Printing 2.0

Started on slick and colorful calling cards for the social networking circuit, Moo has quickly become an international stationery brand.

When people hand you a Moo MiniCard, they don’t surreptitiously slip the business card into your hand; they splay out their set of cards and let you choose your favorite one. Then they tell you about the image on the back, whether it’s a photo from a vacation, a product shot, an avatar or an innovative digital design. And though the pint-size cards may not fit neatly in your Rolodex–they’re only half the size of traditional business cards–their colorful appearance and slick, high-quality feel make you take notice.

[Read more at Entrepreneur.com]

The PlayHousing Market

There’s no slump here: Barbara Butler’s company thrives by donating its fanciful houses.

Giving away up to $55,000 a year in merchandise has become a tradition for Barbara Butler Artist-Builder Inc. The 21-year-old high-end play structure company — which boasts celebrity clients like Will Smith and expects to bring in $2.3 million in 2008 — makes charitable donations in lieu of having an advertising budget. “We get a lot of publicity, and we try to raise the most money possible,” says Barbara Butler, 51, who owns the 16-person business with her husband, Jeffrey Beal, 52, and her sister, Suzanne, 58.

[Read more at Entrepreneur.com]

First appeared in Entrepreneur magazine

What Your Keyboard Says About You

Don’t look like a Luddite–invest in a keyboard that’ll get potential customers peering over your shoulder.

Sitting at a corner table in a pub crowded with social media fiends who come together for a weekly networking event, Justin Peer pulled out his Nokia N95 phone and his iGo Stowaway Ultra-Slim Bluetooth Keyboard. He opened up the sleek metal-and-plastic contraption, which was only slightly larger than an index card when folded up, leaned his phone against its small stand and started typing away.

He didn’t get far on his blog post, though, before a crowd had formed, curious about his little gadget, wanting to try it out and asking where they could get one, too.

[Read more at Entrepreneur.com]

Talk to Me

How did one couple reach out to the Hispanic business community? By speaking the same language.

Martha de la Torre, 50, and her husband, Joe Badame, 48, are on a mission to strengthen the Hispanic community. In 1988, the couple set out to create a Spanish-language Pennysaver, launching El Clasificado with $350,000 from friends and family. Now, the publication is distributed in 21 Southern California neighborhoods, reaching 1 million readers per week. The business has grown to include a classifieds website, publications for younger Hispanic consumers and a division that creates marketing events with corresponding websites for corporate clients looking to target the Hispanic market.

[Read more at Entrepreneur.com]

First appeared in Entrepreneur magazine.

Expand Your Ad Empire

Amplify your interactive ad arsenal with the latest technology trends.

The coolest ad technologies aren’t the ones that cost the most — they’re the ones that engage users. Thankfully, this year’s crop of cool tools doesn’t require the kind of attention your MySpace page does. From reaching people on their mobile to enhancing your online videos, these innovative ad trends can set you apart as a tech-savvy company while reaching users right when they’re ready to buy — and encouraging them to buy more.

[Read more at Entrepreneur.com]

Secrets of Superstar Employers

These 6 companies offer plenty of reasons for employees to stick around.

Finding and keeping top-notch employees is a challenge for any business, but smaller-sized companies have the advantage of treating employees like family, offering innovative perks and maintaining a workplace where each employee feels he or she contributes to the bottom line.

These six companies go way beyond the free snacks in the office to show that whether your employees are factory workers or computer coders, you can become a superstar employer that offers competitive company perks.

[Read more at Entrepreneur.com]

Slashing Student Costs

BookRenter.com’s young CEO is changing the way students get their textbooks.

Buying textbooks, using them for a few months and then trying to sell them back to the bookstore is a frustrating tradition, where students get back only 10 percent of the purchase price or, worse, find out their books are worth nothing. Discouraged students often dump these books, which gave Colin Barceloux, a business student at Santa Clara University, an idea. He scooped up as many discarded books as he could and listed them on Half.com and Amazon Marketplace. They netted him $50,000 in two years.

[Read more at Entrepreneur.com]

New Ways to Pay

Want to close more sales without doing more work? Give customers more ways to pay with alternative billing methods.

Have you noticed anything different about your favorite online retailers lately? Take a closer look at their checkout options, and you may find some alternative payment methods beyond PayPal and Google Checkout.

A recent study by online marketing firm Brulant found that 30 percent of the top 100 internet retailers offer a form of alternative payment. In that same vein, a Javelin survey found alternative payment methods made up 14 percent of online purchases in 2007 and is expected to grow to 30 percent by 2012.

[Read more at Entrepreneur.com]

Also appeared on MSN

Funded by Google

Ex-Google employees cash in on their company stock to start businesses.

Free gourmet meals, on-site medical care, laundry facilities in the office, and a cool company culture complete with lava lamps, pets and ping pong tables, have made Google an attractive employer. But as it’s grown from a small, entrepreneurial operation to a corporate entity, buying out smaller tech companies and expanding around the globe, some of its more independent-minded employees have struck out on their own.

[Read more at Entrepreneur.com]

Also appeared on MSN

Rocking the Boating World

NavQuest is changing the way boaters plan their trips by making it as simple as point and click.

Boaters have long been jealous of online mapping tools that make it simple for drivers to get from point A to point B, especially Ken Litvack, a school supply manufacturer who started boating 12 years ago. Litvack found the trip planning process arduous and wanted his friend Harry Sangha, who ran a tech and outsourcing consulting company, to help him develop a better system.

Sangha, however, was busy with other projects and brushed him off. But when Litvack missed Sangha’s wedding in 2002 because his boat hit a rock off Long Island Sound due to an error planning the complex trip by hand, the business idea started looking more promising.

[Read more at Entrepreneur.com]

Also appeared on MSN