Archives: August 2008

Dancing For Publicity

Posted by: Stacy Perman on August 28

Almost any chef/restaurant-owner/entrepreneur would not snub a turn at national publicity. At one time most would have coveted the kind of run Rocco DiSpirito had. Two years after opening his...

The Dearth of Small Business Data

Posted by: John Tozzi on August 28

It's impossible to find good, current, reliable data on small businesses. The Economic Census, conducted every five years, takes years to crunch the numbers. Data from the 2007 survey won't...

The Lost Season

Posted by: Amy Barrett on August 27

Summer's winding down-but it's been a tough one for many seasonal business owners. Due to political games on Capitol Hill, Congress failed to pass a measure that would have lifted...

The Verdict Is In Part II

Posted by: Stacy Perman on August 27

Yesterday, I posted a blog indicating that a federal jury had awarded Mattel $40 million in damages in its federal copyright infringement suit against Bratz maker MGA Entertainment. The figure...

Email marketing: When less is more

Posted by: John Tozzi on August 27

Here’s an idea about email marketing: your customers should want to hear from you more often then they do. They should be so excited when they see your message that...

The Verdict Is In

Posted by: Stacy Perman on August 26

Barbie is one happy doll. Today a federal jury in California awarded Mattel $40 million in damages, closing the long chapter in its federal copyright lawsuit against, MGA Entertainment, the...

Grabbing The Gold

Posted by: Jeremy Quittner on August 26

It turns out entreprneurs were critical to the success of swimmer Michael Phelps, who broke world records and grabbed eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympics. According to an August...

How Not To Build A Website

Posted by: Stacy Perman on August 26

There are few successful outfits that don’t have a website. Today having one is considered an almost indispensible tool for conducting, doing, and marketing one’s business. That is apparently except...

DIY: Perfume

Posted by: Stacy Perman on August 22

Add perfume to the growing list of businesses (publishing, cosmetics, cars, moviemaking…) that are cutting out the middle men and carving out successful ventures from businesses traditionally reliant on a...

Viral how?

Posted by: John Tozzi on August 22

I sometimes get pitches about viral ad campaigns, products, videos, whatever. How viral is it if a PR person is sending it to a reporter? If I hear about it...

Barbie and Bratz: Back in Court

Posted by: Stacy Perman on August 21

Jury deliberations are on tap to start today over whether MGA Entertainment, the maker of the pouty-lipped line of Bratz dolls should pay damages to Mattel, the maker of Barbie....

Negative Nancy, no more

Posted by: Amy Choi on August 21

No need to be a pessimist. The present economy may be rocky, but that doesn’t mean you should stop investing in your future. “The climate for small businesses will always...

Why stay small?

Posted by: John Tozzi on August 20

Matt at 37 Signals profiles legendary Brooklyn pizzeria Di Fara. Here's an excerpt: [Owner Domenico] DeMarco doesn’t care about experts, franchising, or expansion because he doesn’t have to. That’s what...

Outsourcing: the New (Old) Amish Workforce

Posted by: Stacy Perman on August 19

The WSJ published a story Friday about consumers hiring Amish contractors and subcontractors to build homes for folks who are not part of the strict conservative Christian sect. The...

Mrs. Fields: Another Cookie Crumbles

Posted by: Stacy Perman on August 18

Reuters reports that Mrs. Fields, the ubiquitous mall friendly cookie franchiser launched by a Utah housewife, Debbi Fields in 1977, planned to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in...

The Business of Toilets

Posted by: Stacy Perman on August 13

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. That being the case, there’s a huge opportunity for some enterprising entrepreneur in toilets. In this, the Year of International...

More grim credit news from the Fed

Posted by: John Tozzi on August 12

The Fed released its quarterly survey of senior loan officers (PDF) yesterday. The news is not good for small business borrowers: 65 percent of banks surveyed tightened their lending standards...

Bennigan's franchisees may buy closed corporate locations

Posted by: John Tozzi on August 08

The AP reports that Bennigan's franchisees may buy 40 to 60 closed corporate locations. Bennigan's franchisees may be able to buy the most profitable corporate locations and ride out the...

Marketplace: Credit card terms tightening for entrepreneurs

Posted by: John Tozzi on August 06

Nice piece from the radio show Marketplace on how slippery credit card terms affect small business owners relying on cards for financing. Apparently banks are cracking down because investors are...

Pain for a Retail Entrepreneur

Posted by: Amy Barrett on August 05

I was saddened to see the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing by regional department store chain Boscov's recently. Not because I'm a big Boscov's shopper-although living in the Philly suburbs I...

Bennigan's bankruptcy fallout

Posted by: John Tozzi on August 04

We follow up our brief item on Bennigan's bankruptcy from last week with a closer look at how franchisees will deal with the fallout. We also put together a...

Do your customers have more money than time?

Posted by: John Tozzi on August 04

Wired editor Chris Anderson, who is writing a book on the economics of free, has an instructive post on his Long Tail blog. Here’s an excerpt: At some point in...

Is Your Home Office Cooler Than Mine?

Posted by: Nick Leiber on August 01

To get a sense of what the growing crowd of home-based entrepreneurs (some 16.5 million in the U.S., according to Small Business Administration data) is doing to turn its...