Business

Women Starting Businesses At Unmatched Growth Rate

July 21, 2014 By Twila Van Leer

From 1997 to 2014, the number of American businesses owned by women rose an amazing 68 percent, twice the rate of increase shown by their male counterparts, according to a study based on U. S. Census Bureau figures.

Every day, about 1,288 women-owned businesses pop up on the horizon. That’s up from 602 in 2011-12, the study showed. The results were prepared by American Express using the federal data.

Women See Opportunities

Susan Duffy, executive director of the Center for Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership at Babson College, believes the phenomenon is related to a growing awareness among women that there are business options available to them. Differences in the job market since the most recent recession also favor the types of businesses in which women excel.

A general renewal of the entrepreneurial spirit in this country is another factor that favors women. A body of role models has grown up, offering patterns and incentives that younger women are applying to their own endeavors. Among those role models, according to an Associated Press article on the new statistics, are such notables as Oprah Winfrey, designers Tory Burch and Diane Von Furstenberg and technology gurus such as Weili Dai, co-founder of Marvell Technology. Even the current head of the Small Business Administration is a woman, Maria Contreras-Sweet. She succeeded to the position that was held by Karen Mills. Both have been business owners in their own right.

Summer Scarbrough had a built-in role model, her mother, Elizabeth, who is a former executive with a medical devices company. Together, mother and daughter now own VinniBag, travel containers for wines and other bottled products. The company, located in Ventura, Calif., is five years old.

Resources For Women

The number of resources devoted to aiding women in their entrepreneurship also is growing. The Women’s Business Centers, an arm of the SBA, is one that is encouraging women in their business start-ups, and there are a number of other organizations with the same purpose in mind.

Optimistic Views

Women tend to be more optimistic about their efforts than men, a survey conducted by Bank of America showed. Seventy percent of those surveyed expect to see rising revenues over the coming year, compared with 66 percent of men. Fifty-six percent of women said they expect to make new hires in the year, compared with 50 percent of their male counterparts. An optimistic 68 percent of the female entrepreneurs say they will expand their companies, again somewhat ahead of the 63 percent of males contacted in the survey.

If the trend continues, many more Americans can soon expect to be working for a “boss lady” than in the past.

Getting Your Small Business Out of the Starting Gate

July 18, 2014 By Kevin Mercadante

The hardest part of starting any business is getting it up and running and out of the starting gate. Just the thought of that obstacle is enough to keep a lot of people from even trying in the first place. But there are ways that you can make your business startup easier, especially financially.

There are two areas that you have to pay close attention to – expenses and income. That’s more than obvious, but it’s the tactics that you use for each that will largely determine whether your business is a success or failure.

Keep a Tight Lid on Your Expenses

A common mistake that many new business owners make is spending a lot of money upfront, often before they even launch the business. With bricks and mortar type businesses that’s par for the course. But since most businesses today are Internet-based, you should be able run your business on an absolute shoestring.

Here are some tactics to help you do just that:

Work out of your home for as long as you can. You should avoid buying or renting any business-related space until you’ve first established a healthy cash flow. Work out of your home for as long as you can, and if you do need extra space rent or sub-let it on a short-term basis at the very lowest price possible. In the meantime, working out of your home will allow you to have all the trappings of an office – electricity, phone lines, and Internet connection – without the added expense that you have if you need to hook them all up in a remote space.

Unless it’s mission-critical buy secondhand. Equipment is another area where you need to be cost conscious. Unless equipment is absolutely essential to the basic operation of your business, you should avoid heavy investment until you have a demonstrated cash flow coming in. Buy secondhand equipment and use it for as long as you can, until your income allows you to trade up.

Don’t hire – subcontract out instead. One of the toughest parts of starting a new business is having to do every job connected with your business. If there’s no income, you can’t possibly hire anyone to do certain jobs for you. Instead, sub-contract work out on an as-needed basis. For example, you can bring in someone with accounting experience to help you close out your monthly books. You can also hire someone for a couple of days to help you with your accounts receivable.

Partner where possible. Sometimes there’s a major function in your business that you simply cannot handle on your own. If that’s the case, look into partnering with somebody who is strong in that area. Since the partner will get a share of the profits – rather than a fixed salary – the arrangement should be much easier on your budget.

When you are starting a new business, you should be very conscious to avoid creating fixed expenses that you will need to pay even if you don’t have any income. That can put you out of business before you even get started.

Building Your Income

There’s no delicate way to put this, but until you have a cash flow, you don’t have a business. This should make creating a cash flow Job 1. There are ways to do this when you’re first starting out and operating on a shoestring.

Get a cash flow going before going full-time. In most businesses, it’s completely unnecessary to quit your job and start running the business on a full-time basis. It will be better if you hold onto your job – that way you have a cash flow for your living expenses – and build up your business as a side venture. If you can create a cash flow of just a few hundred dollars a month in this way, you will not only have an income when you go full-time, but you’ll also have the confidence of knowing that your business concept will be successful. Yes, it will slow the start of your business, but at the same time it will improve your chances of success. Those are the kinds of trade-offs you will want to make.

Concentrate your time on the activities that generate the most income. This needs to be a core principle of anyone who is going into business for themselves. Starting a business, you might have 20 tasks that you have to perform each week. If four of those tasks are the ones that will generate income, or the lion’s share of it, then those are the tasks that you need to be concentrating on most heavily. You’ll need to do this at least until your business reaches a point where it’s generating sufficient income for you to begin paying others to do the tasks that are not bringing cash in the door. Your business will succeed to the degree that you are successful in concentrating on activities that will generate the most income.

Implement low cost/free marketing. Marketing is generally the most important activity in any business, but especially at upstart. Marketing is what draws people’s attention to your business, so that you can convert them into paying customers. You will need to come up with low-cost and therefore very sustainable marketing activities that will make this happen.

Some of the methods that you can try that will be easy on your budget include:

Networking with people who represent natural clients for your business.
Using the social media to draw people to your website and business – they’re free to participate in.
Email blasts to everyone in your email address book – even if they’re not prospective customers, they may forward your email on to others you are.
Ask everyone you meet who do you know who is looking for (my product or service)? Many business arrangements are started by informal conversations.
Have a supply of custom-made business cards or business flyers that you can pass out to anyone you meet. You need to have something tangible to help people remember you after you meet with them.
You should create a website – even a simple one – as soon as you start your business. Everyone is on the web these days, and you need to be as well. A simple (and free) WordPress format can get you started until you have enough income to build a top-quality site.

The whole purpose of marketing is to get people’s attention so that they are looking for you even when you’re not out prospecting. Some of the best customers and clients you will land will be third-party referrals, or people who saw your flyer or website. These are all inexpensive marketing methods that will help you to create a customer base until you can afford to invest serious money in marketing.

Concentrate your efforts on building your cash flow, as well keeping your expenses at the absolute bare-bones minimum level. That combination will help to give you the time that you need to get your business established.

3D Printing, A Technology For Regular Folks?

June 25, 2014 By Twila Van Leer

3D Printing Cube - Displayed on magazine website - Dezeen.com — 3D Printing Cube – Displayed on magazine website – Dezeen.com

Predictions that 3D printing is rapidly becoming a reality raise a lot of questions. Does that mean that a printer (or two or more) will join the standard computer in the majority of American homes? Or will the technology create industrial and commercial tools that will affect individuals only as they become users of their products?

It would be easy to envision a whole line-up of 3D printers in the home — one to print out custom makeup for the ladies in the family; one to create toys for the kids, another to whip out golf balls for dad, not to mention the family food printer that would produce elegant pastries as well as standard pasta dishes.

There is plenty of debate already ongoing among the experts in the field regarding the potential for individual applications of the technology vs. broader uses. Before you get carried away with visions of your home’s 3D printing devices, you might like an opinion from one of those who is deep into the development of the prototypes that precede the real thing.

Terry Wohlers, who heads a company involved in analysis and consulting on matters related to the evolution of 3D printing, is a skeptic about the potential of widespread use of 3D printers in the home, but he is certain that in the near future, the technology will be used to benefit all Americans through commercial, medical and industry applications.

He relates the future of 3D to the present saturation of computers. “Just like with computers, you have some computers at home for specific things and computers at work for other things,” he explained. Food is the only thing “manufactured” in the majority of American homes and 3D likely will find its useful place to facilitate that activity, he believes.

Fabricated: The New World of 3D Printing by Hod Lipson

Hod Lipson, who is exploring many kinds of eventual 3D printing uses as a scientist with Cornell University’s Creative Machines Lab, has a little broader conception of how the technology might affect individuals. He sees people using 3D printers to enhance nutrition and direct health regimens, among other things. A robot conceivably could guide your eating habits.

“You will have a hard time explaining to your grandchildren how you could live without a 3D printer,” he says. “In two decades we’ll wonder how we were able to live without 3D Printing.” Already the term “3D printing” is working its way into the American vocabulary and soon, the phrase will drop off the tongue as readily as the word “computer,” the visionary leaders of the movement predict.

3D Food Printers? Move Over Microwaves

June 19, 2014 By Twila Van Leer

Make room in your kitchen for a gizmo that prints food. Mind-boggling but true. The 3D printing technology is already developed and there are advance-guard food preparation models on the market, selling for $99 to $5,000.

This ravioli mold was printed with a 3D printer.

Here’s how it works: Suppose you have ravioli in mind. Assemble the ingredients — the first step you always take in preparing meals. Then the machine takes over, “printing” a thin layer of pasta from one of its capsules. Next comes a layer of your tomato-based filling from another capsule, followed by another layer of pasta filling for the standard ravioli design.

The 3D printers do NOT make something from nothing, stresses Lynette Kucsma, co-founder of Natural Machines in Barcelona, Spain. The company calls its food printer the Foodini, of course. It is scheduled for release in October and will sell for about $1,300 initially. Kucsma predicts that the device will be as common as the kitchen microwave and that it will take less time to catch on with the current tech-savvy public. She feels it will offer a more healthful approach to food preparation, edging out some of the fast foods that are standard American fare these days.

“The point is to get people away from eating processed foods and start cooking again,” she said, but cooking in a Space Age mode. In a time-pressed society, having a mini food manufacturing device in the kitchen will be a more healthful approach, as well as saving time, she predicted.

3D Printed Sugar Seen On 3dsystems.com — 3D Printed Sugar

For instance, in the above example, each ravioli takes under a minute. That means 10 in 10 minutes. The food printer is an assembly device that does the tedious work of putting things in order and doing the tedious chores, such as rolling pasta dough. You still must add necessary ingredients and cook the assembled food. Natural Machines and other hopeful competitors in the emerging market are already working on companion pieces that will take care of the cooking.

Cornell Creative Machines Lab, which also is creating a 3D food printer, joins in making futuristic claims for the technology, predicting that dining out as well as cooking in will be significantly affected. The company cites USDA figures that show the average American spends 33 minutes a day on food preparation. Food printing could become a set-and-forget process that could cut the time by 150 hours per year.

Before such devices become standard household equipment, they are likely to enhance fancy items such as pastries for restaurant chefs. But standard microwaves are already shuddering in their shoes as they see the shape of the future in 3D food printing.

Making a sandwich with 3D printer as seen on 3ders.org

Mink 3D Printer Produces Eye Shadows And Makeup

June 2, 2014 By Twila Van Leer

Grace Choi presenting at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2014

More and more people are looking for ways to make 3D printing pay. Grace Choi is one of those who has found a practical use for the technology. She invented Mink as a way to “print” makeup allowing users to pick designer colors from images.

The Next Big Thing

3D printing is being touted as the next big thing in computer technology, a process in which a computer replicates an item by adding layers of a chosen material, following a digital pattern. It is expected to blossom over the next few years into multiple uses as diverse as body replacement parts and food products.

Choi explained her Mink process to interested critics during the TechCrunch Disrupt NY2014 meeting in early May. It was held at the Manhattan Center in New York and was an opportunity for innovators to share their concepts incorporating 3D printing.

Mink's 3D Printer Prints Eye Shadow, Lipstick And More — Mink’s 3D Printer Prints Eye Shadow, Lipstick And More

Make Up Ingredients

Choi started from the premise that almost all makeup products are created from basic substrates, whether it ends up in pricey high-class shops or on the shelves of the neighborhood has-it-all shopping center. Problem is, these outlets don’t cover the waterfront in color and shade, but tend to cater to a mid-range of customers. Mink allows endless choices.

Computer Generated Color Selections

She looked at the principle that the basic contents of makeup are the same and developed that concept into computer-generated makeup that can employ any color imaginable to suit the maker. Using software that already exists, the operator can print powder, blush, eye shadow, lip gloss or any other type of makeup. Imagine getting up in the morning and custom-designing your makeup to match your clothing selection for the day. (And the gurus predict that some day, 3D printing will be used to produce that dress you want to match, as well!)

3D printer technology allows picking colors directly from digital photos.

Choi told the New York panel that her pre-production research showed that those who buy makeup don’t tend to be resolutely loyal to any particular brand, but are looking for convenience. What’s more convenient than your own home?

Serial Inventor

The young woman innovator, who terms herself a “serial inventor,” said she had plenty of failures as she worked toward Mink. But she is looking forward to putting her product on the market later this year, at a suggested price of $200 per unit. The target buyer group will be those 13 to 21, a demographic that is not firmly set in its makeup-buying habits.

Future Plans

At the same time, she will keep researching and hoping to alliances with companies that can enhance the prospects for success. She will be talking with some of the big printers such as Epson to see if deals can be made that would be rewarding for her and for them as the role of 3D printing increases. She continues to study how she can make Mink competitive with the mass market. Her big selling point is the number and variety of colors that can be used in Mink.

She is keeping a finger on the pulse of fashion and talking with those who influence fashion trends.

Look for more uses for 3D printing as innovators such as Choi really get down to the job.

Visit Coolchecks.net/blog for more 3D Printer stories.