Unusual Business Ideas That Work

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Sammy Hagar And His Cabo Wabo Tequila Empire
2007-04-03 17:00:00
http://www.cabowabo.com/Sammy Hagar , former lead singer for the mega-band Van Halen, is renowned for his soaring vocals and stadium showmanship. However, for the past 15 years, Hagar has earned another reputation: entrepreneur. As the founder and front man of the 200-employee, Novato (Calif.)-based Cabo Wabo Enterprises, with about $60 million in revenue, Hagar is behind a top-selling line of premium tequilas, as well as a growing chain of tequila bars, aptly named the Cabo Wabo Cantina."Like many people, my first introduction to tequila was probably around the toilet," jokes Hagar, who at 59 still has the youthful exuberance of an arena rocker. "Still, I dug the salt and lime. It was a fun drink."But in 1982 he sampled the good stuff—premium blanco tequila—during a visit to Cabo San Lucas, a small Mexican fishing village on the tip of Baja California. "It changed my life. I had the true taste of tequila, and I became a blanco freak," says Hagar. Thus a businessman was born.Ten ...
More About: Tequila , Empire

Sew Now Studio - Sewing Business With A Twist.
2007-04-03 09:22:00
http://www.sewnowstudio.com/Knitting may have been all the rage a few years ago, but today, it's all about sewing, with sewing converts eager to design their own fashions and accessories. "It's a way to express yourself," says Steven Berger, CEO of the Craft and Hobby Association.Susan Goldie, co-founder of Sewnow! Fashion Studio in Lafayette, California, is providing a place to sew as well as lessons for sewing newbies. Her diverse clients rent time on the professional-quality sewing machines, and parties and embroidery services round out her offerings. Goldie says that even before her December 2006 opening, the store garnered a lot of interest. "It's been exciting to have people just come in and check out what's going on and hear their enthusiasm for the products and services," says Goldie, 41. All the creativity is pushing first-year sales projections to $250,000.
More About: Business , With , Sewing , Wing

How To Turn Tragedy To $10 Million Dollars A Year Business
2007-04-03 09:21:00
Amelia Antonetti Storyhttp://www.soapworks.comAmilya Antonetti struggled to find a cure for her son’s ailments, and found with it a successful business. Amilya had just given birth to her son, David, but her joy quickly turned to horror when the newborn would constantly cry in pain. The baby experienced shortness of breath and skin rashes. Not knowing what ails the baby, she and her husband consulted various specialists and doctors, to no avail. No one could them what is wrong with David or what triggers all the pain.Her spirit undaunted, she made a careful record of her baby’s life in the hope of finding the triggers to David’s painful reactions. She discovered that David’s pain was worst on Tuesdays, the day she cleans the house.Careful research led her to finally discover the culprits: chlorine and ammonia from her household cleaning products. The synthetic ingredients in the cleaning products caused David tremendous discomfort and pain. Amilya threw out her cleaning prod...
More About: Business , How To , Tragedy , Dollar , Lion

eDimensional Story - From $500 To $5000000
2007-03-27 18:55:00
http://www.edimensional.com/Started in 2000, Startup costs: $500Michael Epstein and Nathan Newman, both 28, started eDimension al, their gaming accessories company, when they were just college students. Armed with credit cards and backgrounds in IT management, the two friends set about realizing their entrepreneurial dreams to make video games as realistic as possible using 3-D technology.Focusing on computer gaming, they found a supplier of 3-D medical imaging glasses and began buying wholesale. A software contractor helped them develop a program to make their glasses compatible with PC games, and they sold it packaged with the glasses on their website (www.edimensional.com).By purchasing their initial stock in small amounts, they kept overhead costs down. "We worked on small margins, buying very small quantities and using any connections we had from growing up in the area," Epstein says. Those connections included a fellow student, who designed their site for free.Sales began to ta...
More About: Story , Men , Stor , Sion

Dog Vending Business Or How To Turn $6000 into $100,000
2007-03-27 18:55:00
http://www.heybuddyvending.com/
More About: Business , How To , Vend , Ending , Ness

Evlove Intimidates - Great Customized Lingerie Idea
2007-03-27 18:54:00
http://www.evloveintimates.com/When Chicagoan Jenny Dombroski spotted the NikeID website where consumers can customize sneakers according to their preferences, she knew it was a concept that could work for lingerie too. So Dombroski, who loves lingerie but knew nothing about the apparel industry, spent six months networking, asking lots of questions and working in a lingerie shop. Then she hired a designer and Evlove Intimidates was born. (Evlove is ‘evolve’ spelled backwards.) “A panty is a panty, a boy short is a boy short,” Dombroski says. “There isn’t a lot of variation in the design. We offer customers the opportunity to create personalized lingerie products and to have fun doing it.”Customized Evlove Intimates lingerie is sold primarily through private home parties. Invited guests sip wine while they select from a wide array of designs, samples, fabric swatches and decorative touches including ribbons, appliqués, rosettes and bows. Dombroski hooks up her laptop ...
More About: Love , Dates , Great , Lingerie , Idea

ClubPenguin.Com - MySpace For Little Kids.
2007-03-27 18:54:00
http://clubpenguin.com/There are no plush toys to buy or entrance fees to pay. New members are offered small virtual penguins that they can adopt, name, feed, and clothe. They can also chat, play games, and even help publish the Club Penguin newspaper.Where creator New Horizon Interactive makes its money is in what it calls premium play. Any kid can have a penguin for free, but if he or she wants to decorate the penguin's igloo, Mom or Dad will have to subscribe--for $6 a month, or $58 a year. Traffic has mushroomed. Club Penguin saw 2.9 million unique visitors in January, according to Nielsen/NetRatings, up from just 705,000 in March 2006.So what keeps Crandall and millions of other kids playing for more than an hour each day?One thing that attracts them, experts say, is the sense of power that children get in a virtual world but rarely experience in real life. "This isn't rocket science," says Club Penguin founder and CEO Lane Merrifield. "A lot of virtual-reality companies look...
More About: Kids , Space , Myspace , Little

Valerie Peters, 43, is an 18-year resident of Ahwatukee. Peters was a metal
2007-03-27 18:53:00
http://www.nikoli.co.jp/en/Will there be another puzzle craze after sudoku? Perhaps kakuro? What about nurikabe?If so, chances are it will spring from a Japanese company called Nikoli, run by the self-proclaimed godfather of sudoku, Maki Kaji.While no one knows how much revenue is generated by the global sudoku business, most agree it has easily topped $250 million over the last two years from an estimated 80 million devotees.Nikoli received only a sliver of that money. Mr. Kaji says his private company, with just 20 employees, had annual sales of about $4 million.Sudoku’s popularity in the United States caught Mr. Kaji by such surprise that he did not try to get the trademark there until it was too late. As a result, Nikoli receives no royalties from sudoku-related sales overseas by other publishers.In hindsight, though, he now thinks that oversight was a brilliant mistake. The fact that no one controlled sudoku’s intellectual property rights let the game’s popularity grow un...
More About: Metal , Side , Vale , Meta , Pete

Making Soap As A Fulltime Career.
2007-03-27 18:53:00
http://www.brambleberry.com/When her dream of working in law enforcement didn’t quite pan out, Anne-Marie Faiola decided to turn her passion for making soap into a full-time career.Bramble Berry, based in Bellingham, Wash., now offers more than 2,500 soap-making ingredients like fragrant oils, soap molds, lip-butter flavorings, assorted herbs and botanicals, and even the books and kits to teach anyone to make their own soap from scratch.I’d been making soap since I was 18 and I loved it. My husband at the time saw how unhappy I was, and encouraged me to quit my job and start selling soap. He said as long as I made $500 a month, we could eat macaroni and cheese and be happy. I didn’t have any lofty ambitions, just to sell 1,300 bars a month, which I figured would be enough to feed us and pay our mortgage.I placed a huge bulk order of supplies, set up a Web page, and waited. It didn’t take long before I sold everything to seven different soap makers on the West Coast. I was li...
More About: Time , Care , Career , King , Full

Unusual Women Owned Businesses, Part I
2007-03-27 18:52:00
www.risingstardd.comShe has race-car driving in her blood. Kristine Gross's great aunt Greta Molander was one of the world's first open-wheel race-car drivers: a Swede who began rallying in 1929 and took the Ladies Cup in 1952. So it makes sense that Gross made the leap from marketing communications manager at AT&T to found eight-person, Chicago-based Rising Star Driver Development. The company, an all-inclusive motor sports training system that prepares and promotes young drivers, earned around $400,000 in revenues last year. Gross says it's not all about DNA: She had had the idea of starting her own marketing consultancy right around the time that NASCAR was taking off. Then she realized nothing existed for aspiring racers at the grassroots level, and her business was born.How did you, a woman, get into motor sports?I find that Viking blood runs in my veins, and I carry a bit of the Molander thrill-seeker DNA in me, just like my Great-Aunt Greta. Because of my previous career a...
More About: Business , Women , Businesse , Men , Owned

How To Make Money As A Postal Companion
2007-03-27 18:52:00
http://postalcompanion.com/
More About: How To , Money , Make Money , Post , Comp

Math Software Millionaires
2007-03-27 18:51:00
http://www.whizz.com/Richard Marett and Ron Van Der Meer believe they’ve found a solution to help fighting poor math skills. Their maths tutoring software uses computer animations to teach maths and is already active in 2,500 schools.“If a child uses the software twice a week for a year, maths age progresses by two years for 95% of kids,” insists Marett. It’s proved almost as rewarding for the founders. Inside three years, turnover has hit £1m and is set for another growth spurt with release of a home tutoring package.The idea for Whizz came from Van Der Meer, who had been toying with the idea of a computer generated maths tutor for some years before meeting Marett. Marett, fresh from running a financial advisory firm in Singapore had moved back to the UK and was looking to set-up an educational company. The pair were introduced by a mutual friend and the rest is history.Marett and Van Der Meer started by enlisting the help of two prominent academics, who between them had a...
More About: Software , Millionaire , War , Ware , Lion

IT Business Idea For Folks Who Come Up With Great Domain Names
2007-03-27 18:51:00
http://www.pickydomains.com/PickyDomain s. Com is a perfect example of how to turn one’s talent into a profitable business. With ever expanding Internet and tens of millions existing websites, finding an available domain name that’s not already taken by cybersquatters can be a real nightmare.But one man’s problem is another man’s solution. Rather than to shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars for a domain name on the aftermarket, an increasing number of web entrepreneurs turn to professional “domain namers”.While most naming agencies charge a non-refundable fee that can be as high as $1500 for a corporate domain, one service that unites 17 professional domain namers from countries like United States, Russia, Australia and New Zealand, decided to offer a risk-free service that costs only 50 dollars per domain.After 50 dollars are deposited, clients start getting a list of available domain names via e-mail for a period of 30 days. If they see a domain they like, they reg...
More About: Business , Domain Names , Domain Name , Great

How A Lady Stumpled Upon A $100000 A Year Business Working On Sundays.
2007-03-27 18:50:00
Debra Cohen Storyhttp://www.homereferralbiz.com/After buying their first home, Debra Cohen and her husband faced the unenviable chore of finding reliable home improvement contractors. Fed up with blindly picking names from the Yellow Pages and waiting for contractors who didn't show up, it occurred to Cohen that if she and her husband were having trouble finding contractors, other homeowners in their community must be facing a similar predicament. This bleak reality sparked the creation of a unique service that has since expanded into a profitable cottage industry across the U.S. and internationally.After extensive conversations with lawyers, business consultants, contractors and insurance agents, Cohen, 38, started Hewlett, New York-based Home Remedies of NY Inc. from her home in February 1997. This stay-at-home mom used a $5,000 loan, a computer and a refurbished fax machine to launch her part-time business. Right away, the response from homeowners was tremendous, and after three...
More About: Business , Work , Upon , Sunday , Lady

How Unknown Designer Tricked Stars Into Taking Her Purses To Oscar.
2007-03-27 18:46:00
Lauren Merkin Storyhttp://www.laurenmerkin.com/It was Friday afternoon, two days before the Oscars, and Lauren Merkin, a little-known New York handbag designer, waited inside her room at the swank Peninsula Beverly Hills hotel, hoping that the $31,000 she had invested in producing a collection of 65 one-of-a-kind "Red Carpet" bags for Hollywood's biggest evening was about to pay off.Her dream: that a big-name star or her stylist would breeze through the hotel room and select a bag to carry for the Academy Awards.Bagging a celebrity endorsement is a marketing coup for any business, but a small shop like Ms. Merkin's can be catapulted to the major leagues if a star is photographed wearing the merchandise. In the frenzy of Oscar week, however, dozens of hopefuls -- from tiny shops to designers who are celebrities in their own right -- jostle each other for attention in hopes that a star will deign to wear one of their creations to one of the parties and events.Breaking into this worl...
More About: Stars , Design , Rick , Desi , Trick

How Sigmund Freud Helped A Man Sell Couches Worth Thousands Of Dollars
2007-03-27 18:42:00
Psychoanalysis, the treatment originated by Sigmund Freud more than a century ago that requires patients to lie on a couch and say whatever comes to mind, has been battered in recent years by everything from antidepressants to skepticism to managed care that doesn't pay for such long-term therapy.So who in his right mind would want to launch a company that makes psychoanalytic couches?It takes an entrepreneur who believes that businesses considered antiquated are underserved niches with perhaps more staying power than trendier enterprises. Randall Scott Thomas, a Seattle furniture maker, knows psychoanalysts are a minority among mental health counselors these days. But thousands are either in training or in practice, and many have trouble finding the appropriate couch.Mr. Thomas, who makes contemporary home and office furniture, has never undergone analysis himself and didn't know what a classic analytic couch looked like until a few years ago. He was approached by Doene Rising, a...
More About: Dollar , Sand , Worth , Sell , Couch

Single Mom From Pennsylvania Makes A Living Selling Bookmarks Online
2007-03-27 18:41:00
Diane Waltman storyhttp://www.creativebookmarks.com/My business is designing and laminating bookmarks for wedding favors, business promotions, nonprofit organizations, holidays and other special occasions or projects. I design them on my computer, depending on what the customer wants. Then I print and laminate them.I came up with the idea of a bookmark business because it was a fun way to express my creativity and would require a low investment. Extensive foot surgery forced me to quit my office job a few years ago, and my doctors told me I would be out of work for more than three years. I knew I had to do something while recuperating, so I decided to look into an online business. I researched my competition and found only one Website selling handmade bookmarks.Within a week, in March 1999, I had started a business. After I researched my idea on the Web, I went to a local business supply company and bought most of my supplies -- a laminating machine, sheets of laminate and paper, in...
More About: Living , Selling , Bookmark , Book , Pennsylvania

How A Man Makes Over 2 Million Dollars A Year... Chasing The Geese Away
2007-03-27 18:41:00
David Marcks Storyhttp://www.geesepoliceinc.comDavid Marcks discovered a lucrative business opportunity when he used his dog to solve a problem that he constantly faced working at a golf course - the proliferation of geese. Geese love to inhabit open spaces that provide them with water and plenty of food (such as short, tender grasses). While adding a "natural look" to golf courses, no one would want to play in a golf course where the grass couldn't be seen under the cover of goose droppings. Imagine wading in the middle of goose droppings to hit a golf ball. Yikes!David and other fellow golf superintendents tried several approaches. According to David, "We tried everything - sprays, pyrotechnics, flags, fences. Everything worked for a little bit and then it would stop working." Until he discovered that his dog, a Border Collie, was a natural in driving geese away. As he recalls, "It was so successful that I never looked back and we've been doing it ever since."David started Geese...
More About: Dollar , Lion , Asin , Over , Sing

How 18-Year Old Kid Makes Sell Bean Bags Worth $30 Million Each Year
2007-03-27 18:40:00
Shawn Nelson Storyhttp://www.lovesac.comAt 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.When neighbors started placing orders, Nelson decided to start his company almost as a joke. With free help from his friends, he made the LoveSacs in his parents' basement and sold them at trade shows, events and even the drive-in.Business was moderate at best, until he got a call on his cell phone that changed his life: a quarter-million-dollar order from Too Inc., which was looking for a back-to-school offering for its Limited Too stores. "I answered the phone and said, 'Twelve thousand LoveSacs? Sure, no problem. That's what we do; we're the best in the world at it,'" remembers Nelson.Undaunted, Nelson amas...
More About: Bags , Bean , Lion , Worth , Make