Wood Flooring Supply Business Going Nationaly

In 2006 friends Jerry Brainerd and Scott Niemiec opened their wood flooring supply business, Distribution Brothers, LLC in Chippewa Falls. Just one year later, Distribution Brothers employs five at two locations, Chippewa Falls and Des Moines, IA, with plans to open a third facility in Madison early next year.

“Multiple locations is the way to go,” said Brainerd. “We started in Chippewa Falls, but eventually we hope to have distribution centers in every state from the Rockies to the Appalachians.”

In fact this eager team has already identified ten other cities for expansion.

Distribution Brothers stocks unfinished, prefinished and engineered flooring, stains, patches, fillers, abrasives and power tools – everything a wood flooring professional needs.

When Brainerd and Niemiec needed help to get their business started, they went to the Small Business Development Center of Eau Claire who referred them to the business development specialists at Western Dairyland Women’s Business Center. They worked for three months to complete a business plan.

“But it was more than just the business plan –it was the business strategy, the business name, everything,” Brainerd said. “The SBDC and Western Dairyland asked all the right questions and pointed us in the right direction.”

“We never would have been able to create, design and document our overall business plan without the one-on-one help of Western Dairyland,” Niemiec added.

According to Western Dairyland Business Development Director Reneé Walz, Brainerd and Niemiec researched their ideas, refined their plan, and compiled all the information needed to obtain a loan through the U.S. Small Business Administration.

“They did a great job, and they were willing to put in countless hours of work,” Walz said. “Their success is a reflection of how hard they worked.

For more information on this successful Wisconsin business, check out www.DistributionBrothers.com

Via : www.wenportal.org

Greg Evans (Suspense Novelist) :
I do not have superior intelligence or faultless looks. I do not captivate a room or run a mile under six minutes. I only succeeded because I was still working after everyone else went to sleep

Enjoy Beautiful Easter Eggs Design

Yes, easter is over now, but anyway I want to share with you this beautiful art work from the slovenian artist, Franc Grom.Via : www.notcot.org

Suzanne K. Langer (1895-1985, American Philosopher) :Art is the objectification of feeling

Child Care Center Shines in Southwestern Wisconsin

Brenda Allbee opened her first Bright from the Start child care center in Platteville in December 2005. In just two years, Allbee launched a second center in Cuba City and plans to open a third in Boscobel in June.

Allbee credits her success to her exceptional staff and the strict standards and policies she has put in place. As she adds more centers, she adheres to those standards.

“I have very specific policies and ways of dealing with each little thing,” said Allbee. “I stay involved with every single thing. I pop back and forth to each place.”

With a background in pediatric nursing and experience caring for her own autistic son, Allbee felt she could bring that personal experience to a career in childcare.

So in 2005 she tapped into the expertise at the Southwestern Wisconsin Community Action Program (SWCAP) Jobs & Business Development program for help with her business plan.

SWCAP connected Allbee with the Wisconsin Women’s Business Initiative Corporation for assistance in obtaining financing. Now as she expands her child care business, Allbee has ongoing contact with David Vobora, Jobs & Development coordinator at SWCAP.

“If I have any questions all I have to do is call him and get his opinion,” said Allbee. “I don’t feel like I’m going in on a whim. I feel like I have all the information.”

Vobora provided financial modeling, along with marketing and planning assistance for Allbee’s second center.

Now we are doing the A-to-Z business planning for the Boscobel project. We started with a needs analysis, demographics study, feasibility, competitive analysis,” said Vobora. “Where my program is concerned, Brenda is a star. A CAP agency client is a low-income, kind-of-struggling client. Brenda runs a half million a year business –and she did it in 15 months!”

Allbee contributes to the area economy by providing a number of jobs. In a traditionally low-paying industry, Allbee made it a priority to compensate her employees adequately.

“You need to pay your employees well. You want them to stay, and you want good people,” said Allbee. “Plus kids need to have consistency.”

Bright from the Start offers what other area centers do not. It opens early and closes late, and it welcomes infants, starting at six weeks of age. Because of Allbee’s nursing background and experience with autistic children, she also welcomes children with special needs.

Allbee is excited about the success of her business, but she feels even better about the impact she has on children’s lives.

“We currently have 175 children, and that’s just in two centers. I know they are taken care of. I know they are learning. The schools are saying they can see the difference in the kids that are coming from here,” said Allbee. “That is awesome.”

Shown in photo: David Vobora, Dale Schultz, Brenda Allbee

Via : www.wenportal.org

Kin Hubbard (1868-1930, American Humorist, Journalist) : Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny

To Create a Chair of Your Own…

Ever since the final project in 3-D art course in college, where we had to create a chair of our own, I’ve been mesmerized and followed by the different and unique forms of chairs that are and continue to be created. Unfortunately a photo of my chair was destroyed in one of the burnt down external hard-drives, but here’s an example that came very close. The “Her” chair designed by Fabio Novembre for Casamania goes above and beyond my interpretation. Something tells me he had much more diversity in material and technology to form something so … “curvaceous.” Great conversation starter for bars and lounges!

Via : www.2modern.blogs.com

Issey Miyake : Design is not for philosophy — it’s for life.

Jeff Valdez – Creator of a new type of network

By Eunice Sigler

Jeff Valdez has come a long way from the days in which he worried about staying warm and fed in the housing projects of Pueblo, Colorado. Now living in Beverly Hills, Valdez is the genius behind SíTV, the nation’s first and only English-language Latino television network—one that appears to be redefining the future of Hispanic media.

With less than two years on the air, the hip, irreverent programming on SíTV has racked up an unprecedented number of awards. In September, the network garnered five First Place wins in the Programmer Division of the Cable and Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) Excellence in Multicultural Marketing Awards—the equivalent for cable and telecommunications marketers of an Oscar. SíTV also captured 19 wins at the PROMAX Awards, an annual competition put on worldwide by leaders in electronic media. But for Valdez, all this is just the beginning.

“The channel is 18 months old. It took us six years just to raise the money,” he says. Forget the finish line. All we did in those years was get to the starting point.”

It took that long because Valdez, although an industry leader in his own right, was bucking conventional wisdom. Throwing aside the firmly entrenched notion that the only way to reach Hispanics was in Spanish, Valdez approached advertisers and cable perators and made pitch after pitch for a TV channel that would feature content relevant to Latinos, but delivered entirely in English. For Valdez, who was born in the United States and speaks flawless English, it was a no- brainer. Not so for the rest of the industry.

Valdez in a studio at work“I had to educate people,” he says. “It was shocking some of the stuff I heard, like: ‘You’re kidding, Hispanics speak English?’ or ‘Don’t you people already have your own channels?’ ”

Eventually, he had heavy-hitter backers like Time Warner and EchoStar Communications, and gained enough capital to start the network. Moctesuma Esparza, the celebrated filmmaker/producer behind Selena, The Milagro Beanfield War and Gods and Generals, is one of the people who helped him get there.

“I had become familiar with Jeff and I had seen what he had done with comedy and the Latino Laugh Festival and The Brothers García. I was convinced that he was the right person to do it,” Esparza says. “Now with SíTV being on the air a little over a year-anda-half, my decision has been totally vindicated. He has done a tremendous job.”

SíTV offers much original programming catering to the 18-34 age group of second and third-generation Latinos, offering everything from music and sitcoms to dramatic series and reality shows.

Valdez started out as a comedian, then owned a comedy club in Colorado Springs for 11 years. Later, he created, hosted and produced the Los Angeles TV series Comedy Compadres, earning him the title “the Ed Sullivan of Latino talent.”

In 1996, he started the Latino Laugh Festival in San Antonio with investor Bruce Barshop, who later became his co-founder for SíTV. The star-studded event was soon picked up by Showtime, leading to more exposure for Valdez. Now a successful writer and producer, Valdez remains as down-to earth and simple as when he was a young man going on the road playing in bands and hanging out with band mates. One of them, by the way, worked at a TV station, which is where Valdez developed his love for TV production. After working for Tri-Star Television writing, creating and producing four network pilots, he decided to take a shot at his dream of portraying Hispanics differently in the media.

Via : www.hispaniconline.com

Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977, British Comic Actor, Filmmaker) : Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot

The importance about good shape

I had a great surprise when I found the work of Paul Sandip, who made all the products that you can see on these images. He call his self like an “Industrial Sculptor”, but we know the people like him as industrial designers. Does not matter. The medular fact is the good design that he produces.

Intelligent shapes that minimize materials, solve problems (are functional) and express the beauty of the simplicity. That’s how I call good design. Great job!

Via : www.trendsnow.net

David Hockney (1937-, British Artist) : Art has to move you and design does not, unless it’s a good design for a bus

The Hottest Fine Dining Spot

By Idy Fernández

It seemed like a no-brainer: Cover ugly tabletops with tablecloths. Yet for chef Henry Salgado and his pastry chef wife Michele, this simple remedy transformed what was supposed to be a “mom-and-pop” restaurant into one of the hottest fine dining spots of New Smyrna Beach, Florida. Now in its sixth year, Spanish River Grill & Wine Bar has brought to the small beach town a combination of modern Spanish and Cuban cuisine in a comfortable location and a dash of chic.

The warm-colored walls peppered with Latin American artwork throughout the 60- seat restaurant are the backdrop to Salgado’s seafood trademarks like yuca crusted fish over black beans. Michele handles the floor management and concocts updated versions of Salgado’s grandmother’s caramelized flan and chocolate-chocolate bread pudding. Salgado’s brother serves as the sous chef, while Dad sometimes serves as the restaurant’s handyman.

“Food is definitely about love and passion. If your heart’s not into it, then it’s not going to work for you,” says 37-year-old Salgado, a Tampa native whose grandparents are from Spain and Cuba.

Salgado met his wife at the Horseradish Grill in Atlanta, where she was a waitress. They wed a year later and moved to New Smyrna Beach seeking the slow pace of a beach town in 1999. Together they tweaked a local diner’s design, unwittingly tapping into a niche that craved fine dining, when they added tablecloths to the décor. The wine list went from two bottles to 25 and the menu’s focus shifted from Cuba to a medley of traditional and modern Barcelona.

“Some call [Spanish River Grill] fine dining, but really it’s just like having a nice dinner party at your house with people you know well,” says Michele, whose natural baking talent isn’t backed by formal pastry chef training.

Via : www.hispaniconline.com

Samuel Pepys (1633-1703, British Diarist) : Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody

Failure is an Integral Part of Success

For many of us, success is something that we are constantly striving towards. Some of us are consumed by the idea of achieving success in whatever we put our minds to. It drives us forward onwards to bigger and better things. There are some people who take this too far and try to be successful at everything resulting in arrogance and a lack of respect for others. Unfortunately everyone seems to forget that failure is part of achieving success and that failure is integral to not only achieving success but also to appreciating it.

When you look at some of the successful people in the world, you will see that at times they have experienced failure and learnt from it, which has helped them become more successful.

Richard Branson, for example, failed exams at school, had business ventures fail, failed in attempts to go round the world in a hot air balloon, and got into debt. But all of these failures, whether large or small, have helped him to be more successful. Why? Because successful people learn from their mistakes and failures and use what they have learned to radically change the future for themselves. Without failure success is harder to achieve. By learning from your failures, from what has caused them, from what you contributed to the failure, and from what you can change, you can become more successful too.

Here are some practical ideas for dealing with failure:

1. Don’t see it as the end. This failure is just an obstacle to get round on the route to your ultimate goal. This might be the first stumble on your road to success, it might even be the hundredth but what is important to remember is that getting through it will only bring you closer to your goal. It is important that you view the failure as a problem to be solved rather than the end of the world.

2. Think things through. If you run head long into any problem you bound to either make the same mistake again or create new problems. You need to be able to think correctly under pressure (T.C.U.P) in order to solve this problem and get over this failure and that comes from not rushing in but instead thinking it through.

* Try to work out what has caused the failure. Was it something you or someone else did? Was your attempt at success just at the wrong time in the wrong place? Were there circumstances out of your control?

* What options do you now have? Can you try the same thing again or do you need to try to approach the problem from a different angle? Do you need extra help and resources?

3. Don’t be afraid. It is important that you don’t fear to try again, if you do you are likely to not put your full self into your effort, making it harder to get to your ultimate success.

4. Plan for failure. I’m a big believer in the Law of Attraction. The idea that thinking and doing positive things brings about positive things in your life, while negative thoughts and actions only bring about negativity in your life seems to really fit with me personally. I also think it is crucial, though, that you plan for failure and in a way expect it along your journey to success. Now I’m not saying that thoughts of failure should fill your mind rather that you should reflect positively upon it and see it as an inevitable learning experience. Having a backup plan for when things go wrong is not a bad thing, it is just sensible.

5. Finally, learn from it. Successful people are always learning and so should you. People tend to only learn for what goes well in their lives, dwelling only on the positive, but really you should try to learn something from every eventuality whether good or bad. If you do this you not only get closer to achieving your success but also expanding your comfort zones. You will also find it easier to handle future failures.

A Simple Illustration

A simple illustration of how failure is vital on any journey for success can be seen in the notion of finding a light switch in the dark given in Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz. When you are in a dark room and you are searching for the light switch you start groping around to find it. To start with, maybe you are looking at the wrong part of the wall so you readjust because you have learnt the light switch isn’t where you thought it was. Next, you find that you are groping around too low, so again you readjust. You are now narrowing your focus (in the dark) to allow you to reach your goal.

So you start to use the sensory information you got and begin piecing it together to give you a better idea of where the light switch is. This time you find something that feels like a light switch, but doesn’t seem to switch the light on; maybe it’s the switch for the AC or a power point. You know you are close because the two switches are next to each other. You try again and this time you find the light switch and on comes the light!!!

In all your attempts to find the light switch, apart from the last one, you fail but instead of simply giving up and living in the dark you quickly learn from what happened and try again. So why – when trying to achieve something amazing in your life – do you give up so quickly? Are not all attempts at success no matter how big or how small the same?

The Sense of Achievement

Failure also heightens the sense of achievement when you experience success. If you have felt what it is like to fail, you will more grateful and respectful of the success you achieve because you will know what it took for you to succeed. Only by truly experiencing failure will you know what it means to truly succeed.

Too many people these days give up when they fail and turn away from what they want to succeed in, deciding maybe to try something else. If you choose to do the same when you fail then you never achieve the things you want in your life. And when you are sitting in your chair in the latter years of your life, you will regret the fact that you gave up too easily. Achieving success isn’t easy but everyone should strive for some kind of success whether large or small and not give up when the going gets tough.

Why do we fall ? So we can learn to stand up again.

My name is Ben Lumley and my blog The New Horizons Project will challenge you to think about yourself and the world around you by seeing things differently.Via : www.urbanmonk.net

Photo source: Asmundur

Soichiro Honda: Success is 99% Failure

Kathy Gendel: Success in the Undergarment Business

Ever watched QVC? One of QVC’s best selling products is Breezies Intimates, a line of undergarments created by Kathy Gendel. Breezies Intimates is a wide range of undergarments sold exclusively by QVC.

What sets the Breezies apart is the patented fabric used in panties and bra linings. More than underwear-as-sexy-objects pitch like Victoria Secret, Breezies positions itself as an underwear that addresses women concerns on odor control, staining and feminine issues. And the products have gained a huge customer base, becoming one of QVC’s favorite products.

Breezies Intimates, launched more than 10 years ago, started — and remains — a family affair. Kathy, who was then a fashion merchandiser, created her line of undergarments with her husband Craig, who was a panty manufacturer. Today, Kathy’s two daughters are now involved in the business and have designed their own lines.

Kathy’s approach to business is “slow but sure” and never trying to grow too quickly — a strategy that worked well for this millionaire mom and her family.Via : www.womenhomebusiness.com

Amelia Earhart (1897-1937, American Aviator, Author) : The woman who can create her own job is the woman who will win fame and fortune

Oh, To Live In A Glass House

If you didn’t get enough modern design love from that, there are a few more design gems from that period in architecture that are still standing.

See this Beautiful Philip Johnson Glass House

Thomas Fuller (1608-1661, British Clergyman, Author)
¨Light, God’s eldest daughter, is a principal beauty in a building¨

Bikewagon.com: From Classifieds To eBay To Its Own Website

“Do something you are passionate about . . . ”

By: Pat Callahan

Dale Majors is passionate about cycling. So much so that in 1999, at age 16, he decided to take a chance with selling bicycle gear online. His original goal was simple: He was looking to upgrade his own cycling equipment and needed the money to do so. Like other young aspiring entrepreneurs, he headed to eBay. One thing lead to another, and before long Majors was making roughly $1,000 a month selling cycling parts. Five years later, what had started in his parent’s basement turned into a full-time business — Bikewagon, which quickly became one of the largest cycling stores on eBay. In February 2007, Majors launched a website, Bikewagon.com, and the Salt Lake City-based business shows no sign of slowing of down.

Consistent, steady growth pays off for specialty retailer: Scales from classifieds, to eBay to its own site.

Size: $1 million approximate 2007 gross revenue.

Biggest Obstacle: “Establishing systems and processes that are not tied to specific personnel, but can instead apply to any employee or staff.”

- PeC Staff

PeC: How did you get your start in ecommerce?

MAJORS: I started selling on Mountain Bike Product Reviews, which is site for mountain bike enthusiasts. I probably sold 50 things there, via the classified ad section, before I sold on eBay.

PeC: What was the first item you sold on eBay?

MAJORS: I don’t remember. I do, however, remember the first time I looked on eBay. I was amazed that people could start an auction so low and trust that it would go up. I remember seeing expensive items and thinking that they might not sell for much. I was wrong. The early days of eBay were awesome. Everything sold for a lot of money, and it sold most all of the time.

PeC: What did you do before you started Bikewagon?

MAJORS: Typical high school stuff. The only job I ever had before Bikewagon was cleaning an office building three or four hours a week for $15 an hour.

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PeC: Is Bikewagon online only?

MAJORS: Yes.

PeC: You didn’t initially have a website. What do you hope to accomplish with the site?

MAJORS: I started the website last year in order to get more sales outside of eBay and build a brand.

PeC: Can individuals still make a full-time living selling on eBay?

MAJORS: Yes. There is still a lot of potential on eBay if you are willing to work for it. Consumers like attention and that is what they get on eBay.

PeC: What do you suggest for those people who are considering selling on eBay as a career?

MAJORS: Watch your costs; your products better be good and make sure to have a lot of margin. Many people tell me what they are going sell and most of the time I know that they will not make enough money to be successful due to slim margins and not accounting for all the costs. Also, become very familiar with the different fee structures on eBay.

PeC: In your opinion, what are some of the keys to success on eBay?

MAJORS: Buy well; think of a good price where you can make some money, and then take off another 10 to 20 percent. Use a research tool like Terapeak or eBay’s research tool. Use a listing automation tool — this is a must for scalability.

PeC: What shopping cart do you use?

MAJORS: I use Infopia’s Marketplace Manager. The shopping cart I use is a small part of that product.

PeC: What advice would you offer other ecommerce merchants as they are getting started?

MAJORS: My advice would to be to think about how you can automate your processes. Set things up so they are not dependent on you; only then can your business work for you. My goal with this business was to set it up in a way that it works without me.

PeC: What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve made with Bikewagon?

MAJORS: In the past I think we could have made faster decisions about branding and order processing technology, which would have helped us become successful a lot sooner. It also would have helped to look more thoroughly at the important metrics that drive our business, such as cost of sales, conversion rate and overall profit margin.

PeC: Final pointers for other entrepreneurs?

MAJORS: Do something you are passionate about, don’t just chase the money.

Via: www.onlinebusiness.about.com

www.Bikewagon.com

Michael Jordan: I’ve missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot . . . and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed

ITV Ventures Review – Honest Money Making Opportunity Or Scam?

By Vern How Chan

Do you realize that there are many more infomercials today as compared to 10 years ago? When you look at the television the commercials are aired in such a way to engage the viewer in their ‘wants’. My goal is to help you get the logical side before investing your hard earned cash into ITV Ventures.

We will go through the very basics of the ITV Ventures opportunity right down to the good and the bad. This way you know that you will be getting a full unbiased review right at your fingertips. Let’s get started.

The Core

The founder and president of ITV Ventures is a charismatic man by the name of Donald Barrett.

ITV Venture is the sister company of ITV a six year old debt free multimedia infomercial producer. Thereby making ITV Ventures is in fact a home based division for ITV. Just so you know, it is not only a multimedia company alone.

They engage recognized celebrities to promote branded health and nutrition products mainly through the media. Your common health and wellness products range around 200 lines and so you are looking at a health related business opportunity with itv ventures.

The Good

Since we’re here, you would already be someone who probably have some interest in the health and nutrition products industry, right? If not, then you would be someone who watched ITV Ventures infomercials.

What ITV Ventures have done successfully as I have observed is they maintain the network marketing concept but they combine both the Internet and television based mediums. This kind of communication would be very powerful to reach out to millions.

You are at a better advantage if your target market are people who mainly watch television. You can get started from $165 to $499 in the ITV Ventures opportunity. Then, you also get your own website. Comes with a nice business presentation.

The Bad

You join ITV Ventures just like a network marketing business. The one thing that is weird is that your ‘residual income’ comes from:

1) Someone joins your team and works on their own ITV Ventures business.

2) It’s still quite traditional where they rely on viewers calling the number showed during the infomercial

A credibility issue is that typical network marketing even in ITV Ventures shouts the bold statement of “leaders from other traditional network marketing companies are joining us”. I don’t think anyone should make claims like that if their program is good enough.

What Donald Barrett of ITV Ventures say this “If you can’t make it in this business, you can’t make it in any business”. I’m sure anyone with the right mindset can work in any business.

In closing, if you are a health and wellness fanatic with a desire to make big profits from 2%-8% of every dollar you sell then by all means make ITV Ventures your choice. However, if you want a better option then it is best to search for greener pastures at your own time.

About The Author: Vern How has been earning online back in June 2006. He has tried and tested thousands of dollars worth of programs since then. Today, he is a successful affiliate marketer who believes in giving back by helping others.

Article Source: www.EzineArticles.com

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist) : It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself.

Chocolate Rooms

Iconoculture: The deliciously interactive rooms have graced some of England’s most elaborate society parties, but Staite’s Food Is Art catalog also includes one-offs like plates, tea cups, shot glasses and jewelry.

Playful, whimsical and delicious? Art has never been more enticing. Consumers gravitate toward experiences that challenge and stimulate all their senses.

Food Is Art claims to provoke deep thoughts about our relationship with food, but let’s face it – chocolate rooms are more about indulgence, which doesn’t come cheaply in this case.

Via : www.coolbusinessideas.com

www.Iconoculture.com

David Lynch (1946-, American Director, Screenwriter) : The ideas dictate everything, you have to be true to that or you’re dead.

How to Start a… Coffee Shop Business

A Guide to Starting My Own Coffee Shop

Morning commuters, stopping in for their first cup of coffee for the day. Friends pausing from the bustle of life to enjoy lattes and catch up. Students burying themselves in their studies, mugs of coffee and tea in hand. Business people stopping in with their laptops to enjoy a mocha and a sandwich away from the office. All of this a precursor to the evening entertainment, when an acoustic band plays for a packed house of coffee consumers, each enjoying a brownie or lemon bar or slice of pie on the side.

That is the magic of a coffee shop. It can transform a storefront into a neighborhood anchor where people converse and share and learn, all while enjoying the nuances of their coffees or teas or espresso-based drinks.

If you love coffee, and you enjoy being around people, if you thrive on multi-tasking and if there’s a hint of an event planner in you, than opening a coffee shop can be a fulfilling experience.

It can also be a profitable endeavor; according to the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s (SCAA) website, retail sales estimates suggest the total U.S. coffee market was $11.05 billion in 2005.

That’s a strong market to be in! You have a strong customer base in place. And as more Americans become educated about the variety of specialty coffees and espresso-based drinks that are out there to be enjoyed, the market will continue to grow.

Coffee is a good place to be. But it’s also a demanding niche that requires realistic expectations.

Says Susan Krug, a founder and co-owner of Ancora Coffee Roasters in Madison, Wisconsin, “A coffeehouse ownership is like any other successful business … it takes a determined focus, much effort, and a belief that your glass is always half full.”

Starting a coffee shop requires a good chunk of cash—it’s not unrealistic for start-up costs to exceed $100,000. It can require several months, even a year or longer, from deciding to open a shop to actually opening the shop. And the days can be long and demanding.

What You Need to Know:

As a coffee shop owner, you’ll wear multiple hats. You’ll be working as a marketing specialist, sales person, educator, barista and cashier, chef and baker, bus person, manager, purchasing specialist, and equipment mechanic—quite possibly all within the first hour of opening in the morning.

* You are charged first and foremost with supplying high quality drinks on a consistent basis to your customers. You will need to rapidly fill an order for a 16 oz. cup of coffee, (two 20 oz. lattes, one soy with caramel and no whip cream, the other skim with coconut and extra whip), a dry cappuccino and a decaf mocha, all before that morning rush extends out the door.

* You’ll need to keep a critical eye on all operations, ensuring that coffees don’t run low and that there’s an ample supply of beans in the grinder. You’ll need to keep coolers and display cases stocked, meaning that you had inventory and ordering all wrapped up on time.

* If a customer has a problem with her drink, or if an employee messed up an order in the register, or if one of the machines goes down, or if the wi-fi doesn’t seem to work on a customer’s laptop, you’ll need to solve all of these problems quickly and efficiently.

* Every day brings new marketing opportunities, and every day you must be a sales person as well as an educator, answering customer questions so you can better sell your product.

* It is hard work, and it’s time consuming work, and it’s exhausting work.

* You have the exceptional challenge, and reward, of keeping your customers happy.

* As a coffee shop owner, your day-to-day job is to offer superior customer service, keep a clean business, stay organized and follow a plan, and be ever-vigilant for opportunities to improve.

Coffee Shop Details

Startup Cost: $15,000 – $50,000

Potential Earnings: $40,000 – $90,000 per year

Typical Income Per Transaction: $1.00 – $4.00

Advertising: Local flyers, newspaper, frequent shopper card, community magazine, campus postings

Equipment: Coffee brewing equipment, espresso machines

Home Business? No

Staff? Required due to long hours open and 7 day a week operation. Labor is typically low cost

Via : www.explorestartups.com by Jeremy Reis

B. C. Forbes (1880-1954, American Publisher) : Don’t forget until too late that the business of life is not business, but living.

Who’s stealing your business?

Fraud is on the rise as technology makes it easier for competitors and con artists to rip off your products, ideas, and cash. Learn from entrepreneurs who got wise the hard way.

By Gay Bryant

FSB checks back in with three businesses that suffered from patent infringement and IP theft.

As if you didn’t have enough to worry about.

Fraud of all sorts – embezzlement, business identity theft, patent infringement, and product counterfeiting – is increasing. The median loss from embezzlement cost small companies $190,000 in 2006, up from $98,000 in 2004, according to the latest numbers from the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners.

The number of patent-infringement lawsuits rose 6% last year. New research has found that counterfeit goods account for an estimated 15% to 20% of all products manufactured in China, says Donald Manzullo, R-Illinois, former chairman of the House Committee on Small Business.

The advance of technology has made it easier than ever for the unscrupulous to victimize your business. Consider that hundreds of pages of sensitive financial information can be stored on a USB drive the size of a thumb – or that millions of dollars can disappear with the flick of a computer key.

In March the regional supermarket chain Hannaford Bros., headquartered in Portland, Maine, discovered that hackers had broken into its database and rerouted customers’ credit card information to accounts overseas.

In another case, an accountant who had electronic access to the books of 15 small companies diverted $1 million meant to pay taxes to his own account. In another case, a thief set up a phony website that mirrored that of a small business, ordered thousands of dollars of supplies from Office Depot (ODP, Fortune 500), and then had the bills sent to the real business owner. Via : Fortune Small Business

Photo : www.flickr.com/people/samiksha

Sherrill Brown : It costs to be stupid. The stupider you are, the more it costs.

Bloggers Bring in the Big Bucks

How a personal obsession can turn into a popular favorite and maybe even a full-time job

by John Tozzi

Eric Nakagawa, a software developer in Hawaii, posted a single photo of a fat, smiling cat he found on the Internet, with the caption, “I can has cheezburger?” in January, 2007, at a Web site he created. It was supposed to be a joke. Soon after he posted a few more images in the same vein: cute cats with funny captions written in a silly, invented hybrid of Internet shorthand and baby-talk. Then he turned the site into a blog, so that visitors could comment on the postings. What happened after that would have been hard for anyone to predict.

“We just thought, O.K., they’re funny,”Nakagawa says. “Suddenly we started getting hits. I was like, where are these coming from?”

An Accidental Entrepreneur

He saw traffic on the blog, I Can Has Cheezburger, which he runs with his partner, “Tofuburger” (she refuses to disclose her real name) double each month: 375,000 hits in March, 750,000 in April, 1.5 million in May. Cheezburger now gets 500,000 page views a day from between 100,000 and 200,000 unique visitors, according to Nakagawa. The cheapest ad costs $500 for a week. The most expensive goes for nearly $4,000. Nakagawa, an accidental entrepreneur who saw his successful business materialize out of the ether, quit his programming job at the end of May: “It made more sense to do this and see how big it could get.”

Cheezburger’s story is unusual in the upper reaches of the blogosphere in that the time between launching and reaching a critical mass of readers who sustain the site is so compressed. But many of the most popular bloggers have similar tales of starting out with a niche idea—an inside joke, a particular obsession—and watching it explode. Of course, most blogs linger in obscurity and are read by only a handful of people, and few ever reach the level Cheezburger has. What about a blog like Cheezburger lets it break away from the pack?

The initial appeal of the blog may have been a fluke, but its growth since then has been part of a tightly controlled experiment to help answer that question. Nakagawa and his partner constantly tweak the site to see what draws readers and what leaves them cold.

“We basically have a playground where people keep coming to play, so we’re trying to create new games all the time,”Nakagawa says.

Building a Community

To drive traffic, they try to time their new posts with when people are most likely to be reading: in the mornings, on their lunch breaks, or in the evenings. Early on, when Nakagawa saw the site getting 1,000 page views a day, he added a widget that allows visitors to rate each post on a scale of one to five cheeseburgers. That helped boost traffic to 2,000.

Readers don’t just rate or comment on the posts. They create them. Cheezburger depends on its fans to submit pictures, write funny captions, and send them in. Nakagawa has built a tool to let readers select a ready-made photo or upload their own, add and position captions, choose font styles, and submit a finished product. Any visitor can vote on the submissions, and the most popular ones make it to the main page. The function saves Nakagawa from having to find funny captions for photos, and it creates a lasting bond with readers.

That kind of interaction helps make I Can Has Cheezburger as much a community as a blog. A post by one user will inspire another to play off the theme, forming a narrative. “It’s like you’re creating a story supplied by people in the community, and then the people in the community supply the next part of the story,”Nakagawa says.

From Inside Joke to Job

The idea of building a community around content supplied by users sustains several top blogs, and most put the idea of community ahead of making money. For Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, who lampoon celebrity fashion on their blog, Go Fug Yourself, the fact that ad sales on their blog now pay their salaries has not changed what they set out to do from Day One: have fun. “It was one of these inside jokes that we thought was going to just stay an inside joke,”says Cocks.

Part of it has to do with the nature of the medium: Blogging creates a direct connection between authors and readers, a conversation with distinct voices carried out in comments and e-mails and other blogs. Nakagawa wants to see how big that conversation—not to mention his business—can get. “It’s kind of like, how far can you take it?” he says.Via: www.businessweek.com

www.ICanHasCheezburger.com

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist) : Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses.

Line of Vinyl Wall Applications

Keeping tabs on one of my favorite designing duo’s, Job Smeets and Nynke Tynage, aka Studio Job. I was excited to see that they have developed a line of vinyl wall applications for Domestic. This site has a lot of really great graphics. I know that the wall graphic thing is HUGE right now. But I have totally jumped on this bandwagon. This is still too much fun for me to give up so quick.

Via: http://blog.2modern.com

W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965, British Novelist, Playwright) : Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.

From Home Kitchen to Whole Foods

BusinessWeek chats with two young entrepreneurs who aim to ‘Feed’ the masses quality organic granola

How many times have you come up with an idea that causes your friends to say: “Hey, that could be a business!” How many times have you agreed with them? But how many times have you actually gone out and transformed that idea into a real business? Well, that’s exactly what former models turned business partners Jason Osborn and Jason Wright ended up doing. In 2005, the pair turned the granola that they made as a snack in their New York City apartment into a three-flavor organic line they named Feed Granola.

Now sold in eight states at stores including Whole Foods Market (WFMI) and Wegmans Food Markets, Feed Granola earned $110,000 in sales in 2006, and is projected to make $2 million over the next 12 months, according to Osborn and Wright.

Recently, BusinessWeek.com’s Stacy Perman spoke with Osborn and Wright about making the leap from a home kitchen hobby to a full-time company. Edited excerpts of the conversation follow.

How did you come to turn a homemade snack into a business?

Osborn: In 2003, our modeling agency put us together and we were living as roommates in the West Village. We started making granola as a healthy snack for ourselves. We would pass it out to friends, and it kind of caught on in the neighborhood. We gave it to a local restaurant to sample, and they ended up putting it on their menu. We realized that we had something special at that point, and we talked about making it into a serious product. So we took the granola to a dietician and gave her the formula. She said we had a really healthy product here and that there was a real need in the marketplace. So we put our heads together to make it a business in 2004.

Wright: And we formed a business corporation in December of 2005.

Did either of you have any prior business experience?

Osborn: After I moved to New York, I worked for an ad agency for three years. And in college I majored in business management and advertising.

Wright: I went to the University of South Carolina and majored in hotel, restaurant, and tourism management, and minored in business. But in college they don’t teach you to be an entrepreneur. When I graduated I had no idea that I would have a granola company one day. But I did want to own my own business and to work for myself. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, and I got into modeling because it got me to travel. I was managing an Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) store and that led me to modeling, which led me to New York.

How did you initially finance Feed?

Osborn: In the beginning we financed it ourselves.

Wright: We spent about $10,000 between us from 2004 to January of 2006.

Were you still making the granola in your kitchen?

Osborn: Yes, at first we were making it in our sixth floor walk-up. And we’d go around the neighborhood offering it as samples at gyms to get feedback from people who weren’t our friends. That’s how we hooked up with a local natural-foods store that put us on their shelves. But at that point we’d gotten too big for our kitchen, so we partnered with a meal delivery service in the city and bartered (BusinessWeek, 7/18/07) to use their kitchen space. We’d bake our granola during the night when they weren’t using it and we paid for the usage in granola. That’s how we paid rent on our first facility.

Wright: We did that for a year until the end of 2005, and then we outgrew that facility and moved to a cooking company in the Bronx. We trained their staff and worked with them until August of 2006.

Since you were growing, what did you do for capital?

Osborn: We approached the U.S. Small Business Administration and applied for a small-business loan. We were approved for a $75,000 loan, and the money got us to the point where we could launch the product at Natural Products Expo East, a national trade show in Baltimore. We made a plan to spend the next 10 months working on the brand and packaging in order to launch it at the trade show. We came up with the brand name and hired a designer friend of ours to execute the vision we had put down on paper.

Did you have a business plan or did this just evolve? Did you seek advice?

Osborn: In the beginning, we were just flying by the seat of our pants. Early on we sought out SCORE and spoke to them literally via e-mail. They helped us with questions about incorporating and starting a business plan. Then we created the business plan ourselves. It was really just cursory. It laid out how we’d run the business and outlined some of our market and financial milestones. We used that plan to secure our loan from the SBA.

What was the best piece of advice you received?

Osborn: Before we actually launched at the trade show, we attended a few other trade shows and we went to the educational programs and seminars that they had on how to take a product to market. We were able to ask people firsthand how they did it. They helped explain how to go to the next level from where we were. It was very helpful to attend those seminars.

Also, going to the trade shows allowed us to introduce ourselves to markets and distributors and chains. They could see that we were a viable company and became attracted to our brand.

Were there any blunders along the way?

Osborn: Yeah, of course. I think our biggest challenge was finding a facility that fit our needs. If you are constantly growing and changing, you need a manufacturer that allows you to do so. Also, I think our lack of experience allowed us to be more innovative, but I think if we had more experience we could have answered a lot of questions that came up.

Wright: When you are a small, growing company, cash flow is always a problem. Trying to balance receivables vs. payables is always a big challenge.

Many people have an idea but not everybody turns it into a business. What would you say makes that leap possible?

Osborn: In our case, we had a very good partnership. We both bring different things to the table. But I’d also say that you have to go with your instincts and vision and guts and stay true to them. Everyone has their own opinion and advice and it’s always different. I say, stay focused.

What’s next?

Wright: We’d like to go national by mid-to-late 2008

Osborn: We also want to expand our product line once we’ve established it as a quality product. And we want to enter into brand extensions.

www.feedgranola.com

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947-, Austrian-born American Actor) :My body is like breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I don’t think about it, I just have it

The Paul Newman of Punk Rock

After Hopeless Records started bringing in cash, founder Louis Posen began spinning profits into charity and joined a new trend in “social entrepreneurship”

by Christopher Palmeri

Louis Posen figured out a way to spin a sizable chunk of the money his company generates into philanthropy.

Louis Posen’s dream of becoming a movie director was coming to an end. The 19-year-old was studying film at California State University at Northridge in 1991 when he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a degenerative eye disease that leads to blindness. Looking for another creative endeavor, he bought a book called How to Run an Independent Record Label and launched Hopeless Records from his garage.

Today, Hopeless is profitable, employs nine people, and will gross $5 million this year. Boosting revenues and earnings every year in an industry barraged by digital piracy and slumping sales is an accomplishment. But Posen has another hit on his hands: He figured out a way to spin a sizable chunk of the money his company generates into philanthropy. “Although we didn’t really plan it,” Posen says. “we’re part of this whole movement of social entrepreneurship.”

The notes of inspiration came seven years ago, after a compilation of the label’s artists called Hopelessly Devoted to You Too sold more than 100,000 copies. Posen realized there was strength in numbers. He created another label called Sub City, a play on the word subsidy and on the punk rock subculture in which the company specializes. Then he offered his artists the option of releasing their records on Hopeless or Sub City.

If they choose Sub City, 5% of the gross goes to charity (BusinessWeek, 5/24/07). On a $14 compact disk that’s about 70 cents, but those dimes add up. Posen recently celebrated what he calls a “million-dollar milestone,” having given more than $1 million to charity. Half of the money comes from the artists’ royalties, the other from Posen’s profits.

Sub City also sponsors tours from which 10% of ticket sales go to various causes. The label works with more than 50 charities, including causes such as fighting blindness and music education in schools. Not every band chooses to participate. Posen figures about 3 of the 10 releases his company puts out each year are on the Sub City label. “Some artists prefer to give on their own,” he says. “Some can’t afford it.”

Posen learned to be creative from a business standpoint early on. Punk rock isn’t a huge market. His top selling album—from a band called Avenged Sevenfold—has sold 400,000 copies in the U.S. That’s 100,000 shy of what’s needed to qualify as a gold record. Posen generates extra revenue for his company by keeping the rights to sell a couple of merchandise designs from each of his bands, such as a T-shirt or a poster. He also takes a fee for licensing their music to television shows and movies. It’s a business model many major labels (BusinessWeek, 6/28/06) are now pursuing. “Louis has the spirit of an entrepreneur and a heart of gold,” says Mitchell Wolk, an executive at Warner Music Group (WMG), which helps distribute Posen’s albums. “He is truly an inspiration to us all.”

Marketing punk rock (BusinessWeek, 8/8/07) is difficult. The segment isn’t driven by hit singles or radio airplay like most of the music business. Instead, Posen and his team must build awareness for their artists through appearances in record stores, on social networking sites such as MySpace (NWS) and PureVolume, and through relationships with other companies looking to stay in tune with youth culture such as the Hot Topic (HOTT) retail chain.

On Sept. 25, for example, Hopeless is releasing the new album from All Time Low, a pop-punk quartet from suburban Baltimore. The company has a marketing alliance with Hollister, an Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) spin-off that will sell the CD in its stores and stream All Time Low’s music on its Web site. “We call ourselves a record label but we’ve never looked at ourselves as being in the record business,” says Posen, dressed casually in jeans and Vans sneakers. “It’s a lifestyle.”

Left with only the ability to see light and dark in one eye, Posen takes a cab to work most mornings. His wife picks him up at the end of the day. At the office, he uses a software program called Jaws that reads his e-mails and Excel spreadsheets aloud. With profits from the business, Posen recently bought a 5,500-square-foot warehouse in the Los Angeles suburb of Van Nuys. On a recent September morning, he was bumping into walls and furniture. “We moved in two weeks ago, and I’m still getting used to the place,” he says.

Scientific studies have shown that the blind can become suburb musicians, their ears compensating for the loss of sight, à la Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles. “Not me,” Posen says. “I’ve tried to play guitar, drums, everything.” Posen has more than made up for his lack of musical ability, finding other ways to make music and give back to others at the same time. “Losing your sight is not something anyone would choose,” he says. “But there are worse things that can happen to you.”

Via : www.businessweek.com

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American Scientist, Publisher, Diplomat) :If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing

Nice Metal Sculpture Work

From December to January, Arnaud has been displaying this metal sculpture work at B21 Progressive Art Gallery…for those who don’t live here, check out some of his work on their site. His work evokes calming emotion and it’s simplicity allows it to work anywhere, inside or out. Enjoy.Via : www.blog.2modern.com

Menus that Talk

Menus that Talk is a Florida company with an exciting new product that elegantly addresses a host of restaurant ordering issues. Using the cleverly designed device, diners turn a paper menu into an auditory experience including words and music. Buttons are grouped by course and labeled with easy to see identifiers. A boon to the hard of hearing and to the visually impaired, the small tablet sized device is a way to make a restaurant fully inclusive–but it is much more! An Italian accent whisks you away down a Venice canal adding an air of authenticity while considering their pasta choices. Menus that Talk is not simply another way to tell people what they can eat, it’s a way to set the mood and strike a tone that adds to the fun of dining out.

Menus That Talk faced a challenge. They knew they had a great product but the dilemma facing the Menus that Talk team was how to get the word out. In the past, press releases cost a lot and garnered little response. The Menus that Talk team was not enthused about issuing another press release.

Fortunately, Menus that Talk discovered PRWeb. The PRWeb staff worked with Menus That Talk to come up with a press release that would help them reach coveted media markets, introducing a whole range of folks to their device and stirring anticipation for their imminent debut at famous restaurants like Hooters and Dan Marino’s South Florida spot.

We were contacted by both the FOX and the CBS affiliates in Chicago and were on the front page of the Chicago Tribune

The press release hit the wire Monday and by mid-day had the buzz had begun.

“They were grinning ear-to-ear when they contacted me later the same morning their release went out,” said Joe Beaulaurier, interactive marketing manager for PRWeb.

“We were contacted by both the FOX and the CBS affiliates in Chicago and were on the front page of the Chicago Tribune,” said Jessica MacWithey of Menus that Talk. “They all said they saw our press release.” Ultimately, FOX ran a stand-up story featuring Menus that Talk.

From there, the effect snowballed. About a month after the local news crews came, Menus that Talk was featured in Business Week. By August, they had hit the pages of USA Today and soon after were working with a reporter for an article to appear in the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

“I would say other companies should definitely use PRWeb,” MacWithey said. “They got us in the media within one day.”

Via : www.prweb.com

www.menusthattalk.com

Stock Photography For Free

Stock photography • Yet another FREE LOVE war in the making: stock images. Incumbent Getty Images is now competing with free sites like Britepic, everystockphoto and stockvault. And it’s just a matter of time before others join in and remake the business forever, most likely dividing the market into free-yet-mass and bespoke-but-paid, with very little in between.Via : www.trendwtaching.com

Combine motherhood with a high tech online business

Having worked for two years for a streaming video provider, Cary had accumulated enough experience in the field to know what services could make a difference to consumers. She realised there was a gap in the market for safe and affordable video streaming for consumers and small businesses and ‘Mydeo’ was born.
The business was financed by a DTI grant and matched by seed funding from private investors. Cary and her business partner, Ian Millar, drew a huge deal of support and help from the Kingston Innovation Centre who provided office space, helped secure the grant, and ‘held their hand’ through getting started in a technology business.
In April 2004 Cary’s company won the Research & Development grant for Technical Innovation from the Department of Trade and Industry’s Small Business Service, which aims to encourage innovation in England.
One of the major obstacles Cary has faced has been business angels worrying about how a mother of two could launch and run her own business. “Showing them how much I had achieved so far and also explaining that there are plenty of hours in the evenings when the children are asleep did the trick. My drive and ambition for Mydeo left them in no doubt that I would make both the business and my home life a success.”

“The highs and lows feel so much more exaggerated when you are running your own business” says Cary, “quite unlike those in a salaried role. I find the freedom to make decisions quickly very exhilarating – no need for referral channels! But there’s no doubt it’s hard, I’ve worked far harder than I ever thought possible and there’s always more to do.”
Things have gone far better than Cary expected. She knew she had a great idea and the skills in place to make it a success, but when Microsoft made Mydeo their first and only European video hosting partner she had to pinch herself to make sure she wasn’t dreaming!
In retrospect Cary wishes she’d understood more about the process of raising funding. She had to learn a lot the hard way and wasted several months talking to the wrong type of investors and ended up taking her eye off the business . “When you need funding you can often make the wrong decision because you need money,” Cary feels, “luckily it worked out for me ok in the end”.
And what does Cary feel makes a successful entrepreneur? “A cracking idea, a willingness to work very hard, a thick skin and an enthusiasm for learning and listening. Also make sure you’ve done your research – know your competition and your end consumer. Then just go for it. If you keep finding reasons why not to take the plunge – you never will.”
On mixing motherhood with starting a business Cary says “Having a baby and starting a business in the same year is tough – but if you manage your time well and don’t try to do both jobs at the same time it can be the most wonderful thing in the world.”

“I absolutely love running my own business – the day I decided to go for it was the first day of the rest of my life”. Via: www.everywoman.com

www.mydeo.com

Cary received the 2007 everywoman Iris Award – Sponsored by BT.

Free Car Rental

Car rental • Two as-good-as-free automotive examples: LaudaMotion lets Austrian and German customers rent an ad-plastered Smart car for exactly three days at the cost of just one euro per day. Drivers then have to travel at least 30 kilometers (about 20 miles) a day, so the ads get maximum exposure. Cars are only available for rent Monday to Friday between 11 am and 2 pm.

Via: www.trendwatching.com

Vanessa Phillips Surfs the Web to Unprecedented Success

Vanessa Phillips’s company, OutSec Limited, provides online digital transcription.

Vanessa PhillipsVanessa enjoyed a successful career in banking and eurobond sales before deciding to move into a more exciting position. Selling space for various London publications, she relied heavily on the cooperation and participation of her sales team, who had much lower standards than herself. To avoid unnecessary aggravation, Vanessa left the sales industry to marry and start a family.

After the birth of her third child, Vanessa “got itchy feet to do something outside of housework!” Whilst searching the net, she discovered a gap in the market; no online digital transcription services existed.

With a bit of research, Vanessa set up OutSec Limited, which is now the leading UK provider of online specialist typing services, enabling clients to outsource their typing needs more quickly and efficiently than ever before.

In the early stages of her business, Vanessa was a multi-tasker to the utmost degree. “I was sales typing, accounts, admin, mum, wife, cook, and laundry maid all rolled into one!”

With the instant success of OutSec, all the initial revenue was invested into purchasing superior technological systems.

With the explosive growth of OutSec, her husband jumped on board as the Operations Director.

Today, Vanessa’s company provides online transcription to over 2,000 corporate clients from all over the world!

Managing a global network of over 250 secretaries from the UK, OutSec achieved the Investor in People status in record time after just three years of being up and running.

Launching OutSec has been a phenomenal experience. “The sheer adrenalin rush you get when you realise you are responsible for not only the business but also those who are affected by it,” has empowered Vanessa and fuelled her desire to continue expanding the company.

As a “natural fighter,” she deals with all problems head-on. To her, “there is simply no point in thinking they will go away.”

Issues will only spiral out of control if left unattended to; endure a small hassle to ensure a bigger one won’t arise. “A bit like a crack in the ceiling. If left a minute too long it could lead to your house falling down,” she says. Errors can be overlooked, but without proper repair they will creep up and damage your reputation and your client’s business.

Fearless and absolutely determined, she looks forward to new challenges; “in business, as a business owner, no day is the same!”

In the beginning, it is crucial to establish personal relationships with clients. By paying face-to-face visits to her customers, OutSec enjoyed incredible growth in its first year, “…word of mouth from happy clients – what can be better networking than this?!”

“Outside of wishing I had a crystal ball,” Vanessa has learnt from the difficulties her company has faced. “Every obstacle has increased my understanding of my business and more importantly, of people.”

Without problems, “I think I would have lost interest by now!” she says. Vanessa is pleased with her entrepreneurial journey, “…it has been interesting 100% of the time.”

Being a business owner is a balancing act. “Never say ‘never’ but…don’t dream the impossible,” she says.

Go for it! “You have one life – make sure you don’t end it with the words…if only…” says Vanessa.

Via: www.everywoman.com

Watch Out For Massive Murals

Watch out for massive murals, empowered once again by digital technology that can easily alter form, scale and colour. Leading the field is Digetex (0161 873 8891; www.digetex.com). Digital printing will put patterns onto ceramics, tiles, blinds and other surfaces as clearly as a photograph. See, for example, surreal tiles and papers by Dominic Crinson (www.crinson.com) and the enhanced computer graphics of Alice Mara printed on tiles and chinaware (www.alicemara.com).

Via : http://es.homesandproperty.co.uk

Shakara Ledard Not Only Models Clothes, She Designs Them

Shakara Ledard’s label “ROXS” offers a new brand of luxury street clothing, all sporting her wildly original trademark style. With its rock, punk, funk and urban influences, ROXS (pronounced “rocks”) is aimed at hip younger women, aged 22 to 35, who are more interested in creating their own style than following fashion. The clothes are distinguished by luxurious fabrics, unique treatments and feminine, form-fitting cuts.

Shakara Ledard Shakara always believed that modeling was going to be a stepping stone to something else, but for a long time she just didn’t know what that something else would be.

Blessed with both supermodel looks and a strong sense of style, her career spanned everything from magazine covers to beauty campaigns, feature films and hit music videos. The Bahamian-born beauty first caught the public’s attention when she was featured modelling swimwear in Sports Illustrated. A string of magazine cover appearances followed, culminating in her becoming the first black model to grace the cover of Singapore Harper’s Bazaar. She was also the face (and body) of numerous high profile international advertising campaigns, including those for Victoria’s Secret, L’Oreal, Levis, Clinique and Liz Claiborne. As impressive a career trajectory as this may be, Shakara never lost sight of the fact that modelling was simply a means to opening up other business avenues.

Shakara’s interest in design first showed itself in kindergarten doodles and the ‘fashion shows’ that she put on for her parents as a child. With a family full of fashion fanatics, her leap from model to designer was a natural progression, but more surprising was that once she’d decided she wanted to start her own fashion business, Shakara took the road less traveled: she wasn’t prepared to compromise on her wildly fresh, highly creative designs, or on using the very best fabrics. She approached veteran clothing entrepreneur Carl Bethencourt with sketches to discuss the viability of her “outside the box” approach. Carl was immediately taken with her work and together they launched what would become ROXS: a new luxury apparel brand for women unafraid to express themselves, to radiate their own individuality and confidence.

Shakara Ledard Seeking out a partner who had been in the apparel industry for 16 years turned out to be a wise choice as Shakara has been able to draw on his vast understanding of the mechanics of the industry. She has also been blessed with the support, advice and wisdom of her whole family, who almost all work in the fashion industry. “My parents are in retail”, says Shakara, “my uncle is in manufacturing – and I have an aunt who is a designer.”

The label offically launched – to immediate acclaim – in September of 2005 at the Coterie show in New York. “It’s such a difficult show to get into” says Shakara. “They select the designers so I was thrilled that I had been accepted”.

The company started with just Shakara and her partner but now employs two designers, a graphic artist, an accountant and three sales reps. She feels it is important to keep the company small until it can support a large work force.

Shakara has found that in the clothing industry marketing is key. Being able to leverage the recognisable name, face and image that modelling gave her in order to market her own product has been an enormous advantage. She also finds online marketing a particularly effective way to promote a fashion brand.

Shakara and her business partner have self-financed their company thus far. “The hardest part to any business venture is the start up,” she says. “It is very difficult for new companies to get the financial support of banks or investors until your company can show profit. I am still seeking investors but I did not want this to hinder the development of our business. Luckily my partner and I have been able to provide the funds to get our first two collections developed.”

While it is challenging to self-finance your products, Shakara feels that the advantage of doing it this way is that in the end you own all of your company.

Only a year after its successful debut ROXS is stocked in nearly 70 stores around the world. Shakara doesn’t allow herself to rest on her laurels though: even though the company is developing as steadily as she hoped, she knows that she is still very much in the process of establishing it.

“Being a business owner is a trying yet wonderful experience”, says Shakara. “It has its ups and downs like everything, but the rewards of creating one’s own work environment and product are worth it”.

Like many first-time entrepreneurs, she wishes she had known how much emotional and financial sacrifice was required of her when she started. But she has learnt to adjust as she goes along and no matter how exhausted she gets she keeps going because she believes in what she is doing.

“I think being a successful entrepreneur requires great dedication, a strong business mind, a touch of creative and a drive that will move mountains”, says Shakara. “I would advise those starting a new business to really understand what they are getting into and to really do a lot of research. Have a clear plan of what you want to achieve, who your target audience is, what is financially required and how to go about securing the funds, however be wise in your decisions. There’s no need to end up on the streets just to start your own company!”

Via : www.everywoman.com

http://www.roxs.com

The New Leggera Bathtub

The new Leggera bathtub from Ceramica Flaminia is a design that will arouse curiosity in all who see it. Resembling a crisp white cloth held taut by four invisible hands, the Leggera stretches out invitingly… the vision of designer Gilda Borgnini. The lightness of the design, and the thin surfaces of the bathtub allows for a sense of freedom from the usual boundaries. The outside and inside of the bathtub are less marked, melting into one another with a sensation of airy relaxation. A stainless steel shower pole pierces through the porcelain effortlessly, as if it were indeed cloth. The tub’s shape and dimensions are ideal for reclining to your full length, undisturbed by the normal restrictions (even if you are very tall), and are likewise also perfect for containing any splashes from the shower. Soak and shower to your heart’s content in the new Leggera bathtub by Ceramica Flaminia.

Via :www.trendir.com

Her Love of Horses Turned into a Successful Retail usiness

Chloe Giles runs Gee Gee Images, which specialises in Equestrian Event Photography and Equestrian Themed Jewellery. She operates an online shop which allows customers to purchase additional photos, bespoke personalised photo art products, and her equestrian themed jewellery. Read more about Gee Gee Images and a special offer for everywoman members.

Chloe GilesChloe has always had a real passion for horses. “I’ve been riding since I was five” she says,”and I trained and broke in my own horse as a teenager”. She also rode competitively at a local level, doing dressage, cross-country and endurance riding.

The biggest challenge for anyone wanting to make a career out of horses though is finding the right niche in the market. “There’s no money in ‘mucking out’ liveries or running riding schools (too much red tape!)” Chloe maintains, “but the retail side of the sporting equestrian market is huge – and growing”. This realisation led to Chloe’s choice of equestrian event photography when she decided she wanted to start her own business.

Chloe has been able to couple her considerable knowledge of the equestrian market with the solid business experience she acquired during her media career. This included a stint as a production assistant/designer on the national magazine Country Illustrated, a telemarketing manager job at Television Education Network and a new business account manager role at outdoor global media giant Viacom Outdoor. “This experience has helped me to run my company and also to know how to generate new business” she says.

She started Gee Gee Images in the spare bedroom of her London town house, using personal savings. For advice and support on getting started she went to Business Link, her bank, friends, family “in fact anyone I knew who was running their own business”.

Chloe believes in investing in good skills-based training and so she’s completed a range of advanced professional courses at the London College of Printing – in Photoshop, QuarkXpress, Magazine Design and Production and printing technology.

While she has always been sure that she wanted to run her own business, she was amazed at her own flying start. “I formed Gee Gee Images in 2003 and that very same year I was already a finalist in the national Business Plan Awards, run by handbag.com”.

Chloe’s business has developed pretty much the way she thought it would and she’s grown to absolutely love being her own boss.

The process hasn’t been without teething problems though. Chloe and her husband relocated to Cambridgeshire in 2005, lured by the possibility of owning enough land to keep stables and paddocks for their horses. (It’s no coincidence that they also live down the road from Newmarket Racecourse). Sadly the move meant she lost her biggest client. The positive upside of this has been that it has forced Chloe to grow all the areas of the business. It’s also made her more focused in the way in which she does things. She invests a lot more in the online e-commerce part of her business now, for example.

She also had lots of technical problems when she first started out with her brand new computer and software. However she found a fantastic engineer who has been superb and who she still calls in her hours of need.

Chloe has found joining networking groups really helpful: “I am a trade member of the British Horse Society, an associate member of the British Equestrian Trade Association, Secretary of Soham Association of Commerce & Trade and, not least of all, a member of everywoman”.

What does Chloe know today that she wishes she’d known when she started?

“To be aware of diminishing returns is critically important”, she says.

“To be a successful entrepreneur”, she stresses, “takes motivation, passion, focus and a determination to succeed.”

The advice she would give to someone starting up their own business would be to “never give up, keep your eyes open and your ears peeled and to keep ahead of your game. Get on the phone, be proactive, be creative and just go for it – and KEEP going for it at all times!”

www.geegeeimages.co.uk

Via : www.everywoman.com

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