Entrepreneur: Trudi McCullough happened to learn about decorative painting and wall finishes while searching the net for fun activities for her children. Inspired, McCullough–once an art major and a former art gallery owner–did more research, took an art class at a local college and began to practice painting and finishing around her own home. “Our house transformed a lot,” laughs […]
Hobby Turned Business
Pay Per Call Advertising
Small Business Trends: Pay-per-call is an advertising service that connects online searchers with your business by phone. You place an Internet ad, and Internet surfers who respond to the ad call you on the phone. You pay for the ads similarly to pay-per-click advertising, except you pay per phone call, rather than per click-through. As with any advertising, it is […]
Animal Business
Entrepreneur: The saying goes, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. In Patrick Meiering’s case, what’s good for the owner is good for the pet. In 1995, Meiering was out on a four-hour hike with his chocolate lab, Zuke, when he noticed his canine companion was looking a bit worn out. He shared some of his Clif […]
Bio Wear
Popgadget: UK-based designer Diana Irani is working on the Re_Medi fashion label that not only makes you look good on the outside, but also makes you feel even better on the inside. The clothes will be made from specially developed fabrics that release a controlled dose of a complementary or homeopathic medicine into your bloodstream through your skin while you […]
Mobile Food
Springwise: Benjys Delivered is a service that definitely delivers: it’s a fast growing ‘mobile pop up’ business owned by Benjys, one of the biggest sandwich retailers in the UK. Fully equipped vans unfurl into actual sandwich and coffee shops, delivering sandwiches, salads, hot pies, snacks and bean-to-cup specialty coffees to hungry office workers in food and beverage challenged business parks. […]
Cafe Concept
Ubercool: When the first Hard Rock Café opened in London in 1971, it set the stage for using restaurant venues for both infotainment and shopping, a trend that grew with such concept plays as Planet Hollywood, Rainforest Café and even Hooters. Last night, Ubercool had the distinct pleasure of attending a preview dinner of the first U.S. outpost of Amsterdam’s […]
Carvertising 2.0
Springwise: We reported on nearly-free short term rental cars in Europe a long time ago; leave it to entrepreneurs and marketers from around the world to add some really interesting twists, turning a new corner in Carvertising. In Austria, CoolCar offers long term (12-48 months) rental cars decked out in ads, including the Mini One and the Citroen C4, for […]
Nutritional Intake
Springwise: MyFoodPhone and Nutrax are LIFE CACHING based diet services: with their cameraphones, users take pictures of everything they eat, and send them to their own Registered Dietician. Once a week, on a personalized web page where customers keep track of their weight and other biometric information, they’ll get video feedback from their dietician, who analyzes their nutritional intake and […]
Web Business
Entrepreneur: Give me $1,000, and I’ll give you results.” Those were the words David Aitken used to convince the owners of The Heritage Group to invest in his idea. Aitken, 30, was a call-center manager for the Utah company, which specialized in residential mortgage refinancing. Aitken knew the refinancing boom they were riding would eventually end, so he approached owners […]
Online Machine Shop
TRENDWATCHING.COM: Taking it one step further is US-based eMachineshop.com, which lets ordinary consumers download free, easy-to-use software which they can use to design objects like car parts, door knobs, in metal or plastic. They can then get a quote, order the product online and eMachineshop will forward the design to a ‘real world’ machine shop for manufacturing. Suddenly, MINIPRENEURS have […]