By: Co-Editor, RS:
As the decade came to a close, I took a small amount of time to reflect on another year of my life and how the business world has changed. For one reason or another, I started to think about various businesses that used to be in my neck of the woods on Long Island, New York.
One of the things I started to realize is that despite all of the advances in technology its impact on business over the last 10-15 years, the overall effect has not been good for the entrepreneur or the small business owner.
Can you imagine if you wanted to open a hardware store in the suburbs of any large or small city? Good luck. You will never be able to compete with the likes of The Home Depot. How about opening an office supply business? Once again, good luck, as Staples or Office Depot buys in such bulk that one cannot possibly compete on pricing or national advertising.
My recollection of the beginnings of this trend of “Big Business” domination ruining it for entrepreneurs, started in the mid to late 1980’s. It seemed that on every corner of the universe you were able to find a neighborhood video store. Then in the late 1980’s after Wayne Huizenga acquired the Blockbuster name, we started to see these mega-video stores all over the place. There were times you could find numerous Blockbuster stores within a few miles of each other. This phenomenon crushed the small mom and pop video retailer as everyone enjoyed the variety that Blockbuster could offer the consumer due to its ability to carry more inventory.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
When the history of the beginnings of the Internet is written, one web phenomenon that will be discussed will be so-called “Internet meme”. For the great unwashed, an Internet meme is is a phrase used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet, much like an esoteric inside joke. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although this concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.
Perhaps the most famous early Internet meme was the so-called “lolcat”.
A lolcat is an image combining a photograph of a cat and a humorous caption in language that typically parodies Internet slang. In this case the slang LOL for “laugh out loud”.
I Can Has Cheezburger? sparked an Internet phenomenon by creating a weblog that featured lolcats. Launched in January of 2007 by Eric Nakagawa and Kari Unebasami, the site was sold to Pet Holdings, Inc., a Web startup based in Seattle.
Pet Holdings, Inc. then started the Cheezburger Network.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Zero Motorcycles Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells high performance electric motorcycles. The company, formerly known as Electricross, was started in 2006 near Santa Cruz, California. The company was founded by Neal Saiki who was a former NASA engineer and has also won numerous design awards in the sports world.
They are known for their line of dirt bikes and most recently the popular Zero X. They have begun branching out into the street world with a motorcycle called the Zero S (Zero S) which began shipping in 2009.
The Zero S shares some of the same styling cues as its off-road little brother, the previously mentioned Zero X. The motorcycle has highway appropriate tires and a “projector beam” headlight. With a peak horsepower of 31 and 62.5 lb-ft of torque, the clutchless one-speed “Zero S” gets to its top speed of 60 mph in no time. Its four kWh battery can keep you going for up to 60 miles. The intergrated charger allows you to fully charge in less than four hours.
It is very light, and therefore very quick. The battery warning light goes on with about 20 miles to go.
By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
The word “bitch” is often consider a profanity in the English language and commonly carries misogynistic overtones. However, a “bitch” in the literal, non-slang use refers to a female dog.
Now comes a start-up out of Long Island, New York that has fun with both the literal and slang use of the word “bitch”. BitchNewYork.com is a startup that specializes in designer products for dogs. The “Bitch” in BitchNewYork.com refers to both its founder and a very spoiled Chihuahua named Princess Lola that provided the inspiration for this success story.
The human “Bitch” is Stacy Braverman who is not a bitch at all. She is a successful entrepreneur who has transformed her love of dogs and fashion into a successful business. In her quest to spoil Princess Lola, Ms. Braverman searched far and wide for glamourous canine couture and accessories to befit a Princess.
The designer clothes she procured for Princess Lola were the envy of the neighborhood, and her fellow dog lovers wanted their pooches to be outfitted in the same manner. It was then Ms. Braverman decided to start her own online boutique and thus BitchNewYork.com was born.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Mobile Gifting is the next evolutionary step in the world of gifts. In a fast moving world there will always be room for paper vouchers but unquestionably the majority of the market will move to e-vouchers - in particular mobile vouchers.
With more and more users buying goods online why not allow customers to buy gift vouchers online as well. These vouchers can be delivered, including a personal message, via SMS. Delivery is almost instant.
Several large e-retailers are already involved in mobile gifting such as Alibaba.com.
A new company currently in beta is seeking to ride this next wave in retail. The Cambridge, Massachusetts based KangoGift.com is at this point limited to retailers in the Boston area.
KangoGift, allows shoppers to send both virtual gifts and real gifts via text message to friends and family.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
What if SharkTank was filmed on 125th Street in NYC? What if the VC firms in Silicon Valley considered pitches from a more diverse group than Stanford business grads?
A new website seeks to fill a largely ignored niche by being the online community for young urban entrepreneurs.
TheCASHFLOW.com, based in Cold Spring Harbor, New York is a startup that seeks to provide an interactive and approachable platform blending financial media, professional networking and business knowledge for young urban entrepreneurs. The site officially went live online earlier this month.
TheCASHFLOW.com users can customize an education plan, apply to get their business idea funded, gain knowledge of unique ways to profit from today’s news and trends, and learn from a resource-rich blueprint that takes them step-by-step through the process of writing a business plan, building their team and realizing their financial dreams.
The launch of TheCASHFLOW commenced with the “Put Yourself on the Map Tour,” a coast-to-coast series of interviews and networking events with aspiring urban entrepreneurs in 100 cities across the United States.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Since this is not technically a tech site, I will take a second to give you a primer on what a Cloud operating system is.
The term “cloud” is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the cloud drawing used to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents. Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online which are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on servers.
Attribo.com is a Bangolore based startup beta that is focused on what they call “Cloud Management, Provisioning, Monitoring & Reporting Solutions”. They are trying to solve the end user adaptability issues related to multiple cloud vendors and cloud based infrastructure components. They are attempting to make the cloud experience more end user friendly and easy to manage with feature rich approach.
Attribo is built with a unique integration pattern, which brings on the multiple cloud vendor API features within 24 hours of their release and made available to users via the Attribo 3C management console.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
There are people who you know that are obsessed (not merely interested) with the latest technology releases be it the latest iPhone, Nokia Booklet, or video game release. Some of these people have buyer’s remorse the minute they pick up the latest gadget thinking about the next upgrade.
There is a new site out of St. Petersburg, Russia called PreOrder.it launched in January that has been created in order to give people who are interested in latest novelties in the world of electronics, mobile systems, photo and video equipment a possibility to contact manufacturers directly and leave an order for a product in which they are interested before the official sale starts.
This site would obviously interest any techno-savvy consumer, but the obsessive described above will really enjoy it.
The site actually has two types of users: merchants and customers. Customers can go to the site to access company’s press releases to find out new models, their characteristics, types of set and future price. If the client gets interested in something he can leave a pre-order that goes directly to merchants. Merchants can sell in advance and receive orders directly from loyal and future customers.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
We have not spent too much time on this blog talking about gadgets. This space has mostly focused on service related Internet sites. However, today we have something very interesting to show you. Anyone who has dropped his or her phone in a pool, toilet, or puddle will be able to relate to this.
Karen Wildman and Lisa Holmes are sisters originally from Oregon. The idea for their product was conceived when they saw a sad boy who dropped his gameboy in a pond. The sisters realized that since electronics are everywhere and people take them everywhere, a product that protected against water damage would be great. So they set out to invent a solution… and they did!
Karen Wildman has struggled with hearing loss since she was a baby. She knew a lot about drying out hearing aids from sweat, rain and other moisture. But when she realized she could apply her drying technique to other small electronics and started saving her children’s and friends’ gadgets, she knew she was on to a big idea.
Starting small and funding the project themselves, Karen and Lisa took five years to develop their product, which is now being sold online and in retail stores — including at major outdoor supplier REI. The two mom inventors are currently reveling in hearing about the countless iPods, cell phones, digital cameras and other gadgets their product has saved.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Today is President Day, and not to dis Mr. Lincoln, but this blog will take this opportunity to praise George Washington. As our first President he oversaw the creation of one of the great startup ideas-the first modern democracy.
The position of president of the United States seemed shaped by the Federal Convention on the assumption that Washington would be the first to occupy the office. In a day when executive power was suspect - when the creation of the presidency, as Alexander Hamilton observed in The Federalist, was “attended with greater difficulty” than perhaps any other - the Constitution established an energetic and independent chief executive. Pierce Butler, one of the Founding Fathers, noted that the convention would not have made the executive powers so great “had not many of the members cast their eyes toward General Washington as President, and shaped their ideas of the Powers to be given a President, by their opinions of his Virtue.”
Washington’s Farewell Address (issued as a public letter in 1796) was one of the most influential statements of American political values Drafted primarily by Washington himself, with help from Hamilton, it gives advice on the necessity and importance of national union, the value of the Constitution and the rule of law, the evils of political parties, and the proper virtues of a republican people. While he declined suggested versions[that would have included statements that morality required a “divinely authoritative religion,” he called morality “a necessary spring of popular government”. He said, “Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
So instead of just thinking of Presidents Day as an opportunity to buy a washing machine on sale, think of it as a salute to our first president. Had a different man held the office this country would be a very different place and almost certainly we would not still be enjoying the freedoms first overseen by Washington over 220 years ago.
