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| Sun 06 Jul 2008 |
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Tag: Business
These items have all been tagged with the tag "Business", You can see other tags in the Tag Cloud| Myhab - Recyclable Tent For Music Festivals |
| 2008-05-08 13:14:49 |
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Camping out a music festival need no longer be a boggy, muddy affair thanks to this smart-as-a-whip innovation dubbed Myhab. Essentially it's a temporary, waterproof, completely recyclable tent made from durable recycled plastic and and waterproof cardboard. The tent is fixed on a raised platform to stop it from slipping into a muddy bog in the case of rain. Myhab was created by a student and there are plans to for "myhab" villages at all of the UK's major music festivals. by Lisa Evanns (via Springwise) |
| 50 Great e-Businesses and the Minds Behind Them |
| 2007-09-27 07:49:13 |
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Welcome to the Wild Wild Web, a modern-day gold rush that has created a new economy where, in theory, anybody with a computer and an internet connection can make their fortune. And just like the Californian and Australian gold rushes, it’s a time for heroes, villains, geeks, geniuses, charlatans, visionaries . . . and suckers. In the Wild Wild Web, some fortunes are made, some are lost and the pace of change is lightning-fast. There is always a new kid in town and there is always a new plague to watch out for, though this time it’s not cholera or typhoid, but spam and spyware. There is always some new tool to help make that fortune faster and a landscape paved with golden opportunities: email, broadband, blogs, the people power of Web 2.0, maps, video-sharing, Skype and virtual worlds, to name just a few. Fortunes have been made at a rate never seen before. Google made its first $1 billion in less than six years. It took McDonald’s 24 years to do that. eBay partner Jeff Skoll’s fortune arrived so quickly he was still living in a share house when the company listed in 1998 and suddenly made him worth $4.8 billion. No wonder every man and his dog wants to start a successful internet company (or even just a blog). As of June 2007, there were an estimated 1.1 billion internet users around the world and some 110 million active websites*, including 70 million blogs. Out of all of this chaos, 50 Great e-Businesses and the Minds Behind Them is a collection of case studies of some of the most inspiring people behind many of the Web’s success stories.The oldest company we feature in the book, Amazon, started in mid-1995. Astrology.com, created by Australians David and Kelli Fox, started soon afterwards, in December 1995. The newest companies we feature, NYCgarages and Twitter, were started in 2006. As well as the big guns such as YouTube, Google, eBay and Amazon, we have looked at a variety of other sites, some chosen for their rapid success, some for their popularity, and others for their ingenuity: their ability to cleverly harness aspects of the Web and create new ways of making money. Many started from scratch: from lounge room to global brand (aussieBum), basement to multi-million-dollar buyout (CollegeHumor), sideline experiment to A$38.9-million sale (RSVP).Gary Vaynerchuk launched a video site called WineLibrary.com with a camera and a desk in the back of his father’s liquor store in New Jersey. Finishing college is not a prerequisite for internet success: several of the founders profiled here dropped out of Harvard, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. While not quite in the same league as the YouTubes and Amazons, Australia has its share of wildly profitable Web successes, including Seek, Wotif and RealEstate.com.au. All three started from nothing and outfoxed giant corporations who were sceptical about the Web’s potential. Much of this success has to come down to the brilliant DNA of the companies: Seek’s cohesive, highly compatible executive directors Paul and Andrew Bassat (the brains), Matthew Rockman (the sales genius) and Irvin Rockman (the paternal backer and chairman); and Wotif founder Graeme Wood’s focused, tenacious, competitive, no-bullshit nature. These mavericks are not afraid to take on the big boys and take some of their market share, that’s for sure. In 1995 there were an estimated 18 million users of the internet. Growth in internet usage was increasing at 2300 per cent per year (despite the frustration of dial-up services). The well-documented dotcom bubble began. A big idea and a cute domain name could inspire investors to pour millions into a project. The ill-fated Boo.com fashion venture burnt through $160 million in cash before the company was liquidated in May 2000.Walt Disney’s Go.com ended up writing off $790 million in losses. Pets.com raised $82.5 million in an IPO in February 2000. It closed months later. Ouch. It was a time when businesses with the turnover of a few country shops were being valued at more than $1 billion. In 2000, the leading technology index, NASDAQ, lost 87 per cent of its value. Many of the companies featured in 50 Great e-Businesses and the Minds Behind Them were created as the technology bubble burst in that year, proof that the NASDAQ collapse could not harm a solid business with genuine products and services that consumers were prepared to pay for, or that advertisers were prepared to fund. Net-a-Porter and PayPal went live in the volatile time of the dotcom bust in March 2000 and have gone on to flourish. Many e-businesses passed through this time relatively easily. Some may have had to hold off on going public, and others did not enjoy big venture-capital cash injections – but for many start-ups this turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as they minimised costs and grew without the pressure of outside investors looking for quick profits. A co-founder of travel search engine Kayak, Paul English, cautions start-ups not to go out and raise too much money. ‘It is easy when you have a lot of money to think you are doing well – you become delusioned and the product might not be working,’ he says. For Carsales.com.au co-founder Greg Roebuck, the boom and bust did not change the value of the internet. ‘The value that the internet’s always provided is still there and still growing,’ he says. Venture capital was never going to factor in the business plans of many of the entrepreneurs we have profiled.The only capital they could find was through their credit cards. There is an exception to that.The founders of Australian site Arts Hub used to borrow money from a man they called ‘Mr X’ when their cashflow was really bad.The cash would be transferred to a bank account and they would pay it back with 10 per cent interest within six months. The 2000 crash has long gone and investment is flowing into the new economy again. In 2006, venture capitalists in the US invested $25.5 billion in 3416 companies, and investors spent $26 billion in 5000 companies. Yet, as Microsoft’s director of business development Don Dodge points out in his blog (dondodge.typepad.com), for every brilliant investment in a company such as Google, there are 100 flops, so investors need to kiss a lot of frogs. In the Wild Wild Web there is space for the common man, like eBay PowerSeller Phil Leahy, who started his eBay business Entertainment House by selling some old records from his collection. He has come back from bankruptcy to be one of Australia’s most successful online sellers. However, the Wild Wild Web is not a place for everyone. Just as there is a tendency to romanticise the Wild West, the history of the World Wide Web has been glossed over so that creating a successful webbusiness seems – well, easy. For anyone who starts to think creating a viable, profitable start-up is simple, think again. People talk about the ‘magic of the internet’, says the open software pioneer and creator of hot start-up Lulu, Bob Young. ‘But it is not easy stuff,’ he says. That is why these 50 e-businesses, we hope, make for inspiring reading. By Emily Ross & angus Holland. Exlusive online extract from the new book released this week, 50 Great e-Businesses and the Minds Behind Them. |
| Bike Dispensing Machines |
| 2007-08-22 07:27:56 |
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Here at TCH, we love riding bikes through the city. There's something immensely pleasing about sailing past scores of traffic with little more than a push of a pedal. And at the same time, you're burning the calories, and doing your bit to stay green. But there's one thing we hate about this simple mode of transport. People like nothing more than stealing them, damaging them, or driving buses into them. While your safe at work crunching the numbers, who's looking after your ride home? Cue the bike dispensing machine. Brought to you courtesy of bikedispenser.com, a small firm from Amsterdam, the idea is to help facilitate bike rentals in urban areas. Cyclists pay a small fee to hire a bike, and then they can take it where they please. Once they’ve finished, they can return it either to that machine, or another one across town. And because they’ve been fitted with RFID tags, they won’t all have been nicked before you can get one. Now, if only they can do something about those van drivers… By Matt Hussey |
| Hair Straightening Vending Machines (Arrive in Australia) |
| 2007-07-17 11:34:24 |
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It's Saturday night, the music is pumping and you are on a hot date. Everything is going down fine until the humidity in the club suddenly turns your hair from Cher to Macy Gray in about 7 seconds. Fear not, entrepreneurs, Richard Starrett and Neil Macka, have come to the rescue with their Hot Iron vending machine. With 500 units already placed in clubs/gyms throughout the U.K, the Beautiful Vending company provide coin operated hair straightening hot irons, for the quick and convenient use of club patrons who's hair has suddenly gone 'poof'. Using professional grad GHD tongs, the irons run for 2 minutes per use and cost $2.00. The vending machines have just arrived in Australia. In Sydney, you'll find them in Ruby Rabbit, Martin Place Bar, Moulin Rouge, Goodbar, Definition Health Clubs. Brisbane: Good Life Gyms. Melbourne: Two Floors and Cushion Lounge. by Lisa Evans |
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