Business Opportunities Weblog

   

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fake Limes And A Flash Of Inspiration
The BBQ Cleaner
Storm Chasing Tourism
Niche Mobile: Showers
Wedding Invitations That Look Like Rock Concert Posters
Lice Removal is Still Big Business

Scientific Cooking Bizops
Entrepreneur turns old Sails into Messenger Bags
Niche: Rainbow Roses
Niche Invention: Bheestie Bag
Dog Bowls Built From A Pet’s Perspective
Today in Entrepreneurial History: March 5
Without a Pulse: New Mechanical Heart
When to Leave: App Combines Maps, Traffic, and Your Calendar
Now You Can Buy Your House At Ikea, Too
4 Ways Inbound Marketing Can Save Inside Sales
Fake Limes And A Flash Of Inspiration

Posted: 05 Mar 2013 11:57 AM PST



According to Entrepreneur.com, as owner of Moman Sales, a South Florida specialist in plastic flowers, what Matt Moman knows is fake flora.

In June 2007, Moman was on a business trip to San Francisco, checking out the latest in nature’s plastics, when he hit on the citrus creations of Winward International. The lemons and limes looked and felt so real, Moman was convinced there had to be another way to market them.

A few days later, back home sipping a beer, it came to him: The limes would be a perfect match for the Corona brand.

Enter “the limer,” or as it is officially known, the New Corona Extra Lime Bottle Opener. It’s a simple gizmo: a bottle opener embedded in a plastic lime, with a built-in magnet made for sticking to the fridge.

Yet, it’s irresistible–it cups perfectly in the palm of your hand, it effortlessly pops the cap and, with a little practice, you can even catch the cap on the magnet.

Moman began making crude prototypes in his garage, then asked Winward, of Union City, Calif., to help with the project. “We went back and forth and determined what we wanted, and I went ahead and filed for a patent,” he says.

  

The BBQ Cleaner

Posted: 05 Mar 2013 11:57 AM PST



If you enjoy working outdoors, but don’t like plants enough to be a gardener, then maybe the BBQ cleaning business is for you?

Anyone can take a sponge and a pail and say they are in the barbecue cleaning business. But The BBQ Cleaner offers a complete mobile business system that will help you start and run your own business or add this service to your existing business. Included in the turnkey The BBQ Cleaner business opportunity is a fully-outfitted trailer that contains the total cleaning system and fully-developed, professionally-created marketing materials.



  

Storm Chasing Tourism

Posted: 05 Mar 2013 11:56 AM PST



I’m from California and we have earthquakes. It’s just part of living here for me, but I’m sure that people in the midwest are frightened by the idea. I know how they feel. Their tornados scare me.

But, do tornados excite you? Have you ever wanted to chase a storm?

Two of the world’s best storm enthusiasts have created their own severe weather intercept expedition tourism company. That’s a mouthful, but I’m sure that it’s a more exciting tour than I’ve ever been on.

Where else can you:

Collect 4” hail
See sixteen tornados in one day!
Silver Lining Tours is owned and operated by two of the world’s most respected storm chasers, Dr. David Gold and Roger Hill. We combine our years of experience and storm chasing expertise with our state-of-the-art technology to produce consistently excellent results year after year. We are totally dedicated to making sure that you have the most rewarding and exciting storm chasing vacation that money can buy

  

Niche Mobile: Showers

Posted: 05 Mar 2013 11:56 AM PST



What happens when the closest shower is 60 miles away? Start a business that would allow you to bring the showers to the people who want them.

Reason.com:

Evan Jensen, 18, and his brother Justin were looking for work in the oil fields of western North Dakota after high school graduation.

The boom of temporary workers had attracted food carts and other mobile businesses, but the closest shower was a truck stop 60 miles away. The boys were sleeping in a pickup truck and getting pretty rank, by their own account. They didn’t find employment in the oil fields, but Evan Jensen headed home with a big idea: mobile showers for filthy oil workers.

Photo by Spring Dew

  

Wedding Invitations That Look Like Rock Concert Posters

Posted: 05 Mar 2013 11:56 AM PST


Seattle Times:

Like many brides and bridegrooms, Katie Mercurio and Jeremy Geddis had specific ideas about their wedding.

No pink. Lots of lavender. Traditional Seattle food and ingredients.

And rock-poster invitations.

For that, they turned to Seattle-based designer Matt Terich, who makes wedding-poster invitations, on top of his poster work for bands and his day job as a user-interface designer for a startup company.

Other designers and printers shy away from the wedding business, Terich said, because emotions can run high and personal tastes may be tricky to satisfy.

Fortunately, Terich found the majority of his clients to be more easygoing than he’d expected.

Terich got the idea for his quirky side business in 2005, at a poster convention. A couple approached him, wanting to know if he’d be interested in making their invitations. The designer agreed. He’s gone on to make eight or nine posters for weddings, and that’s without promoting the side business.

The invitations are more like event posters than traditional wedding invitations, describing the date and location of the wedding as if it were a long-anticipated concert. The posters can come in a variety of sizes, up to 19 by 25 inches, depending on the client’s need, Terich said.

So far, the most difficult part of the job has been explaining to people why they can’t just buy one poster (with the cost of printing and supplies, clients must buy a minimum of 50), but Terich loves making wedding posters because the clients are often more enthusiastic than musicians.

Photo by Matt Terich.

  

Lice Removal is Still Big Business

Posted: 05 Mar 2013 09:07 AM PST



EaganPatch:

It’s a lousy job, but somebody has to do it. Meet Paula Salas, a professional nitpicker.

Salas is the owner of Kooty Katchers, a lice removal company. After months of in-home appointments, she opened a bricks-and-mortar location in November. Her office is tucked into a discreet office park on Southcross Drive West, at the end of a long stairway. Once inside, Kooty Katchers looks much like a hair salon, with bright paintings on the walls, an abundance of People Magazines and what seems to be a typical stylist’s chair.

Then Salas gets down to business. She straps on a headlamp and turns on two high powered lights. Her weapon?: The Terminator, a heavy duty stainless steel comb specially designed to smoke out her foe—the creepy, crawly, ever-present louse.

  

Scientific Cooking Bizops

Posted: 05 Mar 2013 08:53 AM PST



Daily Freeman:

Milk, eggs, cheese, tomatoes, transglutaminase, sodium citrate…

It may not sound like the last grocery list you wrote, but the growing appeal of so-called modernist cooking — a science-tastic take on haute cuisine — has more home cooks adding laboratory-worthy ingredients and gizmos to their shopping. And that, of course, has spawned a mini-niche of online companies selling everything you need to play culinary alchemist at home.

At least a half-dozen companies now sell once-elusive ingredients like sodium citrate to emulsify cheeses into creamy sauces, “popping sugar” that explodes in your mouth, and “meat glue” — transglutaminase — to create dishes like tilapia spaghetti (that is, “spaghetti” made from tilapia). Alongside traditional equipment like cookie sheets and hand mixers, you can purchase pipettes to create “caviar” from various liquids or smoke torches that infuse smoke flavor into dishes without heating them up.

  

Entrepreneur turns old Sails into Messenger Bags

Posted: 05 Mar 2013 08:46 AM PST



Macleans:

It’s a chilly midwinter day in Lunenburg, N.S., and the furnace at the Windbag Company has stopped working. Bundled in a down jacket, surrounded by piles of crinkled sailcloth, Pauline Dickison is wandering through her store, telling stories. This notebook cover? Made from an old sail retrieved from the tall ship SV Concordia before it sank off the coast of Brazil in 2010. That messenger bag? Covered in sailcloth from Tekema, a 22-foot, Ontario-built boat that still sails, happily, from a local yacht club.

This entrepreneur’s story starts in late 2006, when a huge storm slammed into the picturesque Maritime town and the large plastic tent that sheltered Dickison’s boat was swept away. “Suddenly, the boat was bare and the tent was in the trees,” she says.

From the ruined material, she and a friend sewed bags to give as Christmas presents. By spring, she was selling them at a local garden centre, and Dickison knew she was going to run out of tent. “I thought, ‘What’s another tough material that could use another life?’ And then it dawned on me. Sails.”

  

Niche: Rainbow Roses

Posted: 05 Mar 2013 07:38 AM PST



Are you a florist? Do you need a product to differentiate you from all of the other flower shops in your community? Have you heard about rainbow roses?

Rainbow roses, the brainchild of Dutch flower shop owner Peter Van de Werken, are colorful roses that are made by injecting die into the stem of the roses while they are still growing. This results in the color being drawn up and absorbed by the petals of the flower.

Video after the jump.




  

Niche Invention: Bheestie Bag

Posted: 05 Mar 2013 07:38 AM PST



Karen Wildman and Lisa Holmes were constantly battling malfunctioning electronics due to moisture and water damage. The sisters set out to invent a solution. and they did! Their new product, Bheestie Bag, is designed to ‘dry out’ electronic devices: cell phones, iPods, etc. We previously mentioned them here.

Here’s how it works. You simply take the electronic device, turn it off, drop it in the Bheestie Bag and zip seal it tight. You can do it overnight, or immediately after an ‘accident.’ It contains powerful water absorbing beads that physically bond with the water, holding it inside of them. It pulls the moisture out! The bag can last up to a year for everyday use or less if used for extreme soaking.

I recently had a chance to ask the sisters some questions.

Where’d the idea come from?

Karen had the initial idea. Her son’s Gameboy got wet and she had some experience with trying to keep her hearing aids dry (she has a hearing loss). She applied that knowledge to the gameboy and that was the beginning of Bheestie. We both grew up in Oregon – skiing, water sports and general outdoor activity was a huge part of our family’s life. Lisa’s married, 2 children, a triathlete and her education/work background is in business/accounting. Karen is married, 3 children, and is a nurse. We both love exploring new innovative solutions to everyday problems.

Where can you buy the Bheestie Bag?

Bheestie has been available online for about 2 years now. We sell it on our website bheestie.com for $20. Its also available in REI, online and in their stores. We are in other retail stores via our distributor.

  

Dog Bowls Built From A Pet’s Perspective

Posted: 05 Mar 2013 07:38 AM PST




For Jane Grant, creating the perfect dog bowl meant not only making her dog happy but helping dogs all over the world, according to her article on Sky News.

Travelling worldwide with work, I searched in vain for a bowl that would make it easy for my family dog to eat with less mess and less noise.

So I created one from a pet’s perspective, investing my own cash alongside a grant from Invest NI.

Working out designs with the University of Ulster and TrufflePig, we had a brainwave. Why not create a stand that tilts the bowl at the best angle for feeding?

The bowl “hugx” the floor eliminating normal mess. It can be used even if pets are wearing a veterinary collar.

Hugx bowls are clean, hygienic and assist owners tackling pet obesity by allowing owners to change the depth of the bowl.

Finance is a big issue when you’re starting up a company. My marketing budget was small, so I only sold online and then went out to trade shows in Germany with Invest NI and UK Trade & Investment (UKTI).

We were getting feedback online from Germany, Japan and America, so we started looking at trade shows in those areas. Within seven months, Dubai Duty Free and Bahrain Duty free were stocking our products.

In the same trip, we revisited a trade show in the USA and scored sales and secured a distributor.

Now we export to USA, Japan, Germany, France, Egypt, Canada, Dubai and Bahrain and we’re in discussions with Portugal and Russia.

Photo from Hugx

  

Today in Entrepreneurial History: March 5

Posted: 05 Mar 2013 07:38 AM PST



1496 – King Henry VII of England issues letters patent to John Cabot and his sons, authorizing them to explore unknown lands.
1836 – Samuel Colt makes the first production-model revolver, the .34-caliber.
1872 – George Westinghouse patents the air brake.
1975 – First meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club
1981 – The ZX81, a pioneering British home computer, is launched by Sinclair Research and would go on to sell over 1.5 million units around the world.
The American version of the the ZX81 was the Timex Sinclair 1000: my first computer!

  

Without a Pulse: New Mechanical Heart

Posted: 05 Mar 2013 07:38 AM PST



Popular Science:

A transplantable heart, alas, is an increasingly rare find. It has to come from a person who is in the blush of good health and also, somehow, dead. As cars have gotten safer and states have passed laws requiring seatbelts and motorcycle helmets, the number of such hearts has dwindled. The need for hearts, on the other hand, has grown with the world’s population and the conquering of other diseases. And even when a heart is found, patients face the risk of tissue rejection.

Building a heart that mimics nature’s lub-dub may be as comically shortsighted as Leonardo da Vinci designing a flying machine with flapping wings. Nature is not always the best designer, at least when it comes to things that humans must build and maintain. So the newest artificial heart doesn’t imitate the cardiac muscle at all. Instead, it whirs like a little propeller, pushing blood through the body at a steady rate. After 500 million years of evolution accustoming the human body to blood moving through us in spurts, a pulse may not be necessary. That, in any case, is the point of view of the 50-odd calves, and no fewer than three human beings, who have gotten along just fine with their blood coursing through them as evenly as Freon through an air conditioner.

Photo by GrandeDuc/ShutterStock.

  

When to Leave: App Combines Maps, Traffic, and Your Calendar

Posted: 05 Mar 2013 07:38 AM PST

when

Forbes:

Seattle and Bay Area-based developers and entrepreneurs Justin Wilcox (CTO of Nimbus Health) and Ondrej Hrebicek (CTO of Syncplicity) devoted 24 consecutive hours to building [Bounce][7], a hybrid of your location, upcoming calendar events and real-time traffic data (provided by [Bing’s Routes API][8]) to notify you exactly when it’s time to leave for your next appointment. Bounce simply integrates your calendar events and provides and optional warning up to 60 minutes before you need to leave, with the option to include configurable “just in case” time for extra needs such as parking, gathering up your kids, etc.

  

Now You Can Buy Your House At Ikea, Too

Posted: 05 Mar 2013 07:38 AM PST

Ideabox:

Introducing aktiv, the first in a new line of houses designed by ideabox and appointed by IKEA. Swedish inspired, wide open living, functional, no wasted space, and full of personality! It’s a house designed to live in… with all the fun.

The 745 square foot homes go for $86.5K. Just hope you don’t have to put it together with a single allen wrench and their instruction-less directions.










  

4 Ways Inbound Marketing Can Save Inside Sales

Posted: 04 Mar 2013 10:29 PM PST



The following is a guest post by Stephanie King.

What is the gold standard for B2B companies when referred to sales and marketing? – It is the combination of outside sales, inside sales and marketing.

For most of the B2B companies doing inbound marketing is more or less difficult. But then again for many, inside sales means cold calling. When we talk of cold calling we know, it is the complete antithesis about inbound marketing.

Therefore, what does a company should do? – Do not mix the inbound marketing with inside sales. Rather try to understand and generate sales from the inbound marketing techniques.

You bother about attracting people with great content and then you just follow them up, pestering them over the phone. With that thing said here, you need to make out a proper reason to keep the structure of your sales and marketing departments, the same before.

Here you will get to know the 4 ways to change the inside sales conversion to align with inbound marketing activities.

Right Set of Conversion at Right Place
If you are calling a prospect for the first time, then meet her wherever she left off with your marketing content. You need to start from the scratch and interact in a manner like the one she has not done before. The risk of doing all the trust building is done alone by the content. Use the content as the starting place. You need to kick off the conversation with a thought provoking question. Like the last thing, probably your prospect might have given a read.

Start the conversation saying, “I am curious”: Are you able to identify which other manufacturing owners talked about in that ‘X’ topic: are they for me?

Try To Be An Educational Resource
Is your prospect still standing in the gathering phase? If you are going to call her make sure that you keep on adding value to their decision making process. Look for the content that is able to build the resource for your site, share those articles or blog on your website. You can offer the email option so that readers can solve their queries reading the interesting post.

Push The Company To Become The Next Content Brand
Companies are their which pours significant energy in some of their articles. When they finally reach out to those new leads, via thrilling contents, those leads are often excited to hear from them. A good example to cite here is HubSpot, their VP of sales shares that when they contacted their readers over the phone, and yes, they were eager to receive it. The readers have followed the stuff for so long. It seemed that everyone wanted to talk to the HubSpot personnel.

Behave Like A Consultant
If your product is able to solve the problem of the customers then you must obviously know two or more things about the problems. Use those things that you need to reach out the customers. Ask the current customers what their immediate needs are, and send your prospects a quick message sharing the recommendations. Your observations are the starting point of discussion. Look through your prospects Facebook page and look out if there is something that needs tweaking.

What Says The Conclusion?

In my opinion, B2B marketing is making changes towards the online arena, but that does not mean you will discontinue the inside sales efforts. Inside sales teams are the important extension of the B2B marketing teams. Mostly when you implement the advanced automation features, like closed loop marketing system.

Note: The old way of structure marketing and sales teams may not be continuing for a long time. There are organizations that have started bringing outside sales teams to turn inside sales into market teams. If you are a B2B marketer, make sure to connect with leads further down the funnel and it may be advantageous to transfer ownership of the sales teams from outside sales to marketing.

Stephanie King is the freelance writer and develops high-end web content for various internet-marketing agencies. She is also the private consultant to call centers in the US and helps them to distinguish between inbound marketing and inside sales to get higher conversion rates.