BAYOU BILLIONAIRES

　　Purchase 80 acres of Louisiana swampland. Avoid hungry gators until oil companies discover massive natural gas deposits under the ground.

　　Payday: .6 million

　　THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT

　　Film a few of your friends running around the woods at night, screaming.

　　Payday: 0 million

　　PET ROCKS

　　Find a bunch of rocks. Turn around and sell them.

　　Payday: million in 6 months

　　CEREALITY

　　Buy a bunch of off-brand cereal. Turn around and sell it at restaurants that serve only cereal.

　　Payday: Enough to open restaurants in several cities

　　12-YEAR-OLD ENTREPRENEUR CAMERON JOHNSON

　　Buy a bunch of Beanie Babies. Turn around and sell them at a markup.

　　Payday: -4 million a month

　　DOGGLES

　　Buy a bunch of swimming goggles. Turn around and sell them at a mark-up as “swimming goggles — for dogs.”

　　Payday: million a month

　　商务英语文章阅读2

　　How Amazon can be a friend to small businesses

　　I’ve been testing out the Kindle Fire tablet for the last several weeks. At 9, it’s a tremendous value. It’s no iPad — I just upgraded to the new iPad as well — but it provides a solid base-level tablet and reader. I can think of a lot of uses for it: an e-book reader, a video consumption device, and a dedicated Sonos controller. But the most exciting use I can see for it would be for Amazon to turn into a device that helps small, local retailers.

　　Amazon could leverage its massive scale in searches for online commerce to help drive business to local businesses, while simultaneously generating revenue and cementing itself as the place to go to shop online.

　　Here’s how I see it working:

　　Merchants would use the Kindle Fire to load their inventory on to Amazon.

　　In addition to the standard options consumers have for standard delivery, second-day shipping with Prime, or overnight shipping, Amazon would offer the option to buy locally.

　　When an item is selected to buy locally, the merchant would be alerted via the Kindle Fire and could confirm the order.

　　Once the order is confirmed, Amazon collects payment from the buyer and the merchant sets the product aside. (Larger merchants with sufficient inventory could configure it to auto-confirm orders.)

　　The consumer stops by to pick up the item and shows ID.

　　Amazon keeps a percentage of the revenue.

　　Amazon already does this for some merchants who sell through the mail; I frequently buy items from third-party sellers through Amazon’s site.

　　The key is that the Kindle Fire is a simple, inexpensive device that integrates well with Amazon services. Add in the option to generate revenue with it, and it can be an important step in increasing the connectedness of small businesses.

　　The Buy Local service could be augmented with local delivery from a company like Postmates. [Editor's note: This futuristic, cool, visionary stuff is exactly what we're talking about at the VentureBeat Mobile Summit on April 2-3, where one of the main themes focuses on mobile commerce.]

　　Amazon has been working to expand its reach into the local market. Its daily deals product, AmazonLocal, is launching a subscriber-acquisition promotion tomorrow, selling Amazon gift cards for . Although it has lagged well behind industry leaders Groupon and LivingSocial, this is a sign that it may be getting serious about the deals space. (Amazon sources many of its deals from LivingSocial.)

　　Beyond local retail there are a number of other compelling services Amazon could offer to make Kindle Fire a must-have for small businesses:

　　Deal redemption tracking for AmazonLocal.

　　Social media management tools for Twitter and Facebook accounts.

　　Scheduling tools similar to Groupon Scheduler.

　　Amazon and local businesses have had a tumultuous relationship, with some blaming Amazon for the demise of local independent bookstores. But these days, even prestigious independent bookstores such as Portland behemoth Powell’s Books are selling through Amazon. Same-day fulfillment plays to the strengths of local retailers and provides consumers a service that Amazon can’t offer today.

　　商务英语文章阅读3

　　6 Biggest Reasons Why Your Small Business is Stagnating

　　These days everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, so way too many people rush into the world of small business headfirst, without taking into consideration the many variables that can make you or break you. Some even luck out and are able to quickly learn from their mistakes on the fly, but most fail within the first year. This is why you see a few people at the other end of the spectrum – fairly ambitious, yet careful and calculated.

　　The careful approach can be a good one, but it is easy to get bogged down in various technicalities and have your business stagnate. If you are interested in promoting growth and expanding your business, then you should try to address the common issues small business face, which are discussed in more detail bellow.

　　1. You don’t engage your customers

　　“Engaging the customers” is kind of a broad term, so let’s look at some of the different aspects it covers:

　　Good customer service

　　Rewarding loyalty

　　Inspiring trust

　　Social media interaction

　　Asking for feedback

　　If you want to learn more about what the customers want, then go and ask them. Granted it takes a bit of work, but developing a great relationship with the customers and building a loyal following has many benefits. This extends to online shopping as well. Whether you are opening online shop or want to start selling your goods on Amazon, there is a right way to do things. It involves creating a great shopping experience for the customers. This means that they can find what they are looking for effectively, have access to interesting offers if they buy multiple products, can get in contact with you and sort out any problems, and they need to be able to finish the whole process quickly.

　　2. You try to do to everything yourself

　　It’s one thing to be very hands on and not want to delegate simple tasks, but once you start doing 4-6 different things it keeps you away from the really important stuff. Let’s say you are a great cook and have opened your own restaurant. You need to be focused on keeping the quality of the food and the service up to standard, and on making the right adjustments.

　　If you suddenly start mopping the floors, acting as head chef, doing your own accounting, promoting the restaurant on social media and posting two articles a day on your website’s blog, chances are you are going to burn out, and the restaurant will be in a poor state. You don’t have to hire an army of people, but be sure to delegate the heavy grunt work and focus on making business decisions and managing your employees.

　　3. You don’t utilize modern technology to its full potential

　　We’ve already touched on the importance of social media interactions, but small business can be greatly improved through the liberal use of online technologies. With fast and adaptable approaches to software development, i.e. focusing on agile methodology, it is possible get exactly what you need in a relatively short time, through effective communication with the developers and on-the-fly tweaks.

　　A good website allows companies to reach out and market themselves to an international audience, while the right custom software helps them significantly improve their efficiency, cut down on costs, and. For retailers and restaurants, switching to a more modern POS system can make a huge difference, while many different small business can save time and money in the long run using applications specifically tailored to their needs.

　　4. You don’t set yourself apart from everyone else

　　A business can do quite well, and stay afloat for years making a modest profit even if it doesn’t have any special features that make them particularly unique or appealing. However, you never want to get into the “let’s just get by” mindset, as it will all but ensure that your business never grows past those initial stages. Unless you are dealing with a very limited niche market, you will have to deal with a relatively saturated market, so any defining feature that helps you stand out and makes people remember you is going to be a key component in sparking growth.

　　5. You focus on growth at the expense of everything else

　　There will come a time where you have enough of a demand for your products and to warrant expansion, and an efficiency that allows for this expansion to happen. However, it needs to be done strategically. A lot of entrepreneurs make the mistake of jumping at the opportunity to expand their business at the first chance they get, and focusing all their energy on that goal. This can lead to a drop in quality of service as you start spreading your resources thin. It is important to scale your growth based on what you can realistically handle without sacrificing productivity or quality.

　　6. You can’t handle the extra workload effectively

　　This is a direct extension of the last point. A lot of people believe that once their business starts growing things will magically fall into place and that they will be able to sit back and let this well-oiled money-making machine of theirs keep growing exponentially. Unfortunately, this is not the case. As your business grows so do your obligations and complications. It’s easy to underestimate the level of work that goes into it, and face the sobering truth – you are not prepared to take on the extra workload. This is where things can really fall apart, forcing businesses to work hard just to stay afloat, let alone turn a profit.

　　Even if you make the first big steps and start growing your business, you can still hit a wall if you haven’t planed things out right. It’s similar to how Hollywood movies often go well over the initial budget as the production drags on, and many of them end up as scrapped projects as a result. Be realistic about how much a project will cost and how much time and effort it will take to see it through. If you are overconfident and don’t anticipate little setbacks and hidden costs, you may very well cut yourself short and keep stagnating.