MKW-Ind.com:
Believe it or not, it is entirely possible for savvy individuals to earn their living through Craigslist. More and more individuals with an entrepreneurial spirit are realizing there are a host of opportunities for those who are willing to work hard to earn a living through hard work, learning about online communities such as Craigslist and effectively marketing themselves and their skills or products to those who might be in the market to invest in services or products the individual has to offer. Unlike conventional jobs where there is a set salary for services rendered and an unofficial cap on the earning potential those who offer their services online as an independent contractor have no such cap on their earning potential. However, there are also no guarantees on the amount which will be earned.

In general there are two ways to make a living with Craigslist. This may include offering services as an independent contractor on a contract basis or offering products or services as a small business owner. Alternately, individuals can utilize Craigslist to secure a permanent full time job through the job posting section on Craigslist. However, for the purposes of this article we will discuss the possibilities open to independent contractors and small business owners on Craigslist.

Craigslist for Independent Contractors… read on.

Voice of America:
The National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship www.nfte.com/ helps youngsters from low-income communities to build skills and unlock their entrepreneurial talent. In San Francisco, VOA’s Mike O’Sullivan spoke with aspiring entrepreneurs who took part in a competition to prepare a business plan.

High school student Vivian Chau, like most Asian American youngsters, loves a drink called boba, a sweet milk tea with jellied tapioca balls. Boba can be found in cafes around San Francisco, but Vivian says it is not sold in supermarkets. So she came up with the idea of a company called Jelly It! to make a ready-to drink bottled tea mixed with jelly. She admits the idea is a gamble.

“Because I have talked to a lot of cultures, different people from different cultures, and they said they do not know what this jelly is, and they are kind of scared and hesitant to taste it. So hopefully, people will be willing to try something new, and once they try it, hopefully they will like it,” she said.

Chau was a finalist in a recent competition in which students prepared plans for actual businesses. Full article.

New Era:
Chinese businesses have been at the receiving end, especially from local retailers and the construction industry who blame Chinese firms for, among others, killing the local markets with inferior quality products, as well as disregarding the laws in tendering for construction contracts.

Perceptions aside, nevertheless, the presence of Chinese products presents a window of many opportunities to consumers and those with an entrepreneurial spirit, says the consumer watchdog, Consumer News.

In an economy under pressure from rising inflation and high prices, the Oriental Plaza shopping centre and the China Town in the Northern Industrial Area of Windhoek are shopping malls that provide affordable prices to consumers. For entrepreneurs, they represent moneymaking opportunities.

“It provides an alternative and affordable choice to consumers. How many of us are able to buy clothes on hire purchase or to afford a N$100 pair of shoes?” said Henry Pote, of Consumer News.

The two shopping centres are overflowing with anything imaginable from blankets, clothes and shoes to furniture, solar panels and 220-volt diesel generators, with a mere N$2 000 price tag.

An equivalent generator would cost not less than N$6 000 from a conventional shop.

Consumers fill to the brim the 30-something odd shops in China Town, each consumer in a quest to find bargains. In the Home Textile Factory stall, which stocks bedding and curtains, a young Angolan entrepreneur was placing orders for boxes of curtains. His plan is to resell the merchandise bought at a premium.

Two gentlemen from Hakahana settlement, on the other hand, came to China Town to purchase suits… read full article.

Washington Post:
With gas prices rising and the stock market diving, we could all use ideas for saving a little money. Here’s one we thought was worth passing along:

If you’re carpooling in someone else’s car or using mass transit instead of driving to work, call your car insurance company to see if you’re eligible for a cheaper premium. Insurance companies typically assign rates based on how far you drive to work, whether it’s less than three miles one way, three to nine miles, or 10 or more miles. Driving less could mean a 5 percent rate decrease, says Mario Morales, an underwriter at MetLife Auto and Home. Many car insurance discounts are available only when you buy a new car, he added, but the commuting discount applies at any time.

Wall Street Journal Blogs:
Anyone who’s started a business knows it can strain the best relationship. Even working together can be tricky. The New York Times wrote a story yesterday about the challenges of men working for their wives in entrepreneurial ventures. To smooth egos on the home front, many women made conscious efforts to give their hubbies ample recognition, sometimes switching who got the higher salary.

To keep peace, here are a few tips business owners and their spouses recommend:

1. Set timelines: The person starting a business needs a cushion before they’re expected to make money. But nonentrepreneurs needs a reasonable expectation of when that’s going to happen — or if it doesn’t happen, when their partner will pull the plug. Having a plan with financial and nonfinancial milestones (number of new customers signed, licenses obtained) will ease this transition period.

2. Have financial limitations: “Just another $5,000 and we’ll turn the corner…” Setting financial-investment limits is crucial if the start-up money is coming from your collective savings. That counts for credit-card debt and the number of times you return to family and friends for investment. You don’t want to get so far in the hole that if things don’t work, you’ll have no one left to lend you a hand.

3. Vacation: Take one. Starting a new business can be like cheating on your spouse, at least when it comes to time. Put aside a small amount of money each month just for this purpose. And carve out a week or even a weekend away and stick to it like it was a meeting with a buyer at Wal-Mart.

4. Don’t bring a spouse on board at the first sign of growth: As a firm gets bigger, it can be tempting to pull everyone in the household into the fold to help. But that means paying for health care when significant others quit their day job, or child care if they’ve been a stay-at-home parent. Run the numbers to make sure this move is cost-effective.

5. Know your ego: If you both do play a role in the company, try to spell out defined roles where you don’t compete. Deal with the salary issue up front: Do you both always need to make the same amount so no one feels threatened? Can you switch it up?

6. Starting a business isn’t the only dream that counts: Everybody lives once. An entrepreneur’s mission can be all-consuming; that’s often what helps it succeed. But your husband or wife’s dream of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro or taking a three-month sabbatical on the Amalfi Coast should carry equal weight, too. Plus, technology means you can often work from anywhere in the world. Use it.

Real Business:
First, a definition. Business format franchising is ‘a commercial relationship whereby one party allows another to operate clones of a proven business system, and provides initial and ongoing training and support in doing so, in return for initial and ongoing fees’. So, if you have a business, which can be operated as a branch network that you want to expand, you should certainly consider franchising as one of the options.

Here are your first three big tips from Duckett, whose firm advises prospective and current franchise operations on how to get big and get rich, fast.

1. Become a local, regional or national brand
Provided your business meets certain criteria, such as being successful, profitable, easily duplicated and easily learned, then the chances are you can franchise it. You will need expert practical and, eventually, legal advice to set things up properly, ensuring that the opportunity will be profitable for both parties, but you could then find yourself opening more outlets, more quickly, than you ever could have afforded by growing organically. Franchisees provide the finance to open new outlets, and the energy along with enthusiasm to operate them.

2. Become an international brand
Many businesses that are reaching capacity in their home markets, whether or not they operate under a franchised system, take their operation into international markets by appointing master franchisees, or area developers, to operate branch networks in their respective countries. Profiling and choosing the right partner in another country is a critical function of the process but it has resulted in significant international growth for businesses in all sorts of sectors.

3. Regional or area development
Regional or area development is a franchising method, which can be used domestically or internationally. Rather than having one franchisee per outlet, you take on a person or existing business, which has the wherewithal to open and operate a number of outlets within a specified geographical area. The number of outlets will vary from system to system, it could be five, it could be fifty, there is no generic ‘right answer’ but expert advice can point you in the right direction.

Fresh New Small Business Ideas:
Property management is a business that is regulated and requires a real estate license in many states. This first step requirement means that the potential buyer of an existing business would need to be qualified to run the business. They would also need to meet the same requirements to start one from the ground up.

One way to get experience in the business is go to work for a large management company and learn the ropes. At the same time you could be completing any educational requirements and prepare for taking the license required to professionally manage properties. Starting a company of your own will take some strong detective work to find a property that is looking for management or looking to replace the current management firm. This will entail a great deal of cold calling and phone work to come up with possible clients.

At the same time you could get a web site built so you will have something to point people to when you are speaking with them on the phone. You would also mention the website in all communications or advertisements. All of this would come after you have decided on a company name and have a phone number and address for your business.

Knowledge and preparation are requirements for success. Whether you buy an existing business or start one up, you will need to gain experience and first hand knowledge of the business from some source. The best way to gain real experience is to work in the business for a year or so for a management company. The requirements in your state should be checked also to see what licenses are needed. There could also be educational requirements that you would have to obtain. A smart person would make sure they have all of these ducks out of the way while working for someone else. The real estate department of your state will be able to give you the information you need to know. There also could be an association of property managers in your area. Both of these sources are a place to start to find the information you need.

Read more here.

Xconomy:
The University of Washington has hired someone with business chops to run the office that transfers university inventions into the business world.

Linden Rhoads, a serial entrepreneur at Seattle-based technology companies, will take over as Vice Provost for Technology Transfer on August 14, the university said in a statement. Rhoads has been involved in a number of successful startup companies, including ChiliSoft, SingingFish.com, and AdRelevance, according to a UW statement.

Rhoads, 41, who replaces Jim Severson, has an undergraduate degree in geophysics from Smith College and a law degree from the UW. The university points out in its statement that it has helped create more than 235 companies since 1982, and that it collected $38 million for the university through intellectual property licenses in 2007. Yet the business community has long complained about how difficult the office is to work with, and how it doesn’t spawn nearly the number of startups of MIT or Stanford. Even so, the early reviews from business people we talked to about Rhoads are optimistic.

New York Sun:
Cedric Bernard and his wife, Sandrine, were two months from the end of the lease on their two-bedroom apartment at 63rd Street and West End, and with a toddler in the house and another child on the way, they needed more space badly.

The condos they’d seen in Manhattan were too expensive, and they dreaded the idea of commuting from a house in Westchester. Then the Bernards came across a three-bedroom apartment at 55 W. 95th St. At $876,000, the unit was cheaper than most of the condos they had been looking at, and, because it was a sponsor unit, it lacked the restrictions of most co-ops: Board approval was not required and the Bernards were able to finance up to 90% of the purchase.

“It was kind of like getting a condo, but at a decent price,” Mr. Bernard said.

A co-op unit is different from a condo in that it is owned by the entire building, with individual homeowners owning a set number of “shares” in the corporation. Co-op shares that have not yet been sold are known as sponsor units, or apartments the landlord has retained as a rentals.

As the price of co-ops slides lower in comparison to condos, sponsor units are becoming more sought after than ever by apartment hunters and investors, brokers said. Previously an under-the-radar niche market, the selling of co-op shares is gaining more visibility, with new companies such as Shares of New York, from which the Bernards bought their apartment, coming into the marketplace, and bargain hunters seeking deals in a time of economic slowdown.

Carry on reading the story.

Photo: Heuichul Kim.

Creating With Impact:
Reality 1: An entrepreneur is an inventor, although few inventors are entrepreneurs.

Reality 2: Entrepreneurs do not buy business opportunities; they create them.

Reality 3: Invention is contagious.

Reality 4: To an entrepreneur, the success of the invention - the business - is measured by growth.

Reality 5: Everyone possess the ability to be an entrepreneur - to invent, to conceive of a great idea for a new business, and to create an original business based upon a simple but explosive idea.

Indirector.com:
The business world today can be a very intimidating place for a Christian entrepreneur. You see, business today has gotten to a very competitive point. Money makes this world go round. All over the world some people would do anything for money.

This fact makes most Christian entrepreneurs afraid. Most think that money will somehow corrupt their morals and interfere with their Christian living. A verse most Christian entrepreneurs keep repeating to themselves is “Money is the root of all evil.” (I Tim. 6:10). However, many Christians fail to realize that there is much more to this verse that changes its meaning.
When you read the whole verse, you can actually see that it says “For the love of money is the root of all evil.” That’s right: money per se cannot be the source of all evil because it is an inanimate object. A lot of good has been produced by money, and if money is so bad, then how come we always give tithes and offerings?

The love for money is the root of all evil. This talks about greed. Christian entrepreneurs should never let greed rule their lives. Money is important. However, you should not learn to “love” it. You should not let it dictate your life. You should not make decisions that favor money instead of your character.

Greed, as we all know, is dangerous not just to Christian entrepreneurs, but to other types of businessmen as well. Most people fall down because of their greed by compromising their principles. Principles keep a company in line. In fact, Christian entrepreneurs build their companies based on principles.

Want some inspiration? Well, think of Colgate. The toothpaste that most of the world is using right now was introduced to the world by a Christian entrepreneur. Another very good example of a successful Christian entrepreneur is Henry Ford. Ford ran his company under Christian principles and was rewarded by having work efficiency reach a very high level. Read more.

Entrepreneur.com:
* Assess your brand promise. Your brand is your promise to your customer. It tells them what they can expect from your products and services, and it differentiates your offering from your competitor’s. Your brand is derived from who you are, who you want to be and who people perceive you to be. Your brand promise should be evaluated before anything else because it’s the foundation for all your branding.

Is your brand promise resonating with consumers? In other words, does the customer experience equal their expectation? If you are the innovative maverick in your industry, then customers should see you that way. Keep in mind that you can’t be all things to all people. Who you are should be based on what your target customers want you to be.

* Evaluate your visual image. Review the visual aspects of your brand. Do the look and feel of your promotional materials accurately and effectively reflect your brand? It’s difficult to sell a high-quality product with homemade-looking marketing materials. In the mind of consumers, quality materials equal quality product.

Continue reading How To Revamp Your Brand

Furniture Style:
1. Eliminate the costly practice of having two locations for customer pick-up
From: Joe Quintal, Rotman’s Furniture

2. Partner with manufacturers to create a national “Win a Room Full” Web-based contest for consumers
From: Jerry Wingate, Micro D

3. Put a store logo on an eye-catching, eco-friendly “smart car”
From: John Wells, Wells Home Furnishings

4. Create an incentive plan for warehouse employees and employees of the furniture store’s third-party delivery agent
From: Mike Horrobin, Tepperman’s

5. Developing designer notebooks based on the main styles sold in the store
From: Leslie Carothers, The Kaleidoscope Partnership

6. Design unique ads that feature a “bobble-head” figure
From: Wil Schock, Schocks Furniture Crafters

7. Target the bridal industry by sponsoring a bridal fair at the store
From: Bob Sherman, Serta Mattress Company

8. Give each piece of furniture sold a birth certificate
From: Phil Mandeville, American West/ZLN

9. Educate and encourage store managers about the power of leading with a positive attitude
From: George Kaftan, Carls Furniture

Patently-O:
Patents on computer programs, financial processes and business methods have been controversial at least since the 1960s. Surveys regularly find that computer programmers are opposed to patents on software by a wide margin. In what other field is the class of inventors so opposed to patents?

Is there a problem?
Some people contend that there is nothing particularly wrong with patents on software, arguing that “patent thickets” are not preventing innovators from entering software markets. But the latest evidence [LINK] suggests that patent thickets do, in fact, inhibit startups in software. More important, patent thickets might not be the only or even the most important problem with software patents.

Indeed, our evidence suggests an important problem of another sort: software patents are four times more likely to be litigated than are chemical patents; business methods patents are twelve times more likely to be litigated; finance patents are 49 times more likely. Moreover, the evidence also suggests that these patents have lower values than chemical patents, so these patents are not being litigated more because they are more valuable.

Other people admit that there are problems with software patents, but they suggest that this is only temporary: once judges and patent examiners understand this technology better, once they have become familiar with the prior art, etc., then the uncertainty about these patents will abate and litigation rates will go down. But the evidence shows that after a decade of issuing software patents in large numbers (over 200,000), the probability that a newly-issued software patent will be litigated is continuing to rise.

So it does seem that patents on software and related technologies at least have a particular problem with litigiousness. And this problem is central to the poor performance of the patent system generally. In the previous post we highlighted how litigation costs have substantially outgrown the profits that public firms receive from patents outside of the pharmaceutical and chemical industries. In 1999, 38% of the cost of litigation among public firms arose from lawsuits involving software patents; preliminary data suggest that this share has increased since then. Litigation over software patents is clearly a major factor in the poor performance of the patent system. So in a very real way, the overall performance of the patent system cannot be fixed unless the particular problems of software patents are also fixed.

Why are there so many lawsuits over software patents?

Chicago Tribune:
Forget garage sales - Leanore Ransom’s best finds are the contents of storage units bought at auction.

That’s where she bought her Victorian living-room furniture and oak dining set for her Belmont home.

These days, her storage-unit finds - from CDs to tables - also make up the inventory at her new store, Blickety Block Resale Shop.

Ransom is one of the regulars at the Blair Auction & Appraisal sales, where people have just seconds to bid on merchandise in storage units they usually can’t see or examine.

Georgetown Township-based Blair Auction, owned by Wayne G. Blair, has carved out a niche as one of the largest storage-unit auctioneers in the Midwest.

Storage units and default on them are another barometer of a stressed national economy, Blair said. As the economy has soured, more people are losing their homes and storing their possessions in the units. Eventually, they have trouble paying those bills, too, he said.

The stress on the economy is apparent in another way: More units are going to auction, but bid prices are lower. “They are bringing less money. People just don’t have the extra money to spend,” Blair said.

Nationally, the same phenomenon is being seen. “They’ll still come to the auction, they just won’t buy as high as they normally would,” said Chris Longly, spokesman for the National Auctioneers Association, the Overland, Kan.-based professional trade association.

The storage-unit auctions, held right outside the storage sites, draw up to 70 people, said Eva Blair, Wayne’s wife and the company’s office manager.

But they differ from traditional auctions in one important way - bidders can’t see, touch or examine much of what they are buying. They can only briefly stand at the door of the unit and peer inside before bidding begins - no one, even the auctioneer, can step inside. That is considered trespassing until contents are auctioned. Read full story.

PRWeek:
Visa launched a Visa Business Network for small business owners on Facebook in an effort to take its existing relationship with entrepreneurs a step beyond the business cards and services it offers.
The network, unveiled June 24, offers small business owners the opportunity to network among themselves and with their customers.

“Over the last 12 to 18 months, we’ve seen an increasing number of small businesses going online, joining communities, and starting to network,” said Alex Craddock, head of small business marketing at Visa. “We want to position ourselves as a valued and trusted business partner; we’re single-minded in our mission to help them succeed.”

In addition, the network offers value-added items, such as a $100 Facebook Ad credit for the first 20,000 US-based companies that join, free resources like Google Docs and other Google products, and editorial coverage, care of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), that is tailored to the inquiries of network members. A topic is posted every two weeks and a story is crafted by a WSJ journalist based on issues raised during online discussion.

Washington Post:
The rapidly growing Hispanic population will have a profound effect on the landscape of the small business community, said marketing expert Chiqui Cartagena, who also noted that Latino women now make up the fastest growing segment of entrepreneurs in the United States.

Latinos accounted for about 15 percent of the total U.S. population in July 2007 with a spending power of $850 billion. Projections show that figure is likely to exceed $1 trillion by 2010, according to Cartagena, who is the author of Latino Boom! Everything You Need to Know to Grow Your Business in the Hispanic Market.

Cartagena spoke to an attentive audience in the packed National Press Club ballroom Thursday morning where a half-day conference, Latino Buying Power, was hosted by the Greater Washington Board of Trade.

She said 53 percent of Hispanics owned homes in 2006 and will make up 40 percent of new home buyers over the next 20 years, opening business and marketing opportunities for banks, home furnishing stores and other companies catering to home ownership. But Hispanic buying power is not limited to real estate. According to data from Geoscape that Cartagena cited, Hispanics tend to spend more on groceries, phone services, furniture, gasoline, children’s clothing and footwear.

Her data show that Mexicans make up 67 percent of Hispanics in the United States, Central and South Americans make up 14 percent, followed by Puerto Ricans at 9 percent, Cubans with 4 percent and “other” Hispanics at 6 percent. Thirty-five percent of all Hispanics in the United States are under the age of 18 and 50 percent are under 34. Read more.

Wall Street Journal Blogs:
Here are five sites to check that may help business owners find insurance, with comments on each:

1. eHealthInsurance.com. This agency site is good for all-around health-insurance shopping and online quotes. Information isn’t available for every ZIP code, however.

2. DigitalInsurance.com. This broker offers services for small businesses with online quotes for individual plans.

3. FreelancersUnion.org. This organization offers health-insurance plans to free-lancers in about 30 states.

4. StateCoverage.net. This Robert Wood Johnson Foundation project lays out health-insurance initiatives in all U.S. states.

5. Your state’s insurance-department Web site. These pages often include lists of insurers that sell health insurance in the state along with other useful information. Use this directory to find your state’s insurance-department site.

Chicago Tribune:
On the way to launching a profitable food-service business, Chicagoan Eric Paul Meredith worked as an employee at four major corporations.

In between, he tried his entrepreneurial hand at real estate, dry cleaning and a restaurant, but he was short on capital and expertise.

This time, though, Meredith is confident his healthy-meal delivery business, AlterEatGo.com, will make it. The company is moving into a new kitchen in July and is on target to ring up $250,000 in revenue this year, he said.

“Sales have increased, so I definitely don’t have to go back to corporate America to pay the mortgage,” he said.

Meredith’s circuitous path to small-business success is hardly unusual. Few entrepreneurs’ business ideas end up panning out exactly as planned, said Daphne Woolfolk, founder of Essati Consulting in Hyde Park. “I don’t know anyone for whom success is a straight path,” she said. “It’s about moving through failure, not avoiding it.”

Entrepreneurs who hope to get rich quick often are disappointed, said David Koehler, clinical professor of marketing at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s College of Business Administration. “You can’t expect to hit a home run,” Koehler said. “Life is all about Plan B. You have to have a backup plan.”

Many entrepreneurs move back and forth between employment and launching their own businesses. Meredith, who has a degree in information technology from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a culinary degree from Illinois Institute for Art, worked for IBM, McDonald’s, Aramark, Lotus and his mother’s data-processing company before launching AlterEatGo. Continued.