There are eight ideas vying for this month’s $10K prize at ideablob. Today is the last day to vote!
Kemper Barkhurst, Albuquerque, NM
Kemper is a 26-year-old multimedia designer and developer. His idea, Urban Harvesting, is to collect and distribute local foods to local markets, thereby eliminating wasted fruit that local homeowners cannot collect, store or distribute.
Nicole Brooks, Riverview, FL
21-year-old, Nicole is a single mom and student. Her idea is PeekYourBoo.com, a secure system that allows parents to log in and watch their children while they are at daycare.
Susan di Rende, Los Angeles, CA
Susan is an independent filmmaker. Her idea is to expand and grow the Broad Humor Film Festival, which celebrates comedies written and directed by women.
Sherrie Gossett, Fairfax Station, VA
Sherrie is the managing editor of a new politics and culture magazine. Her idea is to develop news webcasts that allow the audience to become active participants.
Collin LaHay, St. Louis Park, MN
Collin is an 18-year-old student, internet marketer and entrepreneur. His idea is to develop rssHugger.com, which helps bloggers promote their blogs and helps visitors discover new blogs about subjects they are interested in.
Geoffrey Ravenhill, Islesford, ME and Palos Verdes, CA
Geoffrey is a 30-year-old marine biologist and co-founder of a non-profit organization for kids. His idea is to develop an online community where people can post their dreams, develop a game plan for accomplishing them, and receive feedback from other dreamers.
Marci Schankweiler, North Wales, PA
Marci, 39, is the founder of a non-profit organization that provides excursions for young adult cancer patients. Her idea is to purchase a home near Orlando, FL that can be used by cancer patients and bring joy to families in turmoil.
Vaughan Woodruff, Bozeman, MT
Vaughan is a 32-year-old educator. His idea is to develop PLACE, a non-profit organization that will assist American Indians in gaining power over their lands.

Entrepreneurs often miss market disruptions once they’re in business, and today, disruptions are everywhere. “There is no safe industry,” says Jeff Cornwall, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at Belmont University. “We can’t assume we’re going to find a safe little niche to operate in.”

This is from an article that Chris Penttila wrote for this month’s Entrepreneur magazine about industry disruption.
Change creates most of the opportunities that drive the 50% of our economy in the hands of entrepreneurs. And that process of change doesn’t stop once we open the doors to our new business. Change and industry disruption are a given in almost every corner of our economy. We live in an age that Peter Vaill once described as “permanent white water.”
While change and disruption are the fuels that drive entrepreneurial opportunity, they can also sew the seeds of failure for entrepreneurs who do not recognize that they have to keep moving.
Entrepreneurs should think of themselves as sharks — if they stop swimming forward, they will drown.

There are millions of Americans running businesses from home. A recent SBA report estimated that 52% of all registered American businesses are home-based. Are you ready to end your commute and work from home? Need an idea or some inspiration on what kind of home-based business you might be able to start? StartupNation has posted their Home-based 100 ranking, which shows the creativity and innovation that is going on in kitchens, garages, basements, and bedrooms all across the US.
The list is broken into several categories, including the best financial performers, the most innovative, the yummiest, and “boomers back in business.” One of my favorites is from the Wackiest category. OK, maybe it is because it is from right here in Nashville and it involves dogs, but it is certainly fun and creative. The business is called Nashville Lappy Hour:

The venue, more often than not, is a local Nashville watering hole. Clough provides a way for dog lovers to meet other dog lovers in an environment that’s more fun than a dog park or a training class. The variety of sizes and breeds that attend provide plenty of entertainment, along with plenty of comedy, kisses and drool. Call it Barktoberfest.

Thanks to fellow Nashville blogger Ben Cunningham for passing this one along!

Want to find your next opportunity? Look to the future and spot the next big change. After all, change creates disruptions and gaps in markets, and it is these gaps and disruptions that create some of the best opportunity. After that it is all a matter of timing and execution.
I love the fact that my father and his partners (octogenarians all) still keep their eyes off into the horizon. Dad sent along a copy of Futurists “Top 10 Forecasts for 2008 and Beyond.” (You can order their full report as a pdf download here).
Here is a summary of their top ten:

1. The world will have a billion millionaires by 2025.
2. Fashion will go wired as technologies and tastes converge to revolutionize the textile industry.
3. The threat of another cold war with China, Russia, or both could replace terrorism as the chief foreign-policy concern of the United States.
4. Counterfeiting of currency will proliferate, driving the move toward a cashless society.
5. The earth is on the verge of a significant extinction event.
6. Water will be in the twenty-first century what oil was in the twentieth century.
7. World population by 2050 may grow larger than previously expected, due in part to healthier, longer-living people.
8. The number of Africans imperiled by floods will grow 70-fold by 2080.
9. Rising prices for natural resources could lead to a full-scale rush to develop the Arctic.
10. More decisions will be made by nonhuman entities.

More wealth, more people, less water to drink, no cash, and a scarier world. All of these will be creating opportunities for traditional entrepreneurs. But, they will also call upon a greater role of social entrepreneurs as governments are increasingly showing their inability and even incompetence in dealing with many of our problems.

For years the music industry made its money primarily through the creation of a physical product — first the record and then the CD. But with the evolution of the digital age, the physical nature of music is fast becoming obsolete. Just at vinyl records hold nostalgic value, soon CDs will be a novel relic of a bygone era.
So is this the death of the music industry? Of course not. Music has been written, performed, and enjoyed for centuries. Music is part of culture. In many ways music as a business is thriving more than ever before. It is a period of fundamental change for this industry.
Those who have a vested interest in the current system of packaging and distribution (that is, the CD) are hurting in a big way. Like many large businesses in a rapidly changing environment, they are stuck. They are the proverbial super tanker that can’t change course quickly enough to avert disaster. They are stuck due to their capital and intellectual investments.
So these big companies react to change like we often see in other industries under going fundamental change. Rather than adapt, they attack the change. They try to hold back the forces of change like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dam trying to hold back the impending flood. How do they respond to the digital age of music? Do they shift their corporate strategy and change their business model to maintain their relevance and competitiveness? No. They sue 14 year old girls for downloading music.
So how will money be made in the new digital era of music? From a post at TechCrunch:

First, other revenue sources can and will be exploited, particularly live music, merchandise and limited edition physical copies of music. The signs are already there – the live music industry is booming this year, and Radiohead is releasing a special edition box set of their new album…simultaneous to the release of their “free” digital album.
Second, artists and labels will stop thinking of digital music as a source of revenue and start thinking about it as a way to market their real products. Users will be encouraged (even paid, as radio stations are today) to download, listen to and share music. Passionate users who download music from the Internet and share it with others will become the most important customers, not targets for ridiculous lawsuits.

Just as in an industry that is undergoing fundamental change, there are opportunities. It just takes open minds, creative thinking, and entrepreneurial nimbleness to find them.
(Thanks to Andy Tabar for passing this link along).

In this week’s column at the Tennessean, I write about finding the right business to start.

The best business opportunities come from things people already know something about. They come from work experiences, hobbies and everyday lives. Find something from your experiences that is also a need for others. If you are lucky, it may be a niche that nobody has discovered. Or there may be competition, but existing businesses are not meeting the need of customers in that how to order topamax online market. Either way, solving problems that you understand is the best path for a first business venture.
Don’t overthink ideas. Just like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz discovering how to get back to Kansas; the answer was right in front of her all along. And so are the best business ideas.

I also highlight the importance of passion, income and lifestyle in choosing the right business to start.

I wrote a post in 2005 about the boom in the pet industry and the opportunities it was creating for entrepreneurs. It seems that our obsession with our furry companions has not slowed down a bit. Last week’s cover story in Business Week offered this example:

If there’s still any doubt whether the pampering of pets is getting out of hand, the debate should be settled once and for all by Neuticles, a patented testicular implant that sells for up to $919 a pair. The idea, says inventor Gregg A. Miller, is to “let people restore their pets to anatomical preciseness” after neutering, thereby allowing them to retain their natural look and self-esteem. “People thought I was crazy when I started 13 years ago,” says the Oak Grove (Mo.) entrepreneur. But he has since sold more than 240,000 pairs (a few of which went on prairie dogs, water buffalo, and monkeys).

Sorry boys, but not for you….

Keb and Delbert

As I have written many times, not every great idea is good business opportunity. That is why I believe that the single most important skill I can teach aspiring entrepreneurs is how to evaluate an idea and assess its promise as a viable business (most recently in a column I wrote for the Tennessean).
There is an article at Forbes by Wil Schroter that reinforces this point:

A while ago, you had an idea for a new company that would change the world. You stayed up all night feverishly sketching your plans for global domination.
Yet there you are, months later, still sitting in your cubicle, that brilliant flash a distant memory.
Wake up: Not every idea — even a great one — turns into a money machine. In fact, it’s often just as useful to know when to dump a good idea as it is to pursue one — if only so you can get to work on that next “great” idea.

He goes on to give advice that is consistent with my mantra on this: market, margin and me. All three have to work for an idea to really have a chance to make it as a business.
(Thanks to Matthew Nicholson for passing this along).

My column this past Sunday in the Tennessean was on the best approach to evaluating ideas to see if they are true business opportunities.

A key skill that successful entrepreneurs learn is to assess possible opportunities more efficiently and quickly before they make an extensive commitment of time and money to launch the business or even to develop a full business plan.
This process allows entrepreneurs to weed out ideas that are doomed to fail before they even begin.

You can read the column here.