Business Idea of the Day

12 years ago you might have recognized the name Bill Bartmann. He was on the richest lists with thanks to his debt collection company, Commercial Financial Services. After a serious scandal hit him and his business that is when everything began to go under reports Inc. . We started CFS in 1985.

According to a story at CNNMoney.com , “Made in USA still matters.” Is, and will remain Aegis Bicycles’ motto, even if it ultimately becomes the death knell for the company, promised owner Pete Orne. Orne bought the business in 2004 and like so many domestic businesses, it’s hanging on by a thread. Three years ago, Aegis was selling about 800 frames a year for between $3,000 to $4,000 each, making as much as $3 million a year. Then the recession hit. “The economy took us by surprise,” said Orne.

When you walk into the shop created by Debbie and Kristy Yettaw, they want you to feel like animals are people too reports Press-Telegram . Debbie, a laid-off transportation worker, and her 21-year-old daughter Kristy celebrated their grand opening onJuly 10. Inspired by her daughter’s love of animals and a troubled economy, Debbie says they took Kristy’s passion, coupled it with a plan and went after their dream.

An entrepreneur from Brunswick is hoping to save a lighthouse and keep it in the hands of the locals reports Mainebiz . Bob Muller, a consultant with a background in IT and high-tech image mapping, is scrambling to crowd fund between $75,000 and $150,000 in individual $49 donations in order to buy the lighthouse in Casco Bay, which the U.S. General Services Administration is currently selling at auction. He launched a website yesterday and has begun a social media marketing blitz. His challenge is raising the money in a matter of days.

The Louisville Courier-Journal is reporting that Elvis is back in the building — and economists suggest it may be a sign of better economic times ahead. Elvis is a dipstick, of sorts, for our economy,” Doo Wop Shop manager Rob Baker said. “The party business is coming back.

Denver Business Journal : The Denver Business Journal and The Brown Palace Hotel and Spa presents our “Women in Business BizMix ” a networking mixer exclusively for women, from 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. Monday, August 30, 2010, at The Brown Palace Hotel and Spa, 321 17th St., Denver. You also will have the opportunity to meet DBJ Publisher Scott Bemis and other DBJ staff members

A lot has changed since we were babies. While some products that our parents might have used are still around, there are many more options than ever before. Baby Gift Room recognizes these changes and offers only what they feel are the best options for new moms and anyone that needs the perfect gift for one.

According to the Art Marcovici website, Cashvertise is the answer. The average 100 USD Note is circulating for 7.4 years, it changes hands on average 3x per week, so each ad on a 100 USD note is seen by more then 1000 persons.

PatriotLedger.com : A Luigi Brusotti 1938 consul mirror, a set of 1950s Italian dining chairs and a vintage pen holder vaguely reminiscent of ET’s spaceship fill some of the nooks and crannies of Peter Levis’s BG Galleries, an antiques and vintage furniture store in Hingham. Levis specializes in Italian, French and American designer furniture from the 1940s to the 1970s, and has more than 1,000 pieces in his inventory. “I like to be known as having rare, hard to find items, as having things that haven’t been reproduced,” Levis said

According to a story in The Advertiser , entrepreneur Shane Yeend has sold two of the first board games he developed for $24 million. “Fact or Crap” and “Battle of the Sexes” – which was Australia’s biggest board game and the sixth-largest board game in the US at one point – have been sold to Canadian toy company Spinmaster in a deal that involves earn-out clauses covering the next 18 years. “It is a lot of money for a cardboard box,” Yeend said. “It was the first thing that got us into the games business.