A Business From A Buck

August 16th, 2010

In an economy like this one, it seems unlikely that any bright business idea could be realized without a significant amount of startup cash. However, a few savvy entrepreneurs are making it work.

  • Small businesses are getting their start from very little money.
  • The Wall Street Journal found three booming businesses that were launched on only a couple of hundred dollars.
  • Technology plays a large part in helping new businesses because professional looking websites and automated phone systems are widely accessible.

Facts & Figures

  • About half of all start-ups close within five years, usually due to lack of capital.
  • Babson College estimates that it costs up to $65,000 to start a business.

Best Quote

“It’s gotten so much easier to reach mass markets and test out ideas. This is something that’s becoming accessible to anyone with an idea.” – Bo Fishback, Vice President of Entrepreneurship, Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

Becoming A For-profit Organization Is No Cup Of Tea

August 13th, 2010

Transforming a nonprofit into a for-profit company is a tricky and lengthy process that many organizations are willing to undertake.

  • The majority of micro loans dispensed around the world come from for-profit microfinance institutions. However, it is rarely known that many of these organizations began as nonprofit NGO’s.
  • Transforming a nonprofit into a for-profit organization is a long process and involves attracting investors, obtaining regulatory approval and getting a financial institution license.
  • Many organizations struggle to achieve for-profit status while maintaining their social mission – it is difficult to keep the founder, investors and stakeholders equally satisfied.

Facts & Figures

  • SKS Microfinance was funded by three rounds of venture capital and grew from nonprofit to have 4.7 billion borrowers in 2009.
  • SKS just raised another $358 million in an IPO.

Best Quote

Grameen Bank reaches 7 million clients and that’s amazing. On the other hand, it took Professor Yunus [Grameen Bank's founder] 35 years to do that… Can you imagine how many generations it will take to reach 150 million poor households in India if we took that approach? We have to scale more rapidly, and only commercial capital will meet our huge funding requirements. – Vikram Akula, Founder, SKS.

Affordable Vacation Homes For The Wealthy

August 13th, 2010

In this market the affluent still want an island getaway home – just for a lower price tag.

  • Real estate developers are marketing affordable vacation homes to wealthy clients in a tough market.
  • Developers are trying to avoid lowering the price on existing homes, and instead are advertising affordable second, third and even fourth homes that offer extra amenities like pools and beach access.
  • The goal is to play to value and convenience, while still including the perks of a vacation house.

Facts & Figures

  • At a sporting club in central Florida, members can buy 1,500 square foot cabins starting at $600,000.
  • On a private island in the Turks & Caicos clients are able to purchase small houses for as low as $1.4 million, which is 44% less than the $2.5 million required for the island’s least expensive property and home previously.

Best Quote

“We’re trying to get the point across that you can have a great place in a wonderful island for, quite frankly, a reasonable price.” – Steve Schram, Chairman, DPS Sporting Club Development Co.

Media Outlets Are Betting On Tumblr

August 13th, 2010

Many media companies are using Tumblr to reach out to their readerships.

  • Tumblr is considered the new hot social networking tool, and many media outlets are hoping it will become the next big thing.
  • Although Tumblr’s audience is currently much smaller than Twitter’s or Facebook’s, the companies that have chosen Tumblr think that the audience will expand greatly in the near future.
  • Tumblr’s greatest asset is the way in which it allows users to create a page that reflects their personality.

Facts & Figures

  • Tumblr currently has 6.6 million users.
  • An estimated 25,ooo new Tumblr accounts are created daily.
  • The company recently raised $5 million in venture capital.

Best Quote

“Going back 20 years, publications like Rolling Stone didn’t interact with readers except for letters to the editor. One of the realizations that cultural leaders and publishers have had is that there is a lot of expertise, wisdom and ideas in their readership.” –James E. Katz, professor of communications, Rutgers University

Alternative Energy Sources For Europe Are Found In Africa

August 12th, 2010

For solar energy that could power the European continent why not look to the desserts of Africa?

  • The German physicist Dr. Gerhard Knies has developed a plan that could supply 15% of Europe’s energy by 2050.
  • He proposes building dozens of solar plants across the North African dessert and putting thousands of miles of power cables under the Mediterranean Sea to carry the electricity to Europe.
  • The idea is backed by some of Europe’s biggest corporate names, including Munich RE, Siemens AG and Deutsche Bank.

Facts & Figures

  • The plan would cost $529 billion.
  • For now, each company in the Desertec Industrial Initiative contributes €150,00 annually.

Best Quote

“I see a solution, so the problem is solved. Of course, to implement it is something else.” – Gerhard Knies, Physicist, Desertec Industrial Initiative

Internet Browsing Taken To A Personal Level

August 12th, 2010

A company called [x+1] Inc. is making strides towards the destruction of anonymity on the Web.

  • [x+1] Inc. collects data from users and sells it to companies that use the information that then targets products to specific customers.
  • According to a survey conducted by The Wall Street Journal, [x+1] Inc.’s data is not always completely accurate, but it was able to find out quite a bit of information about the test users, including where they lived.
  • Although this is a troubling infringement of privacy on its own, there is an added threat: the more bits of information a program or company gathers on you, the easier it becomes to narrow you down to a specific person, destroying your anonymity entirely.

Facts & Figures

  • Clients pay from $30,000-$200,000 per month for [x+1] Inc.’s services.
  • According to [x+1] Inc., the company is capable of absorbing thousands of details about a user in just a fifth of a second.
  • 33 “bits” of information are required to accurately determine a person’s identity, where each piece of information is assigned a value in “bits” (your gender is worth just one bit, your ZIP code or birthdate many more). [x+1] Inc.’s analysis of one of the WSJ’s test users yielded 26.5 bits, or enough to narrow his identity down to one of 64 people in the entire world.

Best Quote

“We never don’t know anything about someone.” –John Nardone, chief executive, [x+1] Inc.

Competition Between Two Power Search Engines Intensifies

August 12th, 2010

As the search engine Bing accumulates more users, Google attempts to adopt some of their new features.

  • Google has long held the majority of users in the search engine market, but its percentage is now dropping, while Bing’s and Yahoo’s ia rising.
  • Google has favored a simple, no-frills approach to searching, but now, faced with Bing’s breadth of new features, it is rethinking that strategy, going so far as to imitate Bing in some areas.
  • Although Bing still has only a fraction of Google’s audience, we’re likely to see the competition between the two search engines ramp up even more in the future.

Facts & Figures

  • Google handles 62.6% of all internet searches; Bing only handles 12.7%. However, Bing’s percentage has increased from only 8% when the search engine was first introduced.
  • Over the last 12 months, Microsoft’s online services division suffered losses of $2.36 billion on revenue of $2.2. billion.
  • Google made 500 adjustments to its search algorithm in the past year alone.

Best Quote

“There is a cold war going on. Clearly, you can see how Bing’s competition is forcing Google to try and catch up in some places.” –Sandeep Aggarwal, Senior Internet and Software Analyst, Caris & Company

New Ideas For Former Farmland

August 11th, 2010

Farmers and environmentalists are building renewable energy plants on polluted or contaminated farmland.

  • Although environmentalists previously objected to many plans for solar energy plants, they are willing to accept them when built on already-contaminated or out-of-use farmland.
  • This arrangement benefits farmers because they often don’t have enough water to irrigate all the land they own.
  • If this arrangement proves successful, the government plans to adopt it on a more widespread level.

Facts & Figures

  • This project, called the Westlands Solar Park, involves building solar panels on 9,000 acres of leased farmland. This area will generate a projected 600-1,000 megawatts of electricity.
  • The current transmission capacity in the Westlands is up to 600 megawatts; building the plant to 5,000 megawatts, as is planned, would require major construction on transmission lines that could take over a decade.
  • If the Westlands project is successful, the federal government wants Westlands to take over another 100,000 acres of contaminated farmland.

Best Quote

“It’s about as perfect a place as you’re going to find in the state of California for a solar project like this. There’s virtually zero wildlife impact here because the land has been farmed continuously for such a long time and you have proximity to transmission, infrastructure and markets.” –Carl Zichella, former Western Renewable Programs Director, Sierra Club

BMW Remains On Top

August 11th, 2010

Second-quarter profits indicate that BMW is still the best when it comes to luxury cars makers.

  • BMW’s net profit for the 2nd quarter rose to $1.1 billion, and sales rose 12.5%.
  • Although the luxury car market was hit hard by the economic downturn, there has been a faster-than-expected rebound.
  • The new generation 5-Series is expected to boost sales even further.

Facts & Figures

  • BMW is the world’s best-selling luxury car maker, ahead of Audi and Mercedes-Benz.
  • In the first 6 months of 2010, 696,026 BMW, Mini, and Rolls-Royce cars were sold.
  • BMW now expects sales to rise by approximately 10% (to more than 1.4 million cars) in 2010, which is significantly more than expected at the beginning of the year.

Best Quote

“Sharp sales volume growth on major markets and a high-value model mix are the main reasons for the strong second-quarter performance. [BMW] improved efficiency significantly in all areas of the company.” – Norbert Reithofer, Cheif Executive, BMW

More Concerns About The Economy

August 11th, 2010

The U.S. is still slowly recovering from the worst recession since the 1930s.

  • The economy has now grown (slowly) for four straight quarters.
  • The slow economy growth has made little impact on the unemployment rate.
  • New home construction, imports, and business investments all increased in the second quarter.
  • Consumer spending, which normally accounts for 70% of U.S. economic activity, didn’t rise as much as expected.

Facts and Figures

  • The current unemployment rate is 9.5%.
  • While imports increased by 28.8%, exports increased by 10.3%, creating a trade deficit.
  • Business investment increased by 17%, which was the largest increase since the beginning of 2006.
  • New home construction increased 27.9%.
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