Hometown Annapolis:

Teen Opens Successful Shaved Ice Business

“Katie Neighoff is a busy entrepreneur and the owner of a new business in Galesville, the “Sno Shak.” At the Shak, she sells 24 regular and diet flavors of sno-balls.

For Katie, the business is a way to earn money for college. It might also turn out to be an applied business course for the 18-year-old business major.

Katie said that she wanted to open the Shak last year, but couldn’t get her act together in time to make it happen. She said she wanted to do sno-balls because the overhead for the product is much lower than for ice cream and there aren’t as many requirements from the county in terms of regulation and licensing.

Katie bought a pre-fabricated shed at Home Depot, which required assembly and painting. The adults assembled the shed, then Katie selected the colors - a salmon-hued pink with aqua trim - and painted it.

She made all the signs, and assembled and painted the tropical-themed Adirondack-style chairs in front of the Shak. Katie’s mom, south county Realtor Judith Neighoff, called in a favor to local electrician John Probst to help her get the electricity hooked up.”

Montreal Gazette:

Eco-Friendly, Organic Compost Business

“Last summer, Stephen McLeod started an organic waste pickup service, charging clients $5 a week to pick up and properly dispose of their table scraps and garden wastes. The service, called Compost Montreal, has almost 100 clients in St. Henri, the Plateau and Notre Dame de Grâce.

McLeod, who also runs an eco-friendly messenger service business, realized there might be a demand for a composting service when he moved from Ontario to St. Henri and was looking for a way to dispose of his own organic waste.

So McLeod asked around and quickly found several environmentally conscious neighbours willing to pay him $5 a week to cart off their compostable waste. McLeod bought himself a trailer for his bicycle and a big garbage can in which to collect the waste, and began his door-to-door pick-up service last July.”

KERA:

“TCU student Erick vant’ Westeinde is an expert on antique luxury cars, having fallen for them at age 12, when he started collecting and trading pricey, miniature reproductions of Porsches and Mercedes.

Vant’ Westeinde sold some of his miniatures for double what he paid, then started souping up bicycles. A few years ago, he moved up to real cars, way before he was old enough to drive. With help from his parents, he bought his first Porsche for under 10 thousand dollars, worked on it, and sold it for more than 30. He purchased this purple Porsche from a Dallas owner for 7 thousand dollars. He’ll fix it, advertise it on the web to European buyers, and hopes to get 25 thousand.

Westeinde’s made about a quarter million dollars so far. He’s not only fluent in Porsche lore and mechanics, he also speaks Dutch and German, having spent summers with relatives in Holland. So he ably communicates with European buyers. His father, Andre vant’ Westeinde, says his son’s been into business since before he was teen.”

Entrepreneur:

Start a Doll Making & Repair Business

“It may not seem like it, but doll making and repairs is a giant segment of the craft and toy industry. To reinforce this, simply visit an antique shop that specializes in antique dolls or a retailer of new custom “one of a kind” dolls, and you’ll soon see that the prices are out of this world. A doll-making business can be started from home on a part-time basis. You can sell the dolls you make through retail accounts, kiosks, mail order, craft shows and the internet. This is an enterprise that requires very little in the way of startup investment, and the ongoing monthly overhead is also very small. Once you’ve sharpened your skills in doll making, you can proceed to antique doll repairs. Some of the antique dolls can sell for as much as $500 for the “real” thing and $300 for replicas. To get started, find out if doll-making classes are available in your local community.”

Entrepreneur: 

“At age 18, Shawn Nelson was watching TV on the couch when he decided “a huge beanbag thing” might be more comfortable. He bought 14 yards of vinyl, cut it into a baseball shape, and spent three weeks filling it with anything soft he could find. The finished LoveSac was 7 feet wide, and everyone who saw it tried it out–and loved it.

 No one fully expected LoveSac’s success-not even Nelson himself. He says being committed to solving any problem is vital to his–and any entrepreneur’s-success. “Decide that there is always a way,” he says, “and you’ll find that there is.”

Entrepreneur:

Best Facebook Apps For Business Entrepreneurs

“There are more than 35 million active members on the hot social networking site Facebook–and that’s a marketing and networking opportunity too large to ignore. A lot of entrepreneurs maintain profiles on Facebook, whether it’s to keep up with colleagues, hunt for business partners and employees, or just get their faces and their companies’ logos out there.

Here are some interesting and handy applications for entrepreneurs; try them out by logging in to your Facebook account.

• 30 Boxes: This popular online calendar service now integrates with Facebook. Friends and clients can keep track of your events, and you can send out calendar updates over newsfeed.
• Box.net: No relation to 30 Boxes, this file-sharing application lets you display just about any file through your Facebook profile. Uses can range from sharing a video to sharing a collaborative document. You can use it to communicate and work with partners and colleagues.
• Facebook Flyers: This isn’t a third-party application for your profile, but it is of interest. If your business is located near a university, Facebook Flyers is an inexpensive way to advertise to that particu-lar community. Flyers are web ads that are served up to specific university groups and start at just $5.
• SplashCast: This video player lets you embed multimedia into your Facebook profile. You can choose your own content, use the SplashCast directory of audio and video podcasts and add YouTube videos to your personal channel. It’s an easy way to get your business’s video blog or podcast out to your Facebook connections.”

MSNBC:

“There’s no doubt that buying an existing small business is less risky than starting one from scratch. Why? Because, unlike a startup:

• the business has equipment and inventory;
• the business already has a location, and maybe there’s a few more years left on the lease;
• the business has employees, some of whom you may actually want to keep;
• the business has customers, most of whom probably will stick with you (unless this is a professional service business or practice); and
• most importantly, the business has a track record–you can look at the business’ books, records and tax returns and get some sense of how much money you will make.

But there’s still risk. Whenever you buy an existing business and look at its records, you’re looking at the past. There’s no guarantee things won’t change going forward. If you’re negotiating to buy a business and you think the seller is giving you a great deal, be very suspicious–there’s probably something heading down the road at 90 miles an hour that will blow this business apart when it hits.”

USA Today:

“Q: Can anyone be an entrepreneur?

A:  I believe anyone can do anything they want to do. You can get started right now were you are. Much of being an entrepreneur starts with a state of mind. How we think determines how our lives will unfold. Right now you are in a good position to implement entrepreneurial thinking. As the general manager of your company, you have an important leadership role that can only become and stay successful if you apply an entrepreneurial spirit to your position.

Like any successful entrepreneur you have to use your skills in marketing and selling to keep business flowing. You will need to work with employees so that they feel a sense of teamwork and ownership of their positions and they in turn will help to keep business coming in the door.”

Seattle Post Intelligence:

“Q: I am an account manager for a large telecommunications company, but I dread going to work every day. On weekends, I wake up full of energy and work on my eBay business. I make good money at my job, but I feel as though I am in a cage and have no purpose there. When should I quit my job and make a move to my dreams? I am 28 years old and tired of being unhappy.

– K.D., Jupiter, Fla.

A: My definition of a happy entrepreneurial dream is one that works out well in our waking hours. The starting point is the ideas that come from imaginative individuals who allow their thoughts to roam beyond the cagelike confines of a predictable, cubicle career.

Still, a good business has to be more than daydreaming or wishful thinking.

To make sure your prosperous part-time business doesn’t morph into a full-time nightmare, it’s worth it for you to analyze if your business is both scalable and a potentially lucrative career move for you.”

WSJ:

The WSJ has a good article on how to market a small business in a economic slowdown. In the article they give 12 ideas:

1. Target optimistic entrepreneurs

2. Position yourself as a sales driver

3. Run “likely to leave” models

4. Offer self service

5. Intercept businesses before they make their next move

6. Leverage social-networking trends

7. Earmark entertainment/hospitality spending for small businesses

8. “Lubricate the accordion”

9. Offer rent-to-own and short-term options

10. Help them stay focused on their customers

11. Position your product or service as an efficiency enhancer

12. Help them better manage cash flow

For a more detailed description of these, you’ll have to visit the website.

Star Tribune:

“Catallia Mexican Foods turns out more than a million tortillas a day using four automated production lines at its Eagan factory. The company, aided by financing from a Cargill Inc. subsidiary, has 48 employees.

Cruz Gooch started out selling her tortillas a case at a time to supermarkets. She also started her business by outsourcing all of her manufacturing. But the 2005 joint-venture agreement with Cargill provided the seed money and support she needed to begin producing the tortillas herself. She considered this move crucial to her future, allowing her to make sure the products met her customers’ stringent specifications.”

Salt Lake Tribune: 

In a tiny showroom of twisted light bulbs, energy entrepreneur Paul Isom is going gangbusters for green.

He speaks of wax-covered refrigerator thermostats, pinkie-sized fluorescent bulbs that need no ballast and energy adapters that can make a drinking fountain, escalator and even a rock crusher run more efficiently.

“There are two types of green,” Isom said. “The green for the environment and the green for your pocket. This accomplishes both.”

As Salt Lake County touts an environmental agenda sprinkled with rooftop solar panels and a mayoral pledge to cut government’s energy and water use 20 percent, Isom is chasing the green dream as founder of sEnergy Technologies.

The company whittles watts from street lamps, air conditioners and freezers. It also boasts light bulbs that burn brighter at a fraction of the cost and markets innovations such as the eCube thermostat (encased in wax) that mimic food temperature rather than air temperature to keep a refrigerator from turning on too often…

“It just makes sense,” Wright said. “We are starting to get smart about energy and realizing that our fossil resources aren’t infinite.”

AZCentral.com:

What I do: I manage a tranquil, yet energizing yoga studio in north Scottsdale.

I get to teach yoga to busy moms, dads, kids, working professionals, teens and families.

About my business: My studio is located inside AZ on the Rocks, a rock climbing gym in north Scottsdale.

We offer yoga for everyone. It is a very welcoming environment with classes for all levels and ages. We have simultaneous classes for parents in the studio while we hold classes in the party room downstairs for kids. It’s a great way to promote healthy lifestyles and role modeling with your child…

SustainableIndustries.com:

The word “entrepreneur,” of French origin, means one who “takes the between.” In my younger days, I viewed entrepreneurs as exploitative—business owners who opportunistically extracted value from an economic flow. But in fact, entrepreneurs can create the flow—or the channel in which the flow can run—by recognizing an opportunity and “taking the between.” By standing in the gap, entrepreneurs have the ability to invent opportunities that can only exist if someone… if someone does what?

The usual answer is “takes on a risk for the opportunity of a return.” Yet while entrepreneurs are commonly seen as risk takers, the best ones are actually risk mitigators: designers who create ways to get reliable results amid chaos and confusion. Entrepreneurs differ from inventors: The inventor’s task is to innovate, to create something unprecedented. The entrepreneur’s is to translate innovation into something reliable, replicable, consistently deliverable and economically viable…

HappyNews.com:

Jason O’Neill, creator and founder of Pencil Bugs, is the youngest student to receive the Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2007.

Young Entrepreneurs of America (YEA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to educating and motivating young entrepreneurs. Since the program began over a decade ago, high school students across the country have been competing for this prestigious award. […]

O’Neill is the youngest and first entrepreneur to receive the Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award in the “Under 16″ division. He turned a simple craft idea into a real business when he was only 9 years old. When most businesses fail within the first year, Pencil Bugs continues to fast forward.

MiamiHerald.com:

It didn’t take David Lopez long to figure out the last thing he wanted was to be just another cog in a corporate wheel.

During his freshman year at the University of Central Florida while completing an internship at a Fortune 500 business, Lopez, now 26, was marched into the company cafeteria with his co-workers and informed that 50 would be fired on the spot. No questions asked. Clean out your desk. Go home.

”I wasn’t right for the whole corporate thing,” he says. “I wanted the American dream, but I didn’t think I’d achieve it with a corporation.”

Greenbiz.com:

Nearly a decade ago, Seth Goldman began brewing his dream business in his own kitchen, with a thermos of tea, some old Snapple bottles and help from his B-school professor and partner Barry Nalebuff. Today, Goldman, “TeaEO” of Honest Tea, reigns over the nation’s fastest-growing organic bottled-beverage company, with projected 2007 sales of $23 million and a 58 percent share of the organic tea market. […]

Honest Tea is a pioneer in its industry, offering lightly sweetened, 100 percent organic beverages and claiming the first line of fair trade certified bottled tea in the U.S. Honest Tea truly exemplifies the “new wave” in business — placing equal emphasis on profitability, ecology and humanity, aka the triple bottom line.

More and more entrepreneurs are striving to strike such a balance between profit and principle, asking themselves, “Can do the same in my company? Is my green dream really feasible?” Freelance writer and fair trade entrepreneur April Thompson spoke with Goldman recently to tap the leader for his secrets to start-up success. Here are 10 tips culled from their “fireside chat” on socially responsible entrepreneurship.

SmartCompany.com:

Many people think that entrepreneurial people have some magic, in-built gene. You know the sort of story – at the age of five, these natural-born entrepreneurs start their first lemonade stand. Later, they drop out of uni to start some sort of company in the garage and a few years later strike it rich when they invent a fabulous product.

But some of our greatest entrepreneurs are not natural business geniuses, and it is only after many years of working for other people that they take the plunge and start a business. 

But they provide great inspiration to wage-slaves everywhere – your chance to become an entrepreneur may not have passed you by…

TomsRiverTimes.micromediapubs.com:

In 1987, a hardworking man quit his job at a nuclear power plant with the desire to start his own company. When Thomas Kohler made the promising decision to transform his previous experience and part-time work as a plumber into a full-fledged family owned business, he knew it would not be an easy task. With a lot of time and devotion, Kohler & Sons Plumbing and Heating became a successful operated business for over 20 years. With changes in the economy growing, the idea of targeting a different yet wider range of clientele while also enabling the comfort of an easier and more controlled specialty service came into play. The Kohler family soon decided to make a major addition to the business, within the past year, they shifted the company’s focus from merely plumbing expertise to also becoming a residential kitchen and bath specialty production. Throughout the short amount of time in which this addition has been in progress, the main focus of the company has been profitably over 60 percent in kitchen and bath total revenue sales…

PressBanner.com:

Jerry Toste of Scotts Valley is only 21 and seems to have a perpetual smile on his face. He should — his low-tech startup, Cheap Hauling, is on everyone’s lips: Those trucks are everywhere.

Toste is grossing $800,000 per year after 1½ years in business, not bad for a guy who decided that “college and I just don’t mix.” Toste started hauling, instead.

Entrepreneur.com:

Every day, millions of people rush off to work or read the news with a piping hot cup of coffee they’ve just bought. These consumers are fueling the $12.27 billion coffee industry and, by association, the coffee sleeve industry.

Moving on to the day’s next task, however, happens to be a little more difficult if your beverage is singeing your fingertips–a fact that helped the leader in coffee sleeve manufacturing and advertising, BriteVision, grow coffee sleeve sales by 25 percent last year, according to the company. Coffee sleeves also owe their popularity to environmentally friendly coffee lovers who don’t want to use another coffee cup to protect their hands…

BusinessWeek.com:

Barry Thomsen began his entrepreneurial career as a 10-year-old running a paper route and selling lemonade to workers at construction sites. From there, he sold Amway and Avon, delivered pizza, and started and owned a number of businesses that ranged from a small manufacturer to a business forms supplier. During the course of some 30 years as an entrepreneur, Thomsen has observed and experienced many of the problems that occur in the all-important first year of business—a period when the majority of new businesses fail. […]

Recently, BusinessWeek.com’s Stacy Perman spoke with Thomsen about surviving those crucial first 12 months. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow.

SoutheastTexasLive.com:

Leo Danna never had any formal culinary training, but he spent years working behind the counter at his parents’ old restaurant, the Quality Cafe. Being half-Italian, he said, he also had a knack “for throwing stuff together and making it taste pretty good.”

So 12 years ago, he began tinkering in the cafe’s kitchen to produce a dressing for the restaurant’s salads. The concoction of olive oil, vinegar, parmesan cheese and garlic is now sold at Jason’s Delis nationwide and might be making its way on to grocery shelves beyond Southeast Texas…

NewsDurhamRegion.com:

An art therapist is showing new mothers a baby doesn’t have to be the only new creation they welcome into the world.

Susanne Watson-Bongard offers art and wellness programs for all ages with her company, Art and Soul Express.

The studio is home-based with a focus on new and expectant mothers they can also give birth to their own creative abilities. In addition to the art, the workshops offer a variety of honest perspectives and experiences in pregnancy.