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Business Opportunities Weblog

Business Opportunities Weblog

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The Wearable Fishbowl

Posted: 20 Apr 2012 09:46 AM PDT

Aquarium on his Head

If you enjoyed seeing the wearable hummingbird feeder, you’ll love the wearable fishbowl.

No more information is available, unfortunately.

How to Start a Food Truck

Posted: 20 Apr 2012 08:31 AM PDT

Food trucks have become a wildly popular and important part of the hospitality industry. Consumers are flocking to these mobile food businesses in droves, inspiring national food truck competitions and even a show dedicated to the topic on The Food Network. The relatively low cost of entry as compared to starting a restaurant, combined with free and low-cost ways to market them to the masses via platforms like social media, are just two of the reasons that food truck business are drawing in budding entrepreneurs.

Author David Weber, a food truck advocate and entrepreneur himself, is here to offer his practical, step-by-step advice to achieving your mobile food mogul dreams in The Food Truck Handbook. This book cuts through all of the hype to give both hopeful entrepreneurs and already established truck owners an accurate portrayal of life on the streets. From concept to gaining a loyal following to preventative maintenance on your equipment this book covers it all.

  • Includes profiles of successful food trucks, detailing their operations, profitability, and scalability.
  • Establish best practices for operating your truck using one-of-a-kind templates for choosing vending locations, opening checklist, closing checklist, and more.
  • Create a sound business plan complete with a reasonable budget and finding vendors you can trust; consider daily operations in detail from start to finish, and ultimately expand your business.
  • Stay lean and profitable by avoiding the most common operating mistakes.
  • Author David Weber is Founder and President of the NYC Food Truck Association, which brings together small businesses that own and operate premium food trucks in NYC focused on innovation in hospitality, high quality food, and community development.

Old Brands are Coming Back

Posted: 20 Apr 2012 08:23 AM PDT

Astro Pops

WSJ:

Get ready for the return of Astro Pops, Boast logo shirts, National Premium beer and the Seafood Shanty restaurant chain—all names that had avid followings in their time.

The difficult economy is prompting many entrepreneurs to try to revive old brands from the dead—or the near-dead.

Real Stuff from Old Comic Book Ads

Posted: 20 Apr 2012 08:14 AM PDT

Generations of comic book readers remember the tantalizing promises of vintage novelty advertisements that offered authentic laser-gun plans, x-ray specs, and even 7-foot-tall monsters (with glow-in-the-dark eyes!). But what would you really get if you entrusted your hard-earned $1.69 to the post office? Mail-Order Mysteries answers this question, revealing the amazing truths (and agonizing exaggerations) about the actual products marketed to kids in the '60s, '70s, and '80s.

Collector’s Weekly has more on the book:

Amazing! Incredible! Unbelievable! Eyeglasses that let you see through clothes. The secrets to super-human strength. Scary seven-foot tall ghosts that do your bidding. All of this could be yours for a dollar or two. At least, that’s what vintage comic-book ads would have you believe. Six years ago, artist and historian Kirk Demarais, who runs the brilliant Gen X nostalgia site, Secret Fun Spot, became determined to uncover the truth behind these comic-book ads published between the 1950s and late ’80s. Last fall, he published “Mail-Order Mysteries,” a book that reveals what you really got when you ordered any one of 150 supposed marvels.

Chocomize: Customized Chocolate

Posted: 20 Apr 2012 07:03 AM PDT

Chocomize

Chocomize is a website that allows you to create your very own, unique, chocolate bar!

The possibilities are endless and you can create unique candy bars that you will not find at any store. Whether you are looking for a personal treat or a great chocolate gift – Chocomize is sure to impress. We use only the finest Belgian chocolate and hand selected ingredients to guarantee the best tasting chocolate imaginable. Every personalized chocolate bar is hand-made to order without any additives or artificial flavors.

“Chocomizing” is fun and easy. First, choose your favorite chocolate base: dark chocolate, milk chocolate, or white chocolate. Then, add up to 5 toppings from a selection of over 100. Chocomize offers a huge variety of ingredients. Our fruits, nuts, spices and decorations can be combined to make your own custom chocolate bar.

The Female Willy Wonka

Posted: 20 Apr 2012 06:49 AM PDT

If I was the beautiful child of a famous fashion designer, I’d imagine that I’d go into some kind of fashion related business. Not so with the daughter of Ralph Lauren. Dylan Lauren saw Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory at her 5th birthday and from that moment on she knew the direction her life would take: candy!

Dylan eventually cultivated her love of art and candy at Duke University, where she studied art history and spent her junior year abroad in London and Rome – tasting and discovering new candies, and collecting artful wrappers and packaging from her travels. Dylan set up an event planning company after graduating, but found herself always coming back to her love of candy. She was finally able to realize her childhood dream of opening a candy store – and combine it with her passion for art – in 2001, with the opening of the first Dylan's Candy Bar.

The store currently has five locations across the US.

Video below.

Stikitty: Cats Without the Mess

Posted: 20 Apr 2012 06:38 AM PDT

You know that mess of litter just outside the litter box? It's that section which constantly requires vacuuming because household cats track the litter around the house on their paws. Many cat owners realize that is simply a part of having a pet. However, some people still want the cat without the litter mess. For them, there is the Stikitty.

The Stikitty is the flagship product for Cleanicity, a website that specializes in pet products. Their special mat comes with 20 layers. When your cat hops out of the litter box, the litter on their paws sticks to the mat. If the mat is full, however, you just need to remove one layer. Cleanup is that easy!

Continue reading our interview with Carol O'Brien.

Today in Entrepreneurial History: April 20

Posted: 20 Apr 2012 06:34 AM PDT

On this date in 1818, the German-born inventor Heinrich Göbel, was born.

A controversial figure in the history of lighting, Goebel, who was originally from Germany but later moved to New York, claimed to have created working incandescent bulbs in the 1850s, prior to Edison's inventions. In 1893, lawyers for three light bulb manufacturers who were sued by Edison Electric Light Co., used the so-called Goebel-defense to assert that Edison's patents were void because his invention was not novel. The courts found it was "extremely improbable" that Goebel had created a practical bulb in the 1850s and Goebel could not produce any of the devices. Goebel was granted several patents for his later lightbulb innovations but Edison declined to buy the patents.