General Business and Finance Blog

Would be and will be, mom and dad, entrepreneurs are usually in a quandary as to what small home business ideas they should follow for possible long term commitments.

Unfortunately most start up small home businesses do not make it in the first six months of operations.

The reason for this is because their small home business idea is not workable in the real world when frequently they will look so good to us.

The secret here is to test them out on a small scale. Sort them out.

You frequently will not have enough money to make it through this critical first six months.

This would be for a small or big enterprise.

Taking an inventory of your resources does not only mean financial resources but also other available resources such as talents, manpower, existing space in the house, equipment, available software and the like.

There are many small home business ideas that are very feasible depending on your present financial, reality based and knowledge circumstances.

This is why taking an inventory of your present resources will greatly affect the outcome of your small business venture. Let us narrow down our list of small home business ideas, let us focus on five areas where a stay at home mom could engage.

Men will look at something like this and say, no way, that just will not work. Women, for some reason, will be more open to something like this which is good for them because their mindset can make it work.

For your customers it will get to be an unbreakable habit real fast.

For creative stay at home moms, a small home business idea such as scrapbook making and handicrafts would be good for you.

Professional athletes are a great target market for this.

They wish they had a service like this after their careers are over. That is too late.

There are thousands of professional athletes, men and women both, who would be glad to let somebody do the work for them for a fee.

Another option for you if you are artistic and really love handicraft is to design greeting cards.

Assembling greeting cards is really fun and many people would love to get a card made specifically for themselves.

The truth about small business ideas; Ebay

In comparison with last year, the number of people that try to make money on the internet as small business ideas has increased drastically. Making money with online auction sites like eBay is a great example of such ideas, but you need to learn how to sell things on eBay first.

In order to be successful on eBay you need to know what to do with your products. If you have found a niche to sell a product in, but you are not sure if the product is going to sell, you can do a test run. The best small business ideas should be tested before the actual kick off. Many sellers on eBay skip this part, but this is an important strategy that you should not miss. I know for sure there are a lot of people out there with regret, because they didn’t test first.

How does the testing work?

1. The goal is to focus on the demand of products. You need to understand the buyers behavior. List samples of your products for this testing to understand how to sell things on eBay. Purchase a few products or use your own products and put them on sale to start with your test run.

2. Write down every step of the way, so you can monitor the “life path” of the product and notice the ones with highest buyers interest. Write down the time, the number of visits, why do customers click away, etc.

3. When the test run is ready you can have a clear picture what products have been the most successful and why. The testing results become the fundamental base on which you can build your future plans on. By understanding the behavior of your customers, you can create a booming business for yourself.

Why testing is a crucial part

Did you know that many people that try to make a living on eBay fail, because they did not test? Basing your business on a good feeling is not enough to guarantee success. You don’t want to purchase products and try to sell them, just because you are convinced that people want to buy them.

Imagine buying a lot of products that you are trying to sell things on eBay and you find out that they are not selling as well as you thought they would. There you are standing next to the products that you did not sell. Your investment is down the drain and you are frustrated, because you simply did not test your expectations.

Many people with small business ideas start out that way. It is a waste and just plain stupid to base your business on a hunch. Often you cannot even call it a hunch, because a hunch is your intuition combined with an educated guess; without testing, no educated guess!

When you start out, you practically have no experience so why build a company on no experience? Test your theories, that is the way how to sell on eBay.

Acquire the advanced material to learn how to sell on eBay. Discover the eBay selling secrets that have been kept hidden from the public.

Stay Vocal Wins Best Small Business Idea – ReUse (June 10, 2008) — Advanta Corp. announced today that Alex Eaves of Norwell, Mass. is the May winner of ideablob.com’s monthly contest for the best small business idea, as voted on by the ideablob community.

Eaves’ company, STAY VOCAL, began as a skateboard company focused on producing positive messages about social and environmental awareness. The company recently transitioned to focus solely on its line of ReUse products, which include clothing and accessories made from used materials, as well as being a source of information about music, news and events.

“With natural resources diminishing, and so much ‘stuff’ already available, it’s imperative that people learn to reuse more,” said Eaves. “With this award from ideablob.com, STAY VOCAL can expand and I can bring the ReUse line of products to new customers.”

Eaves plans to use the award money to revamp the STAY VOCAL Web site to make it focus more on ReUse products, and to inform people how to be more environmentally conscious in their daily lives.

“Boston has become a leading hub in the social entrepreneurship movement, with three social entrepreneurs from Boston winning the ideablob contest,” said Ami Kassar, Advanta’s Chief Innovation Officer.

Previous winners from the Boston area include John Struder and his idea to expand his sweatshop-free clothing company, No Sweat Apparel, and Naomi Bar-Yam and her idea for the Mother’s Milk Bank of New England, an organization serving babies, hospitals and families throughout New England.

Because Eaves is an Advanta Business Cards customer, he is eligible to receive 1,000,000 rewards points on his Advanta BusinessCard (or the $10,000 cash alternative) in addition to the $10,000 monthly contest prize. Advanta will present Eaves, who chose the cash alternative, with his $20,000 award at a special event later this month in Boston.

Ideablob.com is an active community where small business owners and entrepreneurs are sharing business ideas and receiving feedback, advice and support from the community. Experts from various industries take part in the ideablob discussions and offer their input on how burgeoning entrepreneurs can capitalize on their ideas.

Advanta, one of the nation’s largest credit card issuers (through Advanta Bank Corp.) in the small business market, awards a $10,000 monthly prize to the best eligible idea, as determined by the votes of the ideablob community. In recent months,

Advanta has awarded the monthly prize to software developers, non-profit leaders and several social entrepreneurs.