Please welcome our latest contributor to the CoolBusinessIdeas.com Ideas Hunter Network - Christopher Aceto from Canada!

Chris currently heads Thottfield Inc., a small multimedia and communications consultancy based in Toronto, Canada. Always on the hunt for innovative and exciting ideas, his passion for the creation and production of ground-breaking technologies and services has granted him the opportunity to act as a creative consultant for various companies and industries throughout the world.

Christopher has also played an active role in the music and film industry over the past decade. He has had the pleasure of producing and recording several international artists and most recently co-producing a nationally broadcast documentary, Postcards from the Rez. Learn more about Christopher's profile here.

Here's a very warm welcome to Christopher, and we'll be expecting lots of insights on the newest business ideas and trends in the world today from him. The same goes for our other contributors in the CBI Ideas Hunter Network: Graeme Spicer, Katie Sherman, and TrendInsights. They'll be working hard to bring you interesting content on this blog, so stay tuned!

Today, advertisements are seen just about everywhere. From the conventional places such as magazines, television, billboards, buses, sports stadiums, etc. to the unconventional, like grocery store floors, on painted stripes in parking lots, even on the back of a boxer in the ring. Ads are placed in locations with the highest amount of visibility to effectively reach their target, the consumer. On the average, people go to the bathroom 6 times a day. Public restrooms are used very often. Why not place your business or product in front of thousands of people who use restrooms everyday? This is a sure-fire way to grab people's attention.

JustToiletPaper.com certainly thinks so. The company provides a unique service that allows businesses and advertisers to reach consumers at a most unusual place – the restroom.

JustToiletPaper.com also allows you to create promotional travel packs of tushues. There is no special equipment needed other than an ink jet printer. To get started printing your company’s latest promotional offer, you can purchase mini travel rolls that are packaged in their own individual plastic dispenser.

Create your own artwork to compliment your marketing campaign and then print it out on stock size 2 x 4 labels which can be easily obtained from most supply stores. You can apply your own labels in seconds! JustToiletPaper.com will supply the file for the back label with the instructions.

With the Olympics coming up in China in mid year, this could be a great project for people in many countries. You can either make use of JustToiletPaper.com’s easy printing-on-toilet-paper concept to create unique toilet rolls to aid your company’s marketing effort, or you can start your own business providing specially printed toilet rolls for your clients.

Either way, JustToiletPaper.com’s innovative toilet roll advertising concept will prove effective in capturing customer’s attention and help you drive sales of your company’s products and services. With the advertising market so saturated as it is now, you can be sure that this unique, never-seen-before toilet roll advertising innovation will be able to play a key role in marketing your business!

For more info, visit http://www.justtoiletpaper.com or contact:

Marc Polish Associates, LLC
PO Box 3041 Margate, NJ 08402
609 823 7661
Info@justtoiletpaper.com

This post is a sponsored blog post.

New business ideas excite you. You're constantly on the hunt for brilliant, smart business initiatives the world has never seen before. The pursuit of "Cool" in every part of the world is your cup of tea. You have the biggest current consumer and business trends inside your head everywhere you go.

If the above describes you, listen up! You'll be thrilled by this piece of great news: CoolBusinessIdeas.com has launched a whole new cool business ideas and inspirations hunting network to blog with us on the popular CBI website. Called the Ideas Hunter Network, we've invited forward-looking and cool-hunting people to contribute new worldwide business ideas and concepts to the CoolBusinessIdeas.com blog regularly.

Without further ado, we're now unveiling our line-up of new Idea Hunters in the network. They'll be contributing new business ideas and innovations to the CoolBusinessIdeas.com blog as fervently as we do. Here they are:

Graeme Spicer

Graeme Spicer is a Canadian trendspotter, ethnographer and observer of all things retail. As Director of Retail Strategy at DW+Partners he spends his time consulting with leading retailers; presenting at conferences across North America; lecturing at OCAD, Canada's leading design school; and reading too many blogs. Graeme can be reached at graeme.spicer@gmail.com.

Learn more about Graeme Spicer's profile.

Katie Sherman

Katie Sherman is a NY-based freelance writer. After years of multi-tasking at downtown ad agencies, she's recently returned from a European backpacking sabbatical. During the day she works as a Copywriter in Soho. In the off-hours she concentrates on analyzing social/ cultural trends, business innovation and local entertainment. Her work has been published on PSFK.com, CoolBusinessIdeas.com, EatDrinkSleepny.com, and Glamourite.com. Email her at katie_sherman@hotmail.com

Learn more about Katie Sherman's profile.

TrendInsights

TrendInsights. A blog to inspire, stimulate creativity and trend spotting. We're a team of bloggers fueled by the drive to spot trends, stimulate creativity and inspire those who read our trend-hunting blog.

Learn more about TrendInsight's profile.

* * *

We welcome our new contributors to the CoolBusinessIdeas.com community, and hope that they'll be able to get us excited with their new business ideas hunting!

Join the Network!

Whether you're a seasoned ideas hunter or a newbie merely interested in all things cool, as long as you have the passion to blog with us regularly on cool business ideas and trends, you can also get a chance to come on board as an Ideas Hunter! We welcome you to drop us an email. We'd love to hear from you!

 Yes, I want to be an Idea Hunter!

What We are Looking for

New business ideas excite you. You're constantly on the hunt for brilliant, smart business initiatives the world has never seen before. The pursuit of "Cool" in every part of the world is your cup of tea. You have the biggest current consumer and business trends inside your head everywhere you go.

If the above describes you, we're looking for you! CoolBusinessIdeas.com is launching a whole new cool business ideas and inspirations hunting network to blog with us on the popular CBI website. Called the Ideas Hunter Network, we're on the lookout for people to contribute new worldwide business ideas and concepts to the CoolBusinessIdeas.com blog regularly. Expect to see the new Ideas Hunter Network early next year.

Have a look at our daily-updated blog to get a feel of what exactly we are looking for.

How it Works

If you're accepted to be part of the new Ideas Hunter Network, you'll be given access to our publishing platform which allows you to post new articles, upload photos and comment freely on the CoolBusinessIdeas.com blog, where 27,000+ people from all over the world visit monthly to get their usual kick of cool new business ideas and opportunities.

Moreover, you'll have your own Ideas Hunter profile on our blog and on the articles you post. Talk about instant credibility, 27,000+ people will recognize you instantly for your new business ideas hunting skills!

Build up your reputation as an authoritative expert with an uncanny ability to discern business trends and spot the next big thing in the business world. Who knows, it may just lead to that next well-paying speaking engagement.

Who Should Join

Whether you're a seasoned ideas hunter or a newbie merely interested in all things cool, as long as you have the passion to blog with us regularly on cool business ideas and trends, we welcome you to drop us an email. We'd love to hear from you!

 Yes, I want to be an Idea Hunter!

Here is CoolBusinessIdeas.com's new year gift to all readers!

This free 20-pages PDF ebook (worth $38), New Business Ideas Report 2007, is brought to you by the business ideas hunting team here at CoolBusinessIdeas.com. What is this report about? It is an analysis of innovative and never-seen-before business ideas we've seen worldwide this year. Clearly, entrepreneurs around the world are often inspired by common underlying consumer trends when they are working to bring their new business ideas to fruition. We hope that you'll be able to come up with the next big thing after getting to know some of these interesting consumer and business trends behind 2007's new business ideas.

Some of the case studies included in this free report:

Cell Phone 2.0

The cell phone has evolved from its humble beginnings as a communication tool into a super gadget that offers us many useful services and resources, thanks to enterprising entrepreneurs with brilliant business ideas.

Ultra Luxury

The rich are just getting richer. With millions of dollars to spend, some use their huge riches to support philanthropy efforts, such as Bill Gates who gave away some $29 billion to charities from 2000 onwards. Some just spend their money on whatever they fancy. Entrepreneurs are coming up with new business ideas to entice the luxury-craving uber-rich to throw their money on.

Attention-Grabbing Advertising

Thanks to media saturation, it is now harder to reach your targeted group of consumers through traditional means of advertising and marketing. It’s no longer enough to place ads in TV, radio, print, Internet, etc. You have to look for avenues and places which will surprise your target audience.

New Business Ideas Report 2007 is available for free download here at CoolBusinessIdeas.com.

Most seniors are worried about being an entrepreneur and want to avoid making a big mistake that might deplete their retirement savings. The businesses mentioned in my book are just to that point. You can’t make a tragic financial mistake if you have only invested a few thousand dollars. Look for businesses that are service oriented, which frequently require a lot of your time as the main investment but not a lot of your money. You may lose 1000 hours of your time but only a little of your money.

Many businesses go astray when the market for their product and the price they feel they need to sell it for doesn’t materialize. If you have already signed a multi-year, store lease for your sales, you could be stuck with thousands of dollars in rent, utility bills and other fixed costs. If you have a product you want to sell, find a temporary venue such as a public market or a summer festival that you can try selling it at. You may have to pay $200 to $300 for a day or weekend space but you can set up a table to sell your product. If your sales are not overwhelming, you should reconsider making that product into a business. When you sell at the booth, you will get a lot of honest feedback on what customers think of the product and the price. Listen to them; it may save you from a big mistake.

Can you rent some of the equipment needed to operate your business with no long-term commitment. You may have to pay too much to rent the equipment to make much profit, but it will help you gauge your market size and will allow you to determine if you really want to do this for a significant portion of your retirement time.

Go work with someone who is already in the business you want to start. You may have to go a distance away from the location you envision for your business but you can learn a lot from a little on-the-job experience.

Start a hobby business. I’m a rock hound and I envision collecting valuable minerals (gold, rubies, sapphires, emeralds) and fossils and selling them for my retirement business. If my business is not successful, I will probably continue spending my time collecting valuable minerals and fossils and keeping them in my private collection. So in trying a hobby business, I will be doing what I would otherwise do for fun. I might even get some tax breaks for trying it as a business.

This new weekly column, 101 New Business Ideas for Retirees, is compiled specially for CoolBusinessIdeas.com readers by Stan Spector. See all articles in this column by Stan Spector.

Stan Spector is the author of “Baby Boomers’ Official Guide to Retirement Income - Over 100 Part-time or Seasonal Businesses for the New Retiree”. The book website is at StanSpector.com.

We see and hear about a large number of franchises and Multi-level Marketing (MLM) businesses and I am often asked if these are good for the retired person. So let us take a look at them one at a time.

Franchises are frequently larger companies having numerous employees, a fixed retail location with the high overhead associated with this, require high up front fees, normally require a full marketing plan and budget as part of the commitment and most are year around full time businesses. That is in direct opposition to everything I have tried to warn seniors of in my book “Baby Boomers’ Official Guide to Retirement Income”. While franchises may make good sense as a business, it is not normally a good idea for a part-time or seasonal business for a retiree. But I spend time each week looking over the business models of any new franchise that I can find on the Internet.

Franchises are mostly very successful business and new franchises are in sectors that are growing. These companies do their screening well. Looking at their information, will provide you with typical startup costs of the business and will help you budget your business if you decide to enter the business sector even if you make a number of changes to the business plan. The franchises sometimes provide you the demographic information to locate the business but this is information that you will need to help identify your customers. You can use much of their information to analyze and plan your business.

MLM businesses have gotten a bad name since many of these businesses use high-pressure tactics to make their “members” buy and sell more products. These businesses get their name since a member will get a large commission from product they sell, a smaller commission from products sold by newer members that they have brought into the organization under them and an even smaller commission from sales the people the newer members they have brought in under them and so on. Many even have minimum monthly purchases even when the members are not selling that much in product. So dangerous inventory buildups leave unsuccessful member with a basement full of product. I have seen statistics that suggest that well over 90% of the participants do not make significant money from these ventures. But they do work for the aggressive sales people. The large earners in these systems are ones that bring in people in the organization under them. The large commissions are made by developing a large network organization below you and not by selling the product yourself.

When talking with someone from a MLM organization you will normally hear 2 phrases. The first is that they will deny that they are a MLM organization. They may have some slight change in their organization, such as having customers buy product on-line and they just get a referral fee and fees from their network organization, so they deny they are a MLM organization. Many times they do not provide clear information about the total costs of their products and try to get you to accept that they are “competitive” or below the store price.

So MLM organizations are not all bad but most are bad. So do your research carefully before becoming involved.

This new weekly column, 101 New Business Ideas for Retirees, is compiled specially for CoolBusinessIdeas.com readers by Stan Spector. See all articles in this column by Stan Spector.

Stan Spector is the author of “Baby Boomers’ Official Guide to Retirement Income - Over 100 Part-time or Seasonal Businesses for the New Retiree”. The book website is at StanSpector.com.

We’ve all heard people saying this but do you realize this is an opportunity for a business? Serving a busy customer could be just the thing needed to make your business a success.

Most two-earner families, after taking the children to soccer practice and music lessons just don’t have the time or energy to do many of the things that they think would be nice to do. But many times the do have the disposable income to have the services done by someone they know and trust.

Whether it’s making fruit cakes with their personal label on it, doing their landscaping, cooking specialty dinners for some family member with special dietary restrictions, or cleaning up on the inside or outside of their houses, they may let a trusted neighbor perform a service for them even if they wouldn’t feel right about letting a professional company do this work for them. A friend or neighbor makes the decision to hire someone easier. These people are the easiest groups to market to because they are your family, friends and neighbors. They already know you or will recognize your picture from the neighborhood. Distribute those magnetic business cards with your picture on it listing all of your services to your potential clients to hang on the refrigerator.

But don’t forget about that busy small business owner. He is in the same rut wishing he had a department to do all of those business services that are not essential to day-to-day operations but are robbing him of some of his profits. These entrepreneurs all wish they had the time to bid out some of the services and products that they buy or use but they really don’t have the time to do it. Send out a letter opener, stapler or other desk item with your business card on it calling out what types of services you provide so it will be right in front of them each day. It may be putting together a marketing campaign for them, searching for the lowest cost utility or phone suppliers for their need or checking around to alternative wholesalers for the goods that they sell. All these could make a good part-time business for you and after you develop some specialized knowledge in your areas, you will find ways of saving them more money and doing it quicker for them.

This new weekly column, 101 New Business Ideas for Retirees, is compiled specially for CoolBusinessIdeas.com readers by Stan Spector. See all articles in this column by Stan Spector.

Stan Spector is the author of “Baby Boomers’ Official Guide to Retirement Income - Over 100 Part-time or Seasonal Businesses for the New Retiree”. The book website is at StanSpector.com.

Mass produced services are only economical at a fixed location where installed equipment can be used to save time in the service. The other end of the spectrum is customized service at a location where the customer wants it to be performed.

Simple services like automotive repairs are almost always done at a garage or repair center since some of the services require lifts and special equipment. But providing some of the basic car repair services can be done with equipment in your truck and this service can be performed at a health club or a large company’s parking lot while you customer is exercising, working or at their home. Most customers will only hire this type of service if the price is about the same as what they will pay at a fixed location or slightly more. It is easy to meet this condition with certain services since your business will have no rent or utilities to pay. The market for this service may not be huge but it may be large enough to support a loan practitioner.

Computer services become difficult for the customer at a fixed location and certain system problems must be solved in place. So we are seeing a rise in the number of single person computer repair businesses.

As you go through your days and months, look for of what kind of service people or businesses hate going to a fixed location to get the service and then try to start a business around providing that service at the customer’s location. This concept is not new. I remember when I was a child, there was a person who had an old school bus and drove around neighborhoods selling groceries for people who didn’t want to run out. This may no longer be a good business but back then families only had one car and the home keeper needed this since they couldn’t run up to the neighborhood store to prepare dinner. I still have that response mechanism going for the daily ringing of the ice cream man’s bell when he drives through our neighborhood during the summer.

Oil changes and lubrication for cars, computer repair, dry cleaning and laundry delivery services to health clubs or office buildings, personal training at home, lawn mower and snow blower repair in your garage and computer printer inks refills in a truck outside large office buildings on a fixed weekly schedule are all lucrative areas to explore. But don’t let this small list limit your ideas. Think of other ideas. There are hundreds. If you think of a good one, go to the forum on my web site and let me know your ideas so I can spread the word around.

This new weekly column, 101 New Business Ideas for Retirees, is compiled specially for CoolBusinessIdeas.com readers by Stan Spector. See all articles in this column by Stan Spector.

Stan Spector is the author of “Baby Boomers’ Official Guide to Retirement Income - Over 100 Part-time or Seasonal Businesses for the New Retiree”. The book website is at StanSpector.com.

You can’t read any magazine without seeing some reference to the effects of the coming retirement of the baby boom generation. That is just the type of opportunity that entrepreneurs are looking for to create a new business around.

Think of all of the services these people will need. Some of them will need to have more of the work around the house or apartment done for them and they will pay a fair price if you make it convenient for them. This group of clients will also be loyal to businesses that provide good service to them and can be trusted for being on time and sending reliable people to do the work. They also favor the same person coming each time to help them and do not care much for services that have a high turnover in personnel. This is ideal for the sole practitioner. This group will also refer you to their friends if they like your service.

Routine services such as laundry, house cleaning, shopping and driving these people to their medial appointments, are all highly desired. Non-routine services are also needed for when these seniors move to a new location requiring sorting, packing, furniture layouts, running garage sales to sell off the excess materials. But servicing this client base requires additional care to receive their satisfaction. Even the Real Estate industry has training courses devoted to teaching agents how to work with the senior population and achieve high customer satisfaction.

This group is also easy to reach with your advertisement. There are a number of publications in each city for this group of people. There are also community events directed to this group where advertising can be directed. Bulletin boards can be used for your business card with a message at many of the living situations where these people live.

But before entering any of these businesses check into licensing requirements in your city and state to determine if licensing, bonding or special insurance is required for the service you are going to provide.

This new weekly column, 101 New Business Ideas for Retirees, is compiled specially for CoolBusinessIdeas.com readers by Stan Spector. See all articles in this column by Stan Spector.

Stan Spector is the author of “Baby Boomers’ Official Guide to Retirement Income - Over 100 Part-time or Seasonal Businesses for the New Retiree”. The book website is at StanSpector.com.

There are a lot of businesses out there that are competing for the customers. You are looking for a way to attract a loyal few customers for your small retirement business. You are also trying to attract them with some unique feature of your business instead of doing a large amount of advertising and the billing that comes from advertising. This approach of specializing will keep your business small, which is one of our goals, but will differentiate you from the pack.

An example is auto repairs. There are hundreds of shops in your area that will work on almost any type of car. They stock some frequently used parts and work with auto parts dealers to get immediate delivery of common parts for commonly owned vehicles. But it is not so easy if you have a 1960’s Porsche or Corvette. People taking these cars in for repairs may have to wait a long while to get some parts shipped in and some of the young mechanics may have never seen the insides of these vehicles.

Specialize in repairs of one of these vehicles and you can gain a loyal clientele if you perform good work, have many of the common parts that they use on hand or at lease on overnight delivery from a specialty auto parts dealer, and you have experience in problems with these older cars. You may also have an inexpensive advertising media in a fan club for one of these vehicles since you will only be paying for exposure to people who own the vehicles. Each of these specialty cars has web sites devoted to them where you can do advertising.

Think of your hobby. Look on-line or in catalogues for tools of that hobby. Everyone is carrying the low cost, mass produced tools. But there is always some specialty hand made tools that are available if you know where to look for them. You can specialize in selling these or produce your own like of tools that are more specific to your hobby.

The secret is specializing your business to keep it small and to grow your business through word-of-mouth advertising.

This new weekly column, 101 New Business Ideas for Retirees, is compiled specially for CoolBusinessIdeas.com readers by Stan Spector. See all articles in this column by Stan Spector.

Stan Spector is the author of “Baby Boomers’ Official Guide to Retirement Income - Over 100 Part-time or Seasonal Businesses for the New Retiree”. The book website is at StanSpector.com.

Most people think that working at your hobby would make the best retirement business that they can think about. While I concur with this thinking there are a few warnings that come with this option.

Think about your hobby. Are there supplies that you regularly have to buy? Are these supplies easy to find locally? Can they be cheaply shipped by parcel, which would allow you to sell the items on line and not require you to open a storefront with the associated rents, utilities and staff? This will also allow you to run your business during different time of day at your convenience. If you need storage space, you could rent inexpensive storage areas. If there is a lot of competition for selling supplies, look at carrying specialty items that local stores do not carry. Are there customer made products available for you to sell. The large chain hobby shops, do not like to carry a lot of these specialty items. They go after the mass produced items and the items that sell the most.

Is the product you make from your hobby a sellable product? Everyone thinks they are but I recommend that you buy a booth at a festival and try to sell some of your product. This will give you a change to meet and talk with some of your potential customers. You’d be surprised on how frank they can be to you about your quality, pricing and design. If you are able to sell large amounts at a festival, you have a chance of having a good supplemental business. But don’t go too far until you have proven you can sell enough to make a business from this.

Now for the warnings.

The market frequently is not prepared to spend the cost of your product if there is a (lower quality but functional) product made in a low cost production company that is less than half of the price of yours. If the market is there they will probably demand the highest level of quality and may not consider your work of that level. Remember you are competing against others who have probably been doing this full time for many years.

Don’t even think of renting large amounts of space with all the costs involved, unless you know you will have the sales. This is the quickest way to taking a very big risk with your money.

Don’t think that your hobby equipment will hold up under high demand put on it by you using it for a business. It is probably fine to test the market with it but you will have to buy heavy duty commercial equipment for it to last long and to turn out the highest quality work.

And remember that you have started a business. You are no longer doing this for just fun.

But good luck, this can be the happiest way to make supplemental income during your retirement.

This new weekly column, 101 New Business Ideas for Retirees, is compiled specially for CoolBusinessIdeas.com readers by Stan Spector. See all articles in this column by Stan Spector.

Stan Spector is the author of “Baby Boomers’ Official Guide to Retirement Income - Over 100 Part-time or Seasonal Businesses for the New Retiree”. The book website is at StanSpector.com.

IT seems like the accolades just can’t stop rolling in for these young, enterprising students from Hwa Chong Institution. After bagging the top prize of $5,000 in the Youth Category of Start-Up@Singapore 2007, Agrotech has gone on to clinch the Best New Markets Award at the Global Talentrepreneur Competition 2007 held in Taipei. Their product, which revolves around plant care and pigment enhancement in the cut-flower industry, impressed the judges and edged out those by more experienced competitors from the United States of America, Panama, Thailand, Jordan, Mexico, Taiwan, Brazil and Japan.

The Global Talentrepreneur Competition is an international contest for talented, young entrepreneurs who have won regional- and national-level entrepreneurship competitions.

This year’s contest saw a wide spectrum of participating teams from 14 countries across the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific. Each team was required to write a comprehensive business plan and pitch their idea to an international panel of 15 judges comprising venture capitalists, academics and government officials. On the back of all this success, Agrotech has been invited to present their idea at Keio University in Japan next year.

Article contributed by Start-Up@Singapore

It’s your pet peeve. You lent your best friend Fred the Halo 3 disc (it’s your favorite game) a week ago and now you’re dying to start shooting some alien enemies. The game disc has returned to you, but with visible scratches and it suddenly does not play on your Xbox 360 anymore, at a time when you most want to play the game. How do you control your anger and not blow up at Fred?

To prevent such ugly situations from happening again, you need Protective Disc Skins™ from d_skin™, a break-through product in disc protection that snaps on, plays on and always stays on to provide you with scratch-free digital entertainment. It has been named one of the coolest inventions ever by Time Magazine. Visit www.dskin.com for more info.

d_skin Protective Disc Skins offer music fans, movie buffs and game enthusiasts a safer, longer-lasting method for protecting their purchases. By eliminating scratches, the Protective Disc Skins helps to extends disc life and reduce the high cost of replacing damaged computer and video games. How does d_skin prevent your disc from being scratched? The Protective Disc Skin contains a special patented optically clear protective cover that acts as an external “Skin” for discs, guarding against scratches. The unique patented Liplock Seal™ snaps onto the edge of any standard-size disc and holds the protective "Skin" tight in place.

Moreover, because all discs protected with d_skin Protective Disc Skins are readable right through the skin, you need not remove the protective skin while playing video games as well as while burning data onto blank discs. The protective cover doesn’t degrade sound quality, file integrity or interfere with the laser.

Consider the convenience of using d_skin. Once your discs have been "skinned", there’s no need to store them in bulky jewel cases, CD holders and CD sleeves anymore. You can do away with these bulky, space-consuming protections forever. If the d_skin disc protector gets scratched, simply snap on a new one. d_skin Protective Disc Skins are designed for PlayStation, Xbox and most computer games. It can also be used in home, auto and portable CD and DVD players.

So, before you lent the next Xbox game to your best (and sometimes careless) friend Fred, get one of these Protective Disc Skins from www.dskin.com. It’ll go a long way in getting back your disc with not a single scratch on it!

This post is a sponsored blog post.

During the summer months, every large city in America is filled with hundreds of festivals. If you are an entrepreneur looking to get into a retail business, these festivals can be an inexpensive way to test out your products to see if it will really attract a large enough customer base to warrant a year around business. But remember when you are writing your business plan; you have avoided a lot of the costs of a permanent location by having a festival business.

You pay a small fee to the festival and have not encountered rent and utilities, which are some of the high expenses for a fixed location. You have also not had to do much in the way of advertising. The festival had done advertising and has a client base that will show up. You only need to have an attractive booth to entice the customers over to your location. Make sure your signage looks professional and is viewable from major traffic centers for the festival.

But many people get into festival sales as their business instead of a trial for their business. With a number of calls you will find a listing of the festivals in a newspaper calendar or an on-line calendar of the festivals for the year. You will see that you can find festivals going 30 weeks in some of the northern climates up to every week of the year in some of the moderate climates. You can work as much or as little as you want or whatever season you want to work by starting a festival business.

There is a lot of work in these businesses that everyone should consider. With a store, you just open the door each morning. But with a festival business, you will have to unload and set up your merchandise every morning and put it away every night. Make sure all of your display methods are bought with this in mind. Items on wheel that you can move along a rough terrain are great. Make sure you have an adequate vehicle to carry all of you set up and merchandise and that you have an easy way of loading and unloading it.

Unsure if you want to get into this business? Go to a festival in your area. During some of the slack time, ask some of the booth owners a lot of questions about their business. Also you may fine one that is willing to hire your for a nominal fee or as a volunteer to help them with the next weekend’s festival. Work a few festivals unloading and setting up each morning with the owner to make sure your really want to do that many weekends during the year.

This new weekly column, 101 New Business Ideas for Retirees, is compiled specially for CoolBusinessIdeas.com readers by Stan Spector. See all articles in this column by Stan Spector.

Stan Spector is the author of “Baby Boomers’ Official Guide to Retirement Income - Over 100 Part-time or Seasonal Businesses for the New Retiree”. The book website is at StanSpector.com.

Here’s a million-dollar question: how do I increase the Google PageRank of my website?

According to search engine optimization specialists, the two most crucial factors affecting your website’s ranking are the availability of useful content and quality links. You’ve got to have helpful, regularly-updated and keywords-rich content on your website before you can attract the Googlebot over and rate your website highly. But, without sufficient inbound links, how is a reader from Brazil going to find and read your interesting content on your website? Not only that, but the inbound links have got to be from quality, relevant website too.

If you have a website or a blog, I’m sure you agree with me that it’s an uphill task to acquire quality links. So, the next million-dollar question is: how can I increase the number of links to my website?

You can exchange links manually; email the PageRank 5 website’s webmaster and ask for a reciprocal link. You can also add your website to web directories such as Yahoo! and DMOZ. Or you can advertise your website through pay-per-click exchanges such as Google’s Adwords. All these methods have their pros and cons. What if you have an advertising system that includes all of the pros and would let advertisers get better rankings in search engines with a few simple clicks of the mouse?

Yes, you have such a system, and I’m referring to the new TNX.net. TNX (short for “thanks” in SMS-speak) is a new innovative business idea. It works wonders for both advertisers and publishers. For advertisers looking to improve their websites’ rankings, TNX allows them to buy millions of links from other sites in few clicks. For publishers looking to earn some money, it’s a good way for them to monetize their websites. All links are direct; they are located on main pages and high-ranking inside pages. Links are displayed prominently on well-noticeable spots for maximum exposure, and are tied in with keywords so that Googlebot will take notice.

TNX offers link targeting by specific niche and geographic region. That makes it a breeze if you want to target Chicago residents who are looking for florists. You can also filter by the Google PR of each page and link popularity (Yahoo! backlinks) of each website. TNX makes it possible to combine different types of targeting and compare the efficiency with different configurations. TNX even provides a calculator of how many links you will get on based on the parameters you chose and your spending plan. Creating an ad campaign is a painless process with TNX’s well-designed Ad Campaign Wizard.

For publishers, TNX offers an easy way to sell links and monetize your website. It’s free to sign up and get a publisher’s account, and you’ll be automatically credited with 2,000 TNX points upon signup. In TNX, transactions are carried with TNX points. You can use TNX points to pay for advertising of your website. You can also hold on to your points and watch its price grow or sell your points to TNX (funds are credited to your PayPal account) or any other TNX member. TNX is currently doing a promotion whereby you can receive additional 5,000 points free by posting on this thread in the DigitalPoint forums. TNX points are now being valued at $0.61 per 1,000 points.

To sell links on your website, you simply grab the TNX system code and place it into your website. When the system code is placed on your website all the links that are purchased by advertisers will be automatically displayed on all pages that have TNX system code included. Whenever a link on your website is sold to one of our advertisers, you get paid. It’s easy for publishers to get started.

TNX even has got an affiliate program. When you refer a new webmaster to the system, you will receive 13.3% of all TNX points which he/she will earn in the future. You can then use the TNX points for your own advertising.

On a whole, TNX is a new business idea that promises to transform text link advertising on the Internet. Designed with an intuitive and easy system, it offers a good way for advertisers and publishers to participate in text link advertising.

This post is a sponsored blog post.

If you have good writing skills why don’t you capitalize on this skill for your retirement business? But there is a catch to these types of businesses. Don’t think your main business will be doing the writing. You main business will be selling. You’ll see as I go along what this means.

You could write a book and try to find a publisher to publish your book. It’s a low probability situation that a well known publisher will pick up your first book. You could take your book and have a “self-publishing” company put it together and make it available at all of the on-line book stores and any book store can order it for a customer. But you are the “Chief Marketing Officer” and the hardest part of the job is generating the sales.

If you have an expertise in some industry along with your writing skills, you could produce a newsletter for that industry. Most industries have national and statewide magazines. Focus on a citywide newsletter for that industry. Let companies buy advertisement to sell their spare capacity-time, spare raw material inventory, job openings or their unique expertise. You will have to add a number of industry interest articles each month, much of which you can get from the Internet, with proper approval from the author. You can also write articles about local industry leaders. Much of the work will be maintaining the mailing or e-mailing lists to send the newsletter to and getting it out. You will see that much of your time will be in the advertisement sales and newsletter distribution tasks.

You can also select a small “interest” or “geographic” area and develop a newspaper for that area. College campuses, ethnic groups, noted neighborhoods and hobbyists are some areas you can consider. The hard part of setting up a successful newspaper is finding a sector that businesses will be willing to buy advertisement to reach that audience. Once you have a large enough critical mass of advertisers, it is easy to tailor the articles and reports to be of interest to these groups.

Writers get your quills out and try one of these ideas. It is a low initial investment to get these businesses going. You will put in a lot of your time to get them started but it won’t take too much up front money. Small publications frequently do not provide enough profit for a full time job, but we are looking for businesses that will only supplement your income. More details of each of these ideas can be found in my book.

This new weekly column, 101 New Business Ideas for Retirees, is compiled specially for CoolBusinessIdeas.com readers by Stan Spector. See all articles in this column by Stan Spector.

Stan Spector is the author of “Baby Boomers’ Official Guide to Retirement Income - Over 100 Part-time or Seasonal Businesses for the New Retiree”. The book website is at StanSpector.com.

IdeaBlob is where entrepreneurs and small business owners can share and grow their business ideas – and have a chance to win $10,000 towards fulfilling them.

Great ideas are generated every day by people all across the country, and now these ideas have a place to live and grow. Eligible individuals with a good business idea can post it to IdeaBlob.com, and based on votes from the IdeaBlob online community – which includes other innovators as well as friends, family, colleagues, associates, teachers and mentors – one idea every month will win $10,000.

IdeaBlob.com

New retirees are looking for a different type of small business than the general public. If they are on Social Security, they may be penalized if they make over $12,600. Some private retirement policies will also penalize you if you earn money in your retirement years.

Many retirees dream of taking extended vacations or wintering in Florida. They want their new business to work around their life. Many insist that they do not want to have employees since having employees complicates the business and necessitates payroll services, accountants, and workman’s compensation insurance that quickly eat into their profits. They want a business that they can run, possibly with the aid of their spouse, and any outside labor would be hired through an independent contractor. Some of the retirees are looking for a hobby business, making some money while enjoying their hobby and traveling around to locations and conventions for their hobby.

Business brokers try to sell mid-sized businesses costing $100,000 to $1 Million. If the business would fail, this would put a big dent into anyone’s retirement savings. Brokers wouldn’t make much money if they got a 10% commission selling a $3,000 business so they push the larger sized businesses. Likewise, franchises require large up front franchise fees and most of them are centered on businesses that have high start up costs. But retirees should look for businesses that cost under $5,000 to start and try to fund these businesses out of their own pocket. Most of the low investment businesses would fall into the service sector where you are really selling your specialized skilled labor time.

And all of these goals are really possible. The following criteria will be used for businesses in this column.

• They are mini-businesses run by the owner and the spouse with no one on the payroll.
• They should be able to start up the business for $3,000 to $5,000. Many of the people who start these businesses may decide to grow the business with more investment after they have proven their business can produce good cash flow to them.
• No long term lease commitments (space or equipment)
• They are seasonal or part-time businesses. They will not require the 60 to 80 hours a week to start them that most start-up businesses require.
• The cash flow may be small but on an hourly basis it should be worth the owner’s time. Some may provide a real benefit in tax savings by utilizing portions of you house or apartment, allow you to travel to hobby conventions as a business expense or renting property you own to the business.

I will try in future columns to provide you with some new ideas for your business start-up that meet these criteria.

This new weekly column, 101 New Business Ideas for Retirees, is compiled specially for CoolBusinessIdeas.com readers by Stan Spector.

Stan Spector is the author of “Baby Boomers’ Official Guide to Retirement Income - Over 100 Part-time or Seasonal Businesses for the New Retiree”. The book website is at StanSpector.com.

You've always wanted to start your very own business. You dream of coming up with the next BIG thing that will change the way business works. You want to spread your evolutionary idea to the world. If the above describes you, then you may find this e-book report useful.

GetEntrepreneurial.com, our sister site, is offering for free download a 145-pages PDF report (worth $75) called "2006's Best Business Ideas".

This 145-pages report, "2006's Best Business Ideas", is a compilation of the business ideas and concepts which made it big in 2006. We've included 2005's and 2004's hits as well. As you brainstorm of how to start your own business or how to take your existing business a big step forward in the year 2007 and beyond, learn from how the entrepreneurial mavericks did it in 2006. In every industry from advertising to e-commerce, there'll surely be some interesting new idea or innovation in this report which will hopefully inspire you to your own breakthrough, radical and never-seen-before business vision.

Get your free ebook report now!

We're pleased to announce our new sister site, GetEntrepreneurial.com. Launched just weeks ago, GetEntrepreneurial.com helps the aspiring entrepreneur (you!) with small business advice, business tips and info, and entrepreneur resources and opportunities. Whether it is about creating a compelling business plan that investors simply cannot resist or putting together a cost-effective marketing campaign which reaches your target consumers or leveraging on technology to improve the bottom line, whatever help and info you need for your small business is all here at GetEntrepreneurial.com.

We hope that the new GetEntrepreneurial.com will be a useful resource for all our readers who troll CoolBusinessIdeas.com daily for new business ideas and inspiration. If you happen to find an amazing new business concept which simply blows your mind away, why not pick up the challenge, head over to GetEntrepreneurial.com, and learn how to start your own business right away?

It's time to leave the fears behind and bring out the entrepreneur in you!

Businessentrepreneur: Evans was suffering a stroke that day five years ago. It robbed him of his ability to walk and speak. But a device developed by a team of high school students now allows Evans, of Los Altos Hills, Calif., to use a laser pointer to do basic tasks with a turn of his head.

The “Laser Finger” was one of several student inventions on display from around the country Wednesday at MIT’s annual InvenTeams initiative. Among the other projects: a “fire grenade” that can suppress particularly dangerous blazes and an “A-Pod” that reminds Alzheimer’s patients to perform important tasks.

InvenTeams, which is part of the MIT Lemelson program to honor and encourage inventors, is not a competition, but a way to inspire a new generation of inventors, said the program’s executive director, Joshua Schuler.

Since the pilot program in 2002, the number of grants — which range as high as $10,000 — has grown from three to 20 projects this year.

“We’re trying to develop more technically creative young people and give them the confidence they can do this,” he said.

Teen Inventors Help Stroke Patients [Businessentrepreneur]