How To Turn Rotten Idea Into Profit

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thinkofthe.com

When victimized by workplace food thieves, some curse, others write threatening notes. Some might even contemplate surveillance cameras, if they’re hit often enough.

Being an inventor, Sherwood Forlee found another way to fight back when his sandwiches repeatedly went missing from the communal fridge at the SoHo ad agency where he worked.

“It kept happening, and one day I’d had it,” says Forlee, 29, a designer and mechanical engineer who worked in the firm’s product design division.

He considered stealth laxatives and sandwiches spiked with cat food. But the light-bulb moment came when he was scanning the fridge in the apartment he shares with three roommates in Brooklyn, and came across an unidentified food item crawling with mold.

Next stop: the “anti-theft lunch bag,” a plastic baggie customized with green splotches that make a fresh sandwich look like a spore factory, deterring all but the most desperate snack stealer. When he put it to work in the office, the theft stopped immediately.

“When people see something like that, they don’t even want to lay their hands on it,” he says.

Forlee conceived of the item for personal use. But “when I did a little research,” he says, “I found it’s a prevalent problem.”

So in February he began selling the bags on his own Web site (thinkofthe.com), alongside a handful of other items he’s designed, such as the “walls notebook,” whose pages depict New York City walls, ripe for adorning with noninvasive graffiti.

Charging $10 for a box of 25 bags, Forlee quickly sold out of his first run of 2,000 boxes. With a boost from Target, which briefly featured the product on its Web site, demand has held steady, and he’s currently on his fourth run.

Having since left the agency to pursue his own projects, Forlee no longer needs the bags himself. But customers report success, he says.

“People say they haven’t lost a lunch since,” he says, noting that others buy them as a gag gift or to use for pranks.

Forlee plans to continue selling the bags, although he has no current plans to “go mass market.” For one thing, he notes, “If everyone has one, they become ineffective.”

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

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

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide by Dan S. Kennedy

101 Businesses You Can Start With Less Than One Thousand Dollars: For Stay-at-Home Moms & Dads

Make Your Ideas Mean Business

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Proven Ways For A Writer To Make Money Online

Here are some easy ways to make money, if you like writing. (I probably should have said simple ways to make money, rather than easy ways to make money, because there is a difference between simple and easy. But who cares, this is about how to make easy money quickly).

1. Make easy money online naming domains. The original idea comes from Dane Carson’s blog. While you can earn money as a contributor for services such as PickyDomains.Com, here is a better idea. Go to Google or any other search engine, find sucky domain names and contact their owners directly, offering them your services. The key to success is to make it 100% risk free. Inform your prospective clients that you’ll accept money only if they like your domain name. If you come up with one approved domain name a day and charge what PickyDomain charges, you can make $1500 a month. Another twist – come up with cool domain names, like SiteToRemember.Com or ItsMe.Com, register them yourself and sell them on the aftermarket.

2. eBay arbitrage. A lot of people like buying stuff on eBay, because it’s cheap. And some people never buy on eBay, because they are afraid of being ripped off. Here is your solution to making easy money on eBay. Go to Craigslist.Com and see what items people buy and sell most often. Look at prices. Then go to eBay and see, if you can get it cheaper. Once you find your niche, you can buy things on eBay (or better yet, act as a representative for an eBay powerseller) and sell them for a profit using local classifieds and Craigslist. You can do this online as well. Set up a proxy store, and when you get an order, simply buy the same item on eBay for less, substituting shipping address from your own to that of your buyer.

3. eBay copywriting. If you are good at copywriting, go to eBay and look for highticket items, like boats. Find auctions with totally sucky descriptions. Contact an owner and inform him or her that good description of his or her item is likely to increase the chances of that item being sold. Then offer your services for a 1% of the selling price. You can use free eBay software

4. Get Paid Writing Reviews. This idea comes from a blog called Business Ideas That Work. A site called SoftwareJudge.Com pays up to 50 dollars per good review. However, if you are good at reviewing software, you can do this on your own. Go to CNET or any other site that lists software. Find sites that don’t have any reviews or testimonials. Contact developers directly, offering them your review services. Good reviews and testimonials increases sales, so you shouldn’t have any difficulties convincing developers that they need your services. And you get free software and games too! Oh, and you don't have to limit yourself to software alone.

5. Social Bookmark Whoring (oops, I meant to say PR). This is really easy money online. RedDit and Digg can bring a crapload of traffic. And traffic means money. If you have experience creating linkbate titles and getting to the top, why not offer your services? Say, you charge 10 dollars for submitting news to RedDit, Digg, StumbleUpon, Furl, NewsVine, Fark and all the other social bookmarting sites. The key is to work only with interesting stories, so you don’t become a spammer. 10 news a day and you are 100 dollars richer. You can probably work out a deal with online PR agencies, because they are totally clueless about this.

6. Writing Google AdWords Ads. Every time I see “Cake Icing. Used And New. eBay.Com” type ads or “Four best sites on killing your wife”, it makes me wonder. Aren’t there any GOOD AdWords ads copywriters? Look’s like a great job to me. The ads are only three lines long and if you charge 10 bucks per ad, you can make a lot of money. And the customers are easy to find, too. Just look at all these terrible ads that Google displays on their search engine and contextual network.

7. Wacky blogs. Steve Pavlina gets over 300 dollars a day from AdSense alone, writing on wacky topics, like polyphasic sleep, astral projection and psychic development. Or take David Icke, who claims that president Bush in an alien and a reptilian. Your blog doesn’t have to be true, it just has to be interesting.

8. Blog whoring. There are a number of services, like PayPerPost.Com, that pay for promotional blogposts. Once again, you can do the same thing, cutting the middleman out.

9. Unique Personal Ads. Write memorable personal ads for online daters. Most personal ads suck. “Hi, my name is Bambie, I’m a Vergo, I’m 19 and I love dogs.” Here is my favorite personal ad. If people pay for resume writing, they might pay for a great personal ad.

10. Poet For Hire. This is nothing new. Still, if you love writing poetry, why not make some money with your rhymes.

11. Don’t EVEN THINK about majoring in English, Medieval Literature, Journalism or GET A REAL JOB, IF YOU WERE DUMB ENOUGH TO DO SO. Just kidding. If you love writing, just write, and the money will follow.

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Urgently Need Cool Domain Name Ideas, Will Pay For Your Suggestions

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P.S. This Blog Has Made Over 10K With Copeac (With Affiliate Links Like This One) . Do Ask Me For Tips, After You Register And Play Around With It A Bit (Include Your Copeac ID In Email So That I Know That You've Used My Ref Link).

Dude, What's Wrong With Your Head? How Head Injury Turned Man Into Businessman.

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


http://www.scrapile.com/

Some people need a kick in the pants before they change course. For Carlos Salgado, 41, it took a knock on the head.

In 1998, the art handler and sculptor was working at the Guggenheim Museum SoHo in New York City. One moment he was disassembling a 400-pound steel sculpture by Italian artist Fabrizio Plessi; the next he was lying on the floor. Part of the massive artwork had fallen on his head.

Healing was a slow process. Fighting his workers' comp case was an even slower one. Salgado was relegated to his couch, where he found himself devouring books on furniture design and mulling a career change.

By the time he'd healed from the accident, an entrepreneur was born. Salgado got together with fabricator Bart Bettencourt. Together they hatched a plan: Turn salvaged scraps into sophisticated furniture.

The partners called their fledgling company Scrapile. In 2003 they unveiled their laminated-wood creations at two design shows before they even had a business plan. When orders started piling up, they had to develop an efficient production strategy, and fast.

"Our initial products were too labor-intensive," Salgado recalls. Advice from fellow artisans streamlined their method for assembling scraps into large planks.

Last year Scrapile brought in $80,000 in revenues. Now the company hopes to expand by repurposing waste streams from manufacturers of crystal, ceramics and glass.

The Future Perfect, a design store in Brooklyn, has carried Salgado and Bettencourt's furniture since the beginning. Owner David Alhadeff is impressed with the company's evolution so far.

"They have gone from offering a simple form made out of very beautiful material to making one-of-a-kind, gallery-worthy objects," he says.


If you like unusual business stories, read how I made a fortune picking cool domain names for other people.


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

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide by Dan S. Kennedy

Weekend Entrepreneur: 101 Great Ways to Earn Extra Cash

The Perfect Business

eBay 101: Selling on eBay For Part-time or Full-time Income, Beginner to PowerSeller in 90 Days

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

Profiting From Interns

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http://www.internbridge.com/

What it does: Internship advice and placement consulting
Founder: Richard Bottner, 24
Web site: www.internbridge.com
Based: Acton, Mass.

Then: Bottner started Intern Bridge as a way to get information to employers who he said were "clueless" about what interns wanted from their jobs. His first major project was a survey of 7,000 students and 235 employers. He sold the data he collected in that survey to human resources managers. He then expanded into publications, Webinars, workshops, and internship consulting. He expected revenue to hit $100,000 in 2008.

Now: Bottner says the company produces between two to eight publications a month intended for students seeking internships and businesses seeking interns. They range from $40 to $150 a pop. The company also produces specialty job training seminars in conjunction with Simmons College, George Mason University, and Columbus State Community College to help unemployed workers find jobs. He expects $200,000 in revenue by yearend.

If you like unusual business stories, read how I made a fortune picking cool domain names for other people.


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

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide by Dan S. Kennedy

Weekend Entrepreneur: 101 Great Ways to Earn Extra Cash

The Perfect Business

eBay 101: Selling on eBay For Part-time or Full-time Income, Beginner to PowerSeller in 90 Days

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

7 Great Books About Thrift And Frugality

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1. In CHEAP We Trust: The Story of a Misunderstood American Virtue

What makes this book fun as well as informative is how the author shows how wasteful we have become as a society in the last forty years. She is also smart because she shares with the reader the difference between being wise and being foolish. Like not eating extreme out of date canned food, and learning the signs of food that shouldn't be saved or eaten. Like temperature sensitive foods, be it seafood that smells spoiled and probably is, which is needed info is you are into the freegan movement also called dumpster diving.

2. No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process

As a long time reader of the No Impact Man Blog I was eager to read this book. It does not disappoint. The year of living low/no impact was a huge undertaking. Often when reading the blog I wondered what Michelle really thought about it all. The book answers many of those questions about the hows and whys. This book is very inspiring to the rest of us guilty liberals who really want to help and change the world or at least our own lives a little bit. It is not so much a detailed list of things to do but more a way of thinking about the whole process that is invaluable. To try this experiment in a place like NY is just amazing. Colin and Michelle are courageous role models for the rest of us. I wish everyone in the US would read this book. Want to be inspired to change your life? Read this book!

3. Whatever Happened to Thrift?: Why Americans Don't Save and What to Do about It

It's a much bemoaned fact that Americans who fail to sock money away in savings accounts and investments risk severe hardship once they hit retirement age or fall on tough times. What's far less obvious is how to turn these overspenders into savers. Wilcox draws insights from economics and psychology to tackle this challenge in his slim but sensible volume. His analysis of our prodigal ways is slight—a historian or cultural critic might have handled this question with more depth and aplomb—but his policy prescriptions are comprehensive, insightful and well argued. Wilcox explores radical measures, such as replacing the income tax with a consumption tax, as well as simple and easily implemented programs such as automatic enrollment in 401(k) plans and requiring more fee disclosure from investment firms. He observes that current incentives skew toward the wealthy and highlights ways to give lower-income Americans access to savings vehicles like mutual funds. As Wilcox wisely notes, there's no magic bullet for America's savings crisis, but a patchwork of practical solutions, small and large, could significantly increase workers' long-term financial security.

4. How to Survive Without a Salary: Learning How to Live the Conserver Lifestyle

I thought that this book was so funny in places that I haven't laughed so hard, so much, for a long time. Charles is a skilled writer; the book is very readable, intelligent, thoughtful,and well organized. It contains a copious (even prodigious) amount of tips, for a 200-page book. Very practical, and at the same time touches on abtruse philosophical areas, especially at the end of the book.

5. Empire of Scrounge: Inside the Urban Underground of Dumpster Diving, Trash Picking, and Street Scavenging.

In December of 2001 Jeff Ferrell quit his job as tenured professor, moved back to his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas, and, with a place to live but no real income, began an eight-month odyssey of essentially living off of the street. Empire of Scrounge tells the story of this unusual journey into the often illicit worlds of scrounging, recycling, and second-hand living. Existing as a dumpster diver and trash picker, Ferrell adopted a way of life that was both field research and free-form survival. Riding around on his scrounged BMX bicycle, Ferrell investigated the million-dollar mansions, working-class neighborhoods, middle class suburbs, industrial and commercial strips, and the large downtown area, where he found countless discarded treasures, from unopened presents and new clothes to scrap metal and even food.

6. The Frugal Millionaires - 70 millionaires anonymously share their ideas about money to help each other and you.

Imagine yourself in a room with seventy people from all walks of life, each of whom is immensely successful at managing their money. Then imagine that you had the time and audacity to walk up to each of them, confidently introduce yourself, and ask how they became rich. That's Jeff Lehman's book, The Frugal Millionaires, in a nutshell. The advice contained within the text is well worth the price of the book, especially if you're considering paying a financial adviser to tell you what you should be doing to improve your financial acumen.

7. The Ultimate Cheapskate's Road Map to True Riches: A Practical (and Fun) Guide to Enjoying Life More by Spending Less

This book is funny, but to buy it for that reason alone misses the point. Hiding behind the humor is the wise advice of a personal finance expert who knows there's more to life than just how much debt you can pile up on a credit card. Jeff Yeager's breezy writing is full of great -- and serious -- ideas, yet you never feel that he is preaching at you. As you read you feel inspired, even empowered.

One of his thoughts is to put yourself on a money fast for one week a year. You spend nothing for seven days, which gets you thinking about all the terrific things to do that are free, and makes you realize that you can easily do without many of the items you buy just out of habit.

If you'd like to know how I make my money online, coming up with cool domain names (and how you can too), visit PickyDomains.com

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Matt Lauzon And His Success Story

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http://www.paragonlake.com/

While at Babson College, Matt Lauzon saw something shiny and sparkly in the country's $60 billion jewelry industry. Most Americans had plenty of options for rings at jewelry and department stores, of course, but he thought people might like another: rings custom-made to designs they submitted to a Web site.

In May, after earning a degree in entrepreneurship and raising $5.8 million from Highland Capital Partners and Canaan Partners, Lauzon began offering jewelry buyers that alternative through something he calls a "virtual display case." The online showcase, which shoppers can access from partner retailers, contains over 1,200 designs of rings and other jewelry.

By changing the type of metal, stone or other features, each style has roughly 1.5 million permutations that customers can sort through at the store or from home after setting up an account at a retailer. Lauzon's startup, Paragon Lake in Lexington, Mass., has signed up 39 independent retailers, mostly in suburban strip malls, in 22 states. The pieces are made in the U.S. and arrive at the retailer in two to three weeks.

Revenue is split between the store, Paragon Lake, and its 44 jewelry designers. Lauzon, 24, says the average sale is $1,250, but rises to $3,000 to $4,000 for bridal jewelry. He estimates $500,000 in revenue by yearend.

If you like unusual business stories, read how I made a fortune picking cool domain names for other people.


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

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide by Dan S. Kennedy

Weekend Entrepreneur: 101 Great Ways to Earn Extra Cash

The Perfect Business

eBay 101: Selling on eBay For Part-time or Full-time Income, Beginner to PowerSeller in 90 Days

ViB - In search of a good drink

Link of the day - I will pay you $25, if you come up with a cool domain name for me.


http://www.drinkvib.com/

The Problem: In 2008, Valdene and Hollman were running a toy company that sold $6 million in marshmallow shooters every year. At a trade fair in New York City they saw an attendee collapsing from what looked like a heart attack. Paramedics later told them that the man had in fact suffered an anxiety attack -- brought on by too many caffeinated energy drinks.

The Moment: They decided that the world needed the opposite of an energy drink: a relaxation drink made from soothing, natural ingredients. With the help of a food scientist they created a drink with theanine, an amino acid found in green tea; B vitamins; and L-threonine, a natural antidepressant. They enlisted six grad students to test the drink.

The Payoff: Three months later Valdene (now 42) and Hollman (40) launched ViB (pronounced Vibe). Today ViB sells through 68 West Coast distributors. Sales are expected to hit $5 million this year.

Innovation Tip: Don't hang on to your vision too tightly. Hollman planned to name the drink "Vacation in a Bottle." After being that told it wouldn't be legal to hand out glass bottle samples in most public places, they switched to cans. Then 7-Eleven told them they didn't want the drink in a can because it looked too much like an energy drink, so ViB adopted aluminum bottles.

"You have to be flexible," says Hollman. "You know what your outcome is. It's all the little things along the way that can change."


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

IdeaSpotting: How to Find Your Next Great Idea

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide by Dan S. Kennedy

Weekend Entrepreneur: 101 Great Ways to Earn Extra Cash

The Perfect Business

eBay 101: Selling on eBay For Part-time or Full-time Income, Beginner to PowerSeller in 90 Days