10 Distinct Business Ideas to Motivate You This 2017

If you want to hit it big as an entrepreneur, you need to either solve a current problem or fulfill a need -- even if it's one consumers didn't know they had. There are lots of business ideas you can come up with -- from faux-handwritten thank-you notes to a Tinder-like app for rescuing pets, you'll be surely inspired to start a business venture with these unique lines of business.

Fetal Greetings

The greeting card business has been huge for years, and it seems to get bigger with every passing holiday. Fetal Greetings offer a special opportunity for expecting mothers: To have their baby greet the world in a form of a card! Hooly Nill-McKay started the company in 1999, and while the idea may sound strange, it's actually a great example of a unique and clever idea that builds on an existing industry. The cards themselves are cute, and they make wonderful surprises to send to family and friends to announce a pregnancy.

Shareable office space

Every day, technology makes it more and more possible for employees and entrepreneurs to do their jobs and run their businesses from anywhere, which means businesses don't necessarily have to invest in their own office space. WeWork provides office space for the office-less, with flexible month-to-month membership options for everyone from individual freelancers to large companies. Freelancers who prefer to work outside of their homes can have a more reliable work space than a local coffee shop, and companies and other teams can have a place to collaborate and hold meetings and events, for instance. WeWork, which as founded in 2010, has locations in more than a dozen cities across the United States as well as locations in Israel, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. The company also fosters a sense of community among its members, so you can network with peers and customers while saving money on rent and other fees that come with maintaining your own office space.

Tinder for dogs

Borrowing a page from popular dating app Tinder, BarkBuddy makes it easy to find and adopt the perfect dog for you. Users tell BarkBuddy what they're looking for in the perfect pup, and then swipe yes or no on different profiles of dogs in their area. Once you've found the right dog, you can set up and meet and greet through the app. The company see to it that everyone using the app is qualified to adopt, too. You have to fill out an adopter file to be approved first; otherwise, you won't be eligible to adopt.

Bedside service

Being pregnant can be a physically and mentally exhausting nine months for a lot of women. In the hope of making pregnancy a little bit easier, Stephanie D. Johnson founded Bed Rest Concierge as an answer to these needs. The business provides a wide variety of pre- and post-delivery services, including creating and managing a baby registry, birth announcement creation and distribution, nursery design, diaper delivery service, laundry service, and hospital preparation. Aside from these, Bed Rest Concierge offers a number of "pampering services," such as manicures, pedicures, and facials.

Individually packaged small items

While bigger might be better for some, Minimus takes a different approach. In operation for nearly a decade now, this online company offers more than 2,500 different individually packaged products, including travel-size toiletries and individual servings of various food items -- everything from chips to Tabasco sauce. When it was founded, Minimus did not have any employees and was housed in 500-square-foot space. Today, the company takes up two large Los Angeles warehouses and employs dozens of workers. Aside from the individual items, Minimus sells premade kits specially designed for different uses, such as baby and family kits, outdoor kits, first-aid kits and military-care packages.

Personalized thank-you cards

Saying thank you has never been easier with the help of Thankster. The online business lets users easily create personalized thank-you cards with simulated, authentic-looking handwriting. The service gives users the ability to pick and choose from a variety of handwriting styles in order to best match their own. For consumers, Thankster is great for sending thank-you cards for weddings, bar mitzvahs, graduations, and baby or bridal showers. Many businesses use the service to send personalized "handwritten" notes to valued clients, customers, partners and employees. After the notes are finished, Thankster stuffs, stamps, and sends out the letters to their intended recipients.

Classy Restrooms on-the-go

For some events, the typical green and cramped portable toilet just isn't enough. ElizaJ rents out high-quality, clean, and attractive portable restrooms for any outdoor event. Each of ElizaJ's individual restrooms include fresh flowers, designer soaps and lotions, name-brand paper products, wicker waste baskets, air fresheners, and fresh water. The company recently unveiled it's newest restroom called "The Powder Room," which can accommodate events of up to 350 people and is designed to compete with those in the finest restaurants and department stores. ElizaJ has also launched a franchising model to give other entrepreneurs the opportunity to run their own portable restroom operation.

Personalized tea

Design A Tea offers consumers the ability to design their own tea blend from scratch. Founded in 2007 by J. Brian Pfeiffer, the online business lets tea drinkers choose from among 40 flavors that can be mixed and matched to create their own artisan tea blend. Shoppers first select a base flavor -- black, oolong, green, or rooibos -- and then mix in two other ingredients, such as almond, Irish creme, passion fruit, rum, or wintergreen. In total, there are more than 10,000 different combinations tea drinkers can create. As part of its mission, Design A Tea has adopted numerous socially responsible practices, including using recycled paper products, labels and environmentally friendly inks. All of their tea flavors are 100 percent natural, organic, and gluten-free.

I Do Now I Don't

Every day, there are couples in love who get engaged. And every day, couples who have fallen out of love separate or break an engagement. When the latter happened to Josh Opperman, his fiancee was kind enough to return the engagement ring, and he didn't know what to do with it. Since the wholesale markups on engagement rings are insanely high, he would have taken a huge loss in returning it. So instead, he started his business, I Do Now I Don't, which is an online marketplace for unwanted engagement rings. Customers can buy rings at prices far cheaper than you would find in a traditional jewelry or department store, and you can sell at rates that are better than you'd get if you tried to return the ring. Business started booming, and now you can buy and sell other jewelry items there, too.

Something Store

Do you love the feeling of waiting for something to come in the mail? Well if you do, then you have to try the Something Store. For $10 (no shipping cost), they send you a random item. It could be anything in the world. Since 2007, they've shipped over 50,000 "somethings" to customers who wait with anxious anticipation.

Why You Need to Avoid Buying Fake Chargers for Your Device

It always boggle the mind and defy logic when people go out of their pockets to spend a large amount to buy a top quality product like a smartphone or tablet, and not spend just a little bit more for an official spare or replacement charger. Remember that not only are you putting money in the pockets of illegal counterfeiting product makers, but you are also endangering the lives and property of those around you, including yourself.

Another way to put it is that while the central issue of NOT BUYING fake chargers or counterfeit chargers is SAFETY, as well as protecting your own life and the life of others, when you buy officially manufactured chargers, you are denying much needed cash to counterfeiters and smugglers to continue their illegal nefariousness.

Fake chargers are not well insulated

Official chargers of official brands are well insulated. This is important in terms of safety to ensure that the charger runs efficiently with no issues. Counterfeit chargers offer bare-bones insulation at best, and that leaves fake products susceptible to fire or explosions when it overheats.

Fake chargers pump out less charging current

Fake chargers can only pump out a maximum of 5.9W of charging electricity. This means that it takes much longer to charge your device, assuming the fake charger doesn’t overheat and catch fire. Genuine chargers will pump out 10W so charging times is around 2-3 hours at the most.

Genuine manufacturers will replace official chargers for small cost

Genuine brands have recently been announcing a sort of “takeback program” wherein it will replace its official chargers should the customer feel that it poses any safety issues, and dispose of it. The customer will then be issued a new official charger for a fraction of the former retail price. Customers are advised to always purchase official chargers to avoid any untoward fire or explosions.

The very cheap prices of fake chargers aren’t worth the risk

Everyone loves sales or bargains, but when it comes to gadgets, devices, and especially chargers, the cheaper price of fake chargers isn’t worth the risk compared to buying an official charger. Besides, logic dictates that if you’re already familiar with the price of, say, an Apple iPad, and you see one being sold for a dirt cheap price, chances are that the cheap iPad is fake. The same goes with chargers. Not everything you buy cheap is a quality bargain or sale.

Be aware of availability

While gadgets and devices are available from licensed and approved retailers (take note of licensed and approved), official replacement or official spare chargers may be available only from the manufacturer’s direct store, such as an Apple Store, Samsung Store, and so on. So if you’re planning to buy a charger from an unknown store called P-Noy’s Electronics that sells chargers made in the Philippines or Beijing Store that sells chargers made in China, you’re better off contacting or looking for your gadget’s official store.

Encourage Your Sales Force By Implementing These 6 Ways

A motivated sales force can exceed your expectations when it comes to revenue and profit. So how do you encourage them to go and beyond? Check out below for suggestions on how you can do so.

1. Foster a team environment

Many companies find that a team mindset can provide great results. Do your sales people feel like a team or is everyone out there a lone ranger? Even if the nature of your business requires people to work individually, there is value in having a shared sales goal and business identity.

When people communicate, they can also begin to collaborate better. Senior salespeople can help junior salespeople. Sales conferences, group training, team meetings, team building events, and social gatherings can all help you foster a better team environment.

2. Coach and mentor them

Sales is an evolving role. Today it's not about just selling but about fostering relationships with customers. Foster relationships with your sales people and you'll get better results for them just like you will with your clients.

Coaching and training sales staff can result in significant improvement in results. People respond to individual feedback on performance. You may consider implementing one-on-one meetings on a monthly basis with all of your salespeople, for example. This is where you can give praise when it's due and help struggling salespeople overcome challenges as well.

3. Create some friendly competition

Salespeople tend to be competitive by nature and motivated by money. Internal contests can inspire great results and can also be a great way to foster team collaboration, too. Regular contests can make a big difference in the mindset and the morale of your sales team.

4. Listen to their pain points

Regular sales staff meetings and individual one-on-one meetings can help address issues and problems that your salespeople are experiencing. Listen to your salespeople and act on their concerns. A happy and steam lined sales team will lead to motivated and long lasting employees.

5. Give them the tools they need to succeed

Do you have outdated sales tools? Do your sales tracking, CRM, and order fulfillment tools help salespeople do their jobs or do they make life difficult or just add another step in their day? Upgrading to the right sales tools can help your staff become better at what they do. Your efforts of continuously improving processes in the company can translate to a salesperson being able to continuously improve his or her results.

6. Show them the money and appreciation

Recognize excellence with compensation. You can do this with cash, gifts, plaques of appreciation, and so on. This probably seems pretty obvious but how long has it been since you reviewed your company's compensation plan? Is it considered competitive for your industry? Are you rewarding the performers and inspiring those who are struggling to try a little harder? Regularly review compensation and incentives to make sure you are continue to inspire people through rewarding excellence.

Whether you implement some of these suggestions or all of them, continually working to motivate your staff can yield some great results sooner or later.

5 Apps Every Business Newbie Must Have

Starting a new business is not a joke, however, with the help of technology, this daunting process can be a bit easier to accomplish. The Web is filled with apps to help entrepreneurs get their new business up and running. Here are some helpful tools you should check out.

Small Business Inventory Control Pro

Small Business Inventory Control Pro is a handy tool for product-based businesses. It allows companies to keep track of things like product inventories and payments to vendors. It can also report on inventory cost, the retail value of the inventory, and the 30-day turnover ratio.

A couple of the tools more notable features are its ability to create purchase orders and invoices as well as its capacity for dealing with bundles, not just individual products.

You can get the Small Business Inventory Control Pro app for $259, but a free trial is available for download.

KBilling

KBilling is a recommended invoicing system that is highly customizable and modestly priced. The software allows you to build a customer database, issue quotes, and manage invoices. In addition, invoices can be billed to credit cards, and it's easy to add late fees to overdue invoices. The software can even handle shipping costs.

In addition to that, KBilling contains dozens of built-in reports that can help you to better understand your organization's cash flow. KBilling sells for $149, but a free trial version can be downloaded.

Publish-iT

Publish-iT is a tool that can help your company create its own advertisements, brochures, and other printed media. It has many of the same features found in high-end desktop publishing applications but a fraction of the cost. For example, it includes drawing tools, photo editing tools, and the ability to interact with TWAIN scanners.

The app also includes countless text and image formatting options. This tool probably won't meet the needs of professional graphic designers, but it will work fine for most other people.

You can get Publish-iT for $24, but you can also download the trial version for free.

Advertising Manager

This app is designed to help businesses make the most of their advertising budget. The tool will require you to enter some basic information about your business and then helps you brainstorm by asking you questions about things like market share and public perception.

Advertising Manager also lets you follow ad campaigns by attaching media files and tracking the campaign's duration, dates, and price. Advertising Manager sells for $199, but a free trial version can be downloaded.

Ultimate Business Plan Starter

Ultimate Business Plan Starter is a free tool that can help you build a business plan. It's structured similarly to Advertising Manager, walking you through the process of entering various types of information. For instance, you can enter information about your competitive advantage, pricing, and promotional plan.

Ultimate Business Plan Starter uses a tree-like interface, making it easy to move between parts of the plan. The plan's elements are cleanly organized into categories, such as Executive Summary, Operating Plan, and Financial Assumptions.

Instantly Turn On Your Android Device Without Pressing Any Buttons

Are you tired of turning your phone on or off every time you pick it out of your pocket or pick it up from the table? Wouldn't it be great if your phone automatically turns on whenever you pick it up? If you want your phone to do just that, you need to have an app called the Gravity Screen Off.

By using your phone's sensors (position and proximity), this app can detect the movements you make when you put your phone in your pocket and automatically blocks them. It also knows when you take your phone out and automatically lights up. This app can be very useful when your Lock button is about to break.

Pocket Sensor

When you start the app for the first time, the first option you'll see is the Pocket sensor. This feature recognizes that you have your phone in your pocket. If you turn your phone below the angle you have set up, your phone will turn off. You can get an angle as high as 90 degrees and as low as 0. Once you have the angle you want, click on the box that says Any Direction (Flip Cover). If you want to change the angle, you need to unselect this option before the app lets you make any changes.

Table Sensor

The lying face up option does exactly what its name says it does. By choosing this option, your phone will automatically turn off when you put it on a flat surface up. If in case you want to change the angle of the table sensor, you will need to unselect the Any Direction (Flip Cover) option.

Proximity Sensor

In this part of the settings, you will only find two options: Turn Screen Off and On by Proximity. This is a great feature since you can activate the screen by just swiping your hand over the proximity sensor.

Turn Screen On by Motion

Here you will see a variety of options such as turning on your device when it's moved or is facing upward. The choice does warn the user that this feature may not be supported by all devices, and if that is the case with you, you can always use the proximity way to turn your device's screen on.

There's a Timeout feature that allows you to set a time interval so you can limit the time the device can be woken by motion. The free version of the app only lets you set it as high as 15 minutes or as low as 0 minutes.

In Sensitivity, it would be a good idea if you set it as low as possible because this will avoid you from accidentally turning on your phone various times throughout the day. That's only going to drain your battery anyway. You can set the sensitivity to as high as 100 and as low as 0. There are no restrictions here like in the Timeout feature.

If you hate it when your phone screen automatically turns on while it's in your pocket, then you may want to consider using the False Turn-On Protection in Pocket feature. The app does warn you that you should only use this feature if Turn Screen On by Motion is set correctly and works for you.

Keep Screen On by Motion

When this feature is enabled, you will prolong the timeout of your screen without touching it. It's able to keep the screen on by detecting small movements, making everything easier for you. This feature also lets you set the sensitivity from 0 to 100. If you activate the Booster option, the feature will have a quicker response time.

Be careful though -- if you turn the screen off by pressing the Power button, this feature is going to interfere and turn the screen back on. Having the screen turn back on by itself can be very annoying. That's why it's recommended to enable the Power Button Support, which can be found in the More Settings section.

Gravity Screen Off offers other features such as headphone support, running during a call, vibration, disable lock screen, and notifications. The large amount of options is just what we need in an app -- so go ahead and try the Gravity Screen Off app now.

Options You Can Consider When Customizing and Building Your Own Computer

Purchasing your computer, whether for home or office use, straight out of the box isn’t the only option available to you when you’re doing your window shopping. Consider the advantages and educational values of putting together your own computer or at least customizing most of its major parts so that the time and effort you need to invest in the project is rewarded through its many benefits.

You Save More Money

You really save more money by building or customizing your own computer rather than buying a pre-assembled model because you can focus on the features you do need and leave out the ones that you don’t. Computer manufacturers and retailers often include the cost of assembly, support, and other overheads in the total price of a finished computer. When you build your own, you only have to pay the cost of the components. The amount you can save depends on the type of components you’ll be using and buying, but it can be up to several hundred dollars.

Tailoring Means Choosing Options that Only You Can Consider

When you choose to build your own PC, you can tailor it to your exact requirements rather than relying on the fixed configuration choices of pre-assembled models. There are actually a lot of things and options to consider in tailoring the PC to your needs. Perhaps you want a few extras built in like a TV tuner card; or perhaps you want to increase the CPU and RAM capabilities. If you choose to increase your RAM capability, consider the best buy for an 8GB kit that includes two 4GB sticks of RAM; 8GB, at 1600MHz. You can also choose how large your monitor needs to be or even hang it on the wall at sight level rather than having it on the table. You may even decide to use several hard drives or graphics cards in your system. You can also choose to add more fans or select quieter fans to cool down your PC, thus, increasing its performance and lifespan. You can even shop around for unique PC casing designs or improve your sound system. Take note that in all your options and customizations, do invest in a good power supply unit.

You can choose all these without being restricted by the specification options set by a manufacturer or retailer. All of the above are options you can consider that ultimately leads your PC to its…

Potential for Further Upgrade

In building your own PC or selecting what options to customize will leave a lot of room for future upgrades, which is good news for your PC’s future lifespan as well. Not only can you plan ahead and buy a motherboard capable of expansion, you’ll also be much more at an advantage when it comes to buying better and more powerful components after a period of 3 to 4 years. Whether it’s buying a motherboard capable of running the latest line of CPU’s or buying a PSU with spare capacity, building your own PC means you can future-proof it should an upgrade become available or necessary. This also increases the lifespan of your computer to a few more years.

If you decide to become serious at building your own PC but you’re still a bit novice, here are a couple of guides that can help you start on your way.

You can check these resources to help you with your computer build.

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/diy-your-own-pc/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ORXEXovI6s

Things You Should Avoid to Prevent Your Computer from Slowing Down Over Time

One of the biggest computer annoyances that happens to any owner/users is when the machine starts to slow down over time. This usually happens years after you get a PC or laptop. Since we use our computers for different task and activities at work or at home, the slowing down process is basically the same with any type or model concerned. When a new computer is bought and first booted up, it naturally works lightning fast, and this is because it doesn't have anything on it. As you download files. install programs, and surf the Internet over time, the computer gets bloated with files that hog your computer's system resources.

There is no definite and single main cause why a computer slows down over time; it can be a series of major causes that can happen within  a spanning period of time.

Using two or more antivirus software or anti-malware programs
To put it simply, having two or more antivirus or anti-malware programs can greatly slow down your computer and some may actually get in conflict with each other and damage the computer's operating system. Also, the first line of defense against viruses, malware, and spyware should be Safe Browsing. Naturally, if you're downloading shady files, clicking on ad pop-ups, or opening links from unknown emails, you'll greatly increase your chances of getting a computer infection. So practice careful and responsible Internet browsing.

Not using Disk Cleanup at least once a week
At least once a week, you need to clear your cache and temporary Internet files and empty the trash bin by using the Disk Cleanup utility. And while you're at it, clear out your Internet browsing history and then check using the task manager which programs and background services are running at startup that are needed an thus, slowing down your computer. However, be careful an don't clear out the registry thinking this speeds up your computer. Cleaning out the registry may clear out some outdated settings but the registry files are merely in kilobytes, there won't be any noticeable change in your computer's speed.

Allowing your hard drive to become dangerously low on space
If you have allowed your hard drive to become low on space, like say, only having around 2 or 3 gigabytes as free space, then your computer will drastically slow down. Your computer programs need space to dynamically grow in size, usually through the creation of temporary files. If there is no room on the hard drive to store these, you system will crawl. However, if you have more than half the hard drive with free space, your don't need to clear out personal data to speed up the computer. Getting rid of Word documents, photos, videos, and music - no matter how large these files are - have no negligible effect on the computer's speed.

In reality, we need to face the fact that as any computer gets older, it will definitely. slow down. It's a natural progression. As newer hardware, software, Internet, and application capabilities evolve, these new innovations require more space and power. So the user should never be faulted when their once zippy computer is now crawling, unless the user has a habit of dangerously download anything from the web.