Tag: business ideas

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Could this be the world’s youngest entrepreneur?

TN Aquairum shark tank also26
TN Aquairum shark tank also26 (Photo credit: edball40)

Does age have anything to do with coming up with new ideas for products and services? How young can you be? What about more mature people – do they have any restrictions on coming up with new ideas?

Kiowa Kavovit, a seven-year-old, is the youngest inventor to dive into Shark Tank, a TV show which invites entrepreneurs to pitch to a panel of potential investors. She has come up with idea for a roll-on patent-pending-translucent liquid compound that doesn’t peel off from the skin. Essentially it is a paint-on bandage called Boo Boo Goo. The paint-on bandage for scratches comes in a range of colours including pink. Continue reading “Could this be the world’s youngest entrepreneur?”

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You’d think this business would be more interested in attention to detail

Ouch ! my car :(
Ouch ! my car 🙁 (Photo credit: Interior_Photos)

I collected my car late in the afternoon from the panel beaters. On the workshop floor I was shown the panel beating work on the boot of my car by one of the assistant managers. I asked him to open the boot with the unlocking lever in the driver’s seat of the car and then tried to close the boot but it wouldn’t close. The assistant manager called one of the employees and got them to change the setting of the latch. He said it was nothing but a minor adjustment that they would quickly do before they handed the car back to me. Continue reading “You’d think this business would be more interested in attention to detail”

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Could this be the world’s youngest entrepreneur?

Shark tank at Newport Aquarium
Shark tank at Newport Aquarium (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Does age have anything to do with coming up with new ideas for products and services? How young can you be? What about more mature people – do they have any restrictions on coming up with new ideas?

Kiowa Kavovit, a seven-year-old, is the youngest inventor to dive into Shark Tank, a TV show which invites entrepreneurs to pitch to a panel of potential investors. She has come up with idea for a roll-on patent-pending translucent liquid compound that doesn’t peel off from the skin. Essentially it is a paint-on bandage called Boo Boo Goo. The paint-on bandage for scratches comes in a range of colours including pink. Continue reading “Could this be the world’s youngest entrepreneur?”

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Old home-based business ideas that now seem quaint and some home businesses that never die

Kitten Office
Kitten Office (Photo credits: Giphy)

I was looking through lists of home-based business ideas from some years back and found some that with the passing of time seem quaint. These businesses may once have had an appeal but are now definitely out of fashion.

One such business was a disco operator. The idea was to provide music at weddings and holiday resorts by renting turntables, flashing lights and amplifiers with a large variety of old and new records, transporting them in a van or Combi to venues. Though the disco operator has become extinct, the DJ became the modern replacement and is popular at venues throughout the country.

Continue reading “Old home-based business ideas that now seem quaint and some home businesses that never die”

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How one idea can increase your income

Cape Dutch house, Stellenbosch
Cape Dutch house, Stellenbosch (Photo credit: Kleinz1)

Changing circumstances can act as a motivator to start your own business – whether part-time or full-time. People start their own businesses or sideline income opportunities for a number of reasons: economic circumstances aren’t what they used to be, their household income needs to be supplemented, family circumstances may change such as having small children, early retirement may be a good opportunity to start something of your own, the “empty nest” syndrome may give parents more free time than they’ve ever had, or you may want to moonlight merely to generate extra cash to pay for life’s luxuries. Continue reading “How one idea can increase your income”

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Almost 75% of small businesses are started from scratch

LOGO5John Janning was asked by his wife to find the bad bulb in a string of Christmas-tree lights. He investigated and this gave him the inspiration to come up with a way to keep tree lights lit even if one burnt out.

Knowing that he didn’t have the manufacturing expertise or marketing prowess he decided to obtain a patent for his lights and then research manufacturers and found one willing to mass-produce his product and sell it. He received an upfront fee, plus a royalty of 5% on future sales.

Research shows that more than 75% of small business owners start their small business from scratch. The remaining percentage buy a second-hand business, which could include a franchise. What this means is that at least 75% of aspiring business owners come up with their own ideas for a new product or service. Continue reading “Almost 75% of small businesses are started from scratch”

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When good ideas don’t seem to come that easily (and what to do about it)

Brain scanning technology is quickly approachi...
Brain scanning technology is quickly approaching levels of detail that will have serious implications (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ideas can come in a flood. Sometimes your mind bursts with so many ideas and possibilities that the only problem you really have is selecting the best one or two. At other times, ideas seem to be stubbornly locked away in your unconscious and just won’t pop out. Or, they may just come to you in a trickle.

I recently experienced the stubbornness of ideas revealing themselves when I began the work on a marketing plan for a new product. I spoke to others in the business and found out what methods worked for them. I did some additional research on Google and on a members-only international database of articles and research papers related to the product. Continue reading “When good ideas don’t seem to come that easily (and what to do about it)”

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See the wonder of the ocean as you paddle

main_imgSomewhere along the False Bay coastline in the middle of the night I’d paddle out in a dark green kayak with a naval attack dive buddy and head towards the naval base at Simon’s Town. In an exercise to keep the submarine base on its toes, we’d tie our kayak alongside the harbour wall in the pitch black dark, slide overboard with our rebreathers not emitting a bubble, we’d swim underwater beneath the submarines. We’d place mines on the hulls of the submarines near the engines and then slip away in the night back along the coastline.

A few years ago just after Christmas day I went leisure kayaking with a good friend off Kommetjie. This time it was in an orange kayak with two crayfish nets placed on the bow of the kayak. We dropped our baited nets in the kelp beds and after an hour we had our quota of crayfish to take home for supper.

These kayaks were made from opaque plastic that prevented us from seeing the ocean and the reefs below us as we paddled across the water. Continue reading “See the wonder of the ocean as you paddle”

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You’d be crazy not to get your cash flow into shipshape with rampant over borrowing

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Read this first (then my blog post): Ensure your cash flows in faster than out. Fill your email address in the blank space at the end of this post in confidence and I’ll send you, “The 10 warnings that your business needs a cash flow tune-up”.

The huge drop in the shares of South Africa’s biggest unsecured lenders after mounting investor fears of a bubble in the unsecured lending sector should be a wake-up call to small business owners. The local banking sector’s total gross unsecured credit exposure increased to about R441 billion in the quarter ended December 2012, which gives one an idea of just how big the problem is. Continue reading “You’d be crazy not to get your cash flow into shipshape with rampant over borrowing”