befriended by a group of local comics. It was here that he learned the rhythm of a good joke and honed his instincts for spotting talent.

Though he enjoyed comedy once he found it, making it a career path was all but accidental. "If I'd have become a dishwasher then," he says, "I would have gone on to be the best dishwasher."

Today, Masada's flagship Laugh Factory on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood is not only successful -- with packed houses for the past 25 years -- but also one of the most influential proving grounds for comedic talent in the nation. Jamie Masada's Laugh Factory changed the industry and gave rise to the likes of Chris Rock.

In building his kingdom of comedy, Masada has groomed and showcased some of the biggest names in the industry. In the process, he has helped change the economics of the business by paying all comics for their work, helping to promote diversity within their ranks, and finding new revenue channels through crossover promotion.

"Jamie has really grown his club in a really hard business," says comedian Bob Saget, former star of the sitcom Full House, who has known Masada for 25 years. "Not only does he have a good gauge for talent, but he's a guy who's always helping people." Saget says the fact that even the biggest-name comics return on their own -- Chris Rock performed just a few days after hosting the Oscars -- is a testament to the club's proprietor.

"When I perform at the Laugh Factory, it feels like a home for me," he adds. "He always treats me really well, and it is one of the best spaces for doing stand-up. It's like a tiny music hall."

With that success has come inevitable expansion. Just last year, Masada opened his newest venue, a $4.5 million multilevel complex in New York's Times Square, and a third club, in Long Beach, Calif., is on its way in June. Like many successful entrepreneurs who have become industry standard-bearers, he faces a challenge: building upon his self-made reputation without diluting a brand that is now considered among the best.

In 1979, when he was barely 20, Masada used a $10,000 loan from a producer friend to open his now-flagship club. Almost from the start, Masada distinguished himself on a number of fronts. For one, there was the pay. At the time, most up-and-coming performers worked simply for the exposure. But Masada always split the door receipts, even when there wasn't much to split.

Following his opening night, Masada says he gave headliner Richard Pryor his cut: $2.50. "He then pulled out a $100 bill from his pocket and gave it to me," Masada recalls. "He said, 'Your heart is bigger than your wallet.'"

Masada also opened his stage to overlooked voices. During the early 1980s, the dominant clubs in Los Angeles were the Comedy Store and the Improv. And most of the marquee names were white males. Masada nurtured talent among African-American ("We had a Black Pack," he says), Latino, and female comics, as a way to differentiate his club from the other venues as well as to expand both the talent pool and audience.

From day one, his business philosophy remained simple. "I wanted to make people laugh," he says. "I believe if you enjoy what you're doing, the money will follow."

Masada does little advertising, instead relying on word-of-mouth and a spectrum of crossover partnerships, including the Laugh Factory Minute, a daily radio spot that airs routines from the club's shows to 240 markets and 19 million people through Premier Radio Networks. And recently he joined with Nick at Night, using his New York club as backdrop for the network's Funniest Mom Contest.

While Masada says his West Coast club has been profitable for years, with the new Times Square venue, he has had to raise awareness for an audience not nearly as familiar with the Laugh Factory name. Masada's foray into the Big Apple came in large part as a result of an invitation from former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was encouraging new businesses in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. "I thought, 'Yes, New York needs some laughs,'" Masada says.

Despite the recent expansion, Masada isn't interested in a rapid rollout of Laugh Factories, which he believes could weaken his brand. "I get so many offers," he says. "Jamie Foxx and Chris Tucker have asked me to partner. But I am very particular. I want to make sure to go to places where I will be successful. I don't want franchises like McDonald's."

In addition to operating his clubs, Masada manages a roster of comics. Past clients have included Rodney Dangerfield and the Wayans brothers. He also serves as a TV consultant and has produced comedy specials like Fox's Comic Strip Live. These moves help create a pipeline between comics and opportunities, and further enhance the Laugh Factory's standing as a talent hothouse.

A business based on laughs means you have to keep them coming. Although a number of big names spent their fledgling years on his stages, Masada continues to nurture newcomers. Every Tuesday he holds an open-mike night, drawing comic hopefuls from around the world. And afterward, Masada offers individual feedback and advice.

In the business for nearly 30 years, Masada has developed an instinctual grasp of what is funny -- and, more important, what the audience will find funny. If a routine is smart and makes him laugh, he's willing to take a chance. "Sometimes you're going to lose," he says. "It's the audience who decides if they're stars. I give them a spot. I can't take credit for their talent."

After his own hardscrabble start, Masada maintains a soft spot for those in need -- and uses comedy to help. Every year, he provides Thanksgiving and holiday dinners for struggling actors and comics. And since 1984, he has run the Laugh Factory Comedy Camp, giving disadvantaged children in Los Angeles the opportunity to spend 16 Saturdays working on their own routines with mentors like Ellen DeGeneres. This summer, he'll launch the camp in New York.

Masada has watched the industry evolve over the years, but perhaps the biggest change has been his what his club's audience expects. "When I started, they would come for the big name on stage," he says. "Now it doesn't matter. They come because they know they're going to see a good show."

How Knitted Thongs Helped A Couple To Launch Fashion Business

2009-01-28T00:59:00.000-08:00

Vicky Prazdnik and Lori Mozzone Story

http://www.curliegirl.com

With so much competition nowadays, a small business needs to create buzz and excitement to survive. That’s exactly what Vicky Prazdnik and Lori Mozzone did in their startup fashion business Curliegirl

The duo designs and creates crocheted and knitted hats, bags and scarves, but it was their sexy crocheted cotton thong underwear products that got them lots of attention at the start! As Mozzone says, “The thong has gotten us a lot of attention in the past. In fact, we tried removing them from our website a few times to make room for new items, and without fail someone emails us asking, "what happened to them?" This has earned them a permanent spot on the site!”

Prazdnik and Mozzone, avid knitting and crocheting hobbyists, knew that they needed to create something beyond the standard fare of knitted hats and scarves for them to succeed as a fashion company. They stumbled on the idea of dainty crocheted thong underwear, and went on to create the design and develop the right prototype. Once convinced that they have the right design, they tested the market’s reaction by showing the crocheted thongs in a Valentine’s theme party in New York. Their product got a wild response!

Prazdnik and Mozzone work together in a New York company as web designers, and became fast friends. Mozzone took up knitting as a hobby and shared her newfound interest with Prazdnik, who in turned shared her skill in crocheting. As Mozzone describes their start, “Both Vicky and I are very creative people who went to art school. When you are an artistic person by nature, you need an outlet for it... So, Curliegirl was born out of a hobby of knitting and crocheting.”

They became passionate with their hobby that they soon started an informal group of women who enjoyed knitting and crocheting as well. The two then created the usual knitted and crochet products – hats and scarves – that got complements from their colleagues and immediate circle. “We used to do an informal knit/crochet group with our friends, but got bored with what we were making,” says Mozzone. “That is when Vicky started experimenting with making the cotton lingerie, which eventually turned out to be our signature product!”

The duo formally launched their company Curliegirl in 2003. Mozzone explains the name, “Curliegirl was a personal URL of mine (for my curly hair), and we started using it as a temporary website. People thought it was cute, and so it stuck.”

Slow but sure, Curliegirl has attracted a growing clientele. They have also expanded their product lines - offering hats, scarves, handbags and other small accessories in addition to the thongs. They also have some salespeople who help distribute their products to other areas of the country. Right now Curliegirl is sold in boutiques around the USA.

“Our fashion philosophy,” according to Mozzone, “is we make what we could see ourselves wearing. We also like our products to be practical and cute. We want our creations to be different and to make the woman who wears them feel good.”

At the start, Curliegirl was a two-women show, and Mozzone and Prazdnik used to do everything themselves -- from crocheting every single product to shipping the orders. Now that the business has started to gain momentum, things have improved somewhat to allow them to focus on other important aspects of the business.

Mozzone explains, “When the business first began we were a one-stop shop with us doing it all, and in some ways we still are. We started outsourcing to get our items made which has freed us up to do more marketing, sales, and everything else to make the business work. Finding a manufacturer was very difficult for many reasons – quality control concerns, distance, cost and minimums. We wanted to find someone who communicated well, had a fair price, and a reasonable minimum.”

Even with limited manpower, these two business savvy women have an arsenal up their sleeve: they understand the power of media in influencing the fashion business. In fact, Curliegirl has received a fair amount of media exposure and mentions, including interviews in publications such as Redbook Magazine, and product inclusion in fashion spreads of YM and Jane magazines.

As Mozzone says of their strategy, “In fashion, getting endorsed by the media is very important. For a small company like us, paid advertising doesn't do much.. But when a magazine editor chooses your item to feature in a photospread, or wants an interview to tell the Curliegirl story, that is far more meaningful to consumers and they react really well to it, both in feedback and in sales.”

While Curliegirl continues to make inroads in the fashion business, the two women are still taking their entrepreneurial journey slow. In fact, they are only doing the business on a part-time basis, with the two continuing to work full-time on their day jobs!

According to Mozzone, “It is extremely difficult at times to balance a day job, Curliegirl and our personal lives. Forget about "free time!" There's a lot going on right now for both of us, so we just do the best we can. We are lucky to have a wonderful, supportive husband and boyfriend who help us out whenever they can. If Curliegirl were to one day become financially lucrative enough we would consider quitting our jobs. But as I said we take it one day at a time. It doesn't seem necessary to put that kind of pressure on ourselves at this point.”

Two years into the business, however, their partnership remains strong. Mozzone says, “We both handle the majority of things, but balance each other out in areas where one of us is stronger, the other is weaker, and vice versa. We easily pick up where the other left off.”

Nonetheless, Prazdnik and Mozzone have lots of plans for Curliegirl. “We are considering expanding our consumer base and experimenting with baby wear, but that is something for the future. We'll see what happens, we take it one day at a time,” says Mozzone.

Their advice to aspiring fashion designers and entrepreneurs: Be persistent, and don't wait for opportunities to come and find you... YOU have to go and find THEM!”

How Michael Senoff Makes Up To $1000 A Day Selling Used Seminar Tapes On eBay

2009-01-27T01:01:00.000-08:00

Michael Senoff’s Story.

http://www.hardtofindseminars.com

I first learned about Jay Abraham from a video by Tony Robbins. Jay was speaking at one of Tony's expensive Life Mastery seminars. I was totally blown away by Jay's ideas. Immediately, I started looking for his seminar products.

The first item I was looking for was a set of tapes of the famous Jay Abraham $20,000 protégé mentor training seminar from 1990. You read that right: $20,000. That's how much it cost to attend. The press called it: "The world's most expensive seminar". The students were there to learn how to become a master marketing wizard just like Jay Abraham.

I wanted to be a marketing wizard too, but I did not want to spend $20,000. Anyone that attended the seminar received a copy of the entire program on a set of audiotapes. I knew If I could just find someone who attended the seminar, I might be able to borrow their tapes. If so, I could get a $20,000 Jay Abraham marketing education for free.

I did some digging and managed to find a guy from Northern California who had attended the seminar. I asked to buy his tapes. He said no but agreed to fax me the names of all the people who went to the seminar in Southern California. I found a lady on the list who lived in San Diego. I called her and told her I was looking for a set of the tapes from the Jay Abraham seminars. She said she had them and I negotiated a price of $50. I got the complete $20,000 seminar for only $50.

I studied these marketing materials day and night for six months. I was listening to Jay Abraham while I was jogging, while I was driving, and while I was doing yard work. I would even go to sleep with a Walkman on my head literally dreaming about marketing. That is how powerful and addictive these marketing materials and tapes are.

Along with the 55 audiotape seminar, there was a list of 900 protégés who had trained under Jay Abraham in four previous seminar sessions. The list was intended to be a tool for the seminar attendees to network with each other. When I saw this list, I knew I had hit pay dirt. More on that in a minute.
You see, like a lot of guys, I loved to barbecue outdoors. I was shopping for a new grill and one hot summer day in July I came across the most extraordinary barbecue grill I had ever seen. It is called a "Kamado" and it was billed as the world's finest ceramic smoker-grill.

Well, I knew I had to have one. There was only one little problem. This gorgeous Blue ceramic tiled Kamado grill sells for $1895 plus shipping.

Now I knew there was no way my wife was going to let me spend this kind of money on "a grill", so I told my wife I was going to sell my Jay Abraham tapes and use the money to buy my blue Kamado grill!

The original set of Jay Abraham protégé tapes that I had bought for $50 sold right away for $1700 on my very first marketing effort. I was stunned! I had made a killing the first time out of the gate.

To make sure this was not a one-time fluke, I promoted another less expensive set of Jay Abraham boot camp tapes the next day. This set sold very quickly for $900.

After these two sales, I have enough profits to become the proud owner of a brand-new blue Kamado ceramic smoker, and there was not a thing my wife could do or say about it.

Convinced that I had a hungry market, I went right to work. I still had the list that I mentioned earlier of the 900 Jay Abraham protégés who possessed all of these valuable Jay Abraham products. All I had to do is track them down.

Finding people from a ten-year-old list was no easy task. Most of the phone numbers were wrong. Many of the people no longer had the seminar materials. But one out of ten people I made contact with did. Usually, it was as neatly packed away as it was the day they brought it home from the seminar. Many tapes had never been used, not even once and the printed materials were in pristine condition.

As I continued to contact these people, I made another discovery: A person who pays $20,000 for a seminar is considered a gold mine to marketing information sellers like Jay Abraham, Gary Halbert, Dan Kennedy, and Ted Nicholas. These marketing gurus will spend thousands of dollars to locate and have a chance to sell to this type of buyer who they refer to as 'Big Fish'.

These sellers get together to enter into joint venture partnerships. They refer and endorse each other's marketing materials to these same hot buyers using all their in-house customer lists.

Because of this, when I found a person who had attended the $20,000 Jay Abraham seminar, they would usually have tons of other marketing materials from all the other great marketing promoters as well.

All the materials I sell are purchased from the original owners. Many have even mortgaged their homes and maxed out their credit cards just to get their hands on this critical information. I make these packages available to you at huge discounts.

Isn’t it a great business idea?

How A Lady Stumpled Upon A $100000 A Year Business Working On Sundays.

2009-01-26T01:02:00.000-08:00

Debra Cohen Story

http://www.homereferralbiz.com/

After buying their first home, Debra Cohen and her husband faced the unenviable chore of finding reliable home improvement contractors. Fed up with blindly picking names from the Yellow Pages and waiting for contractors who didn't show up, it occurred to Cohen that if she and her husband were having trouble finding contractors, other homeowners in their community must be facing a similar predicament. This bleak reality sparked the creation of a unique service that has since expanded into a profitable cottage industry across the U.S. and internationally.

After extensive conversations with lawyers, business consultants, contractors and insurance agents, Cohen, 38, started Hewlett, New York-based Home Remedies of NY Inc. from her home in February 1997. This stay-at-home mom used a $5,000 loan, a computer and a refurbished fax machine to launch her part-time business. Right away, the response from homeowners was tremendous, and after three months in business, she repaid her loan. Her gross earnings in the first year were almost $30,000.

Today, Home Remedies is a contractor referral service that matches home-owners with reliable home-repair workers. The appeal to customers is that the company takes on the time-consuming task of locating and screening qualified contractors, checking to make sure they're adequately insured and licensed, and serving as a liaison between the contractor and the homeowner throughout the course of a job. Home Remedies provides a win-win situation for both parties: Services are provided free of charge to the homeowner, and contractors represented by Home Remedies only pay a commission for any work they secure.

At first, Cohen worked approximately 15 hours to 20 hours per week; she now works about 30 hours per week. Last year, sales for Home Remedies exceeded $100,000. Cohen earns additional income by selling manuals and packages on how to get started in the referral business.

How Unknown Designer Tricked Stars Into Taking Her Purses To Oscar.

2009-01-25T01:04:00.000-08:00

Lauren Merkin Story

http://www.laurenmerkin.com/

It was Friday afternoon, two days before the Oscars, and Lauren Merkin, a little-known New York handbag designer, waited inside her room at the swank Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel, hoping that the $31,000 she had invested in producing a collection of 65 one-of-a-kind "Red Carpet" bags for Hollywood's biggest evening was about to pay off.

Her dream: that a big-name star or her stylist would breeze through the hotel room and select a bag to carry for the Academy Awards.
Bagging a celebrity endorsement is a marketing coup for any business, but a small shop like Ms. Merkin's can be catapulted to the major leagues if a star is photographed wearing the merchandise. In the frenzy of Oscar week, however, dozens of hopefuls -- from tiny shops to designers who are celebrities in their own right -- jostle each other for attention in hopes that a star will deign to wear one of their creations to one of the parties and events.

Breaking into this world costs money: Of the $31,000 Ms. Merkin spent, $13,500 included a fee to have her handbags at a "freebie" gift lounge for celebrities at the Independent Spirit Awards the day before the Oscars. An additional $9,000 went to production of the Red Carpet clutches -- she decided to make a special line of unique bags just for this event; Ms. Merkin's travel and hotel expenses ate up $3,500 and a publicist's travel expenses cost $5,000.

For a small company with roughly $1.4 million in revenue and a staff of four, this was no small investment -- and one that was a gamble. Even if a celebrity or her stylist took one of Ms. Merkin's bags, there was no guarantee she would actually end up toting it Oscar weekend as stars are notorious for being fickle. And even if someone did carry one, they might inadvertently tuck it behind their back or hand it to a publicist to hold while cameras were snapping.

Ms. Merkin was aware of the risks. "If they have your item and are photographed in conjunction with the Oscars, you can't even put a price on that," she said before the awards. And if not? "I'm trying not to think about it."

At 31 years old, Ms. Merkin, who earned an M.B.A. from Columbia University in New York, already has achieved some success with her basic $165 to $575 bags in silk, lambskin, snakeskin and calf hair. The bags are sold on Neimanmarcus.com and at Bergdorf Goodman, and in some 200 smaller boutiques such as Searle.

She got one of her first tastes of how powerful the celebrity connection can be after singer Jessica Simpson was photographed in August carrying one of her leather totes and the image appeared on a fashion Web site crediting Ms. Merkin. The photo was a surprise to Ms. Merkin -- her company hadn't given the bag to Ms. Simpson. Afterward, "we were getting emails from women around the country wanting to know how to get the bag," Ms. Merkin says. "It puts you on the map in a different way."

The business of courting celebrities has grown to the point where some vendors now pay stars to endorse an item -- a luxury Ms. Merkin says is "out of the realm" of what she can afford as a small business. Yet rather than simply doling out her regular bags, she did opt to create a cadre of unique Oscar handbags with fabrics such as organza and antique hand-beaded lace that she hand-picked in Manhattan's garment district.

Having unique bags was a bid to satisfy celebrities' desire to stand out -- and something that bigger designers do as well. This season, for example, Dockers created customized khakis for each presenter at the 2006 Independent Spirit Awards, the edgier sister show to the Oscars that occurs the day before. Shoe designer Stuart Weitzman, meantime, designed footwear adorned with jewels owned by Rita Hayworth for Kathleen York, a best song nominee for "Crash."

Producing a special collection was "a super smart move on Lauren's part," says stylist Robert Verdi, who, among other stars, dresses Eva Longoria of "Desperate Housewives" and who knows Ms. Merkin's work. "When you get the best things for nothing, the next thing you want is an original great thing for nothing."
Ms. Merkin isn't completely new to Hollywood. Mr. Verdi gave one of her bags to Ms. Longoria to wear at the recent Golden Globes awards. Despite the exposure, Ms. Merkin decided the Oscars would be an even greater promotional stage.

The special-edition clutches were the angle Ms. Merkin's publicity firm, Keri Levitt Communications, pushed in the weeks before the Oscars with stylists who guided, or outright decided, what outfits their clients wore that weekend. Ms. Merkin's main publicist, Jill Snowden, sent one of her regular bags to 15 of the top stylists, along with a personal note letting them know about her Oscar collection and hotel room in Los Angeles.

Just picking the right hotel is critical as celebrities and stylists have limited time to canvas all the designers' suites and gift lounges set up around town. At the last minute, Ms. Merkin's team switched to the Peninsula after learning there would be a plethora of stars staying there as well as a "Luxury Lounge" suite offering high-end goods and spa services to celebs, even though her bags weren't included in this particular lounge.

It was a calculated decision that paid off. Soon after arriving at the hotel on Thursday, Ms. Snowden and Ms. Merkin visited Luxury Lounge to chat up representatives from luxury-goods makers who were giving free products to celebrities. One of these representatives offered to direct any celebrities needing a handbag up to Ms. Merkin's suite.

The next day, the two women were talking with a stylist when an unexpected visitor directed from the Luxury Lounge walked in: it was "Desperate Housewives" star Nicollette Sheridan who plays the hit TV show's serial divorcee vixen, Edie Britt. The star, clad in an all-white pantsuit with her young stylist in tow, described her Oscar weekend attire -- a red dress with silver shoes and white gold cuff bracelet, which she planned to wear, among other places, to Elton John's popular party Sunday night.

After a few moments of mulling the creations sprawled across Ms. Merkin's bed, she took one of the designer's favorite, and most expensive, bags in grey/taupe lace. "It's beautiful and antique and chic and different," Ms. Sheridan pronounced.

Even as Ms. Merkin hurriedly packaged the handbag, the anxious stylist was already at the door. "Come on, my sweet," he sang to Ms. Sheridan. "Your broomstick is double-parked." The whole exchange took less thaan 10 minutes but Ms. Merkin and Ms. Snowden were optimistic: landing this "Housewife" would be huge even though they had no guarantee Ms. Sheridan would actually use the bag.

By day's end, four major stylists had visited Ms. Merkin's room and 31 bags had been doled out -- a good start. The most promising Oscar contender: Amy Adams, nominated for best supporting actress in "Junebug," whose stylist stopped by and picked up several bags, though made no promises. While many stylists will borrow and return bags, if a top celebrity wants to keep theirs, the matter of price will be forgotten -- and deducted as a marketing expense.

Saturday morning, the designer and her publicist headed to the Independent Spirit Awards in Santa Monica, where Ms. Merkin's regular handbags, and few Red Carpet ones, were offered free to celebrity award presenters.

The event was a boon for Ms. Merkin, who managed to get her bags into the hands of numerous celebrities, including Naomi Watts, Lisa Kudrow, Rosie Perez and Sienna Miller, as well as several men. Willem Dafoe and Billy Baldwin each snagged one for their wives; Terrence Howard, nominee for best actor in "Hustle & Flow," picked up one for his young daughter.

Every chance she got, Ms. Snowden ensured a photo was snapped, knowing the images could later be sent to the media or posted on the designer's Web site. The biggest coup came when the Independent Spirit Awards' host, comedian Sarah Silverman, was photographed with one of the "Red Carpet" bags.

On Sunday morning, Ms. Merkin and Ms. Snowden flew back to New York to watch the Oscars -- and wait. They were disappointed that Ms. Adams of "Junebug" didn't carry Ms. Merkin's bag. But not long after, Ms. Merkin found an image online of Ms. Sheridan carrying the grey/taupe tote at the Elton John party. Actress Gabrielle Union also was photographed carrying a Merkin bag to the Vanity Fair party.

Total Academy Awards tally: three big names photographed at Oscar-related events with the bags and some 30 other stars given free bags at the Independent Spirit Awards.
Ms. Merkin has no plans to sell the leftover Red Carpet bags, although at retail, they would go for $600 to $1,100. Instead, she will use them as a marketing tool, showing them to retailers to interest them in possibly ordering up a new special collection.

The next step is parlaying the Oscar weekend work into real business. Ms. Merkin will use the celebrity photos to court new retailers. Her public relations firm, meantime, will phone and email their contacts at magazines such as Entertainment Weekly to make them aware of the Oscar images and encourage citations in any post-Oscar packages. The images will also go up on Ms. Merkin's Web site.

"Giving away so much seemed a little out of hand at first," she says. But based on the exposure to celebrities and stylists, "I definitely got my money's worth."

How Sigmund Freud Helped A Man Sell Couches Worth Thousands Of Dollars

2009-01-24T01:04:00.000-08:00

Psychoanalysis, the treatment originated by Sigmund Freud more than a century ago that requires patients to lie on a couch and say whatever comes to mind, has been battered in recent years by everything from antidepressants to skepticism to managed care that doesn't pay for such long-term therapy.

So who in his right mind would want to launch a company that makes psychoanalytic couches?

It takes an entrepreneur who believes that businesses considered antiquated are underserved niches with perhaps more staying power than trendier enterprises. Randall Scott Thomas, a Seattle furniture maker, knows psychoanalysts are a minority among mental health counselors these days. But thousands are either in training or in practice, and many have trouble finding the appropriate couch.

Mr. Thomas, who makes contemporary home and office furniture, has never undergone analysis himself and didn't know what a classic analytic couch looked like until a few years ago. He was approached by Doene Rising, a Seattle analyst who was starting a private practice and couldn't find a couch to her liking at any furniture store. She was familiar with his work and showed him a picture of one that she had found in a magazine -- an armless, backless, chaise-like bench, with a built-in headrest, designed for reclining, not sitting. She told him she wanted something similar. Instead of traditional leather, she wanted cloth upholstery, and chose a deep blue fabric.

"Leather can be cold, and I wanted something inviting, but something classic that said to my patients, 'This isn't for sleeping on, it's for reflecting on,' " Dr. Rising says. She and other analysts believe that when their patients recline and the therapist is sitting out of sight behind them, patients feel freer to explore their fantasies and talk about their deepest, darkest desires and fears. (The technique, of course, has sparked numerous cartoons of analysts asleep in their chairs, while their patients drone on.)

For the 47-year-old Mr. Thomas, the biggest design challenge was refining the angle of the headrest. "You don't need lumbar support when you're lying down, but you do need your shoulders and head supported well," he says. "And you need to be propped up enough that you don't fall asleep or roll over -- or sink into a too-soft cushion."

The completed couch was a hit with Dr. Rising as well as several of her analyst colleagues, who placed orders with Mr. Thomas. Since then, he has designed five styles, ranging in price from $1,550 to $3,080. Most have the same measurement (29 inches wide by 80 inches long) but different upholstery and leg styles.

The recent launch of his Analytic Couch Co. coincides with the biannual meeting of the American Psychoanalytic Association, which starts tomorrow in Seattle. Recognizing a sales and marketing opportunity, Mr. Thomas persuaded the association, which expects about one-third of its 3,300 members to attend, to allow him to exhibit his couches. Until now the association has limited displays at its meetings to books for purchase, "but I thought we should tell our members about more products and services they need, so it seemed like a good idea," says Dean Stein, the group's new executive director.

Mr. Thomas faces some competition. Prestige Furniture & Design Group in New York City's Queens borough, for one, has been making analytic couches for more than 50 years. During the heyday of psychoanalysis in the 1960s and 1970s, when most residents in psychiatry received some analytic training, Prestige sold thousands of couches to medical-supply companies, which in turn sold them to hospitals and psychiatrists. "We had a factory devoted just to this," says 75-year-old Fred Brafman, one of the company's founders.

Prestige still makes six analytic couch models, some of which have been used as props in theater productions and movies. They range in price from $900 to about $6,000, and must be custom ordered. "The demand isn't what it used to be," Mr. Brafman says.

He also has a list of what design features to avoid. Loud or busily designed upholstery, he notes, can distract patients. "One analyst returned a couch once because a patient was seeing faces of animals in the upholstery," Mr. Brafman says. Prestige also no longer makes couches with buttons, "because anxious patients rip them out," he says, or an adjustable headrest model, because the up-and-down lever mechanism broke frequently.

Unlike Analytic Couch, whose designs are more contemporary, Prestige doesn't have a Web site for online orders and it doesn't advertise much. Many analysts say they haven't known where to shop for a couch when furnishing their offices. "We can help analysts find office space and even patients, but it's hard to know where to send them for a couch -- and we get inquiries about this all the time," says Matthew von Umwerth, the librarian at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute who is in training to become an analyst.

Sigmund Freud's famous leather couch, which he draped in colorful Persian carpets, remains the standard bearer -- and it is on display at the Freud Museum in London. He didn't have to shop for it, however, since it was a gift from a patient. His use of it stemmed from his early method of hypnotizing patients. While he thought patients who reclined on a couch would more readily confront their repressed anxieties, he admitted he had a "personal motive....I cannot put up with being stared at by other people for eight hours a day (or more)," he wrote. "Since while I am listening to the patient, I, too, give myself over to...unconscious thoughts, I do not wish my expressions...to influence what the patient tells me."

A couch is just a couch for some analysts, who say they would rather use an ordinary living-room model. When Prudy Gourguechon, a Northfield, Ill., analyst, purchased a custom-designed analytic couch a few years ago, "my patients wouldn't go near it," she says. "It was way too formal, and they missed my ratty old sofa that had a back and made them feel enclosed." She ultimately gave away the classic couch and purchased a standard living-room leather sofa at a department store.

However much they mull what couch to purchase, a bigger decision involves the chair analysts themselves sit in. Anticipating this need, Mr. Thomas has designed a leather armchair that retails for $1,899 and offers, he says, solid back and neck support. "You're sitting all day long, so you better find something very comfortable," says Leon Hoffman, a New York analyst.

Single Mom From Pennsylvania Makes A Living Selling Bookmarks Online

2009-01-23T01:05:00.000-08:00

Diane Waltman story

http://www.creativebookmarks.com/

My business is designing and laminating bookmarks for wedding favors, business promotions, nonprofit organizations, holidays and other special occasions or projects. I design them on my computer, depending on what the customer wants. Then I print and laminate them.

I came up with the idea of a bookmark business because it was a fun way to express my creativity and would require a low investment. Extensive foot surgery forced me to quit my office job a few years ago, and my doctors told me I would be out of work for more than three years. I knew I had to do something while recuperating, so I decided to look into an online business. I researched my competition and found only one Website selling handmade bookmarks.

Within a week, in March 1999, I had started a business. After I researched my idea on the Web, I went to a local business supply company and bought most of my supplies -- a laminating machine, sheets of laminate and paper, ink and special software. Then I got going on my Website. I also checked my state regulations to see what forms I needed to file to make my business legal.

I researched Web design and learned how to build my own site, found a Web host and lined up a merchant account so I could accept credit cards. Then I was ready to market my online business -- probably the most important step.

I began by targeting some likely markets. I knew that my bookmarks would make great wedding favors, so I contacted bridal Websites and had a few list my business in exchange for a free ad in my weekly newsletter or a free link on my Website. I also advertised online in the classifieds and in newsletters from other sites and registered with the search engines. Search engine placement is very important. Offline, I designed fliers to post in local bridal shops. Most of my marketing efforts were free.

How A Man Makes Over 2 Million Dollars A Year... Chasing The Geese Away

2009-01-22T01:06:00.000-08:00

David Marcks Story
http://www.geesepoliceinc.com

David Marcks discovered a lucrative business opportunity when he used his dog to solve a problem that he constantly faced working at a golf course - the proliferation of geese. Geese love to inhabit open spaces that provide them with water and plenty of food (such as short, tender grasses). While adding a "natural look" to golf courses, no one would want to play in a golf course where the grass couldn't be seen under the cover of goose droppings. Imagine wading in the middle of goose droppings to hit a golf ball. Yikes!

David and other fellow golf superintendents tried several approaches. According to David, "We tried everything - sprays, pyrotechnics, flags, fences. Everything worked for a little bit and then it would stop working." Until he discovered that his dog, a Border Collie, was a natural in driving geese away. As he recalls, "It was so successful that I never looked back and we've been doing it ever since."

David started Geese Police in 1986, as the solution to driving away unwanted geese from town parks, corporate properties, golf courses, or even front lawns. Using trained border collies, they drive away the geese without harming them. Today, Geese Police has considerably grown and expanded, earning just under $2 million in 2000. David has also begun to franchise his business to a highly selected group of individuals.

About fourteen years ago, David Marcks never thought that chasing geese as a way to keep his hyperactive dog busy could become a lucrative business.

David, then 23 years old, was working as a golf course superintendent in Greenwich, Connecticut. As he recalls, "I had a problem with 600 geese residing on the golf course." They tried several options: goose-repellent chemicals that don't always work, to streamers or other "goose-frightening" props that altered the appearance of the golf course. Killing or injuring the birds was out of the question.

At the same time, he got his first Border collie. After trying various approaches unsuccessfully, he stumbled on the idea that he could perhaps train his dog to drive off the geese. "I contacted the American Border Collie Association, told them about what I want to train the dog to do and they thought I was a lunatic."

It worked! As David proudly recalls, "Once I had my dog for 6-8 weeks, I didn't have any geese on my golf course. Of course my neighboring golf courses suffered greatly because all the geese went someplace else."

With the geese gone, however, a new problem popped up. David had a new problem: what will he do with the dog?

"What nobody told me when I got my dog was that border collies make lousy pets. Now we had this highly intelligent working breed dog with nothing to do. She was driving me crazy. She was chasing squirrels, rabbits, golf balls, etc. Once I had a little irrigation break on a green, and she was being difficult, more so that particular day, so I put her in my office. I left for 20 minutes, and went down to the golf course and checked on the problem. When I came back, she ate my office - I mean literally -- my desk, the chair, the garbage can, and three sets of computer cables."
While some may have gotten rid of the dog, David thought otherwise. "I know she was a great dog; but she just needed to be kept busy."

What David did next laid the ground for Geese Police. He offered the services of his dog to herd away the geese in neighboring golf courses, with no charge for the service. After all, it was simply a way to keep his dog busy.

"I asked the neighboring golf course if they had any problems with geese. So I brought my dog and introduced her, and asked if I could possibly stop by every morning before work, during lunch and after work to herd the geese off the golf course. They agreed. So that's what I did. Everyday, I dropped by before going to work, then came back during lunch break and after work and herd the geese off another golf course."

Four to six weeks later, the neighboring golf course didn't have any geese on their property. So David was back to square one. His dog had again nothing to do. "She was being a menace and I have to look around for something for her to do."

Word about David and his dog started to spread among golf course operators in Connecticut. Another superintendent was playing in the neighboring golf course that David and his dog serviced. With the noticeable absence of geese, he asked the superintendent whatever happened to the geese. The superintendent replied, as David recalls, "Oh you've got to see it. This kid comes down and he has this dog. They come down here and drive away the geese."

The guy called up David and said, "I'd pay you to chase the geese off my golf course." That started Geese Police.

While Geese Police started in the golf course sector, David says that, "Golf courses are now just about 5% of my business. The majority of my business now, about 90%, are corporate parks and playgrounds - corporate and township properties."

David continued working as a golf course superintendent, while squeezing in his business on the side. Word soon spread about his services, "Next thing you know, word got out; I never advertised." He was soon doing 3 or 4 golf courses. However, he was faced with the difficulty in balancing his work with the responsibility to his customers.

"What was happening was that I couldn't get to all of them during my lunch break. Sometimes in the morning, it was taking me too long to get through them and I didn't want to be late for my job. So what I started to do was I hired a retired old guy who used to come in the middle of the day and come take my dog for my jobs - going before work and after work."

Dave then moved down to New Jersey, working in the county park system for the next three years while doing Geese Police on the side. He then had three employees. During this time, the business has been operating without a formal legal structure.
Until someone asked him for insurance.

"I was doing a job at that time for Bell Telephones and someone asked me for an insurance certificate. I said, "Why do I need insurance? I've got a dog; I run around your yard."

David realized that he needed to establish the legal entity of his business and all the attendant requirements including insurance, if he wants to continue tapping big companies as his clientele.

"That's when it all became a little bit more serious and it became The Geese Police, the company. After several years, I just went from Geese Police the company to Geese Police Incorporated on the advice of lawyers and accountants. Things started picking up, and they advised me that I should really incorporate. So it changed into a corporation."

Fourteen years after, Geese Police has remained at the forefront of the industry that it pioneered. David proudly announces, "Right now, we have 27 trucks on the road. We own 32 dogs. We service throughout the state of New Jersey and parts of New York -- and that's just for my main office here. We also have franchise offices now in Chicago, Virginia and Maryland, and an affiliated office in Seattle, Washington."