Tuesday 31 July 2012

FoodBiz - MobiMunch.com

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Release


http://www.mobimunch.com/

Food trucks are here to stay, and nowhere was this more evident than at an Off the Grid event last spring in San Francisco. The 35 trucks, tents and carts that made it through the application process took over Fort Mason Center's parking lot one nippy Friday evening, dishing out steadily dwindling supplies of empanadas, kalbi and mango-sticky-rice popsicles to a ravenous crowd.

In the midst of the aromatic chaos sat the Chairman, a Zagat-rated truck famous for its pork-belly Chinese bao (steamed buns). It was the first of dozens of trucks developed by Mobi Munch. Founded in 2009, Mobi Munch aimed to streamline the mobile food industry with a turnkey platform that standardizes every part of the operation--from vehicles and food sources to securing permits and negotiating with event promoters and office parks.

The goal, according to CEO Josh Tang, is to make every chef and restaurant owner feel they need a truck, just as they do a website. "Trucks are the one sector of the food-service industry that's still growing, and until now, there's been no regulation, and a lot of missed opportunities," he says, speaking from his downtown Los Angeles offices.

The Mobi revolution began with customized trucks, rebuilt by a manufacturing partner from the chassis up with features such as next-generation cloud-based POS systems and onboard generators. The low-mileage, late-model trucks are crash-test and sanitation certified, then leased out for as little as a year. If a chef strikes gold with a menu, Mobi can scale quickly, rolling out a fleet in two weeks.

The company recently launched MobileCravings.com, a nationwide food-truck private-lot booking system, to help its customers secure locations for their rigs. Tang is even looking into new engine technology to help power onboard kitchens more efficiently.

In the last three years, Mobi Munch has grown to 20 employees, scored a round of $7.8 million in funding and signed on pilot corporate clients such as Red Robin and Rubios, along with food-service companies like Aramark and Centerplate.

"We're not thinking linear growth," Tang says, stressing that Mobi's services not only help independent young chefs build a brand with lower risk, but also enable veteran restaurateurs to test new neighborhoods at a fraction of the cost of a commercial lease or advertising campaign. The end result is that consumers can try out more creative menus at a lower price. Who doesn't have an appetite for that?

[Via - Entrepreneur]

Kindle Fire Giveaway

Weird Jobs - Danger Artist

Lifehacks - Convert Reward Points On Your Card To Dollars In Your PayPal Account

Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor

PickyDomains - startup that caught everyone by surprise

The Coolest Facebook Business Tool You Probably Never Heard About

The (Evergrowing) List Of Cool Bootstrapping Sites

From 0 To $30,000 A Month With Dropshipping

My Name Is Beer, Mr.Beer

Daily Advice Link - Free Logo Service

Saturday 28 July 2012

Kindle Fire Giveway

Bitrix24 is giving away Kindle Fire tablets. The rules for the contest are very simple.

1. Register at Bitrix24.com

2. Send the following information to did@bitrix24.com:

- your Bitrix24 ID

- the feature you liked (used) the most

- what you found difficult/disliked the most (could be the existing problem or something lacking). If you liked everything, don't feel forced to come up with the problem.

3. Use 'Bitrix24 Kindle Fire Giveway' as your subject line.

A special second prize Kindle Touch will be given away to person(s) who've used their Bitrix24 accounts in the most unorthodox way.

Also, if you are a startup who'd like to use one of Bitrix24 paid plans for free, send an e-mail to the same address with 'Bitrix24 Startup Initiative' as the subject line. Include information about your startup and how you plan to use Bitrix24 for your business.

The contest ends on September 1, 2012.

Wednesday 25 July 2012

SHAI MATE - UPCOMING GIGS


July 26th - The cobalt
August 2nd - Donagal's Pub, Surrey
August 26th - Joe's Apartment
August 30th - Rio Theatre


FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE I N.... 

Comindware Review

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Release


http://www.comindware.com/

As marketing gurus love to point out, the most valued assets of a modern-day company are its production equipment, the knowledge base of its workers and the company's overall productivity score. In the business world - even life in general - productivity clinches the deal. That said, if you're a business owner, given the many things you have to contend with, back-office functions should, at all cost, never slow you down. With the Internet and the myriad of cloud-based applications at your disposal, all you need is find the software solution that works best for you and your team.

Comindware Tracker is a breakthrough enterprise collaboration platform specifically designed for workflow automation, issue tracking and task administration. Comindware Tracker, in collaboration with Comindware Task Management, allows you to save on time and direct costs by as much as 30% to 50%. Built on ElasticData technology, Comindware's process managem ent application enables you automate and customize your workflow processes for virtually anything (project-related tasks, document reviews and approvals, helpdesk tickets, action items, requests for changes, and so on), all at your fingertips from one web-based portal. With ElasticData's superior adaptability, you can formalize processes and change them later as you see fit – flexibility at its best, indeed.

Comindware Task Management works together with Comindware Tracker in one user interface. With Comindware's unique ConnectStep technology, next-step duties are automatically generated, giving users the benefit of having to focus solely on task execution while Comindware works on moving things along in the background.

To check if Comindware is the product to boost your company's productivity to the next level, you can always try it for free. For bulk purchases, Comindware offers competitive discount rates on product licenses.

[Via - NicheGeek.Com]

Weird Jobs - Danger Artist

Lifehacks - Convert Reward Points On Your Card To Dollars In Your PayPal Account

Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor

PickyDomains - startup that caught everyone by surprise

The Coolest Facebook Business Tool You Probably Never Heard About

The (Evergrowing) List Of Cool Bootstrapping Sites

From 0 To $30,000 A Month With Dropshipping

My Name Is Beer, Mr.Beer

Daily Advice Link - Free Logo Service

Tuesday 24 July 2012

Niche Biz - Danger Artist

Hot Tips - The Best Free Business Tool You Don't Know About.


http://www.tonyakay.com/

When Tonya Kay performs her “fire pasties” routine this Wednesday at TRiP in Santa Monica, Calif., as part of the bar’s weekly burlesque show (doors open at 8pm, $10 cover), she’s almost positive her breasts won’t blow up this time.

It took a few performances to get it right. The first time she tried it, she says, she used 70 percent rubbing alcohol, and her pasties burned out “as soon as I started shaking.” She had to re-light her breasts several times during the act, which the audience enjoyed but she found “cheesy.” The second time, she used something a little stronger: lighter fluid. “The difference between 70 percent rubbing alcohol and lighter fluid is massive,” Kay says. “I had flames coming off … that were so huge, everyone in the first few rows had to duck.” She ended up with a blister burn on her stomach that left a scar—a permanent reminder of just how perilous her profession really is.

She eventually learned that the best way to set your breasts on fire is with 100 percent rubbing alcohol. “They light well and they stay lit without engulfing the whole stage in flames,” she says. Even so, if you’re in Los Angeles this week and decide to check out her show, you might want to watch from the back.

Fiery breasts aren’t the only risky spectacle in Kay’s performance repertoire. She’s also a whip cracker, a knife-throwing target, a stilt dancer, a balloon swallower, and a grinder girl, which involves making sparks on a metal bikini with an angle grinder. Her highly specialized field is such a niche that she had to invent a name for it. She calls it “Danger Arts.” And that’s not self-aggrandizement. It’s truth in advertising.

Take stilt dancing, which she performed most recently on last week’s NBC music contest, The Voice. “You could break your knees pretty easily,” Kay says. “And if you fell or slipped, it’s very possible that you could break your neck and die.” But the stunt most likely to “screw up my future,” she says, is the grinder-girl act. The blades on an angle grinder are designed to cut through metal, and although the deadly blades only make contact with her metal bikini during the act, they come frighteningly close to unprotected skin. “There’s major arteries all through the inner thigh,” she says. “One slip and you could grind through flesh and bone pretty easily and quickly.” She knows at least two former grinder girls who did just that and ended up being taken away in ambulances.

Which explains why she rarely has to audition anymore. There’s just not much competition out there. “When some choreographer or producer decides that they need a grinder girl act, they’ll call the agents,” she says. “And the agents will put out a casting call, ‘We need grinder girls.’ And two of us will show up.” She’s essentially cornered the market on putting her life in mortal danger for entertainment. And business has been good. Over the past decade, she’s performed everywhere, from TV shows like America’s Got Talent and the History Channel’s More Extreme Marksmen to touring the country for three years with STOMP, the percussion and dance troupe. She’s been used for knife target practice on the Tonight Show and cracked a flaming bullwhip during a special post-Super Bowl episode of Glee.

She’s learned two important lessons during her decade-long career in the danger arts. No 1: Never imbibe before the final curtain. “Free drinks is one of the perks of performing at bars,” she says. “But that’s how you end up in the emergency room.” Second, show the audience your fear, even if you’re not afraid. “An audience doesn’t want to see an effortless, safe production,” she says. “They want to believe there’s a chance that somebody could get hurt.”

Which isn’t a difficult emotion to convey, because it turns out there really is a chance that somebody could get hurt. Even when all precautions are taken to make her act as safe as possible, you just never know when one of Kay’s breasts is going to burst into flames.

[Via - BusinessWeek.Com]

Smart Marketing - LanderApp Review

Lifehacks - Convert Reward Points On Your Card To Dollars In Your PayPal Account

Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor

PickyDomains - startup that caught everyone by surprise

The Coolest Facebook Business Tool You Probably Never Heard About

The (Evergrowing) List Of Cool Bootstrapping Sites

From 0 To $30,000 A Month With Dropshipping

My Name Is Beer, Mr.Beer

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Release

Monday 23 July 2012

SHAI MATE - SPONSORED RAPPER / CLIENT


SHAI MATE  - HAS BEEN A CLIENT FOR THE LAST FEW YEARS. WE HAD NO IDEA THIS IS WHAT HE DID. LIKE RAP OR NOT, THE WORDING AND FLOW THAT THIS 
19 YEAR OLD HAS HAS IMPRESSED EVEN ME!!! 

HIS WORK ETHIC, HIS DEDICATION, HIS INTEGRITY, GENIUS WORDING AND WORD PLACEMENT HAS GOTTEN ME STOKED TO TATTOO HIM!

WE WISH YOU LUCK ON YOUR CAREER...

NEXT GIG - JULY 26  - COBALT - FLOWNOMIMAL MIX TAPE RELEASE PARTY!!!


Sunday 22 July 2012

Startup Buzz - AllPhotoLenses.Com

Gotta See: CMS - How To Choose Content Management System


http://allphotolenses.com/

Whether you’re a hobbyist or a professional, I’m sure you will agree, photography isn’t bound to go out of style, not by a long shot and definitely not in the distant future. Mainly, it is because photography immortalizes moments that the human memory will never be able to capture forever. Now, photography is an art, too. While it’s true that it is simply capturing something that already exists, when you look at a photograph, you also look at the way the photographer chooses to frame and present his photo to ultimately spin the photograph into an art form.

It is because of the artistic nature of photography that different brands and makes of camera lenses have been introduced to the market, all aimed at allowing photographers to generate varying results in terms of a photograph’s sharpness and other parameters.

Sergey Borodin, the brains behind AllPhotoLenses.com, aims to make the site the biggest online data repository regarding everything photo lenses. AllPhotoLenses.com is a virtual place where photographers hang out, discuss and review photo lenses and view actual photographs taken using a particular lens. Backed by supporting documents, personal experience or other online resources, users themselves upload news, articles, photos and reviews into the site. In addition, photographers have the option to buy and sell lenses and other photographic equipment.

For two years now, Borodin, a professional photographer himself, has been running a similar site in the Russian language via Lens-Club.ru.

[Via - MadConomist.com]

Cool Startups - DealFlicks.Com

Hot Startups - MoxTree

Meet Donuts.Co - New Startup That Raised $100 Million And Applied For 307 TLDs

The (Not Yet) Big List Of Bootstrapping Resources

From 0 To $30,000 A Month With Dropshipping

Unusual Business Ideas - SleepTracker

How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Release

Bootstrapping 101: Tips to Build Your business with Limited Cash and Free Outside Help

Need To Make A Quick Buck? Copy This Post!

Daily Advice Link - Free Logo Service

Saturday 21 July 2012

Cool Startups - PickyDomains.com

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Releas

So you came up with an idea for an online business and started thinking of a great domain name for it, only to realize that all the good domain names are already taken. Then you tried automatic domain name generation tools, but most of the name they generated didn’t make any sense. What to do now? Well, just crowdsource your domain name idea generation to PickyDomains.

picky logo

PickyDomains is a cool service that offers 100% risk free domain name and business slogan or tag line generation service. It has a proven track record of generating great domain names, and business slogans such as SEOBook for Aaron Wall, eMomsAtHome Wendy Piersall, and SurefireMarketing for Yanik Silver.

How Does it Work?

To get started, you have to deposit amount depending upon the service you need. For domain name suggestions, the fee is $50. For business slogan suggestions, its $75. You can use credit card, paypal or wire transfer to deposit the money. Note that this money is only a deposit, which means if you don’t like any of the domain names suggested by them, you get a full refund.

After payment, you send them more details about the site you are starting, and characteristics of the domain name you need, like preferred extensions, length, and hyphenated or not. After that just wait and watch as people start suggesting the names.

You must check the suggested names periodically and mark them Liked or Disliked to indicate your taste. Once you find the domain you like, just mark it Picked to complete your order.

There are more then 44,000 registered contributors at Pickydomains right now, which means you can get what you are looking for within a few days, or sometimes, within few hours!

Become A Contributor And Make Some Money

You can also join PickyDomain as a contributor and make some money. Just register as a contributor and log into your account. Then, check the available orders to see if you can come up with some good domain names for them. If you suggest a domain that is picked by a client, then you get 40-60% of the fee, depending on you rank, which improves with the number of suggestions you post.

To get great domain name suggestions and business name ideas, check out PickyDomains.com.

[Via - Hacktrix.com]

Points.Com Review

PickyDomains - startup that cought everyone by surprise

Weird Startups - The Snuggery

Coupon reselling site makes millions

The Coolest Facebook Business Tool You Probably Never Heard About

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10 Great Books About Underground Economy, Working Under The Table And Surviving When Economy Sucks

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms and Dads

My Name Is Beer, Mr.Beer

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Releas

Friday 20 July 2012

Points.Com Review

Daily Advice Link - Free Logo Service





Points.com

Credit card rewards, frequent flyer miles, gas, drugstore, convenience, supermarket cards – these things may have something in common: loyalty program points that you can redeem. If you’re a loyalty rewards enthusiast and you have all these and more, tracking all those points on your own can be very tedious, if not confusing, time-consuming and possibly error-prone. But then again, not knowing how much points you already have on each may mean missing out on free stuff you’re already entitled to cash in. Not a very savory idea, huh?

Points.com is an online platform that allows you to make the most of your loyalty reward programs. At Points.com, you get to track all of your account numbers and corresponding balances at a glance. If you’re like a lot of people still stuck in the technology of the ‘90s, no need for Excel spreadsheets that you need to update on a regular basis, especially if you’re saving those points and miles for a particular reward. Or better yet, making sure they don’t expire before you get the chance to redeem them.

And if, for some reason, you can’t redeem your points, you can always sell or trade them with other Points.com users. If you’re missing out on a few points to claim a particular reward, you also can buy the needed points from fellow users. You can even exchange your points for gift cards to your favorite restaurants, retail stores, travel outlets and more.

To get started with Points.com, all you need to do is click on the Try It Now button on the homepage, select your favorite loyalty rewards programs to see how your personalized home page would look like. Familiarize yourself with the Points.com surroundings, the ins and outs, and when you’re ready to join the group, click on Sign Up on the upper right hand side of the page.

[Via - PickyDomains.com]

Smartup Buzz - SmallKnot.Com

PickyDomains - startup that cought everyone by surprise

Weird Startups - The Snuggery

Coupon reselling site makes millions

The Coolest Facebook Business Tool You Probably Never Heard About

The (Evergrowing) List Of Cool Bootstrapping Sites

From 0 To $30,000 A Month With Dropshipping

10 Great Books About Underground Economy, Working Under The Table And Surviving When Economy Sucks

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms and Dads

My Name Is Beer, Mr.Beer

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Releas

Thursday 19 July 2012

AffinityLive Review

Daily Advice Link - Free Logo Service




http://www.affinitylive.com/

Technology is moving fast, and in business, those that keep up are usually the big guys with fat purses. The small and cash-strapped ones, unfortunately, are stuck with outdated technology from the 1990s, like Excel and Access, for the basic work to get done. This doesn’t do much for productivity, and in this fast-paced environment businesses find themselves competing in, efficiency is what clinches the deal. While SAP and Oracle have long been providing enterprise solutions to tackle this problem, their costs are way too high for small businesses that might not even need the complex solutions these software innovators offer.

To address this pent-up demand in the professional services sector (independent contractors and consultants rendering unique or technical functions such as accountants, appraisers, recruiters, researchers, translators, medical centers, law firms, etc.), Geoff McQueen, a serial entrepreneur with an engineering background, founded AffinityLive.com, a startup based in San Francisco. AffinityLive allows you to manage your data and work in the cloud, providing an integrated end-to-end solution from prospecting to payment.

Aside from the centralization of multiple manual tasks, AffinityLive includes interactive work scheduling that gives you an overall feel for how busy your team is on a given day and whether you’re all geared up to meet a deadline. It also has an intelligent e-mail capture and indexing feature that automatically captures client e-mails, including attachments, from different inboxes and indexes them in a searchable repository linked to projects, sales, tasks or any pertinent part of the system.

With AffinityLive, workflow and business processes are dynamic and structured but not too structured to thwart the overall receptivity and creativeness of your people. Integrated with Google Calendar and Microsoft Exchange, your meetings and appointments are forwarded to your calendar, whether that’s on your desktop, your mobile phone or your web-based browser. And with social integration like Twitter, LinkedIn and Yammer, managing your business has never been easier.

AffinityLive comes in three price packages. Boutique starts at $49 per month for two professionals. Team is priced at $119 monthly for five professionals, and Company is tagged at $249 a month for ten professionals. For every additional professional, just add $29 to the monthly subscription fee. You can even try AffinityLive absolutely free for 30 days. No credit card requirement, you’re sure to be up and running in a matter of minutes.

[Via - PickyDomains.com]

Smartup Buzz - SmallKnot.Com

PickyDomains - startup that cought everyone by surprise

Weird Startups - The Snuggery

Coupon reselling site makes millions

The Coolest Facebook Business Tool You Probably Never Heard About

The (Evergrowing) List Of Cool Bootstrapping Sites

From 0 To $30,000 A Month With Dropshipping

10 Great Books About Underground Economy, Working Under The Table And Surviving When Economy Sucks

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms and Dads

My Name Is Beer, Mr.Beer

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Releases

Cool Business Tools - LanderApp.Com

Daily Advice Link - Free Logo Service



http://landerapp.com/

For an Internet marketer or anybody who understands how building rapport on the Internet is done, landing pages - also known as landers or lead capture pages - are crucial and perhaps the most powerful online marketing tools. Landing pages, generally speaking, are single web pages appearing in response to clicking on an ad and are usually sales copies and/or extensions of the advert. Internet marketers analyze activities generated by linked URLs and through click-through and conversion rates determine whether an advertisement is a success or a failure.

LanderApp, or simply Lander, is perhaps the simplest and most user-friendly landing page creation tool available today. To create a landing page that gets the job done, all you need to follow are three easy steps: design, publish and improve.

Design. Designer or not, whatever your conversion goals are, Lander provides layouts for you to choose from and customize. If none of the layouts fits your design needs, you have the option to create your own layout from scratch. Lander's easily navigable and intuitive design tool that employs the drag-and-drop method allows you to create sign-up forms, video widgets, call-to-action buttons and a whole lot more.

Publish. Once your landing page is created, you're ready for the big preview. And once you feel it's ready to go live, all you need is go back to the control dashboard and click "Publish."

Improve. Since landing pages are all about lead conversions, if the page is not converting the way you envisioned it to, you can use this well-known ninja trick among Internet marketing experts, the A/B test tool, where you create and design up to three versions of the landing page. Make changes to text, layout, images, widget, call-to-action buttons, and make decisions based on the split-test feedback you generate real-time.

Subscription fees are based on the number of visits your w ebsite generates on a monthly basis. If your site has a maximum of 500 visitors, Lander is yours to use absolutely free. The paid subscription starts at 1,500 visitors at $25 per month. You can also try the app now for free and upgrade later, depending on your needs.

[Via - PickyDomains.com]

Smartup Buzz - SmallKnot.Com

PickyDomains - startup that cought everyone by surprise

Weird Startups - The Snuggery

Coupon reselling site makes millions

The Coolest Facebook Business Tool You Probably Never Heard About

The (Evergrowing) List Of Cool Bootstrapping Sites

From 0 To $30,000 A Month With Dropshipping

10 Great Books About Underground Economy, Working Under The Table And Surviving When Economy Sucks

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms and Dads

My Name Is Beer, Mr.Beer

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Releases

Tuesday 17 July 2012

Crowdfunding Startups - SmallKnot

Daily Advice Link - Free Logo Service



http://smallknot.com/

How much do you love your local coffee shop? Enough to help its owner buy new tables and chairs?

The team behind crowdfunding venture Smallknot wants to take the "buy local" movement one step further. The new site aims to be a Kickstarter for small businesses, helping mom-and-pop stores raise capital for specific projects.

Smallknot's goal is to change the way people think about their local retail economy.

"It's a platform for funding, but it's also a tool for engagement," says Ben Rossen, one of Smallknot's three cofounders. "What we're trying to do is facilitate offline relationships."

Like on Kickstarter, participants indicate how much they need to raise to carry out a given project, such as installing a new air conditioner to accommodate summer customers or buying equipment for an expansion. In return, merchants offer rewards. Some of the current goodies include a private dinner party for 18 (available for a $600 "investment" in Brooklyn restaurant Beer Table) or a food tour of New York's Chinatown (yours for a $75 contribution to the Saucey Sauce Co.).

It's all-or-nothing: If the target isn't hit, the business doesn't get any money. Smallknot profits by taking a cut of the cash in successful fundraising campaigns.

"One of the things that's really important to us is that this does not feel like a donation," Rossen says. "There's a reason we use the word 'investment' all over the site, even though it's not perhaps the most traditional use of the word. The idea is, as a user, you get more back than you put in."

[Via - CNNMoney.Com]

How building your own social network can make you rich

PickyDomains - startup that cought everyone by surprise

Weird Startups - The Snuggery

Coupon reselling site makes millions

The Coolest Facebook Business Tool You Probably Never Heard About

The (Evergrowing) List Of Cool Bootstrapping Sites

From 0 To $30,000 A Month With Dropshipping

10 Great Books About Underground Economy, Working Under The Table And Surviving When Economy Sucks

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms and Dads

My Name Is Beer, Mr.Beer

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Releases

Monday 16 July 2012

TrunkClub Review

BizHacks - free social intranet for small businesses


http://www.trunkclub.com/

Unlike women, most men don’t see shopping as a social activity. As a matter of fact, for various reasons ranging from lack of time, no idea what type of clothing look good on them, lack of confidence in their capacity to wear styles that look good on them, issues with body image that stem from being overweight or underweight, a lot of men hate shopping.

Brian Spaly, co-founder of venture-backed clothing company Bonobos, has taken on the reins of what used to be an ailing Trunk Club as CEO. Trunk Club, founded in 2009 with a business model that ended up in quality control and customer service nightmare, has since flourished under Spaly’s leadership. Trunk Club’s target clientele are, well, men, especially executives who value time over money. Trunk Club doesn’t charge for a fitting and consultation. Just like Barney’s or Saks Fifth Avenue, the company makes money by buying in bulk and selling at retail. But what makes Trunk Club’s existing business model stand out is the customer service layer that gives them an unfair advantage over their peers.

So generally, once a client steps into a Trunk Club office (that is, if he’s got the time to do so), he is greeted by a sales person who also happens to be a professional stylist. The stylist then asks questions regarding his lifestyle, work, what he does with his time, what he wears, how he wants to look, etc. The fitting process is an opportunity for the stylist to further profile his customer and know his exact measurements. Depending on the client’s needs, the stylist can work with him on a recurring basis.

Now, if a customer can’t be bothered to step into a Trunk Club store, the company sends a box of items for him to try on and play with. If none fits or he doesn’t like any of the items, he simply puts everything back into the box and returns it at no charge. The stuff he feels like keeping, he keeps, a nd once the box finds its way back to the Trunk Club headquarters, his credit card automatically gets billed.

If the stylist’s service is free and a client gets custom-selected items delivered at his door anytime he feels like it without being charged a cent more for any item he chooses to buy, why would he shop anywhere else? Exactly the words Brian Spaly would tell his staff every morning.

[Via - Madconomist.com]

Weird Startups - The Snuggery

Coupon reselling site makes millions

The Coolest Facebook Business Tool You Probably Never Heard About

The (Evergrowing) List Of Cool Bootstrapping Sites

From 0 To $30,000 A Month With Dropshipping

10 Great Books About Underground Economy, Working Under The Table And Surviving When Economy Sucks

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms and Dads

My Name Is Beer, Mr.Beer

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Releases

Sunday 15 July 2012

Weird Businesses - The Snuggery

BizHacks - free social intranet for small businesses



http://www.thesnuggery.org/

Never underestimate the power of the human touch.

At least, that's the business model that Penfield, N.Y. woman Jackie Samuel is banking on. About a month ago, she launched a business offering a solid hour of cuddle time in exchange for a cool $60.

"I really just wanted to cuddle," Samuel told Metro.

On her site, The Snuggery, Samuel showcases herself as an advocate for the healing power of touch. With photos that show her in cozy, curled up poses dressed in pajamas, Samuel states that Americans are deprived of non-sexual touch and that's why she is here to help.

Samuel said she has looked into getting certified for her snuggle sessions, but found that the only certification available was for people looking to host group snuggling parties. Samuel just wanted to do individual cuddling. When she placed an ad for her snuggle services in the back of her local newspaper, business started to flow.

"There are different kinds of cuddling positions, but I typically always start out spooning and I am pretty small, so usually I'm the little spoon," Samuel said.

She also offers a 45-minute session for $50, and 90 minutes of cuddling for $90. While she has gotten some inquiries from snuggle-seekers looking for a little extra affection, Samuel said the majority of her clients (all men, though she is willing to cuddle with women, too) respect her boundaries and are just looking to get cozy.

"I think a lot of people don’t have someone in their life that they can receive comforting touch from on a regular basis," Samuel explained.

[Via - Metro]

Wahooly.Com Review

Coupon reselling site makes millions

The Coolest Facebook Business Tool You Probably Never Heard About

The (Evergrowing) List Of Cool Bootstrapping Sites

From 0 To $30,000 A Month With Dropshipping

10 Great Books About Underground Economy, Working Under The Table And Surviving When Economy Sucks

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms and Dads

My Name Is Beer, Mr.Beer

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Releases

Saturday 14 July 2012

RYAN TSUTSUMI - FUNHOUSE
















Wave by Ryan..
sun by: who the fuck knows.






























Ryan Tsutsumi has been at the shop for over a year... as a part time artist. His normal duties were shop helper, which he still maintains on the days where he's not tattooing full time.


His work is solid and clean, as he keeps developing his technique and style, you will see more and more updates of his work right here. 

He is confident and precise. Clean sharp lines, solid color. Well placed and balanced lettering... he has a way to go yet, and with guidance from everyone at the shop, he'll go far in this business.. to book with Ryan, please call or come by.












Wednesday 11 July 2012

Startups That Help Startups - Wahooly.Com

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http://wahooly.com/

In the tech world, most startups fail not because they have a crappy product but because their marketing efforts fail to create enough end user interest in the product itself. For a company just starting out, marketing can be costly, and keeping burn rate to a minimum is of paramount importance, especially in the early stages.

Wahooly is an Austin startup that aspires to empower other startups in a way that's never been explored before. Wahooly’s business model proposes to provide traction to a startup by taking a small equity percentage in the startup, and in return, Wahooly allows 28,000+ members of its platform to compete over that equity via promotion, feedback and engagement. Naturally, the member that provides the most noteworthy input gets compensated via the equity Wahooly receives in the event of a company sale or liquidation event.

The best way to illustrate Wahooly’s business model is through an Austin tech startup c alled tweetTV, which aims to revolutionize the way TV guides are seen and utilized. Instead of the old static TV guides you used to receive in the mail, through tweetTV, TV guides now also enter the social, online and dynamic realm where users can watch the same shows other people watch and communicate with them through Twitter real-time.

Wahooly provides the company with about 5,000 users – selected based on fit from its pool of 28,000+ members – who now compete for the equity Wahooly owns on tweetTV. Wahooly then tracks each member’s interaction with tweetTV via the metrics promote (any promotional activity done by the user, including social media promotion), improve (user feedback, especially on ways to improve the product) and engage (using the product just like any ordinary end user would).

Essentially, with Wahooly, a product or an idea gets tested by actual users who determine whether the product or idea is even worth a thing, sans the engi neer having to shell out cash he might not even have. Wahooly aspires to become the place to be for cash-strapped engineers with great products and international startups that seek the exposure they need.

[Via - PickyDomains.com]

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Saturday 7 July 2012

Women Startups - CardCubby.com

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http://www.cardcubby.com/

Wendy Krepak and her husband made a comfortable living in real estate for 26 years. While both of them were making healthy salaries, Wendy always liked using gift cards, point cards and rewards cards, but she was beginning to find that keeping them organized was easier said than done. That's when Wendy came up with a little invention of her own to help her organize those cards.

By inserting an alphabetical filing system in to a small purse, she was simply trying to organize things for herself. But soon others began to notice her using her little invention and asking where she got it. She quickly realized she might have stumbled onto something. So Wendy put a plan together and began producing and selling what she called the "Card Cubby." And it was a good thing she did, because soon thereafter -- and without severance or much notice -- both she and her husband were laid off from their real estate jobs.

Suddenly, in hot water, Wendy decided to invest even more in her idea and she and her husband raided their 401Ks in order to build the business. It was a risky gamble, but within the first 18 months, they had done $1.5 million in sales. Wendy's courage and belief paid off, and today the Card Cubby is a multi-million-dollar business.

[Via - HuffPost.com]

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Thursday 5 July 2012

Cool Startups - CoupFlip.Com

Daily Advice Link - How I Increased Sales 350% With Press-Releases



http://www.coupflip.com/

Nowadays, cost-cutting has become so rampant that deal sites such as Groupon, LivingSocial, Gilt City and others are seeing a steady rise in transaction volumes, hence, a continued upward movement in their sales. But sometimes, deal hunters get carried away that they purchase deals on impulse, only to belatedly discover they have no need for such deal. The end result? Money wasted. The very essence of deal hunting sorely defeated.

If you find yourself in a similar mess, fret not. CoupFlip.com is an online marketplace that flips this not-so-savory scenario in your favor. Maybe not 100%, but less than 100% is still better than a resounding zero, especially when it comes to savings. Aside from being able to resell those deals you bought but won’t use, on CoupFlip.com, you get to search for deals in your area that might interest you and buy deals that you missed. Transactions at CoupFlip are instantaneous, meaning, if you’re a seller, th ere’s no need to wait for a buyer. Unlike other similar sites where waiting time means weeks – if you aren’t so lucky, it may even take months – CoupFlip guarantees you an offer at fair value, and if you accept, buys your deal on the spot.

If you’re a buyer, CoupFlip has a huge collection of deals in your area from top group-buying sites. No need to scour individual sites one by one because CoupFlip most likely has them, and all in one site. Deals at CoupFlip have no time limit, which essentially means you can buy deals from over a month ago or even after the flash sales expire. Plus, you are not limited to one or two deals a day. And even further, CoupFlip.com deals are often priced less than the original, and all deals are guaranteed to be authentic.

Transactions are made via PayPal so that even those living outside the United States can buy CoupFlip deals. On the selling front, CoupFlip doesn’t support selling outside of the U.S., but that is being considered.

[Via - Business Ideas Blog]

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Wednesday 4 July 2012

GenY Startups - SwimZip.Com

Daily Advice Link - Free Logo Service




http://www.swimzip.com/

Betsy Johnson, 27, started working for Boeing as an intern in 2006 while attending the University of Puget Sound in Washington. After graduating in 2007, she was selected to enter the company's BCFP (Business Career Foundation Program) in Philadelphia. Four years later, she decided it was time to leave her day job. Although her job offered her a steady paycheck, the opportunity to travel abroad, mentorship, and even a pension, she realized that working hard to climb the corporate ladder was getting her nowhere.

She ended up at Disney in a new position right after quitting Boeing, but she grew frustrated with legacy processes and systems. She lasted at Disney for two months before deciding that it was time to start her own company, SwimZip.

SwimZip sells UV 50 swimwear for babies, toddlers, and children. The idea came to Johnson after she was diagnosed with skin cancer. SwimZip is currently in its business development stage but is forecasting a profit for this year.

[Via - CNNMoney.Com]

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Tuesday 3 July 2012

Awesome Statups - NorthSocial

Link of the day - If You Sell Links On Your Site, I Will Buy Them Off You


http://northsocial.com/

Okay, so you're into social media, Facebook specifically. You've got a brand to promote, a small business to tend to. Since we all know that social media is one way to go to build a brand, obtain more followers, promote e-commerce, distribute content, the whole nine yards, how about dressing up your Facebook page to engage your fans and make your marketing campaigns more impactful?

Of course, you relent without even batting an eyelash. That's got to be the most brilliant idea you've heard all day. And then you remember, you don't know a thing about codes, let alone a line of codes.

North Social just might be the very thing you need. A company that provides a platform of applications to make your Facebook page sizzle and dazzle, North Social's coolest feature is the fact that every app in its "application buffet" is template-driven and includes a simple do-it-yourself content management system. You get to upload images, text an d links to create promotional campaigns and brand messages without having to worry about writing codes.

Eighteen in all, apps in North Social's "app buffet" range from apps that pimp up your Welcome page, launch a sweepstakes within minutes, the Deal Share app to unlock group discounts, Fan Offer for Timeline that converts visitors to fans through coupon rewards or invitation to events, and a whole lot more. And then there's North Contact, a CRM extension for North Social's apps that can be embedded for capturing users' names, e-mails and other information. This is especially useful for creating lists, auto-responders and outbound e-mails.

North Social's pricing depends on the number of fans you have. One account unlocks all apps, and the starter package, with a fan limit of 1,000, is at $19.99 per month. If you just want to try it out and see for yourself if there's any truth to everything you've read and heard, North Social offers a 14-day free trial. If you think it isn't for you, you can cancel anytime - no long-term contract to worry about.

[Via - Business Ideas Blog]

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Monday 2 July 2012

Smart Crowdsourcing - Quirky.Com

BizHacks - How To Use Bitrix24.Com As A Free CRM, Intranet And Task Manager.



http://www.quirky.com/crate

In February, Jenny Drinkard, an industrial designer and recent Georgia Institute of Technology graduate, proposed an idea to a website called Quirky.com to turn modified milk crates into a home storage system. Then 1,791 Quirky community members around the world refined the design, suggesting accessories and ranking them in order of preference on the site. The result: plastic cubes that can be stacked, connected, and customized with drawers, slide-in wooden shelves, cork bulletin boards, wooden feet, and rollers—fit for a college dorm room.

Quirky needed to ship a million units of the product, called simply Crates, to such retailers as Target and Staples by July to capture back-to-school shoppers. To hit that deadline, the three-year-old New York company, which has made 50 products from crowdsourced ideas, would have to do what it’s never done before: manufacture in the U.S. “Usually you have months of freight time to ship from China,” says Quirky founder and Chief Executive Ben Kaufman. “But for Crates we knew we couldn’t afford the luxury of weeks on the water.”

The 25-year-old Kaufman, who grew up above an injection molding factory his mother ran in Queens, hopes to bring half of Quirky’s manufacturing back to the U.S. in the next 18 months. With labor and shipping costs rising in China, companies are looking for American factories to make certain goods, especially when production can be largely automated, as in the case of the milk crates.

Kaufman thinks moving work back to the U.S. will make Quirky money in the long run, partly by letting him eventually close its Hong Kong office, where the staff has already shrunk from 12 to four workers needed to monitor local manufacturers. “That was millions of dollars a year,” he says. “Even if costs in the U.S. are 15 percent higher, we still save 15 percent.”

Kaufman has been contracting with Chinese factories since 2005, when he started his first company making iPod accessories. Back then, Chinese manufacturers “fought hard” for his business, but they have since grown “cocky,” he says. In contrast, for the crates project, American manufacturers hustled to ship in time, with employees calling in friends and family to help run the production lines, he says.

Quirky turned to Mack Molding in Arlington, Vt., which designed and manufactured the original milk crates for a local dairy farmer in the 1960s. American manufacturers have gotten smarter and automated more to compete with off-shore factories, says Larry Walck, Mack Molding’s director of business development. “We … did things to make us more competitive, like lessening the amount of time humans touch a product, so that a part comes off a machine maybe 80 percent complete,” he says.

When labor becomes a smaller chunk of the total cost, the benefit of China’s lower wages diminishes, says Harold L. Sirkin, an analyst with the Boston Consulting Group. Sirkin notes another factor favoring the return of plastics manufacturing in particular: the low cost of natural gas, which is a feedstock for plastic polymers. The boom in domestic gas production “would give the U.S. a very significant advantage in manufacturing plastics,” he says.

Many businesses don’t realize that China is not always the cheapest place to manufacture. “Most assume that because wages in China were at 58¢ an hour in 2001 that wages are still low,” he says, “But you have to think about productivity, because the U.S. worker is 3.2 times [more] productive than the average Chinese worker.” Some of that is due to automation and better manufacturing techniques, he says.

Still, Kaufman plans to re-shore gradually, because the upfront costs can be daunting. “If I had cash to burn, I’d be more aggressive,” he says, “I can pay $5,000 to $50,000 to launch a product in China. In the U.S., the cost would be 10 times that, at minimum.” And some labor-intensive products, such as complex electronics, will likely continue to be made overseas.

Since 2009, Quirky has raised nearly $30 million in venture capital. The company’s products, including a flexible power strip and a kitchen gadget that sprays juice from citrus fruits, are chosen from ideas submitted online and fine-tuned by 230,000 members. They’ve been sold in Bed Bath & Beyond, Toys R Us, and Safeway, among other retailers, as well as on Quirky.com. The company had revenue of $7 million last year, and Kaufman expects nearly to triple that in 2012, with Crates making up about 10 percent of sales. Quirky owns the product ideas and pays inventors and contributors royalties. Last year it paid out $1 million in royalties to members—hundreds made $10,000 last year, and some earned hundreds of thousands.

Kaufman, who envisions Quirky as “the Proctor & Gamble of the 21st century,” says his goal has always been to have factories within driving distance. That way, he “could go out and check in on products like my mom did, who went downstairs to see her stuff being made.”

[Via - BusinessWeek.com]

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Cool Startups - BigCommerce.Com

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http://www.bigcommerce.com/

All venture capitalists have got startup business plans piling on their desks every single day. But how many of them are the breakthrough ideas worth investing in? Australian BigCommerce has proven right to the Massachusetts based venture capital firm General Catalyst. “We quickly signed up our first 1000 customers within three months,” says Eddie Machaalani, the co-funder and co-CEO of BigCommerce, “and now we’re about to hit 20,000 customers after just 17 months.

Mitchell Harper, the other co-founder and co-CEO, explains “you can set up your own online store in a few clicks. We’re growing so quickly because we’ve made it really easy to sell online.”

If you’ve got a product and you need an easy way to sell it and advertise it, BigCommerce might be exactly what you’re looking for. All the marketing tools have been built in and the list of features is countless which targets all potential kinds of client s.

There are e-commerce newbie’s looking for tools to start with: web-based control panel, automated email marketing and almost one hundred store designs. There are e-commerce owners hoping to update and refresh their software with push to Facebook and eBay, SEO and Google Website Optimizer. And there are website designers looking for a ready platform to work with; they’ll look into painless software updates, unlimited design flexibility and premium hosting. To cut the long story short, BigCommerce has got everything for everybody.

The company overview does sound like a cliché online success story. Two IT geeks, a brilliant idea, a lot of hard work, right place, right time, huge demand and a spot on investor. (General Catalyst have also believed in BigFish, airbnb, iWalk and many others). This is how Eddie Machaalani speaks of the beginnings of their cooperation. “When we made the decision to raise capital and did our U.S tour to pitc h different VC firms, General Catalyst had already done a ton of due diligence on the market opportunity, our company and our competitors. They were very eager to invest in the company.”

BigCommerce have recently announced $2M integration fund to follow the market developments and create new better features. The software has now got built-in Pinterest and Quickbooks integration, referral system, a live chat, abandoned cart plugin and many other improvements. They tent to release new features every two weeks.

The software seems to be ahead of its competition (Shopify, Zencart, Magento) according to various online discussions, blogs and comparisons and is only getting better and smarter. E-shopping cart is gaining the whole new meaning. And what does it mean to you? Only one way to find out. (Here is a link for $100 coupon or 30 day free trial provided by BigCommerce for our readers).

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[Via - Madconomist.Com]

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