So I would like to start a test prep mini-business in an area vastly underserved by test prep companies. Is my idea feasible? [+]
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posted by u.n. owen
on Jan 18, 2005 -
14 answers
A family member is considering starting a small business exporting goods (primarily seafood) to Japan. I would like to help but have no clue how to begin. [MI]
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posted by jeffmshaw
on Jan 18, 2005 -
4 answers
I am running a free Web-based service for friends and acquaintances. Lately, the volume on this service has been growing greatly. The next step is to move the service to a professional host. I am thinking of putting a paypal donation button on the site to help pay for it. Are there any legal or tax issues I need to worry about? Do I need a business license? What if I want to start selling Cafe Press items or running Google ads? I am located in the USA.
posted by Orkboi
on Jan 16, 2005 -
5 answers
My aunt just sent me an e-mail linking to a site she set up for "Fortune Hi-Tech Marketing". Before I even brought the home page up, it felt quite a bit like Herbalife and other pyramid schemes just from reading the e-mail. Indeed, one of the first links on Google is a
scam.com message board. To save me having to sort through thousands of Fortune Marketing pages on
google, does anyone have any personal experience with this company or any information my aunt should be aware of?
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posted by Eideteker
on Jan 16, 2005 -
1 answer
Can anyone recommend a good primer on negotiation skills that I can in turn recommend to a 21-year-old with no business background?
posted by socratic
on Jan 7, 2005 -
15 answers
Is anyone out there succeeding as an affiliate marketer on the web?
Specifically, I'd like to know if anyone is making money creating Google Adwords campaigns that drive searchers to merchants.
posted by lometogo
on Jan 5, 2005 -
6 answers
Part of my job involves tracking M&As and hierarchy (parent-child relationships) for global companies. Ultimately, I need to be able to make decisions on how we report our revenue on certain companies. I don't have a business degree and I'm confused over some of what I read. How can I best read up on corporate structure, and anything else related? I'm coming up empty on google.
posted by evening
on Jan 4, 2005 -
11 answers
Franchise-owning MeFites: How did you get started? How did you pick the franchise? How much capital did you have? Most importantly: Would you do it again?
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posted by striker
on Jan 4, 2005 -
4 answers
What are the best/coolest/most memorable business cards you've seen? Bonus points for pictures.
posted by cmonkey
on Dec 27, 2004 -
27 answers
You have $60,000 and want to start a business. What do you do?
posted by stevis
on Dec 27, 2004 -
34 answers
What are all Snoop Dogg's business ventures? The man puts his name on so many products it's sickening.
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posted by hendrixson
on Dec 22, 2004 -
5 answers
I've got (what I consider to be) a great idea for a restaurant, but no knowledge or experience in the restaurant industry. Is there any way for me to profit from my idea?
posted by goethean
on Dec 20, 2004 -
22 answers
I don't know anything about business or whatever, so Sony's strategy for the PS2 makes no sense to me. My girlfriend wants to get me a PS2 for Christmas, but every place we've called has basically told us the same thing: everyone's sold out because Sony is shorting store's orders in order to drive up demand. They did pretty much the same thing a few years ago when the PS2 launched. It didn't make any sense to me then, and doesn't make any sense to me now. What kind of business sense does this make? What's the point of driving up demand for a product that they don't supply? Are they trying to set up sales beyond Christmas? But even then, don't they just risk people getting pissed off and something from their competitor?
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posted by emptybowl
on Dec 8, 2004 -
15 answers
My consulting business has gotten busy enough (knock on wood) to warrant not using my personal cell phone number as the first line of communication. What I need is a service that creates a local phone number, has a customizable voicemail system that can fwd to my cell, office, whereever.
Is there such a thing, or should I just get a second cell phone?
posted by omidius
on Dec 6, 2004 -
10 answers
What companies do you boycott, and why?
posted by swift
on Dec 3, 2004 -
102 answers
I own a very small company, and I feel that my product is the best in its category. If I can just get my message to the masses, my company will be a success (otherwise I'll have to go back to work for "the man"). What's the best way to ge the message out? I realize that everyone is advertising-averse, and I don't want to consider anything that might irritate people.
posted by yaquina27
on Nov 27, 2004 -
15 answers
This question got me thinking... Why is it that there are video and game rental outlets (Blockbu$ter, Hollywood, etc) but not CD rental outlets here in the US? Anyone know anything about the license agreements video rental outlets sign and in turn what license agreements one accepts when they purchase a CD from a store? Why wouldn't I be able to rent out my CDs? You'd think in this day of iPods, CDRs and such large hard drives, this would be a killer busines to get into.
posted by pwb503
on Nov 18, 2004 -
23 answers
From what I understand, the surest way to professional and financial freedom is through entrepreneurship. Whether you agree with this or not, if you decided to take the entrepreneurial plunge,
what type of business would you create and why?
posted by jasondigitized
on Nov 17, 2004 -
29 answers
collecting for web design....
I've got a client that is sitting around after they've approved the design. I can't seem to make them get off their asses so I can finish this and more importantly collect the final payment. Any and all advice is welcome.
posted by damnitkage
on Nov 16, 2004 -
6 answers
According to numerous reports I've read in the last few days worth of the Business Section of the newspaper, Microsoft's "
stock price can be expected to fall by the amount of the dividend." That's the one-time $3 dividend that is coming sometime soon for those of you who don't follow this sort of thing. Anyway... I don't get it? Why is the stock price expceted to drop about $3 the day after this dividend? I like to think of myself as knowledgeble about the markets, and I understand that this dividend will remove $3 per share out of the bank for M$, but aren't stock prices valued more in terms of the value of the company and its holdings rather than simply the value of the money in the bank?
posted by pwb503
on Nov 10, 2004 -
12 answers
I am the "neighbourhood geek" where I live, and so end up giving away a lot of free tech support. I am perfectly happy to do so, and now plan to start up my own web site where I dispense knowledge I have recently been asked for to the world. Kinda like "SlashDot... for dummies".
If the site gets sufficiently popular I may place some Google ads on it, but first I need to get my site "out there" and so I need to advertise, which I am willing to spend a few currency units on. I was going to use Google AdWords, but I'm really useless at picking keywords.
Are there better places to advertise, based on the target audience (non-geeks and wannabe-geeks) of my site?
posted by Mwongozi
on Nov 7, 2004 -
3 answers
I am in Wisconsin and forming an agreement with a company interested in oursourcing some web design. I'd like to charge a flat fee per project. What is a fair percentage of the profit they make for me to ask for? 40%?
posted by anonymous
on Oct 28, 2004 -
7 answers
If someone were asking me to redesign a table-based small business site with full CSS and an integrated blog (visuals wouldn't change much, but navigation structure would be completely different), how much should I, hypothetically, charge?
posted by Tlogmer
on Oct 27, 2004 -
5 answers
Would it be legal for a member of the NYAG's office to start shorting a company Spitzer's about to sue shortly before he makes his first press release about it, given that my impression from
this article is that his doing so tends to lead to drops in stock prices?
posted by kenko
on Oct 22, 2004 -
6 answers
I've been a freelance web designer operating as a sole trader for six months. Now I've gotten a contract that can only hire people as limited companies. I've been told to use an umbrella company, but after reading up on them online, I'm just at a loss. I can understand
what they do, but why don't companies want sole traders? And does anyone have any recommendations on umbrellas to use?
(Save, of course, the Umbrella Corporation)
posted by Katemonkey
on Oct 20, 2004 -
4 answers
So I'm thinking of starting a new small business... it involves food, though. My idea is to make a very small range of products -- say, baked goods -- and sell it at farmer's markets and upscale grocery stores. Since it involves food, I imagine I have to jump through more hoops than I might otherwise, but I don't even begin to know where to look about what all is involved. Health inspections? Licenses? Anyone have any experience in this sort of thing?
posted by crunchland
on Oct 14, 2004 -
7 answers
I'm looking for software to help me with invoicing--OS X or web-based. I have some picky requirements [more inside]
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posted by adamrice
on Sep 28, 2004 -
1 answer
I'm giving a presentation on independent music and I'd like to sum up the practices of the
five four major labels. To do so, I want to hand out a nice little visual of all the companies owned by these super-conglomerates. I remember seeing an excellent visual chart with all the branching labels and sublabels, but I've been searching and searching to no avail. Does anyone remember this site?
posted by themadjuggler
on Sep 16, 2004 -
9 answers
Now that Blogspot weblogs show a
navbar instead of Google Ads, and without a Premium version, how does Blogger generate any income for Google?
posted by brownpau
on Sep 15, 2004 -
6 answers
How prevalent are PDFs in Web publishing? Why are they used in preference to other file formats? (mi)
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posted by bifter
on Sep 8, 2004 -
28 answers
Screen-printing/Silk-screening: I'm looking to get into it to produce some t-shirt ideas I've had floating around. But I don't want to buy all the expensive equipment. Is it feasible to build your own press, provided with good instructions?
posted by Espoo2
on Sep 2, 2004 -
4 answers
If one has a business that is registered as an LLC (with no partners-- just the one person) and if: the business location (office) is in one state, the owner lives in another state and most of the business (or clients) are in a third state in which state is state income tax due-- where the office is, the owner's residence or where the clients are?
posted by limitedpie
on Aug 24, 2004 -
3 answers
What marketing books have you found effective? I'm specifically looking for senior-level strategy books, more specifically in high-tech, but open to general product marketing as well. I'm thinking of things like Davidow's
Marketing High Technology or Moore's
Crossing the Chasm Thanks!
posted by judith
on Aug 17, 2004 -
5 answers
Ecommerce filter: Here at work we are attempting to understand/define the default business rules for taxation calculations within an ecommerce app. Specifically we are all tied up in knots over the application of rates, reporting issues, etc. Is there an industry standard for handling this aspect of a transaction? Who defines the standards, and how can I find out more about it?
posted by lilboo
on Aug 12, 2004 -
2 answers
Problem with a friend whom I also have a business relationship with. [oo my first more inside]
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posted by thebwit
on Aug 5, 2004 -
19 answers
Why do US mobile phone companies get away with charging for
incoming calls and SMS/MMS? What can customers do about it?
posted by brownpau
on Aug 3, 2004 -
14 answers
I was explaining to a friend of mine how little music artists make. I've heard they sometimes only make pennies on every CD that is sold. Are there any graphs or charts, (a pie chart would be ideal) on the internet that show where the money would go from the sale of a CD and who pockets what? It seems like something simple that someone should have figured out and put together, but Google is failing me.
posted by banished
on Jul 31, 2004 -
10 answers
I am thinking of starting a very small business, but I have a few questions for those of you who have done so before I really make up my mind wheter to go forward or not. [More Inside]
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posted by shotsy
on Jul 29, 2004 -
10 answers
I've been reading a lot lately about the Great Depression. What I'm curious about is, did anyone make money during the great depression? Are there certain industries that prosper during a depression? If you knew a great depression was about to happen, what would you do to put yourself in the best possible position? Invest in gold maybe? What else?
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posted by banished
on Jul 18, 2004 -
12 answers
Can anyone recommend a good moving company for moving a one-bedroom apartment (let's say 400 cubic ft. of stuff to move) and a four-door car from Florida to California?
posted by grrarrgh00
on Jul 17, 2004 -
8 answers
My fiancee is looking into the possibility of selling clothes with custom art/text/etc. She knows about CafePress and such, but is looking for a way to get text/images on black and dark clothes. Shirts, hoodies, pants, etc.
There's always the 'custom-shirts-for-10-dollars' places, but she doesn't want to sell anything that's going to fade in a month, or is otherwise of questionable quality. Have any of you had good experiences with online companies that provide custom printing services? Would it be a good idea to look into purchasing a silkscreen machine?
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posted by Jairus
on Jul 16, 2004 -
11 answers
Mergers & Acquisitions. For my job at work we need to start keeping track of completed M&As. Globally. Yahoo has a nice M&A calendar site that lists the acquiring company, target company, and when its done. Problem is it focuses on North America. Are there similar sites that can give this information for Europe, Asia & Latin America? I've got some make shift solutions, but nothing real good. And the really good resources are tons of money, which my department doesn't have the budget for (and these sites tend to be overkill - I don't need to track a merger, just need to know when its complete).
posted by evening
on Jul 6, 2004 -
3 answers
Does any company at all do online fulfillment? I'd love to sell t-shirts, photographs, and eventually my own books, but I don't like shipping stuff and cashing checks, etc. I've looked and looked and can't find anyone that just holds inventory, sends it out when requested, and takes a cut. Heck, I'd be willing to pay a few bucks per item to someone doing this. It must exist, but I can't seem to find anyone doing it.
posted by mathowie
on Jul 5, 2004 -
12 answers
The way I understand the stock market, prices go up when people are buying, and go down when people are selling. So what if I had a huge amount of money, bought tons of stocks and then sold them again instantly? Wouldn't I make a big profit? Or am I just completely wrong?
posted by reklaw
on Jul 4, 2004 -
19 answers
Suggestions for keeping track of business expenses? I'm starting a business and I'm terrible at math. I would prefer something that's like a spreadsheet kind of, something I could plug numbers into and have the program lay it out nice and easy for me. I'm not very experienced in Excel - is there anything easier (and preferably free/cheap) out there for me?
posted by agregoli
on Jun 30, 2004 -
28 answers
Can you tell me about your experiences getting a loan through the Small Business Administration please? [more inside]
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posted by vito90
on May 27, 2004 -
8 answers
AdultToyStore Filter! Does anyone know what the markup is on sex toys and/or naughty apparel? In the great American tradition of business, I've been toying with the idea of opening an establishment in an industry I know nothing about. Unfortunately, my back-of-the-envelope feasibility analysis is foundering because I don't know what kinds of margins to predict on sales. Additionally, does anyone know a toystore owner/operator who'd be willing to give advice/guidance on the pitfalls of this kind of business?
posted by anonymous
on May 26, 2004 -
14 answers
SmallBizFilter! A pal of mine has asked me to help him build out a small shipping-and-fulfillment center serving an online store he started recently. Things are going well, but my part of the work will be most challenging. Advice? Recommendations?
[the interior features the more.] [more inside]
posted by mwhybark
on May 19, 2004 -
2 answers
