Paul Wheeler of Manchester, Vt., who with a partner made Life Is Crap a successful business that markets millions of dollars worth of merchandise, shares some pointers on how to negotiate the rapids of getting started until you come to more peaceful waters.

Tip #1 – Ask Experts For Assistance

Before you launch your small business, be absolutely certain you have your idea firmly in your grasp. False starts make expensive lessons. Focus on what it is you want to do. Research to learn what is available that will move you toward your goals. Find out what the competition is likely to be. Be certain before you begin that you and those you may be working with have the skills necessary to achieve your goals. If there seem to be gaps, look for advice. Communicate with others who have experience in the area you are looking at. There is much available just through a search of websites that represent people who have ideas similar to yours. Borrow from them, but be wary of such things as copyright, intellectual ownership and other legal realities that could land you in hot water. Many businessmen who are dealing with the same kinds of things you want to do are often willing to give you a little of their time. Ask. Wheeler advises that “The ability to recognize what you don’t know is first and foremost.”

“You don’t personally have to have expertise in everything,” he adds. “Look for the best help you can get.” In his case, that involved gathering a small group that represented artists (they sell clothing and other items printed with “Life is Crap” messages) and others with business and marketing experience, Their business is based on humor, so it was essential that the creative element share that sense of humor. If you find yourself mismatched with any of those you will be working with, remedy it sooner than later. Too many points of disagreement can be fatal to even the best ideas. When you are sure you have found the right combination, let others do their jobs. “Let them flourish,” Wheeler says.

Tip #2 – Be Consistent

Stay consistent. If you are discouraged too soon, your business will be affected. Look ahead to plot where you are going. Set achievable short-term goals and stay committed to them. Make adjustments when you need to, but don’t jump from one thing to another. “Do it without losing sight of the underpinnings of your business,” the Vermont small business owner advises.

Tip #3 – Have Faith That Things Will Work Out

Wheeler acknowledges that a bit of luck now and then helps. One of the new twists for “Life is Crap” involves putting designs on Life Is Crap checks. And that little venture was pure serendipity, he says. He was attending a trade show and chanced to meet someone in the check printing business. A little casual conversation and voila! But the key element here is that Wheeler was in a place and at a time when other creative people were gathered. Even serendipity needs a hand sometimes.

Tip #4 – Have Empathy For Your Customers and Employees

He lists a number of qualities that he believes will help people starting a business: Have empathy for employees and customers. Identify with people. Hone your analytical skills and if you feel you are lacking, find someone who can do the job for you. Be able to laugh at yourself. Learn to really listen to others. Recognize that they may have something important to offer. Cultivate humility and patience. Try to stay fresh and open to innovation because things change. .

Tip #5 – Love What You Do

Most of all, you “need to really love what you’re doing and come to understand it thoroughly. If you are ready to “work morning to night,” he says, “You’ll probably make it. But people who have great ideas go bankrupt every day.”

If you have been sending out news releases to alert the media to new products or events without much success, here are some suggestions that might land you in the public’s eye more frequently:

Know about current events in your community and see if there is a way to relate them to your company’s products and activities. Look beyond the community, in fact, to what’s in the news in your state, the nation and internationally. Media outlets are always looking for ways to make out-of-area news more relevant by relating it to what’s happening locally. Things from the outside may, in fact, affect what you do. Let the media know that. The issue of employment is currently hot-item for news reports, whether you’re up or down. In most cases, the old saying that “any publicity is good publicity” still holds true.

Look for unique stories to tell. Within your ranks there may be good human interest stories that will get your name into the media. Many in the media refer to such “human interest” stories as “fluff,” but they nevertheless are always on the lookout for good ones. Be aware of special stories inherent in those you work with. Some of them may be dealing with unique family problems or have talents that would merit media attention. Is your company involved in charitable causes? Are there members of your group who are in the military? Plumb the depths and see what you can find.

Be as professional as possible. Press releases that contain typos and blatant errors usually end up in the trash can. Few reporters are willing to make a call to try to clarify the press release. Have two or more people proofread the press release before sending it out. Make your releases good to look at. Be certain each release has all the germane information, such as dates, times, etc., and include a telephone number or e-mail address that will direct queries to the person with the information.You might want to put together an informative packet that a news organization can put on file for future reference. Showing up in a media office in person to pass such a packet along couldn’t hurt.

Getting acquainted with the business writers/editors is helpful. And understanding the newsroom process is invaluable. You will impress those you hope to cultivate if you understand the realities of deadlines and the hierarchy that puts an editor more directly in charge of the day’s content than a reporter. An assignment editor usually is the nerve center of a newsroom, making many of the decisions on what, where and how items will be placed. However, it is the reporter who puts together that content. Develop relationships where you can, but don’t expect special favors. Remember that the number of choices editors and writers have on any given day far outstrip the available amount of press space or air time. Avoid last-minute notice of timely events if you want media announcements.

A picture may be worth a thousand words. But be sure photos, video or audio bits are good ones. Don’t waste the photo editor’s time. Provide good photo opportunities. and describe them well so reporters and photographers/cameramen are not wandering around at a loss. Remember that the media is almost always in need of information before the fact, except in “live” story situations. If you call during your company’s big event , don’t expect a news person to arrive in time to clean up the dishes.

Buy advertising. Then when a news event relates to what you do, the editors and writers will remember your business name. Ad purchases do not position you for favoritism or guarantee spots in the news columns, but they make your name familiar.

Deadline is a firm fixture among the media. Be efficient, flexible and respectful in your interactions. In most cases, reporters have one day to turn around a story. If you miss an interview, it may not be convenient to reschedule soon. If you cannot meet a request for an interview, try to find someone else in your organization who can. Good old fashioned manners work with the media, as with anyone else. Some of the media, granted, have reputations for being pesky. But if you react in kind, the chances are that the word will get around the newsroom, squelching your chances for future favorable interactions.

Don’t just expect to deal with media issues when they arise. Work on a strategy and have a plan. Develop the relationships that count and understand how the media works. You may find yourselves in the headlines more often.

Hugh Molotsi of Intuit, receives an award of $1 million dollars.

On August 31, 2011, Hugh Molotsi received the “Founders Innovation Award,” for his role in the development of Quickbooks Merchant Services. An employee of Intuit for many years, Hugh discovered a business problem by talking to business owners about why they weren’t use credit card processing and the most frequent response he got was that they didn’t know how to do it.

Quickbooks Merchant Services Impact

Providing a solution to that problem was the beginning of the creation of Quickbooks Merchant Services which Hugh was instrumental in developing. It was released in 1999. Within two months, the business was profitable. Within the first year, they had 3,000 customers. The next year, business tripled to 10,000 customers and revenue tripled as well. Intuit’s future businesses were built on the fundamentals that the Quickbooks Merchant Services had. Now most of their customers, revenues and profits are from Quickbooks Merchant Services customers. Most of the Intuit businesses today and most of them for tomorrow are because of Quickbooks Merchant Services.

Through Hugh’s leadership he has earned two leadership in excellence awards and four of Intuit’s Innovation Awards. According to Intuit founder, Scott Cook, he is a classic leader and teacher. He is a continuous learner and focuses on self-improvement. He received Intuit’s special recognition, special access to Intuit events, and a financial reward of $1,000,000.00.

Intuit Company Development

Intuit has produced the popular accounting software, Quicken for personal finance, Quickbooks, and Turbo Tax. Intuit is a financial services company founded in 1983 by Scott Cook, former employee of Proctor & Gamble and Tom Proulx, a computer programmer studying at Stanford University. These two brilliant people worked together to help make people’s lives easier by creating the first software accounting program for families and businesses.

Intuit now has a revenue of $3.9 billion dollars, was ranked #44 by CNN as one of the top companies to work for and was ranked in Forbes magazine as one of the top 100 most inventive companies. Their mission statement is to remain “driven by our passion for inventing solutions to solve important problems, perfecting those solutions and delighting our customers.” Intuit makes a practice of rewarding their innovative employees by giving them special recognition and handsomely rewarding them financially. Intuit has become a success story inspiring people from all walks of life.

Founder of Intuit

Scott Cook co-founded Intuit Inc. in 1983 and now serves as the chairman of the Executive Committee. He earned an MBA from Harvard University and received a bachelor’s degree in economics and mathematics from the University of Southern California. Cook is a member of the board of directors of eBay; Procter & Gamble; the Asia Foundation; the Harvard Business School Dean’s Advisory Board; the Center for Brand and Product Management at the University of Wisconsin; and the Intuit Scholarship Foundation.
Quickbooks Checks

It also can be tricky. Bill Gates, in a graduation address to students at his almost-alma mater, Harvard (he was introduced as the school’s most famous drop-out) defined the nature of interaction: “Being in the midst of so much energy and intelligence can be exhilarating, intimidating and sometimes even discouraging, but always challenging.”

John Abele

John Abele, co-founder and now director emeritus of Boston Scientific, a company that develops primarily medical products, expounded on the subject in a July 2011 article for Harvard Business Review. Like Gates, he recognizes the difficulties in bringing bright minds together. In fact, he says, the term “academic collaboration” is somewhat an oxymoron. Impediments include “the long-standing rituals of institutional seniority and the professional and financial incentives to build higher silos with thicker walls.”

But the effort is worth it, Abele emphasizes. “On the bright side, there’s an extraordinary opportunity for those of us non-academics who, unconstrained by those customs, see value in getting silos to collide.”

The Process of Collaborating

The process, he says, is “convincing people who don’t need to work together that they should.” That happens, he says, by inspiring the potential collaborators with a vision of change that is beyond their individual powers to bring about, convincing each that the others are not only vital to the process but that they are equal to the challenge. Then each member of the collaboration must be assured that that no one party to the collaboration is going to benefit to the total exclusion of others.

Leaders who are successful collaboration-builders, Abele said, are “passionately curious.” They have new insights and acknowledge that others may have them as well. They have the ability to bounce ideas off collaborators without being overly competitive. They care more about the success of the collective mission that they do about how success might benefit their personal fortunes.

Staying Focused

Dealing with egos when highly successful individuals come to the table can be a challenge. In an interview subsequent to his Review article, Abele described one gathering of the top thirty vascular surgeons in the world to discuss a proposed medical product. After a frustrating start, the thirty participants were each given a squirt gun. When anyone began to pontificate, Abele said, the others were advised to “use the weapon at hand.” A few doctors got completely soaked. That tactic “changed the dynamic of the meeting and it became very productive,” he said.

Five Tips For Collaboration

Those who function on the lower slopes of Mount Olympus may not have to resort to squirt guns to keep collaborators on track. But there are some rules that can lend themselves to a successful interaction. Among those advised by Abele and by commentators who responded to his article.

1. Focus on the mission.
2. Design a process beforehand.
3. Don’t allow participants in a gathering to sell their products or services or to make attacks on competitors.
4. Criticize ideas, not the people who advance them.
5. Keep conversations energetic, constructive, free-wheeling and provocative.

Collaboration doesn’t always have to be among different companies. There is ample opportunity within a single organization for idea-sharing. Coordination and the free exchange of information among the various elements of an organization are essential to success. The same rules apply.

Making Positive Contributions

In his Review article, Abele quotes Margaret Mead, noted sociologist who conducted groundbreaking research in her field. “ Never underestimate the power of a small dedicated group of people to change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

That’s the nub of Collaboration—with a capital C.

Business Checks – Up to 50% off.

Think Like A Millionaire

Many years ago, people would have considered that being a millionaire would be the ultimate in luxury and wealth. Now, for some people, being a millionaire is not even considered enough to do much. Warren Buffet made his first million dollars when he was just 31 years-old. That amount of money is .002% of his current wealth. With rising billionaires like 26 year-old Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, there seems to be more money to be made than at any other time in recent history.

When you study what unique strategies millionaires use, you may get some ideas to improve your own circumstances. Whether you make $30,000 a year or $1,000,000 a year, improving your skills can help you on the road to becoming more financially secure. Maybe you’ll never be a millionaire or don’t even want to be. You still will need to make strategic financial decisions that will affect how much you enjoy your future life. If you could see your distant future life as well as you can see your life next week, you may decide to live life differently.

Let’s take a look at what millionaires say they do and how they got there.

Paul Lim, a writer for Money magazine, reported some interesting facts from a poll of millionaires. In his article, “Millionaires in the Making,” he shares with us the answers.

How did you get to be a millionaire?
95% said hard work, 83% investing wisely, 81% by being frugal and 41% by luck.

Do you feel wealthy?
42% said no.

What preparation did they have?
90% are college graduates, 5% have law degrees, 3% went to medical school.

What is the average amount annually invested?
$39,300.

What seems to be the number one thing that millionaires did to get where they are is a lot of hard work. All of us are capable of doing that. We can all become more frugal about what we spend our money on and although we are not all lucky, we can learn to invest wisely.

Did you notice that quite a few people said that even though they were millionaires, they did not feel wealthy? Feeling wealthy is probably one of the things we do have control of. Since your perspective on life can run the gamut of outright depressing thoughts to unrealistic elation, you choose where in that range you want to be. Of course, when the joys of seeing more money coming in and how nice it makes your life, it is easier to think about bigger income numbers than you have thought of before. If you can’t imagine the larger numbers in your income, will you ever improve your standard of living?

Another thing that millionaires do is to habitually save money to invest. The average amount per year that they invest is $39K. If your income level is not even that high, you can work on saving in percentages. Make it a goal to save a certain percentage of money every month. Financial experts advise you to have enough cash to pay your bills for at least six months. Whatever percentage you decide on the important thing is to follow through with your plan each month. Automate that savings if possible.

Some millionaires have also made a practice of living below their means. This falls into the category of budgeting and anyone can follow a budget. You just need to include your savings plan in your budget. It is one thing to have a million dollars sitting in your bank account, but it’s another thing to learn how to best use it.

Millionaires did not become millionaires by working for someone else. Many have started their own businesses. Anyone can start their own business for very little money and if you have a low overhead in your business plan, you can actually accomplish this while working for someone else. Did you know that only 12% of American households own their own business? Paul Lim, reported that the median income for business owners was $497,000 compared to $42,000 for non business owners. Would it be worth your time and effort to start your own business? When you can harness the power of entrepreneurial thoughts and put into action a good business plan, you are on your way to a brighter future.

Realistically speaking there are few people that reach the status of being a millionaire. Learning key money management skills and business building skills can only help you increase your productivity and increase your income. Start today to create a better outlook on life. Do what you can to take your first steps to a new life.

New business owners can save up to 50% off by ordering business checks online.

Protect Your New Business

The Five Most Commonly Used Business Organizations

There are five common types of business organizations. Outlined below you will find the definitions of each type of business and why you might want to choose that type of structure.

Sole Proprietorship

The sole proprietorship is for someone who owns a company and is not planning to incorporate or become a limited liability company. This is mainly for a business that will be owned by one individual. That individual may or may not have employees. When you have this type of business structure, you report your business income on your individual tax return. Some of the risks of the sole proprietorship are that your business debts and obligations could be attached to your personal assets, even if they are not directly related to your business.

Partnerships

The second type of structure is a partnership. Usually a partnership will consists of two or more people who want to do business together. Each partner has a fiduciary duty of loyalty and trust to the other partners and put his own interests below the interests of the partnership. Partners have unlimited liability to the business. Creditors can require that liabilities be paid from personal assets. Partnerships report profits or losses on individual income tax returns. Partners are not allowed to sue each other. Usually partnerships require a written partnership agreement.

Limited Partnerships

The third type of structure is a limited partnership. This is made up of at least one or more general partners and at least one or more limited partners. General partners act as the fiduciaries of the business and assume all the monetary risk. All parties can profit from the company. Limited partners assume risk of their contributions and that is all. Limited partners often assume the role of raising capital and do not participate in the day-to-day business operations. Members file their own individual tax returns. The partnership files an information return with the Internal Revenue Service, notifying the IRS of each partner’s share of the year’s profit or loss.

Corporations

The fourth type of business structure is a corporation. This is the type of organization that is most often used with the term business. Most large businesses are corporations. People can invest in corporations without assuming liability or management responsibilities. Corporations are creations of the state. Corporations have a board of directors and can issue stock. Shareholders are owners of the corporation and have limited liability and are not involved in the day to day operations of the business. A corporation is a legal person and a legal entity separate from its shareholders and managers. A corporation pays state and federal income taxes on its income.

Limited Liability Company

The fifth business structure is a limited liability company or LLC. LLCs are created by filing Articles of Organization with the state in which you live and have one or more “persons” conducting business. One benefit of this organization structure is that no member, manager or employee is personally liable for any debt obligations of the company. The LLC has a tax status of a general partnership with limited liability protection. No annual meetings are required. Members can participate in management more than in a limited partnership. They are responsible for disclosure, record keeping and annual reporting requirements. LLCs are only taxed once and the earnings of a partnership are treated as the earnings of its partners.

Conclusion

This information is intended to be used as a very brief overview of the main types of business structures. Consulting with a CPA or attorney can help you make the final decision about your new business. Protect yourself against unnecessary risks and get your new business off to a good start.

Rare Earth Mine Mountain Pass, California owned by Molycorp Inc.

Small business plans are created in the same way large business create their plans. In fact, looking at the development of  large companies is helpful to the small business owner. Modeling the success strategies they use can help you take your business to the next level.

Molycorp Inc.

For example, the story behind the scenes of the well publicized Molycorp, Inc. gives small business owners key strategies to emulate. Making a paper profit of $2.3 billion dollars in less than three years, Molycorp Inc. made some strategic business plans.

Molycorp Minerals LLC was formed in 2008 by a group of investors. Two critical players  in this LLC are  Mark S. Kristoff,  CEO of Trayxs, (which provides financial services for the mining, metals and minerals industries) and Dr. Ross R. Bhappu, of  Resource Capital Funds  (focused on investing exclusively in the mining and minerals industry).

These two individuals have expert, inside knowledge of the mining industry. When Mr. Kristoff was just 12 years old, his father, who worked as an executive at the mine,  gave him a tour of the Mountain Pass rare earth mine in California, one of the largest rare earth mines in North America.   Dr. Bhappu’s father was also an executive at the mine which was then owned by a Union Oil company. In 2005, the company was  acquired by Chevron.

Mr. Kristoff and Dr. Bhappu developed an interest in buying the Mountain Pass mine  in 2005.  In 2008, Chevron sold the mine to their LLC because they promised to keep the existing employees and to revitalize the unproductive mine. It had been inactive since 2002. Mr. Mark Smith, former President of Mining for Chevron  was lured away from Chevron to become the new CEO of Molycorp Inc.

Investment Strategies

In the beginning, there were four principal investors in the company, Resource Capital Funds, Pegasus Capital Advisors, Traxys  and Goldman Sachs. In 2009, Goldman Sachs sold their shares of the company because the economy was in such turmoil.

Demand Exceeds Supply

Molycorp Inc. invested  $80 million into upgrading the mining equipment and facility. Currently producing 3,000 tons per year, their next goal is to produce 20,000 tons. Leaders have predicted that this will double in production by 2014. With China recently announcing that they are limiting the export of rare earth materials,  demand (predicted to be 190,1000 tons in 2014) is now exceeding the supply (170,000 tons).  Cerium oxide rose in price from $6,000 to $71,000. Ianthanum oxide rose from $8,400 to $73,000.

Production of Green Technologies

The rare earth minerals that will come from this mine are used in many green earth technologies like wind turbines and hybrid cars. They are also used in electronics, plasma and LCD televisions and the widely popular Apple Ipad.

The combination of the world events and good strategic business planning by the Molycorp, Inc. leaders have caused, “one of the fastest windfalls in private-equity history.” (Wall Street Journal).

Small Business Plans

For small business owners, the key strategies that created this success were familiarity and expertise with the product line, choosing products that are in demand, effectively using global trade news to make plans, hard work, passionate leaders and the ability to communicate their business plans to key investors. Definitely a good model for small business owners to emulate.

If you are thinking about getting a second mortgage, you may discover that you just don’t qualify.

The Wells Fargo formulas for deciding whether you will be offered an increase in a home equity line of credit are making it more difficult for the average American.  Self employed business owners seem to be affected deeply.

If you were caught up in the economic problems that started in 2008, you may have lost your job and had to look for other work or make other plans. So maybe it wasn’t the end of the world for you, but it wasn’t fun either. So you try something new and decide to go into a new type of work or something totally different than you were used to doing. You end up building your own business and it doesn’t start off with a bang, but hey, it pays the bills. Good for you.  You helped yourself cope with a difficult situation.

So your business begins to grow and your 2009 income isn’t too bad.  In fact it’s rather decent so you want to do the best thing for your financial situation by consolidating your debt and getting rid of any credit card debt so that while you are working to pay off debts you are getting a lower interest rate and can use the interest you pay to lower your taxable income.  That would help you out.

Well, 2010 comes along and you’re business is really doing well. The best you could have ever hoped for and it’s growing. Congratulations! Great news. Life looks better in 2010 doesn’t it?

Not to Wells Fargo. Wells Fargo uses this procedure to decide whether they can increase your home equity loan. They require that you send in two years of tax returns. Well, remember that in 2008 with your new business just starting, you may have made over $10,000  and had $4,000 in deductions. Now Wells Fargo says that well in that year, you get credit for making $6,000.  They won’t even count the rest of 2008 because it was in a different field. They then divide that by 12, because of course that is how many months there are in a year.

So they calculate that you are making $500 a month.  Do they consider the 2009 income at all?  Well sure they do, but because there is such a huge discrepancy, they have to go with the smaller amount of money that was made in 2008. But they will give you what they call a cap of 125%. They then multiply 125% times the $500 a month and come up with a $626.25 figure . That is the new figure of how much they think you make per month, regardless of what you made in 2009. Isn’t that smart?

Then they look at your current minimum payments for your mortgage, association fees and revolving credit and come up with your debt to income ratio. It doesn’t take a rocket scientists to figure out that most mortgages will exceed $626.25, so right there you’ve gone over 100% debt to income ratio and they come to the brilliant decision that they shouldn’t give you a loan, because well…your debt to income ratio is too high.

For people who have the guts to start their own business and pursue it, you are going to have to have to know that it is pretty useless to try to borrow any money until you’ve had a solid two years of income that they can wave their magic formulas on to predict what you will do in the coming years.

It’s a good thing that entrepreneurs have more insight and determination to grow a business than the banks have to risk lending their money to you.

Four Major Credit Card Stock Prices

The last five days of growth for Discover Financial Services (DSF), located in Riverwood, Illinois has been well above their credit card competitors, Visa, American Express and Mastercard. Why has this happened? David Nelms, CEO of Discover since 2004 says, “Our very strong results this quarter were driven by a significant improvement in the credit performance of our loyal customer base along with continued solid growth in cardmember spending.”

During the fiscal second quarter, Discover reported a record sales volume at $23 billion. Discover topped their prior year statistics by 6%. Where are the profits coming from?

Discover has three payment services Pulse, an ATM/debit network, Affiliate Banking and Diners Club. Together these services process billions of financial transactions a year.

PULSE is one of the nation’s leading ATM/debit networks, currently serving more than 4,500 banks, credit unions and savings institutions across the country and they have just partnered with MoneyPass which offers thousands of surcharge-free ATMs. It is now the company’s biggest money maker.

Diners Club International was acquired by Discover in July of 2008. Diners Club card entitles consumers to exclusive savings on travel, dining, and entertainment.

Struggling with the new banking rules which prohibit charging late fees over $25, Discover will be loosing between $80 to $90 million a year. To help make up for that they will be focusing on their consumer banking division to make up for lost profits. They have two bank affiliates, Discover Bank and Bank of New Castle. In addition to the credit card division, they also offer personal and student loans, online savings accounts, certificates of deposit and money market accounts.

David Nelms, CEO of Discover Financial Services

With David Nelms as the CEO, this company seems to be doing better and better. In fact, the earnings statement for Mr. Nelms is staggering. For 2009, his salary was $1 Million dollars, restricted stock awards $4,627,613.00, other compensations at $17,150.00 and pension valued at $39,750.00 for a grand total of $5,684,513.00 – over 5 1/2 million dollars a year. Looks like his MBA from Harvard Business school served him well.

The two most significant reasons he gives for the recent improvements have to do with how you and I have improved our credit reliability and continued to use Discover Card for purchases. Some employees from Discover have even suggested ways of making money through the significant rewards program they offer. If you are dedicated to watching your spending and able to actually pay off the monthly balance, you can earn money on what you spend. But that is only for the very self-disciplined spenders. This practice could leave you with nothing more than a huge credit card bill so be wary.

Why the astronomical price? You may wonder about this because living in the digital age, who needs a typewriter?

Possibly similar to the sale of one of Michael Jackson’s glove, this memorabilia belonged to Cormac McCarthy, American fiction writer. From this humble looking typewriter, McCarthy typed more than 5 million words over a period of 50 years.

The Lettera 32 Olivetti Typewriter

Cormac McCarthy, born in 1933, is an American novelist and playwright sometimes compared to Faulkner. Six of his novels were made into films. Well known for his 2007, Pulitzer prize winning, work of fiction called, “The Road.”

In 2008, McCarthy was awarded the Pen/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. His work was recognized for qualities of excellence, ambition and scale of achievement during his writing career. This places him in the highest ranks of American literature.

People predicted his typewriter may go for $18K or so. Those predictions were far below the price it received. The large sum of money was donated to a scientific research organization, the Santa Fe Institute.

The qualities of uniqueness combined with scarcity can drive up the value of an item exponentially. With many competing businesses in similar niches popping up all over the web, thousands will collapse and a few will prosper. It seems to be a natural cycle of business.

If you want your Internet business to prosper, ask yourself if you have something to offer people that is both unique and scarce. The more you can meet this criteria, the better your business will do. What can you bring to the table that is different from every other company? Opportunities to create new, unique products are endless.

The entrepreneur in us sees opportunities everywhere we look, but many people see only problems everywhere they look. The entrepreneur in us is more concerned with discriminating between opportunities than he or she is with failing to see the opportunities. ~Michael Gerber