What if Kate Middleton was a traitor Spy?

   If you ever get the chance look up a guy called Chas Newkey-Burden. This man pumps out trash Celebrity biographies every few months – and they sell (why else would he keep on doing them?). Fair play to him. I doth my hat.  

   In my opinion his writing style is relatively easy to copy. If you think about it, 6 x 200pg books in 2 years means he is knocking them out at the giddy pace of one every 16 weeks – 12 pages a day. I think that he does this by spinning out a lot of the Google alerts he gets on his targets. He also writes up what he sees on screen. In my opinion of course.

   This style could be adapted to create trash fiction for sale on the Kindle. To give things a spin you'd need to take a well reported event or life and then spin a story around it - think Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.

   Basically you take a well reported series of events and then build a story around them. This is easy to write as every second chapter will just be lifted from news reports. I’ll give you an example. Let’s pretend that Kate Middleton was actually a Russian Sleeper Spy. Her parents had been recruited by the KGB back in the 80’s when they lived in Jordan for 3 years (they don’t talk about that in the papers very often do they?). The deal had always been that they would try to push their children into Royal circles. Hence their eldest daughter had been sent all the way from Berkshire to study at St Andrews University (how often does that happen?). Pippa had been sent to Edinburgh as that was the other Uni that William was possibly going to attend. Isn’t it a bit strange that two Middle Class girls from rural Bucks moved so easily into the circles of the uber-rich? Not really when you consider that they had been being groomed for it since birth. Does a party planner and an Air Traffic Controller really make enough to have a 5 Bedroom house with wine cellar and private grounds in the Stockbroker belt? Remember Carole was brought up in a South London council flat. She’s went from Nelson Mandela House to Buck House in 25 years. In my story I would take all the news reports of Kate and Will’s courtship and intermingle it with the tale of a shadowy figure who threatens to expose the Middleton plot. I would have the subterfuge building up to the Wedding Day when the Blackmailer plans to spill the beans at the ceremony. For the set piece events like the announcement of the engagement or the Wedding day itself I would be using direct commentary from YouTube videos. Think Dan Brown meets David Icke.

   In a sense Nigel Tranter books (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Tranter) were basically a story woven around historical facts – and he was rich enough to be living in a fantastic castle by the time of his death. The same could be said for Ian Rankin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Rankin) crime novels. A few I’ve read have clearly been based around actual events. One was clearly based on the Bible John murders. The truth is truly stranger than fiction.

#1000moneymakers

 

Start a Terry Nappy Business

 

   According to “Real Nappies for London”, Terry Nappies are better for Babies, save people money, are sustainable, reduce waste, look good and encourage earlier potty training. My plan is to offer a service where Nappies are delivered and collected daily from a defined area. Let’s take Clackmannanshire as an example. I would imagine that there are probably c. 1250 Nappy wearers in Clackmannanshire. Our aim would be to get just 1% using our service (13 kids). We will bring fresh Terry Nappies to the door every day. On delivery we will take away any dirties that the address has from previous days – always making sure that the customer has a balance of 3. The customer pays us a sum every week by direct debit. Sign-up would be 3 months at a time with automatic roll-on and a 2 month cancellation notice period. Plastic nappies are roughly 30p a pop so 3 per day would cost a Mum £6 per week. We’d therefore charge £5 a week to give the mum a saving. With 13 customers that gives us an income of £3380 per annum. Terry Nappies can be bought for £3 a piece on Ebay. With 13 customers we’d need a stock of c. 60 meaning an outlay of £180.

   There are a few reasons why we can make this profitable:

·         We will be route planning and combining drop offs with other business journeys on the list.

·         If we are delivering by van it will be fuelled by LPG. Even better, if your round is tight enough, you could deliver by bike.

·         We will be guerrilla marketing and will therefore have a £0 publicity spend.

·         We might be washing the nappies via Hotpoint Willie machines (powered by Solar) or we might even build our own pedal powered machine (see next post).

Jean Genie/ Sunday 6th May

   A while ago (I think) I mentioned the "Jean Genie" idea. Basically, after watching an episode of Storage Wars, I thought about how jeans are actually great at holding their value - in some cases actually increasing in value over time like Wine or Art. Tonight I checked on Ebay and was very surprised by the market on second hand jeans. In the course of 10 minutes there was upwards of 15 sales. I know that Sunday night is traditionally the busiest time on Ebay but I still found this to be impressive. A note of the selling prices seems to show that Levi's command the best prices. So much so that I would recommend that you buy any pair of levi's you happen to find in the Charity shops with a ticket price of £10 or under. Happy shopping.

   Elsewhere today I made £9 on Betfair and walked 3 miles around Gartmorn Dam, Sauchie.

From Stirling Trading Standards:

Dear Mr Taylor,

In order to operate a business of this type the premises where the alcohol is dispatched from will require to be licensed. Could I confirm if your premises will be in the Stirling Council area?

You will require a premises licence and a personal licence for the person who is named as manager. Please telephone me and I can discuss the matter in more detail with you before I send out all the required forms.

Regards

Race against Zombies!

I love Business Unusual's new "Race with the Zombies" business idea. It is basically just the old game of Cat and Mouse for Adults. I think this is the sort of thing which would go great with the "Big Red Balls" idea I put forward a few months back.

Rangersagram

   Love the idea of setting up a "Rangersagram" service. For a small fee I could call a member of the great unwashed and spout bile down the phone to them. This is the sort of thing that would work!

Using a "Buy Back" Website to acquire stock

  This guy was clever:

Here's how I get most of my inventory:
It's not book sales

It's not thrift stores

It's not department stores using an Android

It's not orders via wholesale
I get my inventory delivered to me directly from people's homes.
Sound too good to be true?
I own and operate a buyback site called BuybackMedia.com. Basically, I buy DVDs, CDs, and Games from people all over the US. Once they send them to me, I pay them, and then send the product to Amazon FBA.
The price offered is based on a percentage of Amazon's price. So, I'm guaranteed to make money on every transaction.

The only kicker is advertising. It normally costs money to get eyeballs to the site. I also pay an 18% licensing fee per item "bought back" to the software company behind my website.

Interested in getting your own buyback site?
You have a couple options:
1) Go to elance.com and hire a designer/programmer to make a website.
2) Make me an offer for Buyback Media. I'm considering selling the website. Obviously, I will be asking for a premium price since this is my primary source of inventory.


From my POV I think my area of speciality (Non Fiction books) might be too specific. Who knows? It may well be worth getting some quotes on Elance.

The Singing Handyman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUURwZMpfFw

I came across “The Singing Handyman” for the first time on Saturday. Having got back to my Laptop and checked him out on Youtube etc, from what I can gather this geezer drives around London City Centre in an Old Fashioned Van, singing hits and blowing bubbles out of the side of the van. I must say that he did draw a crowd. I found myself reaching into my pocket to throw a quid in his bucket – but then I found out that he didn’t collect cash at all. It seems that the whole thing is just a publicity stunt for the handyman.co.uk website.


This got me thinking. If you had any fancy vehicle, such as an Ice Cream Van, Red Double Decker Bus – even a Hearse (in certain circumstances), and you wired it up with a Bubble Machine and a Karaoke system, you could hire yourself out for events (the Hearse would obviously be for Marilyn Manson concerts or something like that!)

Imagine how cool it would be to get a souped up Ice Cream Van to appear at a Kids Party. The Van could come down the street blowing bubbles and blaring out the Kid’s Favourite tune and then park up outside the party to present the Kids with a cone each. Or, you could time it for the van to do a drive past Wedding Venues singing the Bride and Groom’s favourite song.

I love it!

Only in America?

Boogeyman For Hire?


On December 11, 2010, in Odd, by Jason Bax ....Would you hire someone to call and scare the crap out of your kids? How about it was just $5?



HIre the Boogeyman to Scare Your Children for $5

This is a creative but weird advertising. Hey, you gotta test different business ideas, right?



Hire the boogeyman to scare the living crap out of your kids for just $5. Sounds like a good deal to me. BUT how much for all the sleepless nights and therapy?



Lorraine had 2 orders for her ‘Boogeyman calling’ service.



Hey, maybe I should charge $5 to call and BS with you for 5 min.

Sneaky Bastard

   After keeping my eye on People Per Hour, Elance and Odesk over the last few months I think that for people like us, with no programming experience, the most lucrative option would be writing the business plans. There are always jobs advertising for this. There are plenty of videos on Youtube showing you how to right business plans. I’d probably start by getting a few done for me and use these as my exemplars when I go touting for business myself.




The other sideline is that you could probably copy anything really exciting for yourself!

Bed and Breakfast, and Yoga

   It seems nowadays that you can't run a B&B without having some sort of gimmick. My personal favourites would be to a) run a B&B which prided itself on serving the biggest Breakfast in Scotland, or b) run a B&B with optional Hill Walking tours.


Some classic B&B ideas from today's Independent:
What's the attraction?

The British B&B has seen an improvement in standards that means that, for many guests, they've become the preferred alternative to a hotel, offering more character, more personal service and often a lower price tag. A recent poll by TripAdvisor revealed that eight of the world's top 10 B&Bs are British, including the chart-topping The Twenty One in Brighton (01273 686450; thetwentyone.co.uk; doubles from £90).

Good B&B listings sites include Sawday's (sawdays.co.uk) and the AA (theaa.com). It's also worth checking enjoyengland.com, visitscotland.com and visitwales.co.uk.

Belly-busting breakfasts

Though many bed and breakfasters wouldn't feel they'd had their money's worth unless they'd tucked into the full monty, others are relishing increasingly exotic breakfasts. Amid the kitsch surroundings of Upton House (01726 832732; upton-house.com; doubles from £130) in Cornwall for instance, décor is as restrained as a Fabergé egg and breakfasts boast heart-shaped waffles and caramelised-banana porridge.

At Montague House in Norfolk (01263 822510; montague-house.co.uk ; doubles from £80), freshly made smoothies are followed by red pepper and feta frittata, devilled kidneys or blueberry pancakes.

Further north, breakfasts at 2 Cambridge Street in Edinburgh (0131 478 0005; edinburghaccommodation.org.uk ; doubles from £95) offer raspberries, yoghurt and passion fruit followed by chestnut mushrooms on toast, with lemon, nutmeg and melted Taleggio cheese.

If your tastes are slightly more conventional, there's The Spoons on Skye (01470 532217; thespoonsonskye.com ; doubles from £115), which serves up homemade granola and freshly cooked pancakes, as well as local kippers. Likewise, at Hedgehog Corner in Devon (01297 32036; hedgehogcorner.co.uk ; doubles from £70), the local breakfast menu features eggs Benedict and waffles.

Pampering for pets

Many B&Bs welcome animals. At The Old Cider House in Somerset (01278 732228; theoldciderhouse.co.uk ), pooches even get home-made dog biscuits. Doubles start at £60, plus £3 per dog. For other dog-friendly B&Bs see kcdogfriendly.co.uk or dogfriendlybritain.co.uk . The website horseswelcome.org lists B&Bs for visitors with horses in tow, including Cwmfillo in Powys (01982 570355; cwmfillo.co.uk). Doubles cost from £60, and horses are well catered for with stabling from £10 per night and organic hay at £3 per bale.

Olympic hospitality

In the week when 120,000 hotel rooms were handed back by Locog, the organising committee for the London 2012 Games, the accommodation scene in London in July and August looks increasingly competitive. If you're willing to stay in a private home try sites such as crashpadder.com, wimdu.co.uk and 9flats.com . Wimdu, for example, is showing availability for a smart double room in a Georgian family home in Peckham in early August for £60 per night, including continental breakfast. And the Good Hotel Guide strays beyond its title, also recommending traditional B&Bs.

Pedal power

At Cottage Lodge in the New Forest (01590 622296; cottagehotel.org), green features include breakfasts sourced from the surrounding area, renewable energy and free tea and cake for guests arriving by train. Book into the Standing Hat room, an environmentally-friendly double built from local Douglas Fir that comes with its own wood burning stove, a four-poster made from locally felled beech, bamboo flooring and, from this month, an LED TV that guests can power by pedalling a bike. The room starts at £80 per night.

Hands-on holidays

Many B&Bs now offer short courses. In the Lake District, Number 43 (01524 762761; no43.org.uk ; doubles from £120) is running an Introduction to Photography course on 29 and 30 June. These cost £400 per person, including two nights' full board and two days' tuition. If food is your passion, head to Brompton Farmhouse in Shropshire (01743 761629; bromptonfarmhouse.co.uk), where doubles cost from £70. Guests can book in for day-long cookery courses. Prices start at £110 for a bread-making class (01743 761629; bromptoncookeryschool.co.uk).

Fit for purpose

The old school of thought that it doesn't really matter where you stay on holiday because it's just a place to sleep doesn't hold up these days. At Blackloch B&B (01250 884249; blackloch.com) in Perthshire, guests can take off for a hearty day's walk and then book in for a tailored yoga session with owner Anne Lonsdale in a designated yoga studio attached to the B&B. Rates start at £80 per double; 90-minute private yoga sessions for two cost £75. The Orange Tree B&B (01751 417 219; theorangetree.com) on the Yorkshire Moors also offers yoga weekends, from £199 per person.

Smiles as standard

You'd think a warm welcome was as much a part of the B&B mindset as providing quality bacon and clean sheets, but it isn't always the case. One place you can be assured of a positive reception is Compton House in Nottinghamshire (01636 708670; comptonhousenewark.com; doubles from £90). Its owner, Lisa Holloway, won Friendliest Landlady of the Year in the most recent AA Hospitality Awards. Book one of her seven bedrooms and you can enjoy fresh flowers, log fires, award-winning breakfasts and, if you book in advance, sophisticated suppers.

The Eggs Co-Op

   I could never work with animals, I'm much too prissy. I like my animals like I like my Death Row prisoners - killed by someone else! However, surely in this day and age every village in Scotland should have an Eggs Co-Op. Take a village the size of Sauchie (8000 inhabitants), I'm sure you could find 20 families that'd be interested.

   One family keeps the chickens.
   One person does the deliveries on foot round the village.
   One family deals with dead chickens (soup and stock for all).
   One person builds the runs.
   Someone sorts out all the paperwork (if any).
   Everyone pays an annual fee of a few pounds for new stock.

Anyone up for it?

Online Layaway

   This ideas needs more development, but I love the thought:

   "Online layaway is layaway through the internet. It allows consumers to purchase items through scheduled deductions from a checking account.[8][9] Online layaway simplifies layaway for both merchant and consumer by removing the costly, time-consuming storage and bookkeeping processes. Layaways remain at the distribution center during the layaway period instead of taking up valuable retail warehouse space.[4] Just as consumers used layaway payment plans to purchase products at brick and mortar stores in the past, they can also use layaway to pay for online products and services which serves as an alternative budgeting tool and a means to avoid debt.[10] Products and services that have layaway offerings online vary from net books to home gyms and from concert tickets to layaway vacations.[11]"

Cash in Carboard

   I can't believe that so many businesses send Carboard boxes to landfill, and then so many people pay good money for boxes when they are moving house. It pisses me off.

   If you had space there is sure to be money to be made in trading this off:

• Link up with local businesses who will be throwing out usable cardboard boxes (an example would be a small scale warehousing operation or an independent supermarket). Try to get these boxes for nothing (as you are saving their waste management costs; or next to nothing).
• Start sorting the boxes out according to size.
• Advertise cheap boxes for sale.
• Look for alternative uses and income streams for these boxes.

It looks like what these guy are doing:

http://www.usedcardboardboxes.com/

Year of the Dragon - Year to make money in Kids Outlandish Outfits

   Here is the lastest Press release from Alibaba on the Year of the Dragon:

The year of 2011 was a tiger year, according to the Chinese calendar, and to be honest we are glad to see the big cat's hindquarters as it slinks out the door.


Bring on 2012. It's the Year of the Dragon, which is said to be auspicious for reputation and career. It is also auspicious for companies selling dragon-related bric-a-brac, apparently. Online marketplace Alibaba.com reports that in the previous quarter there was a big surge in searches for dragon-related products, like dragon-imprinted iPhone cases, on the website.

Searches for dragon products in the second half of 2011 soared by 250%, according to Michael Lee, director of international business development and marketing at Alibaba.com U.S. Among the most sought-after items? Alibaba.com says people are going crazy for inflatable dragons. Because they are fun in the bathtub? We have no idea.


   This article really interested me - especially when I saw the ultra-cool Baby Dragon costumes. The completed listing search on Ebay shows that 18 of the last 50 listings have sold on these type of products - not a bad ratio. I'm assuming that these could be supplied via Ali Baba.

 

Letter to "A Most Marvellous Place to Shop"

Hi,


I visited your shop whilst on a trip down from Scotland last weekend and I was really amazed! Congratulations on bringing something "new" to the High Street. I was wondering if I could pick your brains. I currently run a secondhand book business but at the moment I am completely online. I've thought about going "bricks and mortar" but only by means of doing an honesty bookshop (i.e. not always manned - for my sticky stock only) OR appointment only (for my high end stuff). One way I could progress would be to share space with other small retailers/ craft people. Without giving any of your secrets away, what is your deal with the concessions?

Kind regards,

Ross.

Free Range Friday

Interesting article - could the same thing just be made from rags?

Free Range Friday: James’s green dreamJanuary 6, 2012


It’s a cliché, but it’s sometimes true – inspiration can strike in the most unlikely places. For James Castro-Edwards, it was the sheer steel and glass cliffs of Canary Wharf that got him thinking about to introduce plants to a cityscape with restricted space.

“There’s not a lot of green space and it feels quite hard-edged,” says the full-time intellectual property lawyer and first-time entrepreneur. “I thought ‘The only free space is vertical – wouldn’t it be nice if you could cover a building with plants?’ This started me daydreaming… ”

Whimsical it may have been, but the daydream set James on a journey that has taken him to the verge of launching an innovative product that could see plants appearing on the side of buildings all over our towns and cities.

The product and its development

The Greenstack is astonishingly simple – a stack of hessian pockets hung from a horizontal rod that can be mounted on a wall. Each pocket can contain enough earth to support a plant and the whole thing is entirely biodegradable. It’s obvious when you think about it, yet no-one has created anything quite like it before.

The evolution of the product wasn’t as straightforward as the idea itself, however. Being an IP lawyer, the first thing James did was file a patent application and build a prototype using his original idea of a plastic sheet. “Each prototype was hundreds of pounds to develop and we set it up and found it didn’t work properly,” he admits.

Undeterred, he and his two associates – product developer Stuart Millington and experienced entrepreneur Ian Hopkins –went back to the drawing board and decided that being a green product, they needed to adopt an totally environmentally-friendly approach. The second version of the Greenstack used materials from coppiced woodland in Kent and was stitched together by young people not in education, employment or training, courtesy of a local social enterprise.

Creating a buzz around Greenstack

It worked, and James set about testing and promoting the product by giving 100 planters to schools in support of the ConserveMe initiative. In this case, the Greenstack became the focus of a new ConserveB project to provide Britain’s declining bee population with bee-friendly plants in unlikely places.

“At midday every day they go to see what species of bee are present. It teaches children environmental awareness and where food comes from,” explains James. “We’ve grown tomatoes and strawberries in them.”

Others have been given to an operator of social housing – where space is at a premium – James has already had interest from big retailers (think supermarkets and home improvement stores) and major construction companies. “If you operate a massive building site in a city centre, you don’t really look good for the environment,” he reasons. “But if you cover it with plants it sends a very good message. We’ve had two construction companies express an interest.”

The product’s popularity so far has led James to start thinking about its global potential, too. In this respect, he readily admits that his day job in IP gives him an advantage over many start-up owners when it comes to understanding the technicalities of international licensing.

The importance of ethics

Though not a social enterprise, ethical principles are at the heart of the company. Both the Greenstack itself and the way the business operates reflect contemporary concerns about the environment and corporate social responsibility. For example, James is currently looking for a business backer for the ConservB educational project and is confident he will find one. Like the original daydream itself, an appealing idealism characterises the whole venture.

“We’re just trying to do a good thing,” says James. “It’s nice to have a feeling of being able to make a slight difference. The bee project, for example, is a small step but the children that will be involved in it could develop an environmental awareness that they can take into the rest of their lives. They love it.

“It’s a new product. It’s a product from beginning to end, from the initial idea on a scrap of paper to something you can buy on the shelf,” he continues. “But getting a new product to market is a very long process. It takes a lot more time than you would expect and you’ve got to be prepared to take a lot of setbacks. The biggest thing I’ve learned that’s really helped us is that we’ve gone completely back to the drawing board to start again to get it right. You’ve got to be pretty ruthless with yourself. There’s more to success than just having a good idea.”

Contribute to Free Range Friday

Every Friday is Free Range Friday on Enterprise Nation and we feature business ideas that are fresh, innovative, offbeat or just plain fun. If you’ve spotted anything that you think deserves a wider audience, please send us an email or speak to us on Twitter using the #FreeRangeFriday hashtag.

I'm an Urban Lumberjack and I'm OK

   With all the storms that there has been in Scotland over the last few weeks surely there would have been (a small amount of ) money to be made by the Urban Lumberjacks.

1) Plenty of free wood to get stuck into.
2) Build up a good public image by cutting down the trees for Joe.