Business Idea of the Day

From fighting forest fires to laying carpet in day care centers, CNNMoney.com takes a look at what 5 small businesses that got stimulus-funded contracts are doing with taxpayers’ dollars. This Oregon fire-prevention company won stimulus-funded contracts totaling more than $700,000 to “lop and scatter” the branches in two densely populated forests. Thinning a forest slows the burning when a forest fire starts, giving rescue teams more time to contain the fire before it spreads to residential areas. The contracts PatRick Environmental won allowed the family-run business to hire two new full-time employees and bring 20 “call when needed” employees on for six months of paid work that they wouldn’t have otherwise gotten. Paul Solarz, the operations manager for the company, also appreciates the training benefits the additional work brought

How’s this for a niche business? DaLuca Straps is a manufacturer of high end watch straps. They create one-of-a-kind custom straps for expensive watches like Panerai , Bell&Ross , Patek , IWC , and JLC

Trendspotter Springwise reports that there’ s a new kid on the flat-pack furniture block, offering a portable high chair solution. Made from recycled cardboard, the Feedaway from Melbourne-based Belkiz is an easy-to-assemble, lightweight version of the traditional feeding chair.

Paul King was headed to the airport in Pittsburgh in 2006 when he suffered an ill-timed communications blackout. His cell phone died and he realized he still had his roommate’s house key in his pocket, according to a story at CNNMoney.com . If he didn’t call her to arrange a return, she would be locked out all weekend. But without access to his electronic phonebook, he didn’t know her number. On his return trek, King drove past a number of ATMs and convenience stores.

Gina Roberts-Grey over WalletPop says if you couldn’t resist buying a box or two of Thin Mints or Samoas from a Girl Scout recently, don’t feel bad. These pint-sized dynamos have honed sales skills that rival those of some of the most savvy adult professionals. If fact, some Scouts sell thousands of boxes per year. Want to know how they do it? Here’s a look inside the minds of some of the most successful cookie sellers in the country.

Making the leap from The Brady Bunch to entrepreneurship, Florence Henderson has started the FloH Club , a membership-based telephone tech support service for seniors, AOL Small Business reports. Henderson is definitely on to something big. The senior market is over 37 million strong in the U.S. alone and is still “a vastly under tapped market

Google is preparing an online store in which it will sell third-party business software to Google Apps customers, according to a report. The Wall Street Journal says that Google’s store could arrive as early as March with the works of third-party developers available as enhancements to Google’s office productivity software suite. It appears the store would allow Gmail and Google Docs users to purchase add-ons for niche features too specialized for the mainstream Google Apps product. Offering incentives such as this type of store could also help attract more developers to the Google Apps platform, which could be a boost to Google’s hopes of taking a piece of Microsoft’s lucrative hold on the office productivity software market.

If you’ve been thinking about starting your own business then you are not alone, reports the Evanston Review . More and more moms are clawing their way to the top of the entrepreneurial ladder than ever before. Until she became a mother, BabbaCo ’s founder, Jessica Kim, never imagined she would start a baby product line. Dissatisfied with the infant car seat covers that were on the market, Kim set out to create a cozy, warm, and functional car set cover that would keep infants warm and safe. As Kim’s daughter grew, so did BabbaCo’s product line as the busy mother soon discovered new needs in the marketplace that fulfilled her desire to have innovative products that are simple, charming, and functional.

photo credit: A new study out from Germany indicates that bacteria-killing jets of plasma could soon replace the dental drills currently used to remove the cavities in our teeth making visits to the dentist’s office less painful. Plasma is the fourth state of matter, after solids, liquids and gases. It is formed when gases are energized to the point where electrons fly off some or all of their atoms

Can you make a dollar a day online? Sure. Anyone can build a website that’ll generate a dollar a day in Google Adsense revenue