Cool Startups -FieldCandy

Startup Of The Day - PickyDomains.com

http://www.fieldcandy.com/

Entrepreneur: John Harris, founder of FieldCandy, a U.K.-based brand of designer tents with offbeat graphics such as a block of cheese, floral and galactic motifs, leopard print, bubble wrap--even a time machine.

"Aha" moment: Harris, formerly a furniture designer, and partner Rhona Carr had retired in Italy. "We had a lovely life--and hated being retired," he says. "We both missed working and having something to get up in the morning for." On a trip to an exhibition for outdoor recreation, the two discovered an entire hall devoted to tents--all the same, all utterly boring. "There was certainly nothing designer-y, feminine or sexy. It didn't exist," Harris says. "It was very much a product for guys with tattoos and canoes who go into the forest and shoot deer. We wanted to change that and make it a fashion product."

Field test: Harris and Carr spent a few years researching their idea, dreaming up designs and learning to print graphics on tent flysheets. With an initial investment of about $400,000 of their own money, they launched FieldCandy in November 2011 with 40 unique designs. Within a few days, international design blog The Cool Hunter featured the company on its homepage; from there, word spread via the internet.

Fresh air: FieldCandy enlists a variety of illustrators, photographers and fashion and graphic designers to come up with prints. Among those who have contributed are Terry Pastor, known for his album artwork for David Bowie; Philip Gatward, photographer for Nike, Coca-Cola and Heineken; and fashion brand Basso & Brooke. Harris, who wishes to "attract different designers from around the world to have different cultures of designs, different styles of designs," fields requests from 30 to 50 artists each week.

Rugged outdoors: "FieldCandy tents are fun. But they're serious, too," the company's website proclaims. Made in Derbyshire, England, the A-frame tents are constructed to withstand extreme weather conditions. They feature an inner lining of 100 percent cotton (instead of traditional plastic), extra-strong pegs of hardened aluminum, heavy-duty zippers--even lockable storage pockets. "Our principle in business is doing whatever we do to the best of our ability and executing it with a bit of panache rather than the same as everybody else," Harris says.

High stakes: The printed tents, available at FieldCandy.com, range from $600 to $900 (basic solid colors are $400). FieldCandy sold 1,200 units its first year, mainly to customers in the U.S., Japan, Australia, Germany, the U.K. and South Korea. The company also creates promotional tents for brands such as Sony, Orange and various book publishers.

Glamping it up: FieldCandy aims to become an international lifestyle brand. The company is unveiling designs from tattooist Saira Hunjan, who has worked on the likes of Kate Moss and Jude Law; British fashion designer Zandra Rhodes; and Lee Clow, the U.S. creative director responsible for some of Apple's most famous ads.

[Via - Entrepreneur]  

 

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Weird Buisness Ideas - The Hiccup Stick

Startup Of The Day - PickyDomains.com

http://hicural.com/

A Sacramento inventor is marketing a product that he says is the first tool ever for effectively stopping a case of the hiccups.

Chuck Ray dubbed his invention "The Hiccup Stick," which he developed two years ago. Sitting in his home office, Ray had a pen in his mouth and a case of the hiccups.

"I don't know what I was thinking, but I grabbed a glass of water and drank it with the pen still in my mouth," he said.

It didn't stop his hiccups, he said, but it did make a noticeable improvement.

Ray began working with a friend with access to a 3-D printer, searching for something that would work better than the pen. Using himself as a test subject, he hit upon the Hiccup Stick. He soon quit his job and now works full time as CEO of Hicural, the company he created to market his invention. It's a two-man operation; Ray works with Chief Operating Officer Marc Cheiken.

The product has been available online through cvs.com, drugstore.com and Hicural's website for roughly four months. Ray said he's sold about 3,000 of the devices, which go for $7.99 or less.

Users place the stick lengthwise across their mouths, bite down, and drink a glass of water. It can be used repeatedly, though the company advises owners not to share it.

Ray said the device works by opening the throat and mixing air and water in the same swallow. "This restarts breathing," he said.

Does it work? Not everyone is convinced.

Dr. Mark Vaughan of Auburn Medical Group in Auburn, Calif., said he sees no scientific reasoning for the claimed success of the device.

"I don't see why this would work any better than getting scared or standing on top of your head," Vaughan said. He said the hiccups are a self-limiting problem; eventually they go away by themselves. "If it stops naturally, almost anything you make up can essentially work."

Ray is not discouraged by the skepticism.

"It isn't a cure for the hiccups, because they can always come back," he said, "but it has always stopped anyone's current hiccups."

Certain of its effectiveness, Ray said he'd like to get the Hiccup Stick in hospitals. That would require approval by the Food and Drug Administration.

But FDA spokeswoman Mary Ellen Taylor said the stick, while it is a medical device, is not subject to agency approval. "We don't have any classification for hiccup devices," she said.

Hicural has treated the product as a Class 1 device -- much like a toothbrush -- claiming it poses no potential threat or harm. The packaging has two warnings -- one restricting use for children under 4 and one saying the device is "not intended to relieve cases of chronic hiccups."

Reviews on Hicural's website and independent blogs point to the same opinion: It works.

"I used to be nervous that my idea was stupid, that it wouldn't work for someone," Ray said. "That doesn't happen anymore, I'm never nervous."

Ray is currently working to get the device into a national chain store. He said he expects to have his product on major store shelves within six months. Hoping to earn some popularity and recognition for the Hiccup Stick, Ray plans to sell it at the upcoming California State Fair.

[Via - WPTV.com]

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Cool Inventions The Roll-It

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http://theroll-it.com/

Much of Gary Peterson's summer was spent cruising the toothpaste aisles at various Fred Meyer stores. There, displayed near the brushes and floss sits his baby: the Roll-It, a snail-shaped device that aims to squeeze every bit of paste from a tube.

The gadget made it into 132 Fred Meyer stores in June, but staying there meant selling at least 480. Without an ad campaign or any marketing, 590 reached check-out stands that month.

It's nearly unheard of for a first-time inventor to land in a major retailer's health and beauty care aisle, a highly competitive category dominated by multinational corporations. And yet for Peterson, 71, the work has just begun. He not only faces competition from the Johnson & Johnsons of the world, but also an ever-growing roster of rival inventors and inventor-aimed businesses, some willing to scam or lift from creatives as they travel the confusing, and sometimes costly, road to market.

atent and trademark experts agree inventors face more risks today, leaving many, including Peterson, feeling they must hold on tight to their ideas and go it alone. But most experts say the only way to generate real buzz and sustainable sales for a product is to hand it off to the experts at manufacturing, distributing and marketing.

Peterson, who builds gutters for a living, admits being overwhelmed by the nine-month process he faced to gain entry into Fred Meyer. And yet he still spends many nights at his dining room table slipping Roll-Its into little plastic bags and stapling on its bare-bones, red-white-and-blue label, in pursuit of an even bigger quarry: The Kroger Co. The Cincinnati-based chain operates 2,460 supermarkets under several banners, including QFC and Portland-based Fred Meyer.

"I do gutter work and climb on roofs every day, but I can't do that forever," said Peterson, who with his wife is raising 10-year-old twin grandchildren. "If we're going to get into Kroger, we'll need consistency."
Consistency and, as it turns out, a little bravery. And better yet, a willingness to let go.

[Via - The Oregonian]

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http://www.quirky.com/crate

In February, Jenny Drinkard, an industrial designer and recent Georgia Institute of Technology graduate, proposed an idea to a website called Quirky.com to turn modified milk crates into a home storage system. Then 1,791 Quirky community members around the world refined the design, suggesting accessories and ranking them in order of preference on the site. The result: plastic cubes that can be stacked, connected, and customized with drawers, slide-in wooden shelves, cork bulletin boards, wooden feet, and rollers—fit for a college dorm room.

Quirky needed to ship a million units of the product, called simply Crates, to such retailers as Target and Staples by July to capture back-to-school shoppers. To hit that deadline, the three-year-old New York company, which has made 50 products from crowdsourced ideas, would have to do what it’s never done before: manufacture in the U.S. “Usually you have months of freight time to ship from China,” says Quirky founder and Chief Executive Ben Kaufman. “But for Crates we knew we couldn’t afford the luxury of weeks on the water.”

The 25-year-old Kaufman, who grew up above an injection molding factory his mother ran in Queens, hopes to bring half of Quirky’s manufacturing back to the U.S. in the next 18 months. With labor and shipping costs rising in China, companies are looking for American factories to make certain goods, especially when production can be largely automated, as in the case of the milk crates.

Kaufman thinks moving work back to the U.S. will make Quirky money in the long run, partly by letting him eventually close its Hong Kong office, where the staff has already shrunk from 12 to four workers needed to monitor local manufacturers. “That was millions of dollars a year,” he says. “Even if costs in the U.S. are 15 percent higher, we still save 15 percent.”

Kaufman has been contracting with Chinese factories since 2005, when he started his first company making iPod accessories. Back then, Chinese manufacturers “fought hard” for his business, but they have since grown “cocky,” he says. In contrast, for the crates project, American manufacturers hustled to ship in time, with employees calling in friends and family to help run the production lines, he says.

Quirky turned to Mack Molding in Arlington, Vt., which designed and manufactured the original milk crates for a local dairy farmer in the 1960s. American manufacturers have gotten smarter and automated more to compete with off-shore factories, says Larry Walck, Mack Molding’s director of business development. “We … did things to make us more competitive, like lessening the amount of time humans touch a product, so that a part comes off a machine maybe 80 percent complete,” he says.

When labor becomes a smaller chunk of the total cost, the benefit of China’s lower wages diminishes, says Harold L. Sirkin, an analyst with the Boston Consulting Group. Sirkin notes another factor favoring the return of plastics manufacturing in particular: the low cost of natural gas, which is a feedstock for plastic polymers. The boom in domestic gas production “would give the U.S. a very significant advantage in manufacturing plastics,” he says.

Many businesses don’t realize that China is not always the cheapest place to manufacture. “Most assume that because wages in China were at 58¢ an hour in 2001 that wages are still low,” he says, “But you have to think about productivity, because the U.S. worker is 3.2 times [more] productive than the average Chinese worker.” Some of that is due to automation and better manufacturing techniques, he says.

Still, Kaufman plans to re-shore gradually, because the upfront costs can be daunting. “If I had cash to burn, I’d be more aggressive,” he says, “I can pay $5,000 to $50,000 to launch a product in China. In the U.S., the cost would be 10 times that, at minimum.” And some labor-intensive products, such as complex electronics, will likely continue to be made overseas.

Since 2009, Quirky has raised nearly $30 million in venture capital. The company’s products, including a flexible power strip and a kitchen gadget that sprays juice from citrus fruits, are chosen from ideas submitted online and fine-tuned by 230,000 members. They’ve been sold in Bed Bath & Beyond, Toys R Us, and Safeway, among other retailers, as well as on Quirky.com. The company had revenue of $7 million last year, and Kaufman expects nearly to triple that in 2012, with Crates making up about 10 percent of sales. Quirky owns the product ideas and pays inventors and contributors royalties. Last year it paid out $1 million in royalties to members—hundreds made $10,000 last year, and some earned hundreds of thousands.

Kaufman, who envisions Quirky as “the Proctor & Gamble of the 21st century,” says his goal has always been to have factories within driving distance. That way, he “could go out and check in on products like my mom did, who went downstairs to see her stuff being made.”

[Via - BusinessWeek.com]

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http://northernhottubcovers.com/

Spa and hot tub covers have been known to reduce, if not completely prevent, evaporative losses from a pool or hot tub when not in use. Assuming the level of heat loss at 70%, even a hot tub cover with relatively small thermal insulation value can achieve up to 75% heating costs savings compared to simply leaving the spa or hot tub uncovered.

Northern Hot Tub Covers, a Canadian company manufacturing hot tub covers that are sure to withstand Canadian weather, capitalizes on this glaring fact. Northern's ultimate goal is to provide consumers with durable replacement spa covers at an unbeatable price while at the same time providing satisfactory customer service before, during and after a sale is closed.

Depending on the thickness of the cover, Northern's cover options can range from either Signature, Premier, Ultimate and Ultimate II. The company also provides spa accessories like bubble covers, foam core inserts, spa caps, cover lifters and hot tub filters.

The first choice in hot tub covers online ordering, Northern Hot Tub Covers' goal is simple, to be the provider of choice for economically priced hot tub covers.

[Via - Webiot.com]

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Making Money In Your Sleep. Almost - SleepTracker.Com Story

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http://www.sleeptracker.com/

Late one night about 15 years ago, Lee Loree noticed his wife holding a perfectly lucid conversation in her sleep. That observation started the then-stock analyst on wondering about sleep patterns, talking to engineers, and then soliciting money from angel investors to build a device to improve how we sleep.

The result is the SleepTracker, a watch-like monitor and alarm that users wear on their wrists to record their sleep patterns and awaken them at an optimal time within the window they have chosen. The alarm goes off when the lightest sleep stage is reached during that window, reducing early morning grogginess. The monitor also records sleep stages throughout the night, converting it into data that can be analyzed over time with tracking software.

Loree, 39, has sold more than 250,000 units in 35 countries but still runs his $3 million Innovative Sleep Solutions as a one-person business from his Atlanta home. I spoke to him recently about the startup process and why he deliberately keeps his company small; edited excerpts of our conversation follow.

You were working in finance in 1998, with no background as an inventor or a sleep scientist, when you came up with SleepTracker. How did you do it?

I started checking books out at the public library. I spent 20 or 30 nights sitting in a closet, watching my wife sleep, which is pretty creepy when you think about it. I had access to a lot of smart people through my networks, so I met with them and eventually found a micro-electrical engineer and a software programmer to write the code. We built a couple generations of prototypes, which I financed by withdrawing money from my retirement accounts. When we had north of $100,000 invested, people told me I was a fool—and rightly so.

I was still working at a bank at the time, and I ran out of funds. So I wrote a business plan and did a mini-roadshow, meeting with angel investors. I went with an angel who had business experience and could help me navigate the startup. He turned into a pretty good shepherd. He’s still involved with the company; we talk quarterly.

You got the product to market in 2005. What was the reaction?

We sat and stared at our website that first day and we had 38 visitors. We didn’t have any sales. The next day, a tech blog found us and they threw up a screenshot of our website. Our business went crazy. It was like a commercial where people are watching one sale, then another, then five, then 30, and everybody starts freaking out.

I had conservative projections in my business plan, with 1,000 sales expected in the first year and 5,000 in the second year. Well, we sold 5,800 pieces in the first nine months and 12,000 the next year. We were cash-flow-positive in the first month. We scrambled to support various browsers and add an international component to our shopping cart. The product blew away all expectations that I ever had.

Your product was an early innovation but now you have competitors. Does that concern you?

I believe competition is inevitable, so you use it to your advantage. More people advertising in this space, doing interviews, doing marketing—it should grow the pie, assuming you have a product that works and is fairly priced.

A lot of our competitors have gone out and raised significant amounts of money. They have employees; they have infrastructure. Meanwhile, we have this quiet little business, we haven’t had to get additional outside investment, we have built up a significant war chest, and we don’t even carry a line of credit. We run the business debt-free and it’s clipping along.

Do you think about growing into a larger organization?

We found a sweet spot: Our business grows 10 to 20 percent annually, which is real manageable, and we are where we want to be in terms of managing cash flow. We have all the infrastructure: a call center, fulfillment center, manufacturers, warehouses—but none of them work for me. My main goal with this company was flexibility with my lifestyle. I wanted to be a dad and a husband and be there to be a part of things with my family. If I had the ambition to have a bigger company, we could scale this business up and do 500,000 pieces a year, I don’t have any doubt about that.

But using contractors, rather than employees, works for me because when we’ve fulfilled that obligation, I can turn off that expense and turn it back on when I need it. They like it also because it gives them the flexibility to pursue other contracts. And I don’t have to deal with 401(k)s, or kids being sick and people being out of the office.

How did you set up distribution?

You can get the product online at places like Amazon and Costco and in a few very specific brick-and-mortar stores. There really is not a great channel in the U.S. for these types of devices. We’ve been in specialty catalogs but we’ve not found that to be particularly productive. Some of the big box retailers that used to dedicate a lot of space to CDs and video games have gotten crushed because people are streaming that stuff now. So they’re piloting different things in that dead space, but we struggle to think that’s a good plan for us. No one is going to Best Buy to pick up a sleep monitor.

In Europe, Mexico, and Asia, we have a much bigger footprint. There are limited resources in a small business and I’ve spent much of my time trying to grow international sales.

About half of your revenues now come from sales overseas. How do you manage those markets?

We sell to 30 independent distributors, some of whom I found in our first month of operations and [who] are still with us today. We get them the product, plus camera-ready art, and I do media interviews all over the world. Of 30 distributors, 20 of them I’ve never met face-to-face. Bidding jobs to people, regardless of where they live or what they look like, has worked for me from day one in this business and I believe in it.

You are still selling the same basic product you started with in 2005. Have you got any innovations in the works?

We’re on our fourth or fifth iteration at this point, but we’re kind of a one-trick pony. I recognize that for the long term, we want to have multiple legs so we have more stability, but I’m not sure how to make it a whole lot better. It’s really hard—when you have a business that makes money—to change your focus. We are working on some innovations; by the first of the year we should have a feel for their potential and timelines. But we’ve done this before and the ideas all peter out. Sometimes we’ve spent $10,000 to $40,000 before walking away. I have a proven product, so I try not to monkey too much with it at this point.

[Via - BusinessWeek.Com]

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Cool Inventions - Meyer Sound Laboratory

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http://www.meyersound.com/

A recent Zagat survey reports that more than the lousy service, what turns most diners away from a restaurant is the noise. There are plenty of possible workarounds to this, of course – curtains, carpets and other acoustically gentle materials. However, the sound level within a restaurant still rises and falls depending on the number of patrons. Or more aptly, the crowd’s state of rowdiness and the number of wine bottles they’ve already consumed.

Using state-of-the-art technology usually reserved for recording studios and concert halls, Meyer Sound Laboratories, a Berkeley, California-based audio engineering firm, has come up with a solution to the problem. Through a combination of recording equipment, acoustic materials and an iPad, controlling the sound inside a restaurant – loud on a Friday night or quiet on a Sunday afternoon, it’s up to you – can be as simple as the swipe of a finger.

Speakers, microphones and subwoofers are installed inside the restaurant, plus sound-absorbing fabrics that can be as weird as recycled jeans or as aesthetically appealing as a painting canvas. Microphones capture the sound, which then is sent to a digital processor. The processor, in turn, allows somebody – the restaurant owner maybe – to fine-tune the sound via the iPad.

The system was recently tested at Comal, a Mexican restaurant run by John Paluska, former Phish manager. The San Francisco Chronicle reported Paluska as saying, “As a person who loves to eat out and as someone who reads the restaurant press, I know that noise is a hot-button issue for everyone. What we wanted to achieve is often mutually exclusive. Either you have a conversational ambiance or a buzzy ambiance. What we’re excited about is that we’re achieving both."

[Via - MadConomist.com]

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http://www.parallelkingdom.com/

Four years after its launch, the mobile gaming app Parallel Kingdom (PK) is now one million players strong and brings in just over $200,000 per month in in-app purchases. Maintaining and growing the title has taught our team a lot about about creating deep mobile games, allowing us to launch another location-based game, Parallel Mafia, which has already seen traction. But it all began in a 700-square-foot apartment.

Our dream for the product started simply. My PerBlue co-founder, Andrew Hanson, and I were bored with homework one night around 4 a.m., so we decided to take a break and start a totally new project. We wanted to make a game with four goals in mind: it had to be played on phones, it had to be fun, it had to make money and — just for kicks — it would use the phone’s GPS. The iPhone had been released a few months earlier and the Android was just announced, so we wanted to take advantage of this new technology and gaming platform.

PerBlue was founded in the summer of 2008, while Andrew and I were both interning in Seattle. We both had really attractive job offers from Google and Microsoft, but we ultimately turned them down to pursue our own dream with PerBlue. The first year and half was spent bootstrapping, working for no pay and carrying few operating costs — with the exception of an occasional pizza or domain name.

Our team was built from our college friends from the University of Wisconsin, but the excitement of creating a location-based game for mobile phones was what really attracted them. PerBlue’s team was based out of my apartment in downtown Madison, and we occupied just about all 700 square feet of it. Since the entire original PerBlue team was attending college when PK was first being designed, we would go to class and part-time jobs during the day, and work on the game late into the night (sometimes until 5 or 6 a.m.).

Working in close quarters and for no pay required a lot of passion for the project, trust, and strong friendship. These things were the glue that held us together.

As the launch approached, we were working insane hours — sometimes 80 to 100 hours a week. At one point, one of our developers hadn’t gone to any of his classes for almost two weeks. Everyone was on their last nerve, but it was either now or never — we decided to strip 95 percent of the game’s features and push it live, bugs and all. Within the first day we had over 6,000 downloads, and four years later, some of those early players are still active in the game community.

The third iteration of PK, which launched in November of 2009, first introduced our virtual goods revenue model to the game. At the time, earning revenue from virtual goods was still a relatively unproven business model. The night before we shipped this update, I remember telling myself, “If we don’t make any money tomorrow, we’ll shut the whole thing down and I will be very happy. This has been fun, and it was a great adventure.” We woke up the next morning to find that we had made over $5,000. That day marked an important turning point, and the rest is history.

Parallel Kingdom’s in-app purchases and subscription services have allowed PerBlue to monetize the game and grow as a company. Our game has some of the highest revenue per player in the industry, and growth at PerBlue has been largely fueled by the success of Parallel Kingdom. We’ve grown rapidly with three hiring bursts, from a team of five to over 35 employees today. Given the fast-paced nature of the mobile games industry, our team and products are quickly growing and changing — and we can’t wait to share what’s next.

[Via - Forbes.Com]

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http://compactimpact.com/

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, can be a killer condition. It can lead to a whole host of potentially fatal diseases like kidney failure, heart attack or stroke. Hypertension can be caused by obesity, heredity, a high-salt diet, a sedentary lifestyle, smoking, etc. While heredity is something a person doesn't have control over, smoking, a sedentary lifestyle and a high-salt diet are some things a person can control.

More than home-prepared foods, restaurant and processed foods are unquestionably saltier. So for people, especially the ageing population with escalating health concerns, who need to lower their salt intake, the Salinity Monitor Spoon recently launched by Japanese Compact Impact measures the salinity of soups and sauces at temperatures between 140F (60C) and 176F (80C). The spoon is put into the soup or other liquid foods, and the gauge on the spoon indicates whether the food's saltin ess is between 0.6% and 0.8%, 0.9% and 1.1% or 1.2% and above. This way, the user can decide how much of the food to consume. The Salinity Monitor Spoon is currently pegged at US $58.

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Pawsitively Purfrect Petal Pull Cart

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http://www.petpetalpullcart.com/

Sheryl Bass and her husband Neil Cline stumbled on an idea for a business as they were planning their wedding in 2006. Both wanted their dogs to participate in the wedding but didn't want anything that would be uncomfortable to wear or anything that would be toxic. Bass wanted her dog to fulfill the traditional "flower child" role, but no such product existed for the pet to hold the flower petals as they were distributed.

And so, Pawsitively Purrfect Products and its "Pet Petal Pullcart" was created.

It just so happens that Cline is pretty handy, Bass says. After testing various contraptions on their own pet, they came up with a wooden cart that attaches to a harness and dispenses flower petals from the back. The customizable hand-carved pull cart is for small dogs (less than 30 pounds) and sells for $130 on the company's website.

Bass and her husband, who both have full-time jobs as a publicist and psychotherapist, respectively, have hit on an explosive trend -- consumers are expected to spend nearly $53 billion on pets in 2012, according to the American Pet Products Association. Boutique businesses that offer pet outfits, treats (that literally look good enough for humans to eat) and toys are on the rise. And so is the trend of including furry loved ones in weddings.

The Pet Petal Pullcart is so popular that the couple cannot keep up with production (pull carts are made-to-order given the pet's weight and length specifications), Bass says. However, the couple has had to turn away customers, especially those looking to use the product for bigger breeds.

Bass says they hope to license the product, so that a bigger company can mass produce the item and come up with a solution to the big-breed dilemma. She also wants to add other products to the business down the line, she says.

[Via - The Street]

SafetyTats.com Story

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Smart Ideas - SafetyTats

Idea Spotlight - New Startup Pays Experts To Answer Questions



http://www.safetytat.com/

If you have you ever lost your child, even for a moment, you know that it is every parent’s worst nightmare.

Here’s a product to make you feel better about that eventuality: SafetyTats are temporary child identification tattoos that when applied to a child’s arm provide an immediate and highly visible form of identification and contact should your child become lost. Unlike just writing your telephone number of your child’s arm, the temporary tattoo is waterproof.

Where’d the idea come from?

The idea for SafetyTat temporary child ID tattoos was born of necessity one weekend at an amusement park. On Labor Day Weekend, Baltimore Mom, Michele Welsh and her husband, there with their three small children, felt out-numbered. To stave her panic, she quickly wrote her mobile phone number on each of their arms with a ballpoint pen. As she did this, she thoughtfully explained to each of them the importance of staying close to Mommy and Daddy. She also told them that if they were separated that the number on their arm was a way to reconnect with them.

Throughout the day of fun, Michele had to rewrite the number several times as it smeared or washed off. Several parents in the park stopped her to ask if that was her number on the kids’ arms. Each time, they loved the idea.

The day was a success and the idea for SafetyTat temporary child id tattoos was born.

[Via - Dane Carson]

Startup Spotlight - Trademarkia.com

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I Need A Domain Name

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Smart Ideas - Paul Sammut And His Ramos Alarm Clock

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http://www.paulsammut.com/ramos/

There may be a lucky few who never have trouble getting up in the morning, but for everyone else, engineer and designer Paul Sammut has a new solution. Now fully funded on Kickstarter, Sammut’s new Ramos alarm clock can’t be turned off by any ordinary means; rather, users must get up and walk to an accompanying defuse panel to punch in the clock’s preset deactivation code.

There’s no “snooze” button in easy reach on the Ramos clock, which has been in development for years, Sammut says. “Ramos is a clock I made after I got tired of constantly oversleeping,” he explains. “I needed something that would force me out of bed.” No surprise, then, that the Ramos can only be turned off when the user gets up and enters in a code on a separate wireless defuse panel, which Sammut suggests be placed in the kitchen or bathroom. “You’ll have to use your brain a bit more, which will help wake you up,” he notes. “Best of all, after you turn off the alarm you’ll find yourself in your bathroom or kitchen, away from the evil alluring bed and ready to start your day.” An optional snooze mode will be included, but users won’t be able to exceed the number of “snoozes” they preset in advance.

The Ramos can now be preordered on Kickstarter starting at USD 160, with options including either an LED or nixie tube display and a variety of hardwoods and finishes. Specialty retailers around the globe: one to get in on early?

[Via - Springwise]

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Cool Startups - Recoil Winders

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http://www.recoilwinders.com/

David Alden would call himself a Kickstarter success. The Park City local used the website, which helps to find funding for independent projects, to take his business idea from concept to complete.

Recoil, a plastic device similar to a fishing reel for wires, provides an easy solution to tidy up offices, entertainment centers or the ear buds in your pocket. Alden's Recoil is a simple plastic case that wires hook and wind into, keeping them neatly tucked inside the case.

"This is a lot more than a winder too," he added. "This is a management system that we're building."

Alden's idea came from a typical frustration as he was moving into his new home in Park City just more than a year ago. Despite meticulously building a home for his family that reflected their personal style and accommodated the furniture and art, he couldn't stop focusing on the chaos of wires strung throughout the house.

"I remember being mad that I hadn't designed in a place to hide all these wires and cables," Alden said. "Who likes to look at all these wires hanging everywhere?"

He ran to a nearby store to pick up a fishing reel. When he realized it would work, he started to think big.

"It was cool, but it wasn't very practical," Alden said. "A $300 fishing reel didn't seem like the best way to store a 50-cent cord, so right then I realized it was a matter of winding the cords up effectively."

Soon, he was on his way to China to develop and manufacture Recoil, but the company needed $60,000 before full production could begin and half of the project cost had to be paid up front. Alden paid the $30,000 and went home to start figuring out where he was going to find the other $30,000 to get the product into stores.

"I had begun production in China," Alden said. " It was all self-funded at first, and I remember scratching my head thinking 'How am I going to come up with the rest?'"

In stepped Kickstarter, and within three days of posting the project Alden had met his goal. And then some. The project has little more than a week until the Recoil project closes, but with nearly 2,000 backers and more than 900 percent of what he was asking for in funding, Alden said the website has made getting the business off the ground a snap.

"I never anticipated all the added benefits to having a successful Kickstarter project beyond the funding," Alden said. "The funding is great, but I never anticipated all the emails I've been getting from distributors, salespeople, retailers and online companies that want to sell Recoil."

He plans to use extra funding to expand the business.

Alden came across big investors, corporations that wanted to partner with him. Even the storage company where he plans on shipping the product contacted him through his Kickstarter account. He's sold 10,000 units so far without ever finding a distributor, reaching markets in Asia and Europe.

Since Alden watched his idea take off, he started building on his original concept with more products. He originally planned on selling 15,000 Recoils in the first year, but since that number was nearly matched in preorders, he's been at work refiguring sales goals and marketing.

"I always thought this was a product that could succeed," Alden said. "People really like it and I was always optimistic about its potential, but for it to have gone from nothing to so many different opportunities, I didn't know we'd have people speaking to us as though we're a well-established, multimillion dollar company."

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[Via - ParkRecord.Com]

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Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

What Matters Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation

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Sauceaholic

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How Clipboard Can Save Cop's Life

Idea of the day - Coupons For Godaddy



http://www.impactarmortech.com/

Although police officers in most countries are issued bulletproof vests, they don't necessarily wear them at all times - would you want to heave one of those things around for an entire shift? What they do often carry, however, are clipboards. Taking the "every little bit helps" approach, Ohio's IMPACT Armor Technologies has put two and two together, and come up with something that should actually offer some protection - a Ballistic Clipboard.

Besides holding arrest warrants, speeding tickets and other cop-type papers, the clipboard is also capable of stopping bullets. It reportedly "provides multi-hit protection against 9 mm, .357, .40, and .44 mag rounds" at up to point blank range, in hot or cold temperatures. It is also said to protect against knives and blunt weapons. Unlike a vest, however, it weighs less than two pounds (907 grams).

While some people might picture an officer desperately trying trying to hide their entire body behind a clipboard, it presumably isn't intended to work that way. More likely, in situations where an assailant fires wildly at an officer's chest, there would actually be a pretty good chance of their bullet striking the clipboard instead.

It's apparently not that wacky of an idea, as IMPACT first designed the device in response to a request from local law enforcement personnel. Additionally, the company is not the only one offering such a product. Although the somewhat riot shield-like design of IMPACT's clipboard is unique, more ordinary-looking bulletproof clipboards are available from several other manufacturers.

[Via - Madconomist.com]

Nashville woman sells chickenpox-infected lollipops for $50 each

Startup Name Ideas

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Quirky.Com

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http://www.quirky.com/

Revenue 2011 (projected): $ 7.2 million

Ben Kaufman wants more people to try to become inventors. "It's a great feeling to see your product being used by a complete stranger," says Kaufman, who founded and sold an iPod accessories company before he launched Quirky in 2009. The site turns two community-submitted ideas into sellable products each week. Hopefuls pay $10 each to post an idea online for the 85,000-member Quirky community to vote on. Ideas must be be physical goods (not software) that can retail for less than $150. An in-house team of engineers and designers examines the two most popular submissions and builds a prototype. If enough units are presold to cover the cost of bringing a product to market, Quirky will contract to have it manufactured and distributed. Kaufman says Quirky retains all rights to the products and takes 70 percent of the revenue; the rest goes to the creators, many of whom earn tens of thousands of dollars from their ideas. The company has completed nearly 200 products, including such best-sellers as a power strip with a flexible body, a collapsible hanger, and a modular pocket knife.

For more unusual ways to make money, visit this site.

[Via - BusinessWeek.com]

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The Million-Dollar Idea in Everyone: Easy New Ways to Make Money from Your Interests, Insights, and Inventions

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Got A Tank To Fix?

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http://www.site.ww2mv.com/

Steve Gorham has spent most of his life renovating homes. Now, he restores World War II tanks.

"It's a one-of-a-kind job," Gorham said yesterday while taking a break from working on a Czech OT-810 halftrack at Northeast Military Vehicle Services in Milford. "I wake up every morning and am excited to go to work."

Gorham, 49, of Upton, was an unemployed carpenter three years ago when he discovered Northeast, a new company founded by Shrewsbury resident Andrew Sanclemente. The company started in Hopkinton but moved to Milford, near Interstate 495, about a year and a half ago.

Sanclemente, 41, a software engineer, has been collecting World War II vehicles since the mid-1990s. As he became immersed in his hobby, he realized there was a need for a business that restores the historic combat machinery.

"I was fascinated with the equipment," Sanclemente said as the buzz of a saw reverberated throughout the company's warehouse. "When you're driving these, you really understand what it was like for soldiers."

Sanclemente's father, Alphonse, grew up in the Plains section of Milford and was a mechanic in the Army Air Corps in World War II.

Repairs vary significantly in cost and can take a few days for quick fixes or several months for major jobs such as the Czech halftrack, which Sanclemente and his crew of four full-time employees and several part-time workers are turning into a German tank.

Most people collect tanks to display at parades, shows and other events. But the Texas man who owns the halftrack has a more unusual use: wild hog hunting.

Although the halftrack - an armored vehicle with wheels and tracks - is getting extensive renovation, tiny indentations made when the machine was peppered with enemy bullets will not be restored.

"They add character," Sanclemente said. "You remember what the soldiers went through."

His company repairs vehicles from throughout the world. The biggest challenge is finding parts for the equipment - any part that cannot be found is made from scratch, a process that often begins with making a wooden template.

Although rewarding, Sanclemente said collecting military vehicles is an expensive hobby. A World War II tank can cost between $150,000 and $500,000. German tanks, which are very rare, can cost more than $1 million.

The machines were among the first items some collectors sold during the recession, which hit as Sanclemente was trying to establish his new business.

"The economy has not helped at all," he said, noting the price of tanks has dropped 25 percent in recent years. "You've got to find that niche."

Joe DiAntonio, a Milford resident and World War II Navy veteran, praised the company for keeping history alive. Seeing the tanks at shows and parades should get people thinking about the sacrifices soldiers are making right now in Iraq and Afghanistan, he said.

"By at least having these vehicles around, it makes people aware of what they are going through," DiAntonio said. "When you see the size of the tank and the gun coming out, think, 'This is what our boys are going through every day.' "

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[Via - Milford Daily News]

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The Million-Dollar Idea in Everyone: Easy New Ways to Make Money from Your Interests, Insights, and Inventions

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Revolights

Link of the day - If You Sell Links On Your Site, I Will Buy Them Off You


http://revolights.com/

The idea for Revolights came to inventor Kent Frankovich as he rode his bike in the dark, and wondered why the headlight — meant to illuminate the path he was cycling on — was so far away from the ground. His research led him to some gruesome statistics revealing that the majority of nighttime bike-car collisions are due to cyclists’ inadequate side visibility, as well as drivers’ inability to recognize bicycles on the road. This pointed to a need for “a single product that combines path illumination and effective, unique signaling (I am a bike) to shared road traffic” with the aim of significantly increasing biker safety.

Frankovich and his team have been developing a prototype that consists of two hoops containing LEDs, that clip onto bicycle rims. The lights blink on and off at a rate controlled by the speed of the cyclist, and are powered by lithium-ion battery packs mounted to the hub. The effect is that front half of the front wheel and rear half of the rear wheel are illuminated, which projects light both in front, behind and to the side, increasing visibility for the cyclist while making them visible to others on the road. The project was launched on Kickstarter in August, where it quickly exceeded its funding target of USD 43,500 by over USD 160,000. Revolights hopes that the product will be available by the end of the year, at a suggested price of USD 220.

For more unusual ways to make money, visit this site.

[Via - SpringWise.com]

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Link of the day - If You Sell Links On Your Site, I Will Buy Them Off You

Smaller Carry-On Luggage

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http://carryonfree.com/

Spirit Airlines made national news last year when it began charging customers for carry-on luggage. Critics saw the move as an attempt to gouge customers, but Brent Hopkins saw it as an opportunity.

Hopkins, who graduated from Western Michigan University last year, is president of CarryOn Free, a Rochester Hills-based online retailer that sells luggage specifically designed to help Spirit customers avoid baggage fees.

"I'm a pretty avid Spirit Airlines flier," Hopkins told MLive.com. "When they introduced the fee there was public outrage. But one day I was flying and I noticed you could still bring a free carry-on, it just had to be a smaller size."

When his flight landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Hopkins confirmed that Spirit Airlines does, in fact, still allow passengers to carry on bags for free so long as they fit in a 16" x 14" x 12" under-seat space.

"It's a really odd dimension," Hopkins said. "I realized that nobody was selling bags at that size, so I figured I'd start."

While Spirit is a relatively small company known for it's low-priced fares, it's the second-busiest carrier in Detroit. The airline charges between $30 and $45 dollars for each carry-on, and several competitors have followed suit and charge similar fees for larger bags.

"Delta's dimensions aren't much bigger," Hopkins said. "But since Spirit is the smallest, the bags can be used for every other airline that has a similar policy."

One year after implementing its carry-on policy, Spirit claims the fee has helped decrease boarding and deplaning times by more than 6 minutes per flight, as fewer customers struggle to fit large bags in small spaces.

"The carry-on policy was a bold move to address a real and costly boarding time delay concern and has proven to be a true win for consumers," President and CEO Ben Baldanza said last month.

Hopkins, meanwhile, is hoping his luggage line is a "true win" for the cost-conscious consumers who often fly Spirit.

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[Via - MLive.Com]

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Magnetic Pots

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http://www.myurbio.com/

From bottle caps to spiral tubes, regular readers may have noticed the recent wave of innovative ideas for urban dwellers to grow plants and herbs in limited space, and the latest seed of inspiration comes from US company Urbio with their “magically magnetic urban vertical garden”.

Urbio is a collaboration between Beau Oyler and Jared Aller of Enlisted Design and Tim Cui of Volare Studio. They aim to enable those living in apartments and lofts or working in offices to exercise their green fingers by utilizing wall space. Pots made of eco-plastic contain a large neodymium magnet which attach them to each other as well as to the modular magnetic back plates which can be mounted onto walls or ferrous surfaces, creating a vertical garden. The magnets are strong enough to hold the pots to the wall when filled with plants, and pots can be removed with a firm tug to be watered. Designed with affordability in mind, back plates are USD 10 and pots start at USD 20. Urbio are taking pre-orders and expect to start shipping early October.


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[Via - SpringWise]

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Link of the day - If You Sell Links On Your Site, I Will Buy Them Off You

Child Safe Photo Albums

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http://www.boardbookalbums.com/

Money wasn't the motivator for Laura Miranti, who went from being a homemaker with four children to an entrepreneur with an award-winning product.

She simply wanted to use photos to help her developmentally delayed daughter, Lucia, learn vocabulary words.

But Laura couldn't find a photo album suitable for a toddler with small hands and sturdy enough to withstand rough treatment. So she invented one.

"I couldn't believe no one else had thought of this," said Laura, 36, who moved to Edwardsville from Texas in September.

"Kids love photos, but most parents aren't going to hand over their photo albums to their little ones. They don't want them to get messed up."

Laura filed for a patent, found a manufacturer and began selling her Take a Pix photo albums on the Internet in December of 2008.

The kid-friendly albums are made like board books with thick cardboard pages, rounded corners and notches for easing flipping.

"The windows have clear, protective coverings, so little fingers aren't going to touch the photos," Laura said. "Even if kids are chewing on them, the photos don't get wet."

Laura donated two albums to Lucia's early childhood special-education class at Glen Carbon Elementary School last year.

Teacher Jill Schulte filled them with photos of a fire-station field trip and students in Halloween costumes.

"Those books were probably read by 15 children on a daily basis, and nothing ever ripped or tore," she said. "They were used a lot, and they're still in great shape."

The albums are designed for all children, not just those with disabilities. They recently won a Dr. Toy's Best Vacation Children's Products Award and a Kidlutions Preferred Project Award.

Customer Vicki Sorrells, 65, of Glendale, Mo., ordered a pink album as a shower gift for her daughter last fall.

Today, Vicki baby-sits her 7-month-old granddaughter, Abby, on weekdays. They look at photos of Mom, Dad, other relatives and family pets.

"Sometimes she really pays attention, and sometimes not so much," Vicki said. "But it gives her a good feel for books."

Laura and her husband, Chris, live near Sunset Hills Country Club with their four children, Slone, 14, Marren, 11, Lucia, 5, and Loren, 20 months.

Chris is a former U.S. Marine who became branch manager for a tractor-trailer company in Troy last fall.

He helped his wife sketch her photo-album idea, but it has primarily been her project.

"I was behind her 100 percent," said Chris, 39. "It made sense. It wasn't some crazy idea for a plastic gadget that people may or may not want or need."

Laura has a bachelor's in finance and international business from Baylor University in Texas and a master's in accounting from University of Houston.

She was working out of her home as a financial analyst when she began noticing problems with Lucia.

"She wasn't meeting her milestones," Laura said. "All she did was roll over at age 1, and not very often."

Doctors diagnosed reduced white matter in the brain, which is key to central-nervous-system messaging.

Lucia learned to crawl, sit, walk and talk with the help of physical, occupational and speech therapy.

"(The disorder) affects development and balance," Laura said. "Lucia wasn't as as coordinated and didn't have the same balance as other kids."

Speech therapists told the Mirantis that some children are better at word association when dealing with photos instead of generic drawings. So it was Lucia who inspired her mother to invent Take a Pix.

Laura has sold about 2,000 albums for $19.95 each at www.boardbookalbums.com in the past 2 1/2 years. She hopes to get them in stores soon.

"Everybody is exited about it," she said. "It's a million-dollar idea, and I think it's just a matter of time (before sales take off). I'm very determined.

"It's a product that's fulfilling a need. It can enhance lives, and it's fun. What little kids don't want to flip through photos of themselves and their toys?"

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[Via - BND.Com]

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