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Posts tagged ‘business ideas’

9
Nov

Hatch’d: A Idea-based Social Network for Improving Business

Allow me to introduce you to Hatch’d: a recently born social network with a drastically different purpose than the social media we’ve become accustomed to. Instead of supporting interpersonal, social conversation like Twitter and Facebook, Hatch’d was conceived as a way to simply and efficiently share ideas. Hatch’d is a new take on outsourcing that aggregates product development ideas into one location for the creation and improvement of better products and services.

Easily Communicate Your Ideas

Have you ever had an idea that would allow a company to improve their product or service, but you could not find an effective communication channel that allowed you to be heard? For example, emailing customer service always seemed so distant and ineffective; and posting on Facebook, writing on a company’s Wall, or Tweeting at the business seemed just as hopeless. Now, Hatch’d is working to be the location for you to share and businesses to hear ideas.

Hatch’d works much in the same way as Twitter. A user can share an idea in 140 characters and can utilize the familiar @Username to directly target a business. For example, Brad H. shared his idea “@McDonalds serve breakfast all day.” Users can then vote ideas up or down and can comment on ideas to generate discussion. Through these social aspects, business owners can gain better insight into the minds of their customers and the rationale behind their ideas.

Standard social networking features have also been built into the site. For example, visible on a user’s profile page is a portfolio that displays your posted ideas, picture, and short biography. Users also have the ability to follow other users and businesses to track what is being discussed.

Crowdsourcing What Hatchd Will Become

Admittedly, due to how new the service is, the creators of Hatch’d still do not know what exactly the social network could be. On the About section of the site they ask users to “help figure that out” by sharing an idea @Hatchd.

The largest opportunity for Hatch’d and where I predict the service will find the most success, is for businesses to read ideas that will allow them to better serve their customers. Because voices are often lost in the crowd on sites such as Facebook and Twitter, Hatch’d is a promising tool for its narrow, yet distinct purpose as an ‘idea-network.’ Furthermore, due to this purpose, if a business creates an account on Hatch’d users can trust that their opinions are read and considered.

But Not Perfect, Yet

One aspect of Hatch’d that seems to stray from this well-defined intent is Groups. The About section describes this as a place to “brainstorm ideas with your friends. Plan a vacation with college friends or your family! [Hatch’d wants] to make it as easy for you to toss around ideas here as it is for you to do with your friends over lunch or hanging out at your apartment.”

While the ability and support to discuss ideas with your friends is nice to have, it seems more appropriate for Facebook, where interpersonal conversation is the norm, and even more effective “over lunch or hanging out at your apartment.” To me, Hatch’d needs to be about communicating ideas solely with businesses. Discussion with friends, like I previously said, is sort of played out at this point. Trying to be too many things could lead to its downfall.

Hatch’d is still in beta mode, but it seems solid and bug-free. Expect new features and improvements to roll out regularly. Hatch’d is also competing in Advertising Age’s contest for a reward of a $25,000 partnership to work with respected brand marketers to help launch its product.

Check out Hatch’d and start sharing your ideas!

What do you think Hatch’d’s strengths are? Where could it improve?

About the author: August Drilling works in the marketing department at CliqStudios.com, the online supplier of quality oak kitchen cabinetsand is a blogger, social media enthusiast, and Apple aficionado. You can follow him on Twitter @ardrilling and read insight and odd musings.

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13
Jul

Why Your Email Funnel Should Have a Custom Thank You Page & How to Start One if Yours Doesn’t


There are many reasons why you should consider creating a custom Thank You page for your email funnel. For one thing, a custom thank you page is more personal, creating a one on one atmosphere between you and your visitor. Read moreRead more

28
Oct

Entrepreneurs in a Box – 4 Creative Businesses Doing More with Less

StorageIf you ever want to see a microcosm of humanity, try working in self storage.

Our units are rented by people in all walks of life, many of whom are creatively making their way in the world using the resources that they have — no matter how minimal those resources might be.

I am especially amazed by people who are nearly out of money, who have nothing but a few scant possessions and a set of skills, who nevertheless see no reason why they should not go ahead and start their own businesses.

I was skeptical at first, but I’ve learned that I need to be more openminded. Statistics from the Small Business Administration say that about half of all new small businesses fail within the first five years.

That might be true for small businesses, but I am not convinced that it is true for tiny businesses, businesses that fit inside a self storage unit — businesses in a box, I always call them. The entrepreneurs who start tiny businesses with just what they have are simply too good at keeping their overhead down and riding out the dry spells. You can do that when you don’t need much to begin with.

What are these tiny businesses? Some of them are Craig’s List- or eBay-based retailers, or other online businesses. But I have to admit that the businesses that really go to my heart are not the online businesses but the truly creative ones.

Here are a few examples:

 

  • Green cleaning: One of my tenants had started a working part-time cleaning houses. But the chemicals that she used were exacerbating her asthma. She decided to get her green cleaning certification. But that meant changing out the equipment and supplies that she kept in her unit. She uses a lot of steam cleaning equipment now, and she replaced her old chemicals with cleaners that are approved by the EPA as green. To finance the change, she decided to sell her cleaning van, which had been brand new. I was surprised — I think most small business owners would decide that this was a calculated risk, and would take out a loan and go into debt. Not this tenant. She told me, “No way — I would be a slave to that debt for the rest of my life!” She decided to rent a truck twice a week from the storage facility instead. That way, she saved money on the insurance, and she simply made a point to schedule all her cleaning appointments on the same two days. I know she schedules her appointments in the same part of town on the same day to save money for gas and the truck rental, but I think it’s awesome that in the process of doing that, she also reduces her business’ carbon footprint by reducing her emissions from transportation.

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  • An old-fashioned trading post: This example may really be one of a kind. I traveled to a small town near Fairbanks, Alaska, to help open a new storage facility. I was fascinated to find that one young entrepreneur, a 19-year-old fur trapper, chose to share a storage unit with his grandmother, an elderly Athabascan woman who made a living skin sewing (making mukluk boots, hats, mittens, and in some cases ruffs for parka hoods, out of moose skin and bits of fur from rabbits, wolves, wolverines, foxes, and the like). People heard about the couple through word of mouth and would come to buy furs or mukluks, or to trade with them, much in the style of trading posts in the Old West, which still seem to exist in Alaska in some places. I was fascinated to see barter still being used in a business context (one fellow brought them a freezer full of frozen salmon and traded it for mukluks for his three children for the winter). This wasn’t the world’s most lucrative business, and it will never be a Fortune 500 company, but it doesn’t have to be — it’s supporting the people who depend on it.

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  • Leatherworkers: At the same facility, a leatherworker opened a workshop. He didn’t opt for a very big space. “I don’t need it,” he told me. While in the Southwest and Southeast I often saw leatherworkers (sometimes in self storage units) making custom handmade chaps to use for horseback riding, here in Alaska this leatherworker was concentrating on sheaths for large buck knives (used for gutting and cleaning an animal during a hunting trip, I’m told), scabbards for rifles, and even pouches to hold things like shot shells or cartridges. In that small space, this highly skilled worker looked as though he would be in business for a long time to come — he was booking custom leatherworking assignments six months in advance. A waiting list like that is almost like having money in the bank.

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  • Jewelrymaking: At the other end of the country, the Southwest, I met an Arizona jewelry maker one day. He did not do much work on the jewelry itself in his unit — he had a lot of equipment in his garage at home, he told me, and he usually needed a torch, which would be a fire hazard in a self storage unit. “For the longest time,” he told me, “I only made a few pieces of jewelry at a time — just what I could fit inside my little safe in my house.” He didn’t feel that his garage was a secure place to keep valuable jewelry or the gems that he was planning to work with. When a self storage facility opened up near his home, he came over and checked the security very carefully. Once he was satisfied, he rented our smallest unit — it is just five feet square — and he uses it to store finished pieces of jewelry, along with gems and materials that he was planning to use to make other items. He also kept a traveling jewelry case there. Every so often, he would go to visit jewelry stores and sell a few of his pieces, which were very original. Sometimes he took his jewelry to arts and craft fairs, or drove to visit people who had called him to ask about having a piece custom made. When he was done for the day, he would come back and stow everything securely. “It’s a weight off my shoulders not to have to worry, especially about the more expensive pieces,” he told me. “I certainly didn’t have the money to open a store and install an alarm system!”

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What fascinates me is that many of these entrepreneurs are making a living out of skills that I did not know were salable: skin sewing, hunting and trapping, decorating artistic leather cases. I would have called those things hobbies. These entrepreneurs didn’t need capital (aka debt) to start their businesses. All they needed was one passion — one hobby or art that they were good at, a little creativity, and a space the size of a closet. That’s ingenuity for you!

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About the Author: Art Gould is a division manager with Self Storage Company, which operates a group of websites, including a California self-storage locator. Though busy, Art enjoys meeting new people and clients when traveling to sites, like San Francisco or the Los Angeles self-storage center.

Photo Credit: getinet

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25
Sep

Good Business in Bad Times

No doubt times are tough. The consumer is pinched, Wall Street is hurting, bankruptcy and bailouts seem to be the norm. Pretty daunting times for anyone considering starting a business, or any small business owner for that matter. So the question is, are there any good businesses for bad times? And can economic downturns actually be good for small business entrepreneurs?

Are there good businesses?

Well, if you started a business in today’s ecomomic turmoil you’d have something in common with Hewlett Packard, General Electric, and Sun Microsystems all of which were started during economic downturns.

Also, many industries are actually considered “recession proof” so if you’re operating in any of the following capacities, or thinking of starting a business in one of these industries you’re probably going to fair okay

  • Medical Services / Health care
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Necessities: food/grocery stores/chains
  • Cosmetics
  • Entertainment
  • Home & vehicle repair & maintenance
  • Debt collection
  • Tax preparation / simplification
  • Career/Job search/Life coaching
  • Energy
  • Security/Alarm services companies
  • Vices

Some of those industries lend themselves better than others to small business and entrepreneurs, but there are a lot of possibilities none the less.

Could an economic downturn actually be good for small business?

An argument could be made for…YES! When the economy is down, there could actually be opportunity for the astute small business owner.

The truly successful business owner gets in the habit of seeing opportunity in the face of doom, gloom, and hopelessness!

  • Reduction in cost
    • Deals with suppliers
    • Reduction in rent
    • Labor cost reduction
  • Provide Value = Get more Sales
    • Companies are looking to save, if you can give them the value you’ll get the business
  • Greater Pool of Qualified Labor
    • You cold be able to hire great people for a fraction of the cost during boom times
  • More Bang for your Creative Buck
    • If you can offer customers a creative way to save they will appreciate it more than when times are good, and reward you with more business.

This is by no means a comprehensive list, but opportunity is there to make good in a bad time. It takes creativity, networking, a flexible strategy, and ability to expand to fit a market niche, but that should come easy to all of you as business owners and entrepreneurs.

What do you think? Are there opportunities in downturns? Share your ideas in the comments section.

 Photo Credit: procsilas