I can imagine few leaps of faith bigger than those attempted by the dreamers with a Big Idea for a business. To believe that people will want to pay for a product you've come up with, to max out the credit cards and mortgage the home to put it all on the line for that vision takes a heck of a lot of nerve.
Did you toil away for days trying to craft the perfect business plan to win this competition only to be completely ignored? Then you're in good company. Over the past nine years more than 1,000 people have competed in the Business Plan Challenge, but most never make it to the finals. Here's your chance to show us how myopic we were. If you competed in the past but didn't win and your idea turned into a successful business, we want to hear from you. Send us an e-mail (put "revenge" in subject line), letting us know the name of your company, what year you competed and what you are doing now: jwyss@MiamiHerald.com Illustration:
Getting ready for the storm? Here are some websites that might help www.floridadisaster.org -- This State of Florida site has plans and tips for both business and home owners.
Here's a list of tips to safeguard your business in the event of a hurricane and to get it ready well before danger approaches. Windstorm insurance must be in place prior to a storm to cover losses caused by hurricanes and tornadoes. However, some insurance companies will allow businesses to purchase coverage up until a hurricane warning has been issued.
When The Cereal Bowl opened its doors on 1560 S. Dixie Highway 16 months ago, the trio behind the venture (twin brothers Josh and Kenneth Rader, 25, and their childhood friend Michael Glassman, 26) were hoping to prove that customers would be willing to fork over $3 for the opportunity to mix and match 40 different kinds of breakfast cereal and dozens of toppings -- from healthy fresh fruit to decadent cookie dough.
Jesse Stoll works for Sony BMG pitching new rock bands and manages his own group called Big Bang Radio. Oh yeah, he manages to sandwich in classes in copyright law and finance, too.
Many small businesses have spent the past two years trying to make themselves less vulnerable to hurricanes and other disasters. Given the lessons of Katrina and also Hurricanes Rita and Wilma the same year, many companies understand that planning needs to be more complex than once thought.
Hurricane season usually blows in with an added dose of stress for employee-employer relations. What happens to workers when the office has been knocked out of commission? How do you get work done if employees can't get past the downed trees in their driveways?
SBA Administrator Steven Preston talked to The Miami Herald about what business owners can do to prepare themselves and what the SBA has done to avoid a repeat of the troubles of 2005.
Backing up data to prepare for disasters is something every business should consider year-round -- whether that disaster is caused by a human or a hurricane. And a recent study shows that many small businesses are not prepared.
My View
In South Florida, we are bombarded by the news media about making physical preparations to withstand a storm. This includes tasks such as backing up computers, boarding up, arranging for generators and filling up fuel tanks.
Most companies have no trouble making plans for securing their buildings and making sure their data is backed up, but they shouldn't forget they also need a clear hurricane policy for employees, labor lawyers say.
Here's a list of other tips to safeguard your business.
If you haven't figured out backup power for your business yet, what can you do?
Weeks without power have sensitized businesses to the need for keeping in touch to make sure their telecommunications and data backup plans are up to date this hurricane season.
At age 17, Weina is the chief executive of her own Web-based podcast hosting company and makes an annual salary of $40,000 for working 20 hours a week. Her office is her laptop in her parent's townhouse near North Miami Beach. She balances her work duties with doing homework for seven advanced placement classes at Krop Senior High School and applying to colleges.
Elise Lorenzo, 15, is one of 126 Miami-Dade high school students who have traded the dog days of summer vacation for a six-week course about the dog-eat-dog world of entrepreneurship.
When Matt Byrd won $1,500 after a lucky pull of a Las Vegas slot machine in February, the 21-year-old didn't put it toward his tuition at the University of Miami. He wasn't thinking about a new computer or paying his rent. He had his mind set on mattresses.
After working for Netscape at age 14, Key Biscayne resident Blake Ross has become at the ripe old age of 19 the co-creator of a hot, new ultra-fast Internet browser, Firefox.
Businesses are finally starting to think more highly of Miami-Dade's K-12 educational system, saying local schools are no longer such a negative factor when recruiting new workers or companies to the area. The bad news: Rising insurance costs and worries about hurricanes are seen as not only increasingly important but also as factors that make doing business here much more difficult, according to an annual survey of local companies by the Beacon Council, Miami-Dade County's public/private economic development agency.
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