| On The Web Without A Website Posted: 09 May 2011 03:00 PM PDT 
Can your small business have a web presence without a website of its own? As the WSJ reports, yes you can: When Leslie Richin launched a public-relations business after getting laid off in 2009, her first instinct was to invest in a company website. But hiring a professional to build one for her wasn’t in the budget. So Ms. Richin, 32 years old, set up free profiles on LinkedIn.com and Twitter.com. She created a free online business card using a service called DooID.com. And she launched a blog, spending roughly $50 on a decorative template, though she could’ve gotten a generic one for free. “I wanted to establish myself in as many places as possible” online and without breaking the bank, says Ms. Richin, who runs her business from her home in New York and last year generated roughly $60,000 in revenue. Photo by puliarf. 
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| How to Disappear Completely Posted: 09 May 2011 02:56 PM PDT 
CSO Online: In a world where we share more information online than ever before, it might seem impossible to disappear completely. But Frank Ahearn can help. A professional skip tracer for many years, he tracked down ‘missing’ persons for clients who were searching for them for legal or financial reasons. His arsenal included use of public records, credit reports, utility bills, criminal background checks, tax information and other revealing documents. But these days, Ahearn assists people who want to go the other way—those who want to disappear and erase evidence of their existence. In his book How to Disappear: Erase Your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trails, and Vanish without a Trace, Ahearn details some of the tricks he uses when helping clients “get off the grid,” as he refers to it, and shares tips for those concerned about information and privacy in this digital-sharing era. And while he refuses to assist people looking to get lost for illegal purposes, he says they often do come looking for help and advice on strategically manipulating information in the wrong direction. 
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| Bug Size Inspiration Posted: 09 May 2011 12:00 PM PDT 
No one has anything nice to say about stink bugs, unless you are Andy Strube. Sure they are still pests, but they are pests that inspired him to invent and start a business. According to The Daily Journal, lost his job and was faced with the need to sell his home. He began renting a home and was faced with a serious problem: stink bugs. The house was completely infested, and he couldn’t seem to get rid of them. He started tinkering with a few ideas, and after a few tries he discovered something interesting. He hung a coffee can covered in glue next to a lamp and that’s when he realized they were drawn to light. He began to refine the idea and, using skills from his former job in aircraft maintenance, he designed and built different traps. Each version caught more bugs. Strube continued to study the insects, keeping a colony in an aquarium and researching things that attracted them. He discovered they couldn’t resist a cocktail he created of peppers and squash and put the mixture in an interchangeable cartridge inside the trap. When the fluorescent light heats up the cartridge, it releases the odor that humans can barely smell, but the bugs long for. Friends who visited the house saw the traps and asked for one. As they reported back their successes, a business was born. The Strube Stink Bug Trap is $50; a replacement cartridge is $20. Each cartridge will last about a month and is meant to catch hundreds of stinkbugs. The traps are being sold at hardware stores near his home and can be found online.
Photo by Scot Campbell 
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| No More Onion Tears Posted: 09 May 2011 11:00 AM PDT 
According to The Columbus Dispatch, Chris Hawker has been blessed with publicity on a grand scale. His tear-free onion goggles help stop eyes from tearing up while cutting and onion. With a simple enough approach, Hawker has hit a successful stride as his invention finds its way all over television. It has been mentioned on TV by Diane Sawyer, Paula Deen, Rachael Ray and Martha Stewart. Most recently, the goggles received a unique shout out on the popular TV show, Modern Family. “It’s the most prominent thing that’s happened for me so far in my career,” said the 36-year-old inventor, a Toledo-area native who studied comparative religion at Ohio State University – and employs 10 people at his Short North company. Hawker might be speaking modestly: His self-created PowerSquid outlet strip, after all, has sold several million units. Although the Onion Goggles idea was conceived by the Seattle kitchenware company RSVP International, which owns the patent, his team was tapped to oversee the development, branding and licensing. A foam coating around the plastic anti-fogging lenses prevents the sulfuric fumes of an onion from affecting the eyes during chopping. The one-size eyewear fits about 85 percent of women – “the primary buyers of the product,” Hawker said. Onion Goggles are sold online via sites such as Amazon.com but peddled primarily at independent cookware stores.
Photo from Amazon 
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| PostNet’s Boost This Biz Contest Posted: 09 May 2011 10:24 AM PDT 
PostNet is on a mission to inspire entrepreneurs across the country and award one deserving business owner a game-changing $10,000 cash grant and $5,000 towards design, print, copy, and shipping at their nearest PostNet location. Business owners looking to take their business to the next level are encouraged to enter PostNet's Boost This Biz contest at: www.facebook.com/PostNet. Any small business owner can visit PostNet's Facebook page to share why they are deserving of the grand prize. The five entries with the most votes by June 8, 2011 will move on to the final judging round, where an impartial panel of fellow entrepreneurs will choose one grand prize winner. The remaining four finalists will each receive a $200 American Express gift card. 
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| The Woman Behind The Women’s Network Posted: 09 May 2011 10:00 AM PDT 
Vicki Donlan is in her element. As she talks to one female business owner, she reassures her that the challenges she is facing can be conquered. She reminds another woman that there are only 24 hours in a day, putting emphasis on the balance required to run a small business, reports boston.com. She is in the process of touching base with approximately six key members from the South Shore Women’s Business Network. She co-founded the group in 1991, and has continued to shape the group as its executive director. Donlan, a woman in possession of what her 34-year-old son, David Donlan, a successful businessman himself, calls "an electric level of energy,'' is doing what she does well: She organizes people, builds business enterprises, and delivers the goods with a level of consistency and success that is almost uncanny, as if she is the recipient of a kind of outsized entrepreneurial gene. "I do believe it is in my blood,'' she said in an interview at her Hingham condominium earlier that morning, after returning from a daily 3-mile walk, a ritual of more than 33 years. Among other things, Donlan was the first executive director of the Commonwealth Institute, a nonprofit formed by a dozen female chief executives in Boston to assist women entrepreneurs; the founder of Women's Business, a monthly trade newspaper, sold to the Boston Herald in 2004; a former entrepreneur-in-residence at Bridgewater State University; and the author of "Her Turn: Why It's Time for Women to Lead in America''. She currently is a business consultant.
Logo from South Shore Women’s Business Network 
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| Not Yet Retired? Posted: 09 May 2011 09:00 AM PDT 
If you’re one of the many who have decided to put off retirement or you’re simply not quite there yet, Garner News offers a couple tips on how to prepare for retirement at the last minute. If you have no employees other than your spouse or a partner, you can establish an "owner-only" 401(k), also known as an individual 401(k). This plan offers many of the same advantages of a traditional 401(k): a range of investment options, tax-deductible contributions and the opportunity for tax-deferred earnings growth. You may even be able to choose a Roth option for your 401(k), which allows you to make after-tax contributions that have the opportunity to grow tax free. By establishing a defined benefit plan, you'll be providing yourself with a monthly payment (or "benefit") for life, beginning at the retirement age specified by your plan. In 2011, the yearly benefit limit is $195,000. The amount you can contribute to your defined benefit plan each year is based on several variables, including your current age, your compensation level and your retirement age. But you'll certainly be able to contribute large amounts: A defined benefit plan is the only retirement account that allows contributions in excess of the limits placed on 401(k)s and other defined contribution plans. Generally speaking, the closer you get to retirement, the larger your maximum yearly contributions will be.
Photo by Steven Depolo 
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