by Curtis D. Tucker

The secret to learning as an entrepreneur is to mix equal parts of inspiration and perspiration. Hard work without a vision is futile, while a great idea without execution is similarly worthless. Check out these TED talks, you'll find the inspiration you need and the know-how to get it done.

TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.

Check out TED talks by these inspiring figures: Seth Godin, Dean Kamen, Tony Robbins, Gary Vaynerchuk, Richard Branson and others.

10 Essential TED Talks for Entrepreneurs

Labels: Entrepreneurship, Ideas, Teaching, Thinking

by Curtis D. Tucker

Looking for some business ideas? We'll be posting groups of business ideas that we come across from time to time so be sure and check this blog often. Here's a fun group of entrepreneurial business ideas.

1) Chimney Sweep and Fireplace Cleaner
2) Build a Community Website and sell advertising space on it
3) Design and create unique baby and dog costumes
4) Ghost debunker - show people they really do not have ghosts
5) Clothes alterations and shoe cobbler
6) Used musical instruments - fix and resell vintage items
7) Mobile auto detailer and oil changer
8) Movie and book exchange store - help people trade
9) Birthday party entertainer - magic, music and balloons
10) Tree house building and swing set assembly service

Make it happen!

Labels: Business Start-Ups, Ideas

by Curtis D. Tucker

The mission of Etsy.com is to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers. The Etsy community spans the globe with buyers and sellers coming from more than 150 countries. Etsy sellers number in the hundreds of thousands.

Etsy requires no HTML to sell online. Setting up shop on Etsy is easy and takes only a few minutes. You can customize your shop with a banner, profile, shop policies and more. It's all done automatically and you do not have to be a webmaster.

You get your own URL for your shop based on your username, http://username.etsy.com

You can sell handmade goods, vintage items and craft supplies on Etsy. Etsy is not eBay. You can reach the ideal customer for your products when you sell on Etsy.

Sign up for free. To start selling on Etsy, you'll first need to register for an Etsy account. To become a seller, you'll need a credit card for verification purposes.

It costs 20 cents to list an item for four months. When your item sells, you'll pay a 3.5% transaction fee.

What is being sold on Etsy?
Candles - Greeting Cards - Belts - Jewelry - Quilts - Stickers - Puzzles - Puppets - Vases - Candy - Pet Supplies - Pottery - Comics - Art - Wallets

What could you make to sell on Etsy?

Labels: Business Start-Ups, Ideas, Internet, Make Money

by Curtis D. Tucker

One of the best shows on television today for entrepreneurs is a show called Shark Tank. This is a great show for finding fun business ideas and also seeing what others have come up with. Watch as young entrepreneurs pitch their businesses and ask for money. Be sure and note the amount of money they ask for and how much control of their companies they lose.

Not only does the show give you start up ideas but the Sharks on the show give some very useful advise and they ask even more important questions. All of the Sharks on the show have made millions or billions on their own and they are using their own money to finance these start ups.

When you watch the show be sure to note the questions being asked. These are the same questions you will need to answer when you go looking for financing your business. The show can give you clues as to which types of products and services the entrepreneurial gurus feel have potential.

Hop on over to this page to see many of the past business ideas and then be sure to start watching the show. Shark Tank Business Ideas.

Labels: Business Start-Ups, Entrepreneurship, Ideas, TV

by Curtis D. Tucker

Flipping websites can be very profitable for those that are in tune with Internet real estate. Flipping domains and websites is very much like buying and selling "real" real estate. You buy or build low and sell high.

Building websites from the ground up can make you the most profit but it takes some web building knowledge and does entail man hours. Buying small websites and flipping them is much faster but less profitable.

With the popularity of Wordpress this has become much easier than in the "old" days of the Internet. A small amount of web design knowledge can be turned into a high profit business.

Why would someone buy a website from you? Because they want to invest in real estate property but they do not have the time to build sites and wait for them to rise in the search engine rankings. High traffic websites full of original content can make big bucks. A popular website that is full of advertising is a great little profit center.

The more traffic you get, the more ads are clicked on and the more products get sold. Most profit from today's websites comes from advertising and from subscriptions. If you have a large user base and email list you might have a site worth some money also.

Simple subjects can actually be the best sites to sell. I know of a simple niche website that listed nothing but names. These name lists combined with some related articles created a decent amount of traffic. With nothing other than these names and the traffic, the site sold for an amount in the five figure range.

You can build smaller, low traffic sites and flip them for a few hundred dollars here and there. Great domains can also be purchased and sold.

Another route that I will get into later is to build yourself a collection of these sites and live off of the advertising dollars. A few dozen websites making $5-$20 a day can add up. This is where you might become the buyer instead of the seller. More on that later.

Be an Internet mogul today!!

Labels: Ideas, Internet, Make Money, Websites

by Curtis D. Tucker

Here's a service I might actually use. I need someone to take all of my family photos and organize them. They need to be sorted and placed into photo albums. I also need someone to take my digital photos and have many of them printed and the others placed into digital albums.

If you have the patience you can easily start this type of business with very little start up. Advertise yourself as a family photo organizer. Explain to clients the time you can save them and also the benefit of preserving photos in albums rather than envelopes.

You can create family albums, an album for each child, wedding albums, vacation albums and even pet albums. Once your service is up and running you can send reminders so that you get a call once the next batch of photos has been taken.

Organized photo albums not only help families save time but they make great gifts! What could be better than to present mom with a very organized album with all of the kids pictures. Parents can also present the kids with their own albums at graduation time.

Digital photography is another great opportunity. Why not help families upload their photos to Flickr or many other photo sharing websites? Turning photos into easy to view CD's is also an option. Add a slide show with fades and music. Photo CD's make great Christmas gifts to friends and family.

Get busy thinking of how you can start your own photo organizing business. Be the first in your town or city and you'll be the go-to person in your area. A great business to start part-time if needed.

Much success!!

Labels: Business Start-Ups, Ideas, Photography

by Curtis D. Tucker

An idea. What if you could create an efficient service that would go from house to house helping women fold their laundry? The number one complaint I hear from mother's is that they hate to do the laundry, and they really hate to fold it.

Can you create a service that could make this easier for them? Could you pick up the clean laundry in special bags and bring it back ironed and folded in special baskets? Could they drop off the laundry, have it folded and then pick it up again? Can you invent something that would eliminate folding?

That is your mission - solve the case of the unfolded laundry.

Labels: Business Start-Ups, Ideas, Laundry

by Curtis D. Tucker

That's right. Start your own magazine. Creating a magazine is not as difficult as it was in the old days. Computers and easy to use software have made it very possible to layout and design your own rag.

All you need is an idea, niche or specialty. A few magazine ideas would be: photography tips and examples, how to bake and recipes, repairing your own car, local or community news and events, gardening and landscape lessons, how to homeschool, gadget reviews, report on a sports team, scrapbooking articles, etc.

Your first question might be as to how you can afford to get a magazine produced and printed. Well, it's not all that difficult any longer. You can purchase the equipment and do it yourself or you can hire the right people to put it together for you.

To design a magazine you will need a graphic designer or software, a reporter/writer, a photographer and possibly a salesman to sell ad space. You can hire out for all of these positions or you and family members can do the work yourself.

The next step is getting the magazine printed. Thanks to new websites like Magcloud.com you no longer need the backing of million dollar investors. With services like these you can have a single issue printed only when a customer orders one. There's no investment and no inventory! These sites even help you sell and market your magazine.

Marketing the magazine would be the last step. The Internet is the perfect place to begin. Sites like Facebook, YouTube, and MySpace help you connect with potential readers. Build a website using your keywords and create an online readership. You can also market your magazine to local bookstores, local clubs and interested friends.

Viral marketing (word of mouth) can really get things going. Create a fun, informative magazine and you could be on your way to financial freedom.

We're thinking of starting our own magazine and will show you step by step the process we take to get it created.

Labels: Business Start-Ups, Ideas, Magazines

by Curtis D. Tucker

If you don't think like one, how can you become one? I spent many years saying to myself, "I wish I was an entrepreneur." I never thought, in my mind, that I would become one. That is the mistake many people face today. How are you going to become a successful entrepreneur if you don't wake up every morning thinking like one?

The first step in anything is believing that you can do it. You MUST say to yourself every day that you are an entrepreneur and you are creating the steps that are building your empire. You must believe that you can do it before any else is going to believe it.

An entrepreneur is always looking for business ideas and new ways of improving their current position. Entrepreneurs research new ideas and look deep into creating new concepts and improvements on existing ideas. Don't waste a single day sitting idly by waiting for an idea to come to you. You have to make the idea happen!

Think of ways to create a service that has never been offered before. Combine two services to create a new one. Find a way to improve an existing product and make it better than ever before. Discover a way of doing something that has never been tried. These are the types of ideas that create successful entrepreneurs. You must make something remarkable, memorable and mentionable.

That's thinking like an entrepreneur. You should be jotting down ideas at every red light, every lunch and every place of business you frequent. Always write down your ideas. If not, you WILL forget them. Research, study and read. The more information you have the more powerful you will become. I promise!

Stop thinking like an employee and start thinking like an entrepreneur! Every person on the planet COULD start their own business if they believed they could. What do you believe?

Labels: Entrepreneurship, Ideas, Thinking