Business Idea of the Day

When Jennifer Dowler was looking for the perfect birth announcement to tell the world about the birth of her son, what she found was less than inspiring. As he got older and she went in search for the right birthday card, she soon found that her choices were just as thin as they were when he was born. The next announcement she made became the one for her business, reports the Calgary Herald . She searched stores and online websites, but was only able to find American companies that made custom announcements, and the cost to ship to Canada was more than she was willing to spend.

For Jane Grant, creating the perfect dog bowl meant not only making her dog happy but helping dogs all over the world, according to her article on Sky News . Travelling worldwide with work, I searched in vain for a bowl that would make it easy for my family dog to eat with less mess and less noise. So I created one from a pet’s perspective, investing my own cash alongside a grant from Invest NI. Working out designs with the University of Ulster and TrufflePig, we had a brainwave.

Associated Press : There wasn’t a bottle of Oxiclean or a ShamWow anywhere. But there was Dawn Stephens’ nifty new, all-in-one toilet-bowl-cleaning brush.

Large corporations have been testing a new device that can generate power on the spot, without being connected to the electric grid. Will we have one in every home someday?

Call it “YouTube U.” The Philadelphia Inquirer says more and more people are turning to YouTube for demonstrations of skills they’d like to learn. But increasingly, the video-sharing Web site is also the place to go when you want to learn something.

Steeped Tea is a home-based party business from Canada that brings the tea room into the hostess’ home. Attendees talk about the health benefits of loose leaf tea and the different kinds of tea while being served three different teas. They have a pretty extensive catalog of loose leaf tea , too

Tim Westergren talks about Pandora’s place in the evolving worlds of music and technology in this report from CNNMoney . From Business Opportunities Weblog .

Mike Stuben is 6 feet 1 and weighs 370 pounds. He is also a frequent flier. The Florida man has become a travel guru for “passengers of size” says the St. Petersburg Times.

It takes a very determined business owner to keep their business growing at a time when so many have gone under and Sandy Keller is one such owner. Sandy is the founder of Advantage Products Group LLC , which is the umbrella company over a series of 7 different online shops. From products for brides to baby clothes, it seems that she might soon have a shop for every niche on the web.

If you find yourself in a big company, you can still be “intrapreneurial” — a term that refers to entrepreneurial activities in an otherwise non-entrepreneurial environment. In his blog , Ben Casnocha talks about the 10 Commandments for Intrapreneurs.