Virtual Entrepreneur

The Grand Rapids Press: As a young girl, Morgan Doane spent many hours crafting with her mom and styling Barbie and Strawberry Shortcake dolls. “I was a doll maniac,” she said. “I had 7 million Barbies.” Fast forward two decades and Doane, 27, of Grand Rapids, still is crafting... More

NicheGeek: For dieters working to lose weight, maintaining a decent wardrobe of clothes that fit can be an ongoing—and expensive—challenge on the way to a target size. With just that situation in mind, Transitional Sizes rents out name-brand clothing for temporary use while the pounds come off. Maryland-based... More

1. Energy Medicine 2. Casinos & Spas 3. The Medical and Spa Tourism Shuffle 4. Eco-Embedded Spas: A Deeper Shade of Green 5. Trains, Boats & Planes: In-Transit Spa-Going 6. Brain Health and ‘Mind’ Gyms 7. Learning Labs for Stress Reduction 8. Mindful Spending 9. Move Over Baby Boomers:... More

Charleston Post Courier: A lot of high school students work in restaurants, but for Brian Carver, the experience was more than just a way to make money. “I really fell in love with cooking,” Carver said, and that brought him from Beaufort to Johnson & Wales University in Charleston.... More

Anchorage Daily News: In mid-Spenard, in a tiny house the color of salmon roe, sit racks of trays and 30-gallon barrels crawling with crickets, mealworms and mice. A little shop of horrors to the warm- blooded of the species. A gourmet buffet to those whose blood runs cold. This is the Alaskan Reptile... More

Alibaba News Channel: Personal services. Can you save someone else time? Running errands for seniors, preparing someone’s tax returns or walking your neighbors’ dogs are examples of valuable services to offer. Gardening and landscaping. Consider the growing garden trade. Homeowners who lack... More

BizOpBlogs: Renee Wood says she’s used to weeping at work. She runs an online bereavement-gift outfit, Comfort Co., from suburban Geneva and gets calls all day from people who want to buy something special for someone who has just lost a loved one. Compassion comes naturally to Wood—she was a social... More

Citizen Economists: Traditional global credit markets have frozen, and they’re proving difficult to unstick. Under-capitalized banks are not keen to lend out what’s left on their balance sheets—not even and sometimes especially not to each other—and the value of the U.S. currency has risen steeply... More

Post-Crescent: In a time when more corporations are searching for ways to automate customer service, entrepreneurs who cater to people constantly on the go are filling a niche. The days of house calls are not over. Business owners are earning livings by offering their services either at their clients’... More

CNNMoney: The California suburbs around Los Angeles are filled with foreclosed houses – and in each one, entrepreneur Ramon Mercado sees opportunity. Mercado is the owner of Miss Junk, a 20-person trash-hauling company. Launched late last year, Miss Junk began as a general junk-removal service,... More