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

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


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 But the days of the independent pet store are over--and nearly all small shops have been replaced by category-dominating stores like Petco and Petsmart.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.

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Millionaires Who Started Out With Nothing-Effective Business Ideas

Millionaires Who Started Out With Nothing

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.

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Why Small Houses Can Make Your Rich?

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 To Make Money With Unwanted Mattrasses.

Homebusiness Millionaires: Jennifer Gonzales and John Gonzales

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.

Hats - Business And Million Money idea

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."

How To Make Millions With Fishing Or -Fishing Lures Go High-Tech

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.

http://4businesshomeideas.blogspot.com




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

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.


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A Billionaire Junk Man?Junk Effective Business Idea

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?"

When Thinking Small Can Make You Rich-One Effective Business Idea Story

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.

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CrazyMenu - How To Make Big Money On Group Dining

http://www.crazymenu.com

Anyone who's ever taken on the tedious task of tallying up the office lunch order or asking around to get consensus on which restaurant to go to or order from is bound to love the simplicity and convenience of Crazymenu—a new online venture that provides tools to help friends, colleagues and officemates efficiently and easily get their lunch plans in order so they can spend the bulk of their lunch hours actually eating lunch!

As with many other dining websites out there, customers can log on to search for restaurants in their area or browse menus, coupons or reviews. But Crazymenu distinguishes itself by featuring a couple of hot new tools to ease the dining or takeout experience. With Pick-A-Place, a member can send out restaurant suggestions to a group of people, who then vote right from their computers, streamlining the democratic process. The Group Order function lets everyone enter their customizable orders and then compiles them to be faxed, emailed or phoned in to the restaurant. Both functions work via email and with major instant messenger applications. What's more, restaurant owners and operators can get in on the action, too, uploading and editing menus as needed, and replying personally to member reviews. Crazymenu claims it can boost business orders by as much as 400 percent. Currently in beta, the site is supported by Google ads, with obvious potential for restaurateurs, travel agencies and the like to buy ad space as well.

Crazymenu serves more than a dozen major cities in the United States, Canada and Europe, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Toronto, London and Paris. While the concept was designed with lunches in mind, customers can take advantage of these tools to coordinate any meal or restaurant outing. It's an idea that's likely to be at hit in any city where hungry officemates are scrambling to make lunch or happy hour plans.

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Grownups Like To Play Too- Funny Business Idea

http://www.playdateatl.com

When it comes to meeting new people, children tend to have the right idea: just start playing, and everything will be fine. Turns out that premise can work with grownups too, as Play Date Atlanta can attest.

Launched two years ago, Play Date Atlanta has created an alternative to the typical club scene by offering Atlanta-area singles and couples a chance to meet one another in a casual atmosphere focused on playing games. No high pressure, no awkward introductions; rather, participants in Play Date Atlanta's monthly events just roll up their sleeves and enter into a little friendly competition. The games available span the spectrum from Monopoly and Yahtzee to Hungry Hungry Hippos and Musical Chairs. The setting is a function room in a local Crowne Plaza hotel, and food and drinks complete the picture. Participants pay a USD 10 entrance fee, which includes free parking.

The concept was created by Atlanta-based Green Light Entertainment, which hopes to bring the Play Date movement to other cities, too. Time to start facilitating grown-up play dates in your own neck of the woods? Let the games begin.

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Test-Driving Your Dream Job-Uncommon Business Idea

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.

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How To Make Millions Selling Diamonds For 99 Cents

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."

Indigenous Designs Success Story

http://indigenousdesigns.com
When Scott Leonard launched Indigenous Designs 14 years ago and told people he was importing fair trade, organic clothing, he was met with blank stares. "At that point, people barely understood what organic food meant, let alone organic clothing," he says.

Today, with $4 million in revenue and distributors like Whole Foods and the Sundance catalog, the Santa Rosa, California-based company is working in a different market. "People want to put consumer dollars where it counts--for their own [well-being] and a better planet," Leonard says.

Leonard's inspiration for the company came from a trip he took to Ecuador in the early '90s, during which a friend introduced him to a women's fair trade knitting cooperative. Because of their outdated tools and inability to access quality fabrics or high-end designs, the women were being paid a fraction of what their talent was worth. As a result, many of them couldn't break free of the poverty cycle. Leonard, 40, who owned a surf shop at the time, changed gears, determined to create a company that could both earn a profit and help women like those he met in Ecuador.

Since then, Leonard and partner Matt Reynolds, 40, have teamed up with nongovernmental organizations in Ecuador, Guatemala, India and Peru. Through the NGOs, Indigenous Designs works with more than 300 knitting cooperatives of women who sew, crochet and knit sweaters, casualwear and accessories. Part of Leonard's job is to determine the groups' skills and match them with designs created by his team in California: "Our design mantra is ‘Never let a customer feel like they're sacrificing quality or fashion sense to be a good global citizen.'"

Fabrics are sourced within 400 miles of each cooperative and are created using sustainable, natural materials. The knitting groups are given training and proper needles. While Leonard says shipping and quality control increase the costs of running his company, it's still competitive because he sells to high-end retailers. "At the heart of Indigenous is a truly symbiotic relationship," says Leonard, "one that mutually benefits all three parties: the consumer, the employee and the planet."


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Broken Teeth Lead To An Unusual Business

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.”

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How Any 13 Year Old Kid Can Become A Millionaire- Effective Business Idea For Young People

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.

Profiting From The Disabled-Strange Business Idea Story

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.

Reselling Old Mannequins- A Great Business Idea? Yes It Is.

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.

Spoofcard.Com - Spoof It An Easy Way

http://www.spoofcard.com/

If you've ever made or received a call using a calling card, you've probably noticed one of the side effects of these payment systems: instead of your number showing up on the recipient's Caller ID screen, a number owned by the card's issuer appears. Now a company called SpoofCard has decided to capitalize on this discrepancy by selling calling cards that are specifically designed to spoof Caller ID systems.

For about 17 cents a minute, SpoofCard lets you send any numeric string as your Caller ID code. The service goes even further, providing realtime voice-changing capabilities and call recording. Although SpoofCard's Privacy Policy specifies that the service shouldn't be used for illegal activities and that the company reserves the right to hand over your personal info if they're subpoenaed, we won't be surprised to see this shut down soon. In the meantime, here's your chance to really confuse those wiretappers.

Why Some Lost Election Made Man A Multimillionaire

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

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 your clients get $750 million worth of grants and new contracts.

How To Make Millions Cleaning Other People Garages-An Effective Business Idea

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.

Ten Million Dollars From Console Skins

Ten Million Dollars From Console Skins

http://gamergraffix.com/

Gamer Graffix, a manufacturer of stick-on decals for videogame consoles, started out selling its own designs before landing licensing deals with Nintendo and Sony. With new "skins" based on game-giant characters such as Donkey Kong, the Providence-based company (gamergraffix.com) doubled revenues to $10 million in 2006.

Founder Chris White, now 41, was running a toy importer five years ago when an intern showed him how a decal had ruined the finish on his PlayStation. White spent eight months developing an adhesive that let stickers be removed and reapplied.

A Successful Second Life Entrepreneur-What Does It really Mean?

How To Become A Successful Second Life Entrepreneur
http://secondlife.com/

In the simulated world of Second Life, in which 9.6 million "residents" or registered users create the world around them, standing out is paramount.

"I have 500 different skins," says Arikinui Adria, a virtual fashion designer who is referring to various looks that can be worn by her "avatar," a character that she and anyone who registers for Second Life can create. "Just like real people change their lipstick to match their outfits, I change my hair style, my hair color and my skins to match mine."

Armed with a graphic-design tool and image-editing software, Adria creates fashions for herself and for sale in her virtual store, Nuclear Boutique, from which she earns between $1,500 and $3,500 each month. Granted, the real life 39-year-old Cocoa, Fla., resident who asked that her real name not be used, says, "I'm not making the millions Ralph Lauren is making." But the fact that a population of avatars admires her design skills is rewarding, she says.

In Second Life, "you can do anything you want, create anything you want and be whoever you want to be," says Daniel Terdiman, author of "The Entrepreneur's Guide to Second Life," which is due out in November. Since the fantasy word's inception in 2003 people have gotten married, taken classes, thrown parties, watched movies, gone shopping, built homes — and now, they're testing their entrepreneurial mettle. What makes Second Life so unusual compared to many other interactive 3D games (such as those played on Microsoft's Xbox) is that the virtual society uses a currency and thus an economy has begun to take shape.

Second Life poses a big opportunity for entrepreneurs, says Terdiman. "It is a virtual world in which personal expression is important," he says. Since there is no limit to what people can create, he estimates that "several hundred thousand consumers" will likely want to spend money on the latest designs for anything from vehicles that fly to enhanced body parts.

Entering the "metaverse" — a term used to describe immersive 3D virtual spaces such as Second Life — may not make much business sense for every would-be digital entrepreneur as it takes the same amount of hard work and stamina as owning a real-world business. But for those with an eye for design and technological acumen to boot, taking a second look at virtual worlds might, in fact, be worth the effort.

A Primer on Second Life

In 2006, according to demographers from Linden Lab, the San Francisco-based creator of Second Life, more than $93 million worth of transactions took place in Second Life. Additionally, in the last 12 months 2,082 entrepreneurs selling anything from cars and fashion accessories to parcels of their own private island made $20,000 or more. And just last month, 1,615 resident-business owners earned $1,000 to $2,000 and another 1,058 earned between $2,000 and $5,000.

Getting a Second Life is free. However, a computer, Second Life software, and a high-speed Internet connection are generally necessary for optimal use. A premium membership in which users can buy land and receive a weekly stipend is also available for $9.95 a month. The currency, known as "Linden" dollars, may be purchased using a credit card and earned during the game. Lindens can then be converted into real dollars via online currency exchanges.

Virtual worlds including Second Life and "World of Warcraft," an online role-playing game, are receiving massive inflows of money. According to a recent report about technology trends in small businesses from Intuit, it's estimated that more than $200 million real-world dollars are funneled through virtual worlds each month.

And entrepreneurs like Elizabeth Foshion, are capitalizing on the trend. Four years ago, Foshion, or "Surreal Farber" as she's known in Second Life, and her business partner entered the virtual community as content creators. "We started making stuff for ourselves and people liked it," she says. From there, the two invested in their own island, which today might cost $1,675, plus a $295 monthly maintenance fee.

Inspired by various works of science fiction, they named their island "Chaos" and turned it into a sci-fi fun land complete with underground tunnels and a similarly themed store, "Phobos 3D Design," where residents can buy wardrobe essentials such as a pair of metallic cyber-punk boots and textured T-shirts. At Chaos, Foshion says, "we have alien eggs that are willing to abduct you." Sales from the store, she says, take place in Lindens and range anywhere from five cents to $15 U.S. Every three months, the store brings in about $8,000 to $10,000.

The potential that virtual worlds hold for entrepreneurs is unmistakable, says Edward Castronova, an associate professor of telecommunications at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. Entrepreneurs "may not make money, but they would certainly have their eyes open to a new technology" that may play a key role in future forms of commerce and the way humans interact for years to come, he says.

Virtual Merchandising 101

And it's not just about selling virtual goods and services. Both large and small firms are looking at virtual worlds as one more venue to pitch real-world merchandise to consumers. 1-800-Flowers, for example, is considering selling real-world floral arrangements through its virtual store. (Currently, flower shoppers have to exit Second Life to order bouquets.) And Sears Holdings offers Second Life residents the opportunity to purchase real merchandise via a link to its web site within its virtual store on IBM Island.

According to the Intuit report, more than 100 small businesses offer e-commerce options within Second Life. One of them is I Want One Of Those Ltd., a U.K.-based site that sells items from multiple retailers, which offers an e-commerce option within its store in Second Life on IWOOT Island.

Some real-world businesses, however, have found the efforts haven't paid off. American Apparel shuttered its virtual doors in May 2007, after about a year of operation. "Linden Lab has left the door wide open to creativity, but it's not without limitations," says Raz Schionning, director of American Apparel's web services. In Second Life, there's a "limit on the number of avatars (visitors) who could be in the store at the same time," he says. "We sold more virtual products than we expected, but it clearly wasn't going to compare to the channels we already use, such as retail stores or online stores."

Some companies are looking at Second Life — and other virtual worlds such as "There" and "Gaia Online" — as a place to build brand awareness rather than sell products. Millions Of Us, a San Francisco consulting firm, often advises companies on marketing techniques in virtual worlds. "We are not necessarily creating stuff," says Reuben Steiger, chief executive of Millions Of Us. "It is much more about creating experiences on Second Life."

For example, Millions of Us recently helped Warner Bros. Entertainment and the CW Television Network launch a "Virtual Upper East Side" in Second Life to gain publicity and create enthusiasm for the television show "Gossip Girl." The idea, says Steiger, was to mimic New York's Upper East Side neighborhood where "viewers of the show can hang out with the avatars of the cast members and ask them questions."

Even for small businesses the virtual marketing strategy is simple, says Steiger. Consider your customers and their respective needs. People in Second Life, who are essentially living in a fantasy world, respond to experiences rather than repurposed everyday advertisements. To gain their attention, and consequently their business, Steiger recommends providing experiences instead. And like any business, he added: "The key to success is to make something really great."

Top 11 The Most Effective Home Business Ideas

Accounting Home Business

Start an Accounting Business and work for businesses & individuals preparing their financial reports, accounts receivable/payable, payroll, tax planning and preparing financial forms.

If you are a Certified Public Accountant, you can charge more for your work, as your level of education and expertise are higher.

You should be very comfortable working with numbers, and be detail-oriented. Organization is a must.You'll need a fax machine, copier and computer with spreadsheet, word processing and database software. An adding machine is also useful for tallying up receipts.

Additional software and reference books, such as the yearly tax guide, will also be needed depending on the range of services you will provide.

Auctions: Sell on eBay and Other Online Auctions

If you like garage sales, resell shops, flea markets, or estate sales, chances are that you will LOVE shopping on eBay! So if you've never spent any time on eBay, do it now! (Might want to pour yourself a cup of coffee and relax, it's addictive!)

eBay selling can be done at any time, place, or on any day of the week. All it takes is an internet connection to your PC, and the desire to work from home (and who wouldn't want to work at home?)Selling on eBay and other online auctions has become a hugely popular way for stay at home moms to earn a little extra income, and many moms earn a substantial income from their auction sales.You can start by just looking around your house at items you don't want or need anymore (my favorite items to sell are infant/children clothing, and they sell *very* well!)

Think in terms of having a garage sale. Items that you might consider selling in a garage sale may be just the things to get started with on eBay.

Home-based Professional Alterations and Seamstress Service

If you know how to, and enjoy sewing, put your talent to work sewing items or offer repair and alteration services.Often, cheer leading squads and drill teams will use an alteration service to make small changes to the girls' uniforms.You could even sew draperies, curtains, tablecloths, quilts, pillowcases and sheets, costumes, doll clothes, or make cloth labels for children's clothing. You might want to design and sew original items such as tote bags for the beach, diaper bags, overnight duffle bags, or infant and kid's clothing.

Word of mouth will get you a ton of business!

Professional Pet Grooming Service

Pet Grooming can be a very profitable business, because most people are willing to pay well for someone to groom their pet while being sensitive to the pet's behavior and needs.You'll need to have a love of taking care of the grooming needs of pets, as well as a lot of patience, and practical knowledge about the animal's anatomy, depending upon what type of animal you choose to provide services for.You will need to be experienced or willing to take courses to learn proper pet grooming techniques, and how to use the equipment.Other areas you'll need to think about will be purchasing equipment, having the proper space for a grooming service, and cleanliness and hygiene issues.

Start a Home-Based

Answering Service

As small business owners are quickly learning, outsourcing their answering service needs to a home-based answering service provider can really make things easier for them, and save a lot of money.Clients who call a business and reach an answering machine or voicemail are less likely to leave a message. People prefer to talk to a "live" person, and that's a fact!

This virtual service has relatively low overhead, and is easy to run. And depending upon your quality of service and professionalism, you can earn a very healthy income doing this from your home office.You will need to decide what level of service you wish to offer, whether it will be part time, full time, 24 hours or only during normal business hours, whether you will open on weekends or during the week. It is vital that you decide what hours and days you will be working before you take on your first clients.Next, you should decide how many clients you want to take on, because that will dictate your equipment needs.

Fewer than about 10 clients would allow you to install a separate phone and phone line from the phone company for each client, which is the most cost effective way to provide this service to this number of clients. You will need to check with your phone company and find out if any limits to the number of phone lines you can have installed in your home exist in your area.

If you are considering more clients, then you would need to have a switchboard to make it more cost effective for you. Again, check with your phone company about leasing a switchboard.

Providing excellent customer service and a friendly phone manner is critical to your business. You should have excellent grammar and diction.You clients could consist of anything from sole proprietors to small and medium businesses. Anyone who has to leave their business location (if they even have one) to do their job has a need for someone to take business calls.

Start a Bridal and Wedding Consulting Service

A Bridal and Wedding Consultant performs services from arranging meetings with vendors, planning the wedding schedule, planning the rehearsal dinner, creating a budget, bridal registry, and much more...but the main thing to remember is that the bride is the client. It is the consultant's job to make the bride's wedding dreams a reality, make her happy, save her time, and save her money.As a Bridal Consultant, you would need superior time and people management skills. Diplomacy and negotiating skills are a must, as you will frequently be dealing with one bride, as well as other family members who all will have strong opinions about what they want to see happen at the wedding.You will need a strong arsenal of vendor relationships such as florists, caterers, photographers, hair salons, bridal shops, travel agencies, and limousine rental services.Certification is not required, but it is suggested that you do take some courses to make certain you possess good skills, and generally can make things easier for you. There are some distance learning (courses and classes online) that are available, just do a search on the Internet for "Bridal Consultant Courses".

Some Suggested Courses and Skills:

Hospitality

Event Planning

Decorating

Diplomacy

Bookkeeping

Marketing

Negotiating

Planning ceremonies

One of your best methods of advertising will be your clients, so do your best and the word will get out that you can put together a drop-dead fabulous wedding!

Cake Decorator and

Custom Cake Designs

If you have taken classes in cake decorating and design, and you have a talent for your creations, you might start offering your cake decorating and design service to your friends and neighbors.

Word of mouth will travel quickly, so make sure you know your stuff before taking any paying jobs! Much of your business will come from past customer referrals, and people who were at the event and saw your beautiful and original creation there.

You'll need adequate space in your home, along with the equipment you'll need.

It's a good idea to take photos of your finished designs in case a potential client wants to see your work.

Start a Cleaning Service

Most cleaning services start as home-based businesses. A cleaning service, or maid service, can be either residential or commercial cleaning services, or both. They can have one employee, or several cleaners while the owner takes care of the business administration duties.

Advertising can be done by running ads in your local paper, business cards, printing flyers, posting on the bulletin boards of various businesses, and websites that provide local information and classifieds.But by far, your best advertising will be from past and present customers who are very happy with your excellent customer service and the job you've done well.

Dance Instructor

If you are a trained dance instructor, or have a lot of dance experience, you can start your own dance instruction service.Ballet, Jazz, Tap, Hip-Hop, Tumbling, Twirling are all "dance" styles that are taught at dance studios.If you have solid experience in any or several dance styles, you can give private lessons in your home, providing you have adequate space.

Start a Home Based

Child Day Care Service

Because more parents must work outside the home, there will always be a demand for child care.

But with the concerns about quality child care, more people are moving away from the large day care schools, and turning to friends, neighbors, people they know from school functions and PTA meetings, and finding child care providers by word of mouth.

This creates a huge opportunity for someone who loves children, and wants to create a business dedicated to taking care of them.One attractive benefit for the stay at home mom is that starting a day care from home enables you to work at home, and take care of your own child at the same time.Before you do anything, check on any zoning laws and be sure to know the regulations in your area. The regulations that apply to your area will be your guide as to how many children you can have enrolled, and you can write your business plan from there.

You would want to take a CPR course, as well as other related courses that would help you know what to do in case of an emergency such as a serious injury or sudden illness.

It is important to set your policies and rules, and enforce them. Even if you are babysitting for a friend, you will be well served by having something in writing in place. The last thing you want to have to deal with is resenting a friendship because there wasn't any type of contract in place, and you end up being taken advantage of.Forms and contracts for day care providers can be downloaded from the Internet. You can certainly edit them and print out your own as needed.

Purchasing supplies and running your Child Care Service on a budget will always be your goal, and there are many tips and tricks for accomplishing this.Purchase used and pre-owned items that are in very good condition. These items include furnishings, toys, books, games, videos, dvd movies, children's music tapes and CD's from resale shops, garage sales, thrift stores, classified ads, and even on eBay (good for small items such as books because you'll want to watch the shipping charges).Buying used toys and videos can save a ton of money (and it's something most of us budget-conscious Moms are already doing!) Buying supplies in bulk from places such as Sam's Warehouse. These would include items such as non-perishable foods (cereal, ), and cleaning and hygiene supplies (bleach, disinfectant spray, dish detergent, toilet paper, hand soap, etc).You'll want to plan age-appropriate activities for the children in your care, and try to schedule a daily routine. This will help you more than anyone, and keep you from losing track of time.

Desktop Publishing Service

Desktop publishing is very well suited to telecommuting, and with low overhead and start-up costs, it can be developed into a home business very easily. Desktop publishing provides services that all businesses need at some point in time, as well as nearly all individuals.Desktop publishing is really a wide category, and you can choose to specialize in any one of a number of niche areas. It is also possible to combine closely related services without stretching yourself too thin, because so many areas overlap.My degree is in Graphic Imaging and Desktop Publishing, and my services and consultations have included all of the following at one time or another:

Create Letterheads and Business Cards

Fliers, Posters

Brochures

Invitations

Greeting Cards

Advertising Banners

Newsletters

Catalogues

Menus

Product Lists

Presentations

Scrapbooking

Calendars

Logos

Spreadsheets

You'll need a good computer with desktop publishing and graphics software, and a fully equipped home office to properly work this job or business at home.You can develop an entire website community that provides information to visitors on various topics such as:

The basics of desktop publishing

Training on-site

Training online

Courses online

Free tutorials online

Desktop publishing software

Graphic design applications and elements

Industry related definitions

Tips and tools

Articles and Commentaries

Message Board or Forum

Desktop Publishing eNewsletter

Posting Telecommute Jobs

Offer your own Desktop Publishing Services and consultations

You can sell advertising space on your website, and join an affiliate program as well to increase your revenue. To begin, simply register for a free account, choose the products, services, or companies that are relevant to your website's theme, or might be useful to your visitors, and you can then sell advertising space and generate income from your website.

If you are experienced, you can register and apply for verified work-at-home jobs & freelance projects in your field.