Jenny Craig’s Rancho Santa Fe, California Mansion For Sale: $9 Million !!!

Diet guru Jenny Craig is selling her Rancho Santa Fe, California home for $8,995,000 (because a flat $9 million would just be too much).

For a woman who made her millions off of portion control, there’s nothing small about her home.

Built in 1992, “The Villa” sits on over three acres of land and is a sprawling 10,029 square feet (making the price per square foot $897, if you were wondering). There are four bedrooms, four full bathrooms and three half baths in the main house. A private guest house has two bedrooms.

Exquisite details abound inside the home. The master bedroom suite includes a hand-painted mural on the ceiling and there is a similar mural inside Jenny’s personal bathroom (her husband opted for a mounted television in his).

Outdoor amenities include a heated resort pool and spa, a full tennis court and a 1500 square foot “pool pavilion”.

Jenny’s late husband, Mr. Sidney Craig, had a historical car collection, and while most of them were auctioned off (including vintage beauties once owned by Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra and Clark Gable) the property still has a  finished four car garage and car museum.

The home sits on a private bluff, and oversized windows throughout the home will afford the new owner breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean and surrounding landscape.

In addition, the backyard overlooks Rancho Paseana Farm, Craig’s 228-acre thoroughbred race horse training facility. Purchased by the horse lover in 1995, Jenny Craig listed it for sale for $29,950,000 late last spring.

According to The Real Estalker, “Rancho Santa Fe is consistently ranked among the top 3 or 4 most expensive zip codes in California and among the most expensive in all of the United States of America”.

The whole social networking phenomenon has millions of Americans sharing their photos, favorite songs and details about their class reunions on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and dozens of similar sites.  But there are a handful of personal details that you should never say if you don’t want criminals — cyber or otherwise — to rob you blind, according to Beth Givens, executive director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

The folks at Insure.com also say that ill-advised Facebook postings increasingly can get your insurance cancelled or cause you to pay dramatically more for everything from auto to life insurance coverage. By now almost everybody knows that those drunken party photos could cost you a job, too.

You can certainly enjoy networking and sharing photos, but you should know that sharing some information puts you at risk. What should you never say on Facebook, Twitter or any other social networking site?

• Your birth date and place. Sure, you can say what day you were born, but if you provide the year and where you were born too, you’ve just given identity thieves a key to stealing your financial life, said Givens. A study done by Carnegie Mellon showed that a date and place of birth could be used to predict most — and sometimes all — of the numbers in your Social Security number, she said.

• Vacation plans. There may be a better way to say “Rob me, please” than posting something along the lines of: “Count-down to Maui! Two days and Ritz Carlton, here we come!” on Twitter. But it’s hard to think of one. Post the photos on Facebook when you return, if you like. But don’t invite criminals in by telling them specifically when you’ll be gone.

• Home address. Do I have to elaborate? A study recently released by the Ponemon Institute found that users of Social Media sites were at greater risk of physical and identity theft because of the information they were sharing. Some 40% listed their home address on the sites; 65% didn’t even attempt to block out strangers with privacy settings. And 60% said they weren’t confident that their “friends” were really just people they know.

• Confessionals. You may hate your job; lie on your taxes; or be a recreational user of illicit drugs, but this is no place to confess. Employers commonly peruse social networking sites to determine who to hire — and, sometimes, who to fire. Need proof? In just the past few weeks, an emergency dispatcher was fired in Wisconsin for revealing drug use; a waitress got canned for complaining about customers and the Pittsburgh Pirate’s mascot was dumped for bashing the team on Facebook. One study done last year estimated that 8% of companies fired someone for “misuse” of social media.

• Password clues. If you’ve got online accounts, you’ve probably answered a dozen different security questions, telling your bank or brokerage firm your Mom’s maiden name; the church you were married in; or the name of your favorite song. Got that same stuff on the information page of your Facebook profile? You’re giving crooks an easy way to guess your passwords.

• Risky behaviors. You take your classic Camaro out for street racing, soar above the hills in a hang glider, or smoke like a chimney? Insurers are increasingly turning to the web to figure out whether their applicants and customers are putting their lives or property at risk, according to Insure.com. So far, there’s no efficient way to collect the data, so cancellations and rate hikes are rare. But the technology is fast evolving, according to a paper written byCelent, a financial services research and consulting firm.

In some instances, both private and public companies may issue shares to their own employees as part of a compensation program. This action is designed to motivate employees by tying a portion of their earnings to the company’s earnings.

In some cases, people may eventually want to sell their shares. For publicly traded shares, this process is simple: an employee can just sell the shares through a broker. Private shares, on the other hand, cannot be sold as easily. Because private shares represent a stake in a company that is not listed on any exchange, finding a buyer may be difficult. The lack of information about most private companies tends to dissuade investors, who are usually very reluctant to buy into a company that they know nothing about.

The simplest solution for selling private stocks is to approach the issuing company and to inquire about what other investors did to liquidate their stakes. Some private companies may have buyback programs, which allow investors to sell their shares back to the issuing company. Private companies may also be able to provide leads about current shareholders or new investors who have expressed interest in buying the company’s shares.  After an investor manages to find a buyer for the stocks, it is suggested that he or she visit a securities lawyer in order to finish off the paperwork because although private stocks are not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), all SEC regulations involving selling stocks must still be followed. Failure to comply with all relevant regulations may result in civil, administrative or even criminal penalties.

However technology has made this process much easier and legitimate. Sites such as SecondMarket and SharesPost offer online markets for these private securities. So if you want to buy Facebook, Twitter, CafePress or any other private company you will most likely find it on one of these two sites.

You can find plenty of arguments for and against outsourcing the management of your company’s social media initiatives. From ghosting your company’s blog entries, Facebook status updates and tweets to monitoring and mining platforms for inappropriate content and customer insight, some companies just find it easier to pass these responsibilities to a third-party provider.

Whether you outsource or manage everything in-house is up to you. But if your company is already outsourcing its social media work, or is considering doing so, take note of the following do’s and don’ts:

1. Do ask for references: The Internet has no shortage of self-proclaimed social media “gurus.” Make sure the individual or business has a solid track record with plenty of satisfied clients. Ask your potential social provider if you can contact any of his or her clients for their input. If they say no, keeping looking!

2. Don’t wing it: Develop a plan that includes two or more goals, and stick to it unless you have very good reasons to change course. Without goals in mind — and in writing — your efforts are likely to lack sufficient impact.

3. Do demand an editorial calendar: An editorial calendar establishes a plan of attack to optimize results and keep your content on a proactive rather than a reactive track. Be sure the calendar is flexible enough to add content when the need arises.

4. Do proof content: Personally review nearly everything prior to posting, not only for typos and other editorial errors, but to ensure the content is relevant, accurate and expressed in an appropriate tone. What may appear as a minor issue regarding how something is worded can have major repercussions if it’s open to misinterpretation. Your social media “expert” may be a trained and professional wordsmith, but it’s your business and nobody knows its nuances and politics better than you. Once you train them, you may find that proofing everything isn’t as necessary.

5. Do create and give your third-party provider key messages and talking points: Key messages and talking points are always based on your business’ short- and long-term goals. Whatever these may be, develop a related communication plan and make sure your third-party social media provider understands that everything they do on your behalf needs to be tied to your company’s business-aligned communication strategy.

6. Don’t allow your company to be held hostage: Create your own social media accounts, complete with a unique username and password for each account, to avoid being locked out of your own accounts. You need to remain in control of your blog, Facebook page, Twitter account and other accounts should any disagreements arise between you and your social media provider.

7. Do get everything in writing: Operating without a contract is risky business for you and whomever you hire. A written agreement not only lays out each party’s obligations but also establishes ownership of the assets being developed. Your online assets can be just as valuable and sometimes more valuable than your offline assets.

8. Don’t operate without analytics: Managing a social media campaign without metrics is like flying a jumbo jet without gauges. Detailed data and statistics provide you with the insight you need to make well-informed content decisions and determine whether what you’re doing is actually having the desired effect.

Laima Tazmin

Age 17, LAVT, New York City

When we first wrote about Laima Tazmin in 2004, as part of an article titled “25 Entrepreneurs We Love,” she was a high school freshman with her own website design company, LAVT, in New York City. Today, as Tazmin is finishing her last semester, her business continues to expand. Now it manages 20 ongoing projects, including designing banner ads starting at $1,000 each, for clients such as the producers of the movie Saw II and of Kanye West’s second album, Late Registration.

The company earned $25,000 in 2006, and Tazmin put that money toward paying family expenses while her mother struggled to find work. “It was overwhelming, but I managed,” says Tazmin. “The independence and maturity I learned helped my adult clients feel calm and comfortable.”

Tazmin hasn’t found it easy to make the transition from solo businessperson to manager. Lacking time for supervision and coaching, she has burned through 10 freelance designers. The problem is that, in addition to her company, she maintains a roster of high school activities. She’s a shooting guard on the basketball team (“I like scoring points–I’m not a passer,” she says) and works on the yearbook staff (“I get a little too control-ly,” she admits). Tazmin, who will attend Columbia University in the fall, is also working, predictably enough, on starting a second business. It will create Web portals for college towns.

Derin Coleman and Rayneshia Rodgers

Both age 17, Bling Buckles, Oakland, California

Derin Coleman and Rayneshia Rodgers have been friends since the seventh grade and business partners since 2004. Together, they run Bling Buckles, an Oakland, California, company that sells custom chrome belt buckles with white rhinestone lettering for $25 apiece. Bling grossed $2,075 during the last academic year, selling belts primarily at events sponsored by BUILD, a program in the Bay Area created to teach high school students in low-income school districts about entrepreneurship.

“They work great together,” says Curtis Below, an executive at GetActive Software, who serves as the company’s mentor. “Rayneshia is the more outgoing of the two, chatting up customers and constantly throwing out ideas. Derin is mature and does whatever needs to be done with a smile on his face.”

The partners, who are juniors at a charter school called Lionel Wilson College Preparatory Academy, were tested during their first holiday season in business, when Bling faced a big backlog of orders. “Derin and I were making buckles over Christmas vacation and on our lunch hours,” says Rodgers.

Just as the company is taking off, however, its future is in doubt. Rodgers and Coleman are applying to colleges far apart. In fact, in addition to launching and running a company, BUILD helps students prepare for the college board exams. Eight out of every 10 BUILD graduates have been the first members of their families to go to college.

Not that the passion for entrepreneurship is lost in the shuffle: “I like school, but running a business feels more real,” says Coleman. “Oh, I can learn how to make a million dollars? Okay, I’m listening.”

Omar Faruk

Age 18, BlueStream, New York City

Omar Faruk believes that social entrepreneurship can make the world a better place. He’s CEO of BlueStream, a Web management company that specializes in helping nonprofits with limited resources. The business grossed $40,000 in 2006 and earned Faruk the Youth Entrepreneur of the Year award given out by Ernst & Young and the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship. “Make a difference first, make the money later,” Faruk says.

In 1997, at age 9, Faruk immigrated with his family from Noakhali, Bangladesh–”The district that Gandhi visited,” he notes–to New York City. The family had been well off back home but ended up with eight people sharing a three-bedroom apartment inBrooklyn. By the time Faruk enrolled in high school, he was spending a lot of time online and learning the ins and outs of Web design. Three years ago, he started BlueStream to build websites at a cost of $200 and up for fledgling nonprofits. The idea was to marry his interest in social activism to his interest in technology. One of Faruk’s customers is Intertradingcorp.com, an organization that helps women in Guyana sell crafts on eBay. “Omar helped the idea to flower, and he makes the world of commerce so much fun,” says Avi Shiwnandan, Intertradingcorp.com’s founder.

In the meantime, Faruk is trying to bolster his grades in an effort to get into Babson College, where he hopes to study social entrepreneurship. Shiwnandan, for one, is not worried about Faruk’s prospects: “I have no doubt he will make a lot of money in his lifetime, even if it isn’t his main ambition.”

Jake Fisher and Weina Scott

Both age 17, Switchpod, Miami and Rochester, Minnesota

Only five years ago, two enterprising teens might have mowed lawns to earn spending money. Today they can start a company on the Web. That’s how it worked for the co-founders of Switchpod, Weina Scott and Jake Fisher. And, oh yeah, they live 1,440 miles apart–she’s in Miami, and he’s in Rochester, Minnesota.

The two met via a message board in June 2005, got to talking about podcasts, and started Switchpod within the month. Scott already had a Web design business, which she started at age 13. Fisher, for his part, says, “I wanted to get into a business at the beginning of some new technology bubble.”

Their basic podcasting package, which covers hosted space on their servers, costs as much as $30 a month, but they’ll give it for free to customers who take out an advertisement on their site. By the time Switchpod’s product had generated 800,000 downloads, a company named Wizzard Software came calling. The Pittsburgh-based business, which makes speech-recognition and text-to-speech technology, was looking to add podcasting to its product mix.

Wizzard Software CEO Chris Spencer, 37, remembers that it took him a while to realize that the students he was negotiating with were in high school rather than college. Odder still, Scott and Fisher met face-to-face for the first time at Spencer’s home in Fort Lauderdale, where their parents brought them to sign the paperwork transferring ownership of Switchpod to Wizzard in an all-stock transaction worth $200,000. The sale also provides the partners with annual salaries of $40,000 for a 20-hour work week. It acknowledges that their schoolwork comes before business.

Who in their right mind turns down something that’s free? You’re thinking, nobody. Right? Not so fast.

The answer depends on what is being offered for free. You may stand in line for a free iPad or maybe a free laptop, even if you already have one, you could gift it to someone. You may love using a site like Twitter free of charge, but you may be a little skeptical about a dating site that is free.

Small-business events are one of those things that should not be free.

Admittedly, I have a personal vendetta when a women in my office hosted a FREE lunch and networking event. 1000 invites went out, no RSVP but an assumption that at least 10-20 people would show up; yet not a single person came. She had space available for 60 people (in case someone showed up with a  fleet of friends). Imagine her disappointment, because she could have had the room set up to look smaller.

Needless to say, she will think twice before offering an event of any type again.

So why is it that people like free, except when it comes to events? Here are my four reasons.

1. “What’s The Catch?” Once you host a free event, people always ask themselves that question. They call up a friend and say, “The event’s free … but …” and they both spend some time envisioning the potential scheme. While you’re hosting a free event because you’re trying to gain some trust: Instead, you could end up with the opposite.

2. There is no sense of urgency. When did you last feel some urgency toward something that was offered for free? People appear less likely to register for free events and, when they do, the percentage of no-shows is higher than that of paid events. In one of its online discussions, a small-business event host from Biz Nik admits that the average no-show rate for free events was 20 percent compared with 1 percent to 2 percent for paid events.

3. Value is questioned. Most free items are offered so that a potential client gets to know you better. You want them to test the waters. While some people may appreciate this when it comes to informational products, they may not value this when they’re forced to give up time to sit at an event. Some may even start wondering whether something is wrong with you or your business because you’re willing give up your time for free.

4. Attendees may not be real prospects. Let’s face it, people will pay for what they deem important. People who only attend an event when it’s free usually will not pay for a coach, expert, consultant or advisor, either. Most of the time, this group is sure it can do better on its own. These people are there for one thing only — free information — leaving you with a headache and no hopes of ever earning their business.

Out of more than 700 industries, research firm IBISWorld has identified the six small-business types most likely to do best next year.

How will your industry do? Take a look at the top-performers report. It shows that with the recession ebbing, some industries will profit by helping consumers pull out of the downturn, while others are already building on recovery.

1. E-commerce and online auctions — The top performer with more than 11 percent projected revenue growth, e-commerce will simply keep gaining on brick-and-mortar retail next year. Is the downturn making us drive less and shop online more? Not clear, but America’s love for shopping with a click will not abate next year.

2. Real estate appraisal – With the housing markets firming up and fears about buying in a still-dropping market lessen, there’ll be more demand for appraisers. Still-low interest rates should help drive more home sales next year, helping appraisers see nearly 9 percent revenue growth.

3. Environmental consulting — New laws and growing consumer interest in going green will help environmental consultants see 7.5 percent revenue growth in 2011. I’ve been researching green supply-chain issues recently, and one driver is big retailers demanding green operating principles from their vendors — which in turn drives those vendors to look to their own suppliers for greener practices. Upshot: Lots of companies that need to cut their carbon output, and need experts to help them figure out how to do it cost-effectively.

4. Debt collection agencies — This has been a busy industry the past three years, and next year it should keep growing revenue — IBISWorld says more than 4 percent. The theory: as unemployment eases (finally!) and the housing market recovers, debtors will be able to pay back more of what they owe, improving margins for collection agencies.

5. Advertising agencies — Many companies are looking to jump on any hint of economic upswing, and are finally adding to their marketing budgets. The forecast is for 3.5 percent revenue growth. Expect agencies with a specialty in online and social-media advertising to take the lion’s share of the upswing.

6. Job training and career counseling — This one also mines the downturn, to the tune of 3.4 percent growth. Helping the unemployed retrain for new careers will still be big business next year.

The holidays are a time of hope and joy. They’re also a time when my email inbox fills with an avalanche of small-business predictions, best-practice tips, and success-strategy recommendations. Here’s a collection of some of the more interesting forecasts for small businesses in 2011:

1. Financial savvy: More companies will use direct deposit to save money and help the environment, according to the Pay It Green Survey 2010. Calculate how much you could save by switching to direct deposit with this calculator.

2. Venture capital and IPO markets: This year saw a big thaw in the public markets — the volume of IPOs more than doubled, PricewaterhouseCoopers reported. The value of fourth-quarter IPOs this year is more than we saw in the same period of 2007. This should translate into more venture capitalists seeing payouts…which means more venture capitalists with money to reinvest next year.

3. Leadership success skills: Humor will be a secret weapon of smart CEOs next year, says Francie Dalton, host of the new blog talk radio show Overcoming Business Nightmares. Enough with the gloom already!

4. Management: From Business Innovation for Dummies author Alex Hiam: Maybe while you’re on vacation in the next couple weeks, take time away from your business to think about it. Then: Implement something by mid-year.

5. Tax smarts: Companies that take advantage of tax breaks expiring this year will have more growth capital for 2011, notes Brandon Edwards, president of the Tax Credit Company.

6. Next-generation marketing: New high-tech methods of reaching customers will be hot next year, including smartphone-readable QR codes, says Melanie Attia, product manager for email-marketing firm Campaigner. If your business doesn’t have a Facebook fan page, she says, 2011 is the year to take the plunge.

7. Cloud, here I come: More small-business functions will be done on free, cloud-based platforms, predicts Bob Egan of research house The Sepharim Group (at least until you get too big and have to pay for an upgraded version).

8. IT spending: IDC forecasts you’ll spend more on IT next year. No, really: You will sleep now, and when you awake, you will realize your current computers and networks are hopelessly outdated.

9. Retail: Smaller stores will rule — that lower overhead will give sharp operators an edge.

10. New forecasting tools: My favorite is the Ceridian-UCLA Pulse of Commerce, a new index that tracks real-time consumption data in the form of information on trucking-shipment volume. Its most-recent report indicates we’re not out of the woods yet in terms of consumer-goods purchasing.

. Put it on a t-shirt, skateboard, or doggie sweater.

Since WikiLeaks hit the headlines, vendors have been uploading new Assange- and state-secrets-themed products daily to Zazzle.com, an e-commerce site based in San Jose, California. Products on the site, which is an open marketplace for designers and small businesses, range from the fairly traditional (buttons, T-shirts, sweatshirts) to the downright droll (dog sweaters, onesies, skateboards).

Among the 36 billion items for sale on Zazzle, those riffing on WikiLeaks are performing among the best. Michael Karns, the director of marketing for the site, says that there are at least 1,000 WikiLeaks products on the site, and they are selling fast.

“It’s just incredibly popular,” he says. And in a time when most search terms are typically reserved for Christmas-present ideas, Karns explains that WikiLeaks is giving the traditional vendors a run for their money. “Maybe people are giving WikiLeaks products as Christmas gifts.”

Most of the products online right now seem to be positive towards WikiLeaks, but from his experience, Karns notes that backlash can overtake an original trend before you can say “diplomatic cables.” Some sellers have begun to put the word “espionage” under Assange’s face in screen-printed designs, which Karns notes is becoming popular.

2. Create a rival, or just squat on e-real estate.

Domain names are 21st century real estate, says Warren Adelman, the president and chief operating officer of Go Daddy, an Arizona-based domain name service that ranked No. 8 on the 2004 Inc. 500.

It stands to reason, then, that WikiLeaks-related websites—some legitimate content hubs, some little more than an attempt to generate ad revenue from URL typos—have also been an inevitable product of recent media attention. “In the past few months, we’ve started seeing an increase in the number of domain names with the word ‘wiki’ and ‘leaks’ in them,” says Adelman. The site, which claims to register a domain name every second of every day is also hosting about 10 auctions right now for WikiLeaks-themed domains, with an average starting bid of around $5,000 each.

Jeremiah Johnston, the chief operating officer of Sedo, an open online marketplace provider for domain names with more than one million users worldwide, says his company has seen a similar spike in interest. More than 70 different WikiLeaks-themed domains have been tagged for sale on the site since the drama began to unfold, he says.

During any type of political or social event, entrepreneurs and opportunists rush to snatch up sites with urls relevant to the issue. “We always see a spike in activity,” Johnston says. Though many of these sites will probably never achieve long-term profitability, typos can be lucrative, at least in the short term.  For example, WikiLeaks.com—the actual site is a dot-org—is ranked at No. 1,370 in U.S. popularity, according to Alexa, a site that offers free website traffic metrics.

3. Build useful privacy apps.

Personal privacy topped the American political zeitgeist during the Bush-era War on Terror, and is right back there again thanks to WikiLeaks. Whisper Systems, a company founded by a developer who goes by the name Moxie Marlinspike, created two Android apps that premiered in late June, RedPhone 0.3 and TextSecure 0.5. The RedPhone application facilitates encrypted conversations between Android users. The TextSecure app offers dual-encrypted SMS messanging transmission. The apps are currently free for individuals to download and are fee-based for corporate licensing.

And after the leaking of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables, online stealth is en vogue. Applications such as VaporStream, an e-mail system that thoroughly erases notes after they are read. Other developers are creating open-source apps to transmit larger amounts of peer-to-peer personal data. Nadim Kobeissi, a student at Concordia University in Montreal, is the creator of Cryptbin, which is essentially a drop box with “state-of-the-art encryption,” he says. “The nice thing about Cryptbin is that you can host it yourself, you can check the code. It’s a tiny, tiny program that you can host on any Web server. Small groups can set up their own Cryptbin servers, [and] they can use the current Cryptbin server which is available online [that] allows anyone with very limited computer knowledge to share private information securely.”

Although the apps from both developers were created before the onslaught of mainstream media attention surrounding WikiLeaks, they do see an opening in the market for privacy related applications. “I think maybe WikiLeaks is part of a larger shift in consciousness. For instance, if you look five years ago, no one really talked about Google in the context of privacy, and now this is something that comes up again and again and again because people are beginning to realize just how much information is being collected and just how much is being monitored,” says Marlinspike.

4. Write all about it.

You didn’t think a prominent scandal would come to pass without a big book deal or two, did you? Less than a week after the arrest of Assange, Scribe Publications has acquired the rights to Inside WikiLeaks: My Time Inside the World’s Most Dangerous Website by Daniel Domscheit-Berg, a former Assange accomplice at WikiLeaks and founder of the just-launched rival whistleblower site OpenLeaks.org.

In addition, many writers are capitalizing on the bonanza by publishing their texts online as part of Amazon.com’s self-publishing program. For $9.90, one can download titles such as Julian Assange: The Whistleblower. Traitor or Hero? along with several other similarly named titles by Heinz Duthel.

The original book on Assange, Underground Tales of Hacking, Madness, and Obsession from the Electronic Frontier, by Suelette Dreyus, while currently being available as a free download, is selling for more than $250 on Amazon in its original paperback edition.

Like most entrepreneurs, I thought my “napkin” idea for PetsMD was perfect.

I had a sick dog one Sunday evening and needed some pet health information that I could trust and written so that I could understand it. What I found was everything from goofy blogs on random ailments to Web sites that I would have needed a science degree to understand. So my co-founder veterinarian Christi Scovel and I set out to create a pet health resource that all pet owners could understand and trust.

Being a complete novice to the Internet space and a first-time startup founder, I needed a little guidance.  Lucky for me I was accepted into Austin’s finest incubator program, the Capital Factory. After 10 weeks of intense mentorship, I was surprised to find that my business idea had changed completely: I went from being an information and content-focused company to a software business specializing in online veterinary appointment booking.

Never in a million years did I think I would run a software company and sell to this particular audience. It took time and money for me to understand that sticking to my guns and pushing against the natural evolution of the company was not the right way to go.

Knowing what your customers want

So why did my original idea suck? Well for starters, I had too many ideas on ways to monetize the site: First we were going to be about content and ads, then products, then subscriptions… and the list went on and on with no focus. Lesson learned, I needed to hone in on a real revenue generator. After meeting with my mentors, we narrowed our focus to one revenue model. As one mentor put it, ” you never have a shortage of ideas, just focus and execute on one!”

So armed with that direction, we set out to learn from our users and potential users exactly what they wanted to see us develop. After all, your idea still sucks at this point until you hear from people who are actually ready to pay you money for it. We set out to talk to 50 pet owners to find out exactly what their pain points are on a daily basis. After many a conversation with potential buyers, we created software that would solve their problems.

They wanted more than what we were offering — turns out they wanted us to both help them find the right product and to guide them to a veterinarian. Then we flipped the table and spoke to as many vets we could gather to find out their pain points. We had a match! They desperately needed a way to manage the front-desk chaos, reach new clients, retain existing clients, and measure their ad dollars.

The big pivot

We started this company with an advertising-based business model in mind. In a few short weeks, we completed transformed into a software-as-a-service, or SaaS, business model. Our customers changed from advertisers and pet owners to veterinarians who wanted appointment-booking software. We never thought we would end up where we are today, but most entrepreneurs say the exact same thing.

If we hadn’t received the direction that we did, we probably would have built the company like a spec house, based on everything wethought our customers wanted/needed. Finding out what people need and what they are willing to pay for first makes so much more sense — and it saves you a lot of time and money. Plus, it lets you approach potential investors with financials that are based on real figures, which they love to see.

A little piece of advice

I’m just going to say it, in case no one else is willing to say it for you: The idea in your head or scribbled on a napkin is probably crap. But go ahead and pursue it anyway. Your idea will change and it may at some point barely resemble the one that first gave you inspiration. That’s how you find out what you’re really about.

Companies evolve and your ideas will fail, but great companies leverage that failure into a successful concept -– and if they need to change strategies, they do it quickly. This is the real competitive advantage that a small start-up has over “the big guys.” If a company like Apple wants to change even the package their software comes in, it’s a logistical nightmare. A start-up is agile by definition, so use this to your advantage.

Be flexible with your ideas, and get new ones as often as you can from your users, your staff, and your friends. If you’re open to failing, then the process will reward you in the end.

There really is no instruction manual for starting up a company, but if all else fails, try a variation of the directions you see on the back of shampoo bottles: “Try. Fail. Repeat.”

Tina Cannon is the CEO and co-founder of PetsMD, a pet health website and veterinary software company dedicated to improving pet health. She has been a financial auditor, business consultant, a featured speaker and member of several boards.

The Wall Street Journalcontinues to beat the drum over the way people’s personal information is shared with advertising companies online. Today it claims Facebookbreached user privacy by allowing third party applications, like Zynga’s massively popular Farmville, to share sensitive user data with advertisers. Actually, most of the information highlighted in the story is already public record, and nothing Facebook did is any more reckless than what the Wall Street Journal does every day.

The Journal’s main scoop is that as many as 25 apps are sending advertisers user’s Facebook ID numbers.

“Facebook ID” number assigned to every user on the site. Since a Facebook user ID is a public part of any Facebook profile, anyone can use an ID number to look up a person’s name, using a standard Web browser, even if that person has set all of his or her Facebook information to be private. For other users, the Facebook ID reveals information they have set to share with “everyone,” including age, residence, occupation and photos.

These names and IDs are already available for every profile through a simple Google (GOOG) search. Just look up a person’s name, click on their profile photo, and write down the string of numbers in their URL. That’s their name and Facebook ID.

As Jeff Jarvis points out, The Wall Street Journal also shares its user’s information with third party advertising networks. And according to the WSJ’s Privacy Policy, “We’re not responsible for the privacy practices of web sites operated by third parties that are linked to or integrated with our sites or for the privacy practices of third party Internet advertising companies.”

The feeling among publishers and platforms like Facebook has always been that its better the customer doesn’t see how the sausage gets made. But as the WSJ’s ongoing series shows, even the mundane details of online advertising can be trumped up to sound like invasive snooping. Facebook would be well served to start educating their users to the mechanics of this industry so that the media’s ominous tone doesn’t dominate the conversation.

Burberry Group, the U.K.’s largest luxury company (think distinctive camel and black plaid on everything from cashmere scarves to umbrellas) has been beating the stuffing out of the recession, a time when many luxury brands saw customers turn from fashionista to frugalista overnight. London-basedBurberry’s still climbing, posting a second-quarter sales gain of 11.3 percent to £382 million, and charging ahead with global expansion plans and e-commerce improvements.

So how exactly is Burberry’s management tiptoeing through the tulips (stock has risen nearly 90 percent over the last 12 months) while others are slogging through the muck of inventory and declines in profits? Read on:

Strong Leadership

CEO Angela Ahrendts may not be British, or even possess a high fashion American pedigree. But the woman from a small town in Indiana did her time (30 years) in the retail trenches through Warnaco, Donna Karan (where she was president in the mid-1990s), and Liz Claiborne. She joined Burberry in 2006, just in time to commandeer the company through a radical brand makeover. The signature fabric was being widely reproduced illegally, and adopted by the likes of Britain’s troublemaking soccer fans, or “chavs,” and by B-list celebrities (who piled on the plaid for paparazzi photos).

Amid sweeping back-room changes, Ahrendts also ordered the iconic pattern struck from all but about 10 percent of the items Burberry produced.  Then, she wisely left the design vision in the capable hands of Christopher Bailey, chief creative officer, who’s successfully navigated the line between commercial appeal and covetable on-trend edginess. Bailey’s given plenty of leeway to experiment with the brand’s Prorsum collections, which are heavy on the fashion cred, however light on revenues.

Results so far: the brand has been restored to its former coveted glory.

Front End Investment

Back in 2005, Burberry implemented Project Atlas IT infrastructure redesign, a five-year plan to improve UK-based financial and non-stock procurement, production planning, manufacturing, and procurement systems. Atlas also took aim at retail sales and inventory with the installation of a tactical software solution.

It wasn’t cheap. In 2007 Burberry took a £21.6 million hit, nearly double the £11.1 million spend reported in 2006. But in addition to future savings and considerable rise in profits, Atlas improved Burberry’s supplier management, product development processes, and gave the company a nimble platform to respond to market changes.

Results so far: costs cut by sourcing many materials from Europe rather than China; a capsule collection that went from drawing board to shopper’s backs in just three months; and a quantum leap forward in e-commerce by broadcasting the Fall/Winter womenswear show to five locations –- New York, Paris, Dubai, Tokyo and LA — complete with 3D glasses. Burberry’s CFO Stacey Cartwright toldWWD that the second quarter sales gains “were high-quality sales — from main line stores rather than outlets — and there were fewer markdowns than in the past. And our goal in the period was to drive margins rather than comparative sales.”

Quick-Cut Losses

Burberry also took a hit last year on writedowns of its Spanish stores. Though closing its Spanish design facility, cutting jobs, and adding higher-margin products to drive profit will still result in a loss of push the division to a loss of £10 million this year, the unit is expected to turn a “modest profit” by fiscal 2012.

Aggressive Global Expansion

Like other savvy manufacturers and retailers of apparel, accessories and luxury goods who anticipated the growth of the Chinese middle class market, estimated at 157 million people, Burberry just completed a buy-back of its Chinese franchises. The £70 million dealgives Burberry direct control of its 50 stores on the mainland and is projected to add up to £20m to operating profits in 2011.

Ahrendts’ total capital spending plan is going to increase by 86 percent this year. 20 to 30 stores are set to open in the Americas and other Asia-Pacific regions; some stores will be renovated, too.

Early results: Retail and wholesale revenues rose by 8 per cent to £159 million in the Americas but sales in that region where overtaken by trading in Asia Pacific, where revenues jumped by 31 per cent to £175 million.

You could say Burberry’s has turned that iconic plaid into a magic carpet to the land of profitability. Let’s hope the 154-year old company can hang on for the adventure ahead.

You’re working three times as hard as you ever did, covering for all your laid-off colleagues and doing everything you can to be indispensable. Every night you tell your spouse that they don’t pay you nearly enough for this much work. And lately, well, you’ve actually begun to believe it.

But how do you know for sure how your salary stacks up to that of others doing half the work? Online salary survey sites? Too often they’re too broad or too limited in their sample size to be of much use. Ultimately, the best way to know what you should be paid is to find out what the market is right now for your job — in other words, what others earn for doing the same job. Fine, you say, but how do you get your peers to spill their salary, information that most people guard more closely than their sex lives? Wheedling salary information out of people may not feel like the most dignified thing to do in the world, but sometimes it’s information you just have to have.

Getting the Word From Current Colleagues

What your co-workers make is obviously the best guide to what your employer sees as fair value for your human capital. But this information is also the hardest to get. Most people are shy about revealing their income, and they’re most reluctant to share this information with current colleagues. Likewise, employers aren’t wild about having their workers bare their financial linens to each other, partly out of fear that people will do just what you’re planning to do — use the information to squeeze a raise out of them. Some companies even have policies against employees sharing their pay rates.

Still, if you can bring yourself to ask for private information — and there’s no risk your colleague can actually lose their job for divulging — the best strategy is to be honest about what you’re looking for and volunteer your own salary information first. “Honesty begets honesty,” says Angela Kay Larson, a career coach and president of Act2 Strategists in Rockford, Illinois. “Tell them, ‘I’m not sure my salary reflects market value, so I’m checking with colleagues to find out what the current salary range is in our field. Would you be willing to talk about your compensation?’” Assure them that you’ll keep the information confidential, and then if they’re willing, start by giving them a range for where your base pay falls and asking them how it compares with theirs, advises Larson.

One particularly effective strategy in all these discussions is not to put too much pressure on the other person to give you their information. Let them know that if they aren’t comfortable talking about salary, that’s fine. “Once you offer people a way off the hook, they are often much more open and may even suggest others you can speak with,” says Nancy Fox, founder of Fox Coaching in Mamaroneck, New York.

Remember to take your colleagues’ answers with a grain of salt, though. They may not want anyone to know they are making as much — or as little — as they are, and may simply lie. “In this market people are extremely gun shy about revealing information,” says Fox.

Baring All to Former Colleagues

The people you used to work with can be a very good source of information. Discussing salary is often less personal and less competitive when it’s with someone you don’t work with directly. But unless you know the person really well, you can’t just call up a former cubicle-mate and ask, “What do you make now?” One strategy is to approach ex-colleagues as though you’re looking for an informational interview or a mentorship. “If it’s someone who has moved higher up in their organization, you can ask them for some mentoring,” says Fox. “Tell them you’re considering making some career changes and need information to help you position yourself. Then ask what guidance they could provide to you about the salary range appropriate for your level in a company of your size.”

If you’re asking an ex-colleague who has made a lateral move to another company, you have another delicate situation. “Let your former colleague know you respect their opinion and are looking for some advice about what you should expect in terms of your salary range,” says Fox. That way, you’re asking for their advice, not their salary. The key is keeping the conversation as informal as possible, says Lee E. Miller, a career consultant in Morristown, New Jersey, and author of Get More Money on Your Next Job In Any Economy. “You could ask, ‘What would a good structural engineer at this level make at your company?’” Miller says. “Even if you’re talking to someone who is actually in that position, you are asking what someone else might earn, not what they themselves are earning.”

Peers at Similar Companies

People in your job at competing companies might also be willing to discuss salary with you, particularly if you have a personal connection. So canvas your network, online and off, about who they know at other companies and could recommend you to. College alumni associations are a good way to identify peers and create a situation where they’d feel comfortable speaking with you.

When you do call, Eric Hosken, a partner with Executive Compensation Advisors in New York City, advises volunteering your own salary information first. “Then say, ‘Does that sound competitive with what you’re making or your company offers?’ Without giving away their salary, the person you’ve called can say, ‘That sounds way under,’ or ‘That’s a little high,’” he says.

Another excellent source of salary information is someone at a similar company who manages people at your level. A former boss with whom you got along well or a former colleague who has been promoted would be good people to try, says Fox.

Getting Help From Executive Recruiters

Few know more about what your job should pay than recruiters, who are often involved in structuring compensation for their corporate clients and have firsthand data about current salaries. The best way to get them to discuss salary info with you is to establish ongoing relationships with a few who specialize in your function, not just your job title or industry.

Schedule an appointment with each recruiter to discuss your credentials and overall career plans. That will enable you to tap them more than once for information about salary and compensation, says Patrick Sylvester, CEO of executive search firm Banister International, in Philadelphia. You don’t have to be actively looking for a job at that moment as long as there is some quid pro quo, he says. “Tell the recruiter that if a job isn’t right for you, you will refer them to other, well-qualified candidates. That makes it a two-sided relationship.”

Indeed, give and take is often the key to mastering these delicate discussions. It’s never comfortable trying to get information out of people who don’t want to give it. But keep telling yourself that all you are tying to do is establish your fair market value. After all, no one has as deep an interest as you in making sure you get paid what you’re worth. But you have every right to know.

I’m often critical of the folderol of modern marketing, like strategy, branding, and qualitative “research.”  However, I DO believe that marketing can play an important role in making a company more effective.  Here are three down-to-earth ideas, that virtually any marketing group can implement, which are highly useful in keeping a firm competitive:

IDEA #1: Research who’s buying but not considering your firm.

Many companies examine situations where they’ve won in order to replicate success. Some companies also examine situations where they’ve lost, so that they know what to avoid in the future. A very few companies even examine situations where no decision was made, so that they can avoid the unnecessary sales expense inherent in chasing phantom deals. However, if you really want to grow your business, examine the cases where companies did a deal with your competitors and your company wasn’t even considered for the business. That’s the best way to uncover the real weaknesses of your marketing and sales efforts.

IDEA #2. Refocus your efforts on reducing the cost of sales.

Everyone talks about aligning sales and marketing, but that’s only a means to an end. If the marketing group is wasting time on airy-fairy, pie-in-the-sky strategy, aligning sales is only going to make it MORE difficult to get customers on board.  On the other hand, if you refocus market on reducing the cost of sales and increase the effectiveness of the sales process, the alignment works the right way — with the Sales team taking the lead.  Hint: Make sure marketing is goaled and compensated on its ability to make the sales team more effective – in a way that the CEO can easily measure.

IDEA #3: Cross-pollinate your sales and marketing groups.

Selling is like sex.  Until you’ve done it a few times, your advice on the subject is worse than useless.  Similarly, most marketing professionals can’t possibly  help sales reps to sell unless they’ve learned how to sell themselves.  The reverse is also true, to a limited degree.  Sales professionals can’t make effective use of marketing campaigns, or give appropriate feedback to make them better, unless they’ve worked inside a marketing environment. Therefore, if you want your sales and marketing teams to work together, make sure that every sales person has a stint in marketing and vice versa.

The above is based upon a conversation with Jim Dickie, a managing partner at CSO Insights, a company that studies sales trends and sales effectiveness.

The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that housing starts surged in September to a 610,000 unit rate, its highest rate since April, and on the heels of the best builder confidence numbers in four months. New building permits, however, dipped by almost 6 percent, which isn’t exactly encouraging for starts going forward. What do these statistics reveal about the state of the housing market? Diane Swonk gives us her take.

–Nelson Wang

Still A Long Road Ahead

The level of housing activity remains extremely low, given how far we are into the expansion. We have a long way to go just to restore starts to a level consistent with household formation, let alone tap the pent-up demand that is building due to record low rates and an exceedingly high level of affordability. In some areas, rents are now exceeding marginal ownership costs, which usually means that ownership is preferable to renting. Buyers are finding, however, that they are unable to meet the higher hurdles to getting a mortgage that are being erected in what is still a very uncertain environment.

Impact of Foreclosure Mess

The recent troubles with foreclosures only further complicates the situation, as it is making banks even more hesitant to underwrite new mortgages. The risk is that we see another setback in housing before the year is over if the foreclosure situation is not resolved quickly.

The Fed’s Strategy

The rebound in starts is encouraging and critical if we hope to see a re-acceleration in growth. It is even more critical to the outlook for employment, as construction been among the hardest hit sectors by the crisis. The road ahead remains rocky, and without a lot of sign posts to guide us. Hope that the Fed has some impact with the efforts to ease further in November. The fact that other central banks are joining them may help to magnify the positive effects associated with additional easing, even if they are small.

Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial, talks to CBS MoneyWatch twice a week about the day’s top economic news and developments. Her responses are edited for clarity and length.

he U.S. is mired in an economic doldrums of its own creation. Weighed down by the excessive debt run up relying on the financial and housing industries to provide jobs and create wealth, the country desperately needs a new engine to the economy. How about agriculture?

So far, American manufacturing has had a hard time coming back on line. No matter how cheap the dollar gets, wages in the US are still far too high compared to countries like China, Brazil and India. And when it comes to and advantage in manufacturing technology, something emerging economies truly need, Germany has been more focused on that.

Something has to come along that will allow us to earn more than we spend if we’re ever going to pay off all of those trillions in debt. But what? A new technology like clean tech? Maybe but it’s going to take years, if not decades before we see a meaningful industry there. Besides, the Chinese already eating our lunch in solar, and there are precious few incentives to develop a domestic alternative energy industry.

This week there was a brief flash of hopefulness that should remind us all of America’s basic strength. Before the rise of American industry, the continental nation was a powerful agricultural exporter. Tobacco, cotton, grain and rice were once the building blocks of wealth in the U.S.

On Monday, futures contracts for corn and soybeans jumped 5% and 2% respectively in a single day, according to the Wall Street Journal, which went on to add these observations:

“The farm economy is coming out of the recession far faster than the general economy,” said Don Carson, a senior analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group, New York. Overall, the USDA projects net farm income to climb 24% this year to $77.1 billion, the fourth highest ever. In September, farmers were being paid 62% more for hogs than a year earlier, and 32% more for milk.

Those kinds of jumps have helped Cargill, America’s largest private company and a centerpiece of the agricultural commodities industry, to post huge gains in profits, according to Agrimoney.com:

The group, the world’s largest farm commodities trader, said that earnings in the June-to-August quarter surged 68% to $883m. Revenues were 6% higher at $27.8bn.

While the performance was boosted in part by the contribution from Mosaic, the fertilizer giant of which Cargill owns more than 60%, the Minneapolis-based company also highlighted a “resurgence” at its commodity trading and processing operations prompted by the jump in crop market volatility.

Mosaic’s role in Cargill’s success is a reminder of the importance of fertilizer to agribusiness. That’s what is driving the takeover battle for Canadian fertilizer giant, Potash Corporation (POT). After a $38 billion offer from Australian mining concern BHP Billiton put the company in play, there are now fears that China will make a bigger bid for the company and divert production from the open market toward its own needs.

We haven’t had this kind of fight with the Chinese since they tried to buy Unocal a few years ago. That almost puts agriculture in the same league as the mother of all industrial bastions, the oil business.

Whatever the geopolitical ramifications of agriculture’s rise, there’s an economic upshot to all this fighting over fertilizer. More and more investors are looking toward agriculture as a way to earn solid returns. Former venture capitalist Paul Kedrosky reported earlier this month on a massive $130-170 million deal for farmland made by the Lawrence Group, the secretive Missouri family that has interests in banking and HVAC distribution. They see a strong future in farming even while others have been bailing out.

The Lawrences have been making a decade-long push into agriculture buying up Florida citrus groves to become one of the top producers in the state. They even made a big bid on US Sugar before losing to the State of Florida which wanted the land to reclaim the Everglades. The Lawrences were looking to add these holdings to substantial farming interests in Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and Mississippi where they grow cotton, soybeans, rice, wheat and corn.

Add it all up, as The Palm Beach Post has, and that puts the Lawrence Group firmly within the realm of billion-dollar operations. No one thinks of the next Warren Buffett coming out of the farm belt, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

Just ponder a few of these numbers put together by The New York Times:

The estimates show that American farmers will ship $107.5 billion in agricultural products abroad in the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. That is the second-highest amount ever, behind the record $115.3 billion in exports logged in 2008, when commodity prices soared as the global demand for agricultural products was helped by fast-growing economies in the developing world. Next year, exports are expected to total $113 billion. [...] Total net farm cash income for the current calendar year was estimated at $85 billion, a 23 percent increase from last year and well above the 10-year average of $72 billion.

That $85 billion sounds like a lot. But agriculture prices — and exports — are going to have jump a lot higher before we can count on farmers to earn us a way out of our debt overhang. Is that likely to happen? Probably not. But there are some smart folks like Jim Rogers who have been predicting this as a long-term trend.

And there’s evidence that he’s not so far off in predicting food shortages in the future that could drive much higher food prices. Such increases would make these numbers from the WSJ look tame indeed:

The USDA estimates farm exports climbed 11% during the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, to $107.5 billion, and forecasts a further 5% rise in the new fiscal year.

The Federal Communications Commission calls it “bill shock”: the moment when you get your monthly cell phone bill and, gasp, it’s far more than you thought you had to pay based on the monthly plan. One in six of us has experienced this, according to theFCC’s survey, and much of it is due to overage or roaming charges.

Here are five ways to keep bill shock to a minimum – and actually save some money:

1. Call Customer Service

Call and ask for a better deal. It costs the companies far less to negotiate with you than to lose you as a customer all together. So cell phone companies have customer retention departments for the purpose of offering you perks, deals and discounts to keep you happy. Mention competitors’ deals and that you’ve been a longtime customer.

2. Monitor Usage

While the FCC is pushing to force cell phone companies to alert us before we exceed our monthly minutes, it’s still our responsibility to pay close attention. Otherwise, going over the allotted minutes in your cell plan can cost anywhere from 40 to 50 cents per minute. Reach out to your cell provider to get alerts either via text or by dialing (both free). Verizon users, for example, can call #MIN and get an update via text message. There are also a growing number of free iPhone apps for AT&T customers – like Cell Minute Tracker and OverMyMinutes – that help you track usage and monitor your monthly bill.

3. Try Friends & Family Plans

The term “friends and family” can include anyone you know – it could be a roommate, a boyfriend, girlfriend, or even an upstairs neighbor. If there’s someone you want to pair up with to qualify for the friends and family rate, the savings could be worth it. Just make sure it’s someone you trust: One of you will be on the hook for the entire bill. (You can try to get the bill split up, but the policy varies carrier.) What’s the payoff? At T-Mobile, an $60-per-month personal plan drops to $50 when you add another line: a $120 annual savings. Verizon and T-Mobile, meanwhile, have plans that let you add up to five phone numbers that you can connect to free of charge – regardless of the other person’s carrier, and even if it’s a land line.

4. Use In-Network or Mobile-to-Mobile Minutes

In a similar vein: Ask the people you talk with most who their providers are. If several of them share your carrier - be it AT&T, T-Mobile orVerizon – you could get free calls to them if you sign up for an “in-network” minutes plan. This can help avoid running over your minutes each month.

5. Go Prepaid

Pay-as-you-go phones typically cost 10 cents per minute plus a small daily access fee – say, $1 each day the phone is used. It’s like a cell phone with training wheels – and a smart option if you’re on a tight budget, or for parents who want to control their kids’ cell phone usage. Just make sure whatever plan you choose allows you to rollover any minutes you don’t use to the next month.

Apple opens up, releases App Store Review Guidelines

I

n addition to relaxing restrictions on app development for its mobile operating system, Apple also announced today that it would publish its App Store Review Guidelines so that developers know what goes into reviewing their apps. We’ve embedded the guidelines below in PDF form, along with some highlights.

In the introduction to the guidelines, Apple makes it clear how it views app curation: “If you want to criticize a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or a song, or create a medical app.” The company says it views apps differently than books or songs, which it doesn’t curate.

Apple’s generic guidelines in the introduction aren’t entirely surprising. Some gems include:

• “We have lots of kids downloading lots of apps, and parental controls don’t work unless the parents set them up (many don’t). So know that we’re keeping an eye out for the kids.”
• “We have over 250,000 apps in the App Store. We don’t need any more Fart apps. If your app doesn’t do something useful or provide some form of lasting entertainment, it may not be accepted.” [Emphasis mine]
• “We will reject Apps for any content or behavior that we believe is over the line. What line, you ask? Well, as a Supreme Court Justice once said, “I’ll know it when I see it”. And we think that you will also know it when you cross it.”
• READ THE REST AT   http://venturebeat.com/2010/09/09/apple-opens-up-releases-app-store-review-guidelines/

Youth is great for many things and one of those can, and should be risk and adventure. Most mega successful business ventures spawn from stupidity, lack of planning and sheer will to succeed.

Here’s how four ultra-successful twentysomethings leveraged their brilliant ideas into major businesses online. And how you can, too.

Out of Her Closet, a $50 Million Business
Susan Gregg was 17 and heading off to Carnegie Mellon University, and she had a problem: a closet overstuffed with one-of-a-kind vintage shoes and dresses. The solution? Open an online boutique.

ModCloth.com was headquartered in her dorm room and run with the help of her high school sweetheart, Eric Koger. The two drove from Pittsburgh to their South Florida hometown several times throughout college to haul up stock. By the end of their senior year in 2006, ModCloth was getting 60,000 visitors a month, and plenty of them were asking for more.

Gregg–a double major in German and business, and now married to Koger–knew what to do. First, she raised the capital: $50,000 in credit card debt, plus loans from Koger’s uncles, student loans and a second mortgage. Then she hired designers to create an original, vintage-inspired collection. “I Googled, ‘Where can I buy wholesale clothing?’” Gregg-Koger recalls. She found the Magic Trade Show in Las Vegas, wandered the booths, asked questions and found her designers.

These days, as co-founder and chief creative officer, Gregg-Koger, 25, still handpicks all the clothes, shoes and accessories featured on the site (most sell for less than $100) and seeks out designers who fit ModCloth’s aesthetic. Koger, the CEO, oversees the technical side. The site gets around 2 million visitors every month and is on track to surpass $50 million in sales this year. They’ve raised $20 million in new funding to open up offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles this summer, and employee numbers are close to 150, and rising.

Gregg-Koger says ModCloth’s biggest advantage is the fact that she is ModCloth’s ideal customer: “Other companies might say, ‘We need to get on this social networking stuff,’ whereas it was intuitive for us. If I have a Facebook account, and my friends do, my business should.”

ModCloth’s future is “social commerce,” she adds. That is, in developing a site that involves customers even if they’re not actually buying. ModCloth recently introduced a “Be the Buyer” program, which lets customers choose which styles go into production, and a “Name It and Win It” contest. The idea is to leverage crowdsourcing and encourage customers to share and comment–and get excited about clothes that will be available in a few months.

“But that’s like version 0.5,” she says. “There’s a lot more coming.” –Jennifer Wang

View the remaining three at http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/217183

First came the Wall Street Journal’s July 12 article, “Small Investors Flee Stocks, Changing Market Dynamics.” Last weekend, the New York Times tagged along with the articl, “In Striking Shift, Small Investors Flee Stock Market.”

That’s the new cool thing to do today, proclaim the death of the individual stock investor. Both articles cite the same data and come to the same conclusion: The average investor has had it and is throwing in the towel after years of poor returns.

But I ain’t buying what they are selling!
These articles are fun reads that attracted tons of attention. But both are also misleading to the point of possibly being entirely wrong, thanks to a clever journalism tactic of citing one breezy fact followed by layers of emotion-laced anecdotal personal stories to solidify the arguments.

The foundation of both articles is mutual-fund flow data from the Investment Company Institute (ICI), which shows investors recently pulling money out of stock market mutual funds, while demand for bonds explodes. Thus, they conclude, stock investors are abandoning ship.

But all this data shows is that investors are fleeing stock mutual funds. Neither article attempts to address the truism that mutual funds have lost sway over the years as other low-cost investment vehicles, particularly ETFs, have taken their place.

Coincidentally, ICI also tracks ETF assets. And guess what? From February 2009 to June 2010, during which time investors pulled $9 billion out of stock market mutual funds, stock market ETF assets increased by more than $250 billion. Some of this reflects capital appreciation and not new money flows. But even during periods when the market went nowhere — October 2009 through June 2010 — stock market mutual funds outflows of $4 billion were dwarfed by stock market ETF assets increasing by $51 billion.

There’s a good chance, therefore, that plenty of the money fleeing stock market mutual funds and terrorizing the media is simply moving into stock market ETFs. This isn’t surprising: Many ETFs achieve everything a mutual fund can for a fraction of the cost. Who wouldn’t want to exchange a mutual fund charging 1.5% for an identical ETF that charges nearly nothing? Outflows from stock mutual funds might not signal the death of the stock investor as much as they do the death of the mutual fund.

But that poses another question: If stock assets haven’t been whittled away, then where is the torrent of cash flowing into bonds coming from? The answer might again be found in ICI’s data, which shows investors have pulled over $1 trillion out of money market funds since early 2009. Hungry for yield in a zero-interest rate environment, that’s not surprising either.

Ready for the next round
Individual investors’ confidence in the stock market has surely been trampled senseless, but assuming their demise seems overstated. Consider E*TRADE Financial‘s year-over-year quarterly results: Number of brokerage accounts? Up. Total assets? Up. Margin debt? Way up. Hardly what you’d expect from a dying crowd.

At the same time, it’s well documented that bonds are currently encircled by insatiable, almost psychotic, demand, while the appetite and valuation outlook for stocks is relatively muted.

What this all shows, I think, are individual stock investors who have not given up on stocks, but are hanging on while expecting much less out of them. Any way you spin it, that’s a positive development. It shows rationality making a comeback; it shows bubbles being burst; and, most importantly, it has made stock picking about as lucrative as it’s been in years.

I’m not sure why anyone with more than a short time horizon would prefer Treasury debt to any of these companies. More than that, I’m confident there are plenty of individual investors (like you!) ready and able to exploit these opportunities.

Your death, in other words, has been grossly exaggerated.

So much for the new era of the frugal. Consumers usually save during a great recession but for the past few months they have started to reopen their wallets and swipe those credit cards. Albeit this has not been fast but none the less the money is flowing.

Analyst keep an eye on the discretionary companies, which are companies that make products consumers don’t actually need (not the toilet paper company lol). This can be everything from the hot new brand flooding the highschools to the odd stuff like like a company that makes cell phone covers.

Never hurts to keep an eye on the silly stuff because you never know when you will find the stock to make back all you lost during the recession.

Some to keep an eye on (that you have heard of) Carnival Cruiselines (Ticker: CCL), Dress Barn (Ticker: DBRN), and Home Depot (HD). I also, and will always like Harley Davidson Motorcycles (Ticker; HOG).

How can pets influence our emotional and physical health? Let’s use dogs as an example, regarding mental health and focusing on the condition of depression.

I guarantee, except in rare cases, that raising a dog the right way will decrease feelings of loneliness, being unwanted, useless and the self-absorbed daze that often takes over. I’m not advocating a puppy over Prozac. However, when you have a dog cuddling up against you and trying to lick your face, it’s a lot harder to be down.

I know people who are over-the-top about pets – I’m not one of them. However, as a practicing psychotherapist, I realize the therapeutic value of having an animal.

The statistics are convincing. People suffering from heart problems, hypertension, strokes, different types of dementia and certainly psychological illness, can measurably benefit from being able to touch a dog, cat and other two- and four-legged boarders. What is it that makes this work for so many folks?

First, let’s talk about touch. While it may be preferable and more practical to exchange touching with a spouse or other family member, the effects of touching a loving animal can be a major positive.

If you’ve ever seen the chemistry between a nursing home patient and a dog or cat that nuzzles up and cuddles with him or her, the response is often immediate and positive.

Having a pet may also cause you to feel needed. In fact, it makes many of us feel really good – being unconditionally loved and appreciated.

Dogs need exercise and so do people, in order to feel good and be physically healthier. Dogs need socialization. So do most of us, if we’re going to feel whole and non-neurotic.

Like all relationships, owning a pet comes with responsibilities. It can be time-consuming and occasionally hard work. As a dog owner, I’m aware that in tough financial times, caring for even a healthy pet can be expensive, with just vet and food bills alone.

Keeping pets can also be restrictive – what to do when you want to travel for extended periods of time. Both cost and care can become issues.

Although some dogs seem to display affection even when they’re mistreated, a mutually affectionate, caring relationship is the way to go. With proper training, (they are not humans) which takes practice and knowledge, the pet and owner do better together.

Let me also mention the value of humor that comes with having “Fido.” If you’ve ever been to a dog park and watched their social play in small canine groups, you understand the smile it creates as it makes your day brighter.

From my point of view, the major problem with emotional and physical disorders is the resulting inability to function normally. I’m not saying that dogs can tell when you’re lazy or crazy, but rather that they help normalize many of us.

They often provide a connection with caring and positive thinking, which, in turn, makes us feel better. Incidentally, trained dogs have been used in therapy with young children with great success.

Bob Howat is a licensed marriage and family therapist who lives and practices in Fernandina Beach.

When the economy and the job market got tough the smart got – smarter.

While Americans face an unrelenting battle of lost jobs, reduced wages, and eroded retirement saving many, are returning to schools. Americans of all ages are hitting the books to be educated, re-educated or purse graduate degrees in the hope of better positioning themselves in the job market. Finding a job, even with exceptional experience, has become a bloodsport almost resembling Gladiators in the coliseum.

The problem is, with everyone returning to school to become “better positioned” they join the masses and become the new educated group of specialized people who still can not find a job.

The key to success is simple, gain experience, education and diversify your skills as professional – avoid the pitfalls of being a one hit wonder.

App-ortunities are everywhere!

Technology has provided great advancement, yet it has made our lives so full of information yet we get overloaded. We should take this technological opportunity and use it to our advantage. This idea hit me months back while using my iPhone to watch and listen to an accounting presentation for one of my MBA courses while in route to the beach. Even now I write this from my iPhone in an empty waiting room at my local auto center. I’m using this App-ortunity to share how technology has for me, and can for you, change your life.

Whether you need to work but also need to take you dog to he vet, or the long subway/train commute to work acts as your “email break” prior to starting your day. The possibilities for improved function and life freedom via technology is near endless.

Some of you must be thinking I am paid by Apple for all the promotion I do regarding their stock and my love for the iPhone. The truth is, this company and product ROCK!

Here are some examples of how I worked efficiently with my iPhone:

- Wrote a graduate level paper in the car on a roadtrip.
- Reviewed exam material while walking to class.
- Work on financials for a clients business plan while at a friends house pre-gaming*. (*note: this may cause drunk f(x) in Excel….LOL)
- Check emails and reply while walking the dog
- The list goes on and on…

Warning! This does not mean work all the time; it means work smart so you can be efficient in your work life and benefit in your home life.

Micro-business is well know as a charitable method of helping impoversed countries build and develop their economy. Most people who own a small business in the United States are wrapped up in it 100% of the time. With a major group of the baby boomers exiting the full-time workforce they are looking for hobbies that bring in extra money.

An example would be an artist by heart and a teacher by trade who retires and dives into his passion to full-force. He soon finds his hobby has developed into a Baby-Business or micro-business that brings in some money yet never feels like work.

Not to condone tax evasion but many of these baby-businesses can avoid the incorporation mess and “business” feel by simply being paid by check or cash without all the headaches.

Checkout this website for more useful information: http://www.microbusinessnewsbriefs.com/

Dear parents other old people,

Facebook is an amazing social tool utilized by students and younger adults to communicate and stay up to date on what their peers are doing throughout the day. Though we added you as friends on Facebook you need to understand there is a social network etiquette that needs to be followed. Please use the following list as a Guide to Better Facebook Etiquette.

FACEBOOK – PARENTAL GUIDELINES:

1.  If a message is urgent, CALL ME! Facebook is not intended as an online 911.

2.  If a message is private, personal or otherwise not intended for the world to see email me or send a private message. Facebook Walls are, sadly, the same as the bathroom wall – put your marker away.

3.  Comments on photos, status updates and others replies are intended for me or between us. Leave parental remarks out of your messages please.

4.  Many of our Facebook friends are just friends we know through someone else or over the years and do not talk to daily. Just because they are my “friend” does not mean you need to add them as your friend.

5.  Avoid using names unless you are completely sure. This is a new age of dating and relationships saying “Hope you and Sarah had a great weekend.” It’s not ok when I was out of town with Megan.

Note: We can delete you, block you, or add you to the “Black List” which will limit your ability to share in our wonderful Facebook experience. Please comply with the above guidelines.

Thank you

President Obama has marked $30 Billion for small business lending.

The concern on the street is banks and lenders holding this money too close to the chest or lending to their own subsidiaries instead of lending to the Mom-&-Pop business that are needed to create local jobs and boost the economy. Read more on the by USA Today at http://tinyurl.com/y9ys8w2

Is the old notion of getting married, opening joint bank accounts and moving all your money and investments nearly over? It should have been over a long time ago!

Too many couples face the problem, sooner or later, who is in charge of whos money? Whether one person spends more, or someone is better at financial management than the other there is always a problem over money concerns. A friend of mine got married and immediatly had to put everything he had into a joint account with his wife. This was forced on him by his family and by hers. On one hand I understand the seriousness of marriage and how it is the joining of two people both spritually and legally. On the other hand it is not 1832 anymore and people get divorced more then they stay together.

Personal safety is a must in todays worlds of on again and off again relationships and marriages. Making sure your future and family are cared for is not selfish, it’s smart. Keeping a safety net of funds in another bank or investment is not bad and you can even have it automatically turned over to your spouse in the chance you die or become unable to care for yourself. The truth is, in marriage, family and business you are only as strong as the weakest link. Couples can hid from the truth or focus their abilities on strengths.

Divided-Diversification is a term I coined meaning – diversified joint funds in a seperate location and management. If you take a married couple divide there assets equally or not and then diversify the investments in accordance with their natural investment styles you have a strong chance capital preservation. If the wife is a financial analyst and knows the ins and outs of the stock and bond markets and the husband is a real estate agent split the investment responsiblity accordingly.

Using a around number, $1,000,000 (common joint value of investable capital – 401k, stock accounts, etc) here is an example of how this can be achieved.

The wife being an educated financial analyst might be better positioned to manage $600k through stocks, bonds, and cash accounts. The husband being a real estate agent should know the local market and thus is better suited to make investments on behalf of the family in tangible assets such as rental property, land and a second home up to the remaining $400k.

With the economy “in recovery” and investments climbing higher on a magic carpet that no body can figure out how it’s flying, we come to a question; how do we invest in this situation?

Investing is not as complex as people make it out to be. Remember, I said Investing not day trading or picking stocks because those are different beast all together. Investing is the means in which a person or group (investment club, orgainization, etc. ) purchases assets which produce security and growth over time.

Over a long investment horizon all financial advisor suggest someone be invested in equities more heavily than other assets. The point financial advisor do not understand is equity mean ownership in something, not just stocks on an exchange. Stocks are liquid most of the time making them quick in and quick out but there are other investments to be had as an equity asset.

Here is a list of some equity assets:

• Real property (land, real estate, water rights, etc.)
• ownership in private companies (sounds like you need a million dollars for this type of investment doesn’t it? Well you don’t have to have lots of money. You can invest as a business lender to a friend or local business wanting to expand by offering cash for ownership rights – ex: $10,000 for 5% ownership and profit.)
• Foreign property – though this is identical to the above you can avoid paying hefty property tax, etc. by owning land or a home in another country.
• Invest in your company. If you own something you rent, or do consulting, etc. you can create a company and write off expenses associated with that company***. (*** be sure to consult an attorney or CPA for specific advice)