| A Homegrown Remedy Posted: 18 Apr 2012 03:30 AM PDT 
StarTribune.com: Schroeder was a first-time gardener a few years ago when she got an unpleasant surprise while inspecting her produce. Many of the melons she had so carefully planted and tended had developed “one yucky side, with bugs and grubs,” from lying on the ground. “I didn’t know you had to turn melons,” she said. Someone suggested setting her cantaloupes on cinderblocks, to get them off the ground. But the cinderblocks were heavy to haul, and sometimes her melons rolled off the flat surface of the blocks, breaking their stems. “With the economy the way it’s going, you hate to spend money to put in a garden and not reap the rewards,” she said. So the MnDOT snowplow operator got an idea: Why not create a lightweight support structure for heavy garden produce? Backed by a loan from her mother, Schroeder had a mold made, then a prototype of her design, which includes drainage holes and a concave surface to cradle the melon. Now her invention, RotNot, is available to other gardeners on her website, and at several garden and farm-supply stores.
Photo by Michael Schreifels 
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| Extreme Sandboxing! Posted: 17 Apr 2012 11:30 AM PDT 
TwinCities.com: Jeni Christopher really digs heavy machinery. How much? Christopher, a St. Paul mother of two young children, passed up a last-minute pedicure and manicure invite from a friend to instead run a 19-ton, 115-horsepower excavator on a recent rainy Saturday afternoon – all for “fun and the experience.” “Maybe that’s the tomboy in me,” she said. Christopher was among the first customers of Extreme Sandbox, a new business in Hastings that gives people the chance to pay to “play” with an excavator, skid steer loader or bulldozer. The company, which opened April 7, bills itself as being the first of its kind in the Midwest. Its marketing motto? “Let the kid in you play!” 
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| Hunger Games Good For Business Posted: 17 Apr 2012 11:17 AM PDT 
Entrepreneur: Any time a bow and arrow play a prominent role in a Hollywood hit (think Braveheart, Lord of the Rings or Avatar) the 29-year-old Lancaster Archery Supply in Lancaster, Pa., gets a bump in business. But this time, in the four weeks since the The Hunger Games hit the big screen, the 55-employee distributor and manufacturer of target archery equipment has seen sales increase in a "profound way," says President Robert Kaufold, who chalks it up to tweens and teens interested in emulating the sharp-shooting heroine Katniss Everdeen. 
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| Smart Watch Breaks Crowdfunding Record Posted: 17 Apr 2012 11:06 AM PDT 
BBC: Canadian entrepreneur to work alongside smartphones has raised more than $3m (£1.8m; 2.2m euros) in less than a week on net funding site Kickstarter. It is a record for the site which crowd-sources cash to fund start-ups. Eric Migicovsky initially sought $10,000 over a five-week period but the total, six days in, now stands at $3.4m. It is the fifth Kickstarter project to make more than $1m. The Pebble watch reached the $1m mark in 28 hours. The firm behind the device, which has been designing smartwatches for three years, said that it was “blown away” by the support. The watch has an electronic paper screen and connects via Bluetooth with iPhones or Android powered devices to allow users to customize the watch face and download apps. 
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| Who Wants Taxes to Be So Complicated? Posted: 17 Apr 2012 10:58 AM PDT 
Slate: Why do you have to fill out all these complicated forms at all? Why don’t you just lie on your taxes? You don’t lie because you’re worried that the IRS will catch you. And why do you worry about that? Because all the various entities who’ve paid you over the course of the past year have to submit paperwork about your income. Your employer, your bank, your stock broker, etc.—record and transmit almost all relevant information about your money to the IRS, meaning that if you lie you’ll get caught. But by the same token, the IRS could simply collect all this information and send you a tax bill. You could read it over, sign at the bottom, and either include a check or wait for your refund. It wouldn’t be fun, exactly, but it would sure be simple. Needless to say, taxpayers should have the right to dispute the veracity of the IRS’s calculations and submit their own form. And some classes of people are going to routinely have unusually complicated tax finances. Journalists, for example, often have miscellaneous travel expenses related to freelance assignments. People running substantial small businesses will still need accountants. But for the vast majority of the population, most of the pain of tax compliance could be eliminated by a few keystrokes at IRS headquarters. So why don’t we do it? Two reasons. One is lobbying by the tax preparation industry to discourage states and the feds from developing easier tax-paying systems, as California recently did. The second is lobbying by anti-tax conservatives. When the Golden State implemented its ReadyReturn system, it did so over the objections of Grover Norquist and his anti-tax pressure group Americans for Tax Reform, which fears that if taxes become less annoying voters might be less unhappy about paying them. After all, if the government did something to make your life easier it would be harder to tout the difficulty of tax compliance as a reason to abolish the progressive rate structure. Photo by Terrance Emerson/ShutterStock. 
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| Today in Entrepreneurial History: April 17 Posted: 17 Apr 2012 10:47 AM PDT |
| Mother, Daughter Team Building A Health Food Chain Posted: 17 Apr 2012 04:30 AM PDT 
Forbes: Green Acres is now a medium sized organic and all natural foods store based on Barbara's conviction that "food is our best medicine." Originally the store served as an alternative to weekly grocery shopping at the large supermarket chain right across the street. But overtime Green Acres has become a shopping destination as it expanded its product mix, including specialty foods, meats, a deli and baked goods—to about 10,000 SKUs, always sticking to the store mantra of no refined sugars, pesticides, chemical preservatives, or hydrogenated oils. The vitamin and supplement business, which now includes a house brand, accounts for about one-third of revenues. Barbara Hoffmann attributes the success of Green Acres to its basic product integrity along with its heavy emphasis on customer education and community outreach. Both Green Acres stores host regular product demos and cooking classes. In addition, the Wichita stores provides live music on weekends, hosts a farmer's market every Saturday to highlight local produce; it also produces several large events featuring nationally known health experts, for which it has to rent space in nearby hotels to accommodate the hundreds of customers who show up. For an upcoming 18th anniversary celebration Barbara estimates they will have 1000 people come through the store—in a metropolitan community of just over 600,000!
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| New Competition Letting Inventors Pitch Ideas Posted: 17 Apr 2012 04:00 AM PDT 
KATC.com: “The Vault” competition is giving inventors like Beduze a chance to bring their ideas to life.Similar to ABC’s “Shark Tank”, 40 contestants will have 10 minutes to convince a panel of judges to invest in their product. “We had an 89-year-old man come in and pitch an idea,” said Prados. And there’s a reason why this competition is called “The Vault” because it’ll be held inside the vault at the “Acadiana Center for the Arts.” Staff at InvenutreWorks is prepping contestants, helping with their presentations and working with computer systems to create their products. “They’re coming in every day. We’re hearing so many ideas, with anything from oil field products, toys, to pet ideas,” said Prados. There won’t be just one winner, the panel of investors can choose to invest in as many ideas as they want.
More information about the competition can be found at Innov8 Lafayette 
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