business idea: clearly fun soap

It all started with a goldfish in a bag. Dawn Dallaire, founder of Clearly Fun Soap, began by making gifts for her friends and family in 2002.  They were such a hit that she started getting requests, first from these same friends and family members, and soon from neighbors, acquaintances and complete strangers.

Something Clearly Fun had begun.  For a few months, Dawn ran the operation out of her kitchen, then her garage. It quickly became apparent that the company’s growth was outpacing her ability to devote space to it.  She rented a warehouse and began hiring America’s most talented soapcrafters, who make every bar and bag of Clearly Fun Soap by hand.  By 2006, the company moved again, to its current 10,000 square foot manufacturing facility, with over sixty employees.

Today, Clearly Fun Soap™ is one of America’s fastest growing specialty products companies, producing a broad range of bath products.  Our hand-made soaps, gels, bath fizzies and confettis delight children and their parents, they provide memorable corporate gifts and add a special touch for the hospitality industry. Our branded and private label products can be found at Bath & Body Works, Kirklands, Ritz Carlton Hotels, the Grand Ol’ Opry, and even as personalized gifts for international celebrities! Because our soap products are hand-made at our headquarters in central Georgia, we have the flexibity to produce short-run and specialty packaging as well as large volume packaging. And yes… we still offer goldfish-in-a-bag soap.  It’s a perennial favorite with our most loyal customers.

 

source: http://www.clearlyfunsoap.com/About_Us.html

Business idea: Jamba Juice

Have you had a Jamba Juice? If you haven’t, then you’ve been living in a hole for quite some time! It’s kind of neat that 2 of the founders of Jamba Juice, Kevin Peters and Joe Vergara, were students and graduates of Cal Poly State University (the college I attend). The 3rd was Kirk Perron who was a young entrepreneur who graduated from Cuesta, a junior college near Cal Poly. Their very first store was known as the Juice Club and it opened in April 1990 on Foothill Boulevard near our campus. The idea to open the first Juice Club came from Kirk Perron.

The First Juice Club
After deciding to open the first Juice Club, Kevin Peters and Kirk Perron realized that they needed help planning menus, creating drink recipes, and blending the icy fruit drinks. They ended up hiring Joe Vergara (the 3^rd founder), who was then a manger of another local fruit juice store. Kevin Peters helped open and run the first store, eventually documenting the systems and training personnel for future expansion.

What Mattered Most
The first fruit blends were named Banana Berry, Berry Lime Sublime, Peach Pleasure, Razzmatazz, and Strawberries Wild (one of my favorite).Kevin Peters said, “Our visions were pretty grand, but our initial focus was on the first store.” They also say that dedication, attention to detail, and a passion for people were also key factors to their success.

A Legendary Expansion
Once the trio of men considered the thought of expanding, they hung up a map of the United States to plot potential sites. It wasn’t long before customers around the nation were “clamoring” for more locations. “Tourists began asking for stores in their hometowns. Fast-food executives started arriving in groups, and the competitors started popping up.”

In 1992, still known as the Juice Club, the company began to franchise and the response was phenomenal.

A Fourth Member of the Crew
In 1992 the Juice Club needed more staff members to handle the fast growing business. A lday by the name of Linda Ozawa-Olds was brought on board, who eventually rose as the vice president of marketing. Linda states, “What attracted me to Juice Club was not only the concept, but the people. After a three-hour interview with Kirk, then meeting with Kevin and Joe, I knew this was where I wanted to be!

A Search For a New Name
“In 1994, the franchising stopped when the Juice Club hit the radar screens of venture capitalists – including Howard Schultz, chairman of Starbucks, and John Mackey, chairman and CEO of Whole Foods Market.” Both of these men were recruited to serve on the board of directors. And soon after, a new name and a new “brand” had begun. Peters explained, “Although the Juice Club was a trademarked name, it was composed of words that were not totally proprietary. Numerous competitors with the word “juice” in their names were diluting the Juice Club brand.” Everyone agreed that a new name and logo was needed.

The trademark Jamba Juice whirl came first. Linda stated, “During a brainstorming session, we were discussing the actual whirl created inside a blender as a smoothie is being made. If you saw the whirl, you knew the smoothie was just right.” They took their ideas to an agency in Seattle, who developed the recognizable logo.

They all claimed that creating a new name was a lot more complicated. Linda said, “After hiring professionals, hearing rounds of names that didn’t resonate with us, and spending thousands of dollars, we decided to take matters into our own hands.” Kevin, Kirk, and Linda all went to Cal Poly’s Kennedy Library and agreed to meet each other 3 hours later with lists of potential names.

Branding Jamba Juice
They had a big job ahead of them. They wanted to grow Jamba Juice into a brand of many choices: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack. They had to carve a niche in the marketplace and get people to understand that a smoothie is a healthy alternative to fast food. This worked without difficulty.

Jamba Juice Around the Nation
Jamba Juice now has some 600 locations throughout the United States and has future plans to go international. Earlier this year (2007), Jamba Juice went public when it merged with what is called a “blank check company” according to Peters. He explained: “A group of investors, one of whom started Blockbuster, got together and formed a company, registered it as a public entity with tradable stock, then went looking for a concept to purchase, allowing the blank-check company to use its resources to capitalize on the new concept’s potential. Jamba was that concept – and, roughly speaking, it became public upon the successful merger of the two companies.”

What Are the Founders Up to Now?
Perron and Peters now have varying degrees of involvement with the company. Perron, who left a few years ago, acts as a consultant for Jamba Juice and served on its board. He is also spending a lot of his time traveling. Peters left Jamba Juice in 2001 and now runs the business side of one of the West Coast’s largest private residential interior-design firms. Ozawa-Olds and Vergara are both living on the Central Coast, and were partners until recently, in 10 Jamba Juice franchises from Paso Robles to Camarillo.

All four partners still have the same respect and admiration for each other when Juice Club was first starting out.

“Kirk, Kevin, and Joe were my partners in crime. They pushed me, pulled me, appreciated me, and loved me. Together we shared a passion and a vision that had kept us united through good and bad times. It was Kirk’s initial vision, focus and determination that took us beyond one store. Jamba Juice would have never gotten off the ground if it weren’t for Kirk and his ability to build a strong teams.

source: http://www.gregghawkins.com/a-recipe-for-success/

Business idea: Netflix

Video:http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/01/60minutes/main2222059.shtml

LOS GATOS, Calif. — Netflix (NFLX) CEO Reed Hastings sounded frustrated.

The scene: The weekly meeting where top employees pitched ideas to bolster the online DVD-rental company’s website.

He zeroed in on the button that customers click to say they are not interested in films Netflix recommends to them. In earlier meetings, everyone agreed to ditch the button to make the site less cluttered.

Yet there it was.

“Less is more,” Hastings reminded the eight employees assembled in a conference room last month.

Hastings’ focus on such details is a major reason the company he founded in 1997 is reshaping how millions of Americans watch movies. He’s also helping upend the film industry. Netflix makes it easy to watch DVDs at home, delivered by the millions in Netflix’s ubiquitous red envelopes.

The Friday meeting was one of many at which Hastings, 45, cajoled, quizzed and pushed workers in his drive to keep Netflix No. 1. He led 150 staffers in a pep rally at the Silicon Valley headquarters. He asked about store closings at rival Blockbuster. And he fretted over post office delivery schedules.

No surprise, says Bob Pisano, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, and a former Netflix director. Hastings, an engineer, is analytical and “very charismatic,” he says. “That’s a rare combination.”

Hastings has fended off Wal-Mart and Blockbuster, sending Netflix shares soaring. Wall Street is expecting more good news today when Netflix reports quarterly results after markets close.

But Hastings isn’t out of the woods. He’s trying to protect a customer base of more than 4 million as digital entertainment shifts rapidly. Broadband distribution of movies and TV shows is fast becoming reality: ABC will start testing free online delivery of Desperate Housewives and other top shows next Monday.

Online retailer Amazon has talked to Hollywood studios about adding movie and TV show downloads to its website. Apple Computer hit the gas pedal last fall when it launched $1.99 downloads of ABC shows and other videos at its iTunes online store.

“All these competing products via digital delivery and not mail order,” says analyst Frank Gristina at investment banker Avondale Partners. The pace, he says, has “clearly accelerated.”

Hastings, a Boston native, isn’t sweating yet. He’s aiming to build an even bigger customer base — 20 million as early as 2010 — to ready Netflix for an eventual shift to downloads. That switch depends on several factors, he says. Critical hardware and software haven’t been perfected. There aren’t enough movies available in downloadable form. Plus, studios must still work out licensing agreements with existing distributors.

Eureka moment: $40 late fee

Hastings looks a bit like a younger version of another movie industry pioneer: producer George Lucas, best known for his Star Wars blockbusters. Yet, it was another space-themed film that inspired Hastings — indirectly, anyway — to start Netflix.

First, the back story: After getting a math degree at Bowdoin College in 1983, Hastings sought adventure for more than two years as a Peace Corps math teacher in Swaziland. “Absolutely loved it,” he recalled in an interview.

Next came Stanford in Silicon Valley’s sunny Palo Alto, a dream compared to chilly New England. “You’ll never see me again,” he told his parents. “I’ve found nirvana.”

He got a computer science degree in 1988, then jumped into the region’s entrepreneurial hothouse. He launched a software maker, Pure Software. It was a trying time. His engineering background made him too much of a perfectionist. As CEO, he was too hard on himself. He told his board of directors to replace him with a “real” CEO.

“I tried to fire myself — twice,” he says. “I was losing confidence.”

No dice, the board said. Pure Software eventually was sold to Rational Software for more than $500 million. Hastings got a pile of loot. He moved to his other passion, public education reform, as head of the California Board of Education.

Then nine years ago, Netflix. The eureka moment arrived when he handed over $40 in late fees after returning a copy of Apollo 13 to a rental store. He wasn’t especially a film buff; his tastes lean toward foreign and independent films. Still, he figured there had to be a better way, built on the fast-growing Internet. He dangled an irresistible carrot to customers: No late fees, which he knew consumers loathed.

Netflix is now the world’s biggest online DVD rental service. It went public in 2002. It has 4.2 million subscribers across the USA. They tap a library of 55,000 titles and 42 million DVD copies shipped from 37 distribution centers.

Netflix’s current stock sizzle is a switch from when Hastings was battling new entrants Wal-Mart and Blockbuster. Wal-Mart retreated last year. “Blockbuster was a much bigger threat,” Hastings says. “It was a strategic area for them.”

A price war drove Netflix shares below $10 before they rebounded. They closed Friday at $30.80, down 31 cents for the day but up from $12.15 a year ago.

Blockbuster is still struggling with its rent-by-mail service. Its shares closed Friday at $4.81, down 7 cents — and well off its year-ago $10.28. It’s fighting back by aiming for 2 million online subscribers by year’s end, up from 1.2 million in December, spokeswoman Karen Raskopf says.

An Oscar boost

At the meeting last month, Hastings wore jeans, a brown leather sport coat and a wall-to-wall smile.

He was in high spirits at the Netflix complex, where bathroom doors bear pictures of Fred Astaire and other stars. Hastings and other top executives briefed staffers in an auditorium. Blockbuster had just reported dismal quarterly results.

The meeting highlight was a traffic report from the previous Sunday’s Oscars telecast. Customers swarmed the site throughout the show, adding a combined 33,449 movies to the wish lists they build in their online accounts.

Finally, Hastings asked employees for surveillance reports on nearby Blockbuster closings. An employee shouted the location of one with the enthusiasm of a hunter bringing home a trophy.

The meeting ended, and workers filed past a huge bottle of sparkling wine, festooned with the tag: “To be opened when we surpass five million subscribers.”

Hastings hustled to an underground garage for a drive in an unusual hailstorm to a huge distribution center in nearby Sunnyvale, pausing just long enough to check his ever-present BlackBerry.

He’s intensely private about his personal life. Asked for names of friends or contacts who know him outside work, he supplied a list of industry veterans. They included Pisano, the motion picture association president.

Pisano, who left the Netflix board when he joined the trade group, says it’s “astonishing” that Hastings has scored two start-up home runs. It’s all about engineering — Hastings’ background. “Business is essentially assembling a whole bunch of moving parts,” Pisano says.

To be sure, Netflix’s much-praised customer service has had hiccups. Subscribers have complained about its so-called throttling policy, where it sometimes delays shipments to frequent renters to give priority to customers who hold DVDs longer. The company settled a class-action lawsuit over the practice.

To win more business, Hastings pushes to fine-tune Netflix’s software and the website’s appearance. That was the agenda for the meeting later that afternoon where Hastings groused about the “not interested” button.

Employees demonstrated software that would let customers access the site from cellphones, searching for DVD titles and adding them to wish lists. Hastings warmed to the idea, but asked how it would work on different cellphone screen sizes. The meeting ended on a high note. Hastings called the ideas presented “unbelievably cool.”

More changes are afoot. Last week, Netflix announced a further expansion into buying and distributing independent films and TV shows with the hiring of two entertainment industry executives for Netflix’s Beverly Hills office.

In Hastings’ march to 20 million subscribers, he’s aiming for customers such as Jon Murray in Lansing, Mich. Murray, 50, his wife and two teenage daughters rent about two movies a month from Blockbuster. They were Netflix customers two years ago. They quit because they don’t like choosing and scheduling movies in advance.

Hastings doesn’t give up on the Murrays of the world without a fight. He beats the customer-service drum. The never-ending goal, he says: “connect people to movies they’ll love — easily.”

source: http://www.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/2006-04-23-exec-ceo-profile-netflix_x.htm

Business idea: The french twister

Work Ethic: Hilary Swank

Young millionaire: Jasmine Lawrence

Today’s American Story with Bob Dotson comes from Williamstown, N.J., where a teenager thinks she’s found the key to success. It’s not a question of being dealt a good hand, she says. It’s playing a bad hand well, over and over again.

I found Jasmine Lawrence watching her mom struggle to learn how to load a high speed-labeling machine. Shampoo bottles were spinning and sticking, their labels crooked. April Lawrence hung her head in frustration

“There’s a label stuck here.”

“Oh, Lord,” mutters Jasmine. 

She is living every kid’s dream. She gets to boss her mom.

“Hold the bottle up to here.” April works for her 16-year-old daughter.

“How’s that working out?” I smile. Jasmine’s mom laughs.

“A couple of times I thought she wanted to fire me!”

It began with a bad hair day. The chemicals Jasmine used to relax her curls left her practically bald. She decided to create her own recipe, and tested it out on herself, her friends and family.

“Until I developed a hair oil that actually made my hair grow back!”

Using all natural ingredients.

“You get to lick the bowl,” she giggles.

Jasmine was just 11 years old when she began experimenting. At 13 she went off to summer camp to learn how to start a business. When it got bigger, she turned to her mom for some bucks.

“She actually had money saved up from her allowance, so it was easy to trust her,” April contends.

“I promised I’d pay her back,” says Jasmine, “and I’d do my chores. Whatever it takes.”

So, Eden Body Works was born with a $2,000 loan, using her allowance as collateral. Her little sister, Crystal, became her first employee. 

“How do you wrap this?” the 12-year-old asks, putting bottles in a box.  

“Like a gift,” says Jasmine.

At first big sister had trouble with Crystal.

“She was making too much money,” chuckles Jasmine, “and I just didn’t like it.”

Crystal quit. Started a line of organic candles. Now, Jasmine’s company markets them.

“I’m making a lot of good money,” Crystal grins, and then whispers conspiratorially. “Not as much as Jasmine, though.”

At an age when most kids are lucky getting summer jobs stacking shelves, Jasmine already has 30 products on the shelves. She’s signed a distribution agreement with Wal-Mart and plans to take her brand worldwide. She projects profits of $1 million.

Jasmine spends little. Plows most of her profits back into the business.  Eden Works World Headquarters is still in her basement.

“Why is Jasmine so successful?” I ask her mom. ‘We’ve all had lemonade stands that didn’t make a nickel.”

“She’s up at 5 in the morning. I’m literally still asleep!”

“I have about 9 or 10 alarms on my phone that go off periodically,” Jasmine points out. One to tell me to wake up. One to tell me to really wake up!”

For her 18-hour day. Of course she makes straight A’s. Shines in engineering and math.

“How do you do you explain all this to your boyfriends?”

Jasmine ducks her head. “No, no boyfriends. They really can’t handle that I don’t have a lot of time for them.”

Too busy tutoring kids in spare moments. She teaches science. 

“As a boss,” I ask mom, “how generous is she?”

“I left a six-figure job to work for her.”

April negotiates contracts, but in all things business, her daughter is in charge.

“I definitely know where the line is between mom and employee,” Jasmine says.

“Just because she’s my boss, I still have to be a parent,” April points out. “When we’re working, we’re working, and when we’re off, it’s do your chores!”

After all, Jasmine is part of a big family, with a single mom.

April says, “A lot of people say, ‘You’re a great mom and you did something really special to raise a child like that.’ But I’ve raised all my kids the same.”

Jasmine just seems born to make a buck. By fourth grade she was actually taking her Christmas toys and leasing them to other kids in school!

Batteries not included.

Want to contact the subjects in this morning’s American Story with Bob Dotson? Here’s their contact information:

Jasmine Lawrence, President and CEO
Eden Body Works
P.O. Box 876
Williamstown, NJ 08094
(856) 513-0726
http://www.edenbodyworks.com/

For more information on starting a business:

The National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE)
120 Wall Street, 29th Floor
New York, NY 10005
(212) 232-3333 or 1-800-FOR-NFTE
www.nfte.com
Video and Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24794995/

mauthor: “Isn’t she the modern madame c.j. walker”

Young millionaire: Ben Way

 

Ben Way was one of the first dot com millionaires after developing a search technology called Waysearch which later became a business-to-business product called Pulsar. He was reportedly worth £18.3m in the 2001 Sunday Times Rich List. He started his first business in 1995 on his 15th birthday making him at that time the youngest company director in the UK.

Business Idea: Plenty of fish

Markus Frind is a Canadian entrepreneur who owns PlentyofFish.com, the world’s largest online dating website. According to reports in 2006, he earned around $10,000 a day through Adsense’s contextual advertising program.

According to a recent article [1], Plenty of Fish now receives 45 million visitors along with 1.1 billion pageviews every month.

His annual income from PlentyofFish.com alone is currently $5 to $10 million a year.

What is fascinating is that Markus Frind is a one-man show. He virtually ran Plenty of Fish by himself, along with help from his girlfriend and other voluntary moderators.

This is however, set to change as Markus has plans to gradually develop a team of 20 to 30 employees over the next few months.

Notes on Markus Frind and PlentyofFish.com

Two weeks ago, we did a case study of Ashley Qualls, a 17 year old girl who makes $70K a month from her Myspace layouts website. The story was inspirational for many and I’ve thought of doing a similar piece on Markus Frind, who is currently the largest individual Adsense publisher/earner.

The amount of money he makes and how he went about creating this million dollar business has been the subject of much discussion in various webmaster forums. Some bloggers have done interviews with Markus or have written about his success.

Only a very small number of people can achieve a similar income level just from one website and what he has achieved is due to a combination of multiple factors such as technology, market entry/positioning and sheer personal effort.

While what worked for his website might not work for your niche and interests, hopefully this article on his success will help you in some way, to make more money from your existing sites or businesses.

17 Tips on Building a Lucrative Online Business or Website

The quoted text is extracted from some of Markus’s blog posts as well as interviews over the past few years. All of the specific references are left at the bottom of the post and do visit them to read more, if you’re interested.

1. Enter the Market at the Right Time. “As for the growth, a think a lot of that was accidental or first-mover advantage. Here in Canada LavaLife was the only real dating site, and they had a monopoly. I had a couple of my friends sign up from the major cities and after that the site just started to grow and spread.” 
2. Free is a Powerful Business Model. “I always liked free sites and couldn’t see why companies had to change insane amounts of money for something that was trivial to make.”“The community was really built by word of mouth. There was a need for a free site and because no one else was providing it, it just grew like a weed. A lot of people just don’t want to pay for dating sites.” 
3. You Don’t Need a Team. “It’s just me right now, my girlfriend helps with some of the customer service stuff when I don’t want to do it. I am planning on expanding into other markets but I don’t think I need to hire any employees any time soon. Nearly all the work can be automated away except for user stupidity that leads to crazy questions.” 
4. Offline Marketing is Not Essential. “Offline promo works well when marketing to huge existing customer base. It does not work well when trying to grow big…Like nearly every other site I sort of ignore offline marketing, as it is far too expensive when you don’t have huge numbers of people in your target market already using your service.” 
5. Success Doesn’t Just Depend on One Thing. “I like simplicity, and I am not a graphic designer at all. Success doesn’t come down to just one thing. Its not like Microsoft can clone Google’s layout and be the largest search engine. Success is a combination of things and having the right idea at the right time.” 
6. Uptime is Just as Important as Innovation. “I redesign my site every couple of weeks so it doesn’t get crushed by the sheer number of users online. As for front-end design I could care less, lots of users are using my site and more are coming every day, my number one focus is making sure the site stays up for another day.” 
7. Create Unique Sites that Stand Out. “Google pays out $500 million a quarter to AdSense users. That money is going somewhere, and if you look at the top 1000 sites not a hell of a lot of them have AdSense.Statistically speaking those sites that have low numbers of users and high EPC [Earnings Per Click] will make the most money. Build sites that no one else has done before, stuff only goes viral the first 1 or 2 times after that you have to buy your way into a market.” 
8. You Need to Have a Rigorous Work Ethic. “When I came home from work I sat down and I forced myself to code for a hour or 2. The enemy was thinking, whenever I paused or started to think I would force myself to type something, its amazing how much you can get done when you just type.For that business its just a matter of repetition and fighting boredom. At the end of the day you just need to sit down and DO it. Most people don’t.” 
9. Site Value and Functions Trump Design. “Function over form to build an emotional connection with the user. Blend ads into content, No flashing crap, make the site useful. Basically all those things that everyone knows you are supposed to do, but very few people actually do.There is no magic bullet, but you should always test new designs or new text etc to get the result that you want. You will never have the worst design and never the best, but through testing you can always improve.” 
10. Think of Monetization Potential Before Starting a Site. “Build something useful, simple in ways that people will use. Explore things like Ad Sense, affiliate programs, and just explore ways of making money. Most 2.0 companies will never make a dime and they’re not built to make a dime.So I would start looking at how to make money before you even design or think about starting a business.” 
11. Don’t be Discouraged With Low Income. “I had a single affiliate program but it didn’t even make $40/month. I went and added Adsense pretty quick, I made a whole $5.63 cents my first month, but that was more then enough for me to realize that I wouldn’t go broke running the site and I could make a business out of this with enough traffic.” 
12. Learn What You Need to Know. “Basically I spent every waking minute when I wasn’t at my day job reading, studying, and learning. I picked out “enemies” and did everything I could to defeat them which meant being bigger then them. I refused to accept defeat of any kind, and I constantly forced myself to test new things.” 
13. When You Have Traffic, Look Beyond Adsense. “The main goal is to start replacing adsense/dating ads and hire sales people. I spent the last few weeks working long days optimizing my ad revenue and as a result adding over a million a year net per week of work.At the end of the day its not possible for me optimize revenues myself or to outsource sales as no one vender could sell more than 3% of my inventory. I am at a size now were there are no off the shelf solutions and everything has to be built from the ground up.” 
14. Know the Limits of Your Business Model. “If I wanted to generate $100 million in revenues per year it would be pretty easy, all I need to do is convert to a paid site. To generate 100 million a year as a free site is virtually impossible as the market isn’t big enough.I’m already the largest player in the UK, Canada, and US. Growing the company another 10 to 20 fold just isn’t realistic.” 
15. Always Have a Goal to Work Towards. “If you are working in a cubicle, your goal may be to experience the world outside of your cage, or stay at a 5 star whenever you want, or to go on vacation whenever you want.For me i’d set my goal to owning the whole resort and the yacht out front and making 100 million a year instead of just millions.Just because you are already successful doesn’t mean you don’t need a goal to work towards. Don’t assume that anyone successful thinks differently then you.”

     

16. Success Doesn’t Happen, It’s Created. “Now I know most of the people reading this are aspiring to create a business of some kind. Many will just day dream all day but never actually do anything.I was like that a few years ago, then I finally sat down and did something, and kept forcing myself to do it till it became a pattern and it turned out hugely successful.” 
17. Weigh Your Costs to Estimate Profitability. “In my opinion if the cost of your operations are 2-3 cents a unique visitor chances are plain advertising will bring you to profitability. If your costs are over 10 cents a unique visitor then you will need to sell a product or service.This of course assumes a high traffic site with at least 100k uniques per day. In about 2 years from now we will probably see a 30-50% decrease in operational costs as hardware and software costs continue to fall.”

Source: http://www.doshdosh.com/learn-from-adsense-millionaire-markus-frind/

Business Idea: college prowler

As a high-school student in Marin County, Calif., Luke Skurman wanted to attend college in the East but was disappointed by the lack of information available in university brochures, college guidebooks, and magazine articles.

While a sophomore at Carnegie Mellon, he launched a book-publishing venture to offer the inside scoop on everything from cafeteria ratings to fraternity parties — all the info missing from traditional guides — at 200 campuses around the U.S.

On the College Prowler Web site, students vote and rank schools, offering an alternative to the U.S. News & World Report lists. Consumers can also order directly from the site, which offers excerpts.

Skurman raised $130,000 in capital through four angel investors within the first two years of operation. Today, he has a team of eight full-time employees and 214 student-authors nationwide. Skurman says 2005 revenues from book sales have grown tenfold since 2004.

Lesson learned: “I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to have a solid team. It’s the only way a company achieves success.”

 

 

website: www.collegeprowler.com

source: http://freeonlineschool.manila.ph/entrepreneur/entrepreneur-luke-skurman.htm

Business Idea: GotvMail

Hauser and Taghaddos, already on the fourth startup venture between them, got the idea for GotVMail because they were frustrated with the phone-system options for small businesses.

GotVMail gives mom-and-pops a way to sound just like big corporations. They can get the usual voice-mail boxes and also set up preferences like routing calls to a cell phone or getting messages by e-mail in the form of MP3 files — all for as little as $10 a month.

The company obtained seed money from friends and began turning a profit in its second month of operation. Now it generates about $5 million in revenue per year.

Lesson learned:

Taghaddos: “For a young entrepreneur, having good personal credit is one of the most important things. We wouldn’t have gotten all the help from American Express or Bank of America without it.”

Hauser: “To be involved in the entrepreneurial community and give back, talking to students is very important.”