Business Idea of the Day

Like peanut butter and chocolate, many different services from very different business go well together. Could you team up with another entrepreneur, like the two women in this story and combine your products into something completely new? Daily Commercial : Mud pies and pizza pies — two things kids love to get their hands on. Throw in a few party hats and you’ve got the makings of a great little birthday celebration

Anthony Ghattas has the life that many dream about; great wine, beautiful art, and friends in high places, reports The Sydney Morning Herald . In only six years, this serial entrepreneur has managed to build up a successful lifestyle brand United Lifestyle Group – including two galleries in Perth and Sydney and a burgeoning wine group – at a time when many galleries and wine outfits have crumbled under the financial pressure. However, his business wasn’t without casualty. When the GFC hit, his horse breeding business bit the dust; fortunately, the wine business sailed forth with a 42 per cent growth in revenue in 2009, given that people were prepared to buy more wine, and eat out less

Jean-Jacques Velkeniers lives in Belgium and since he was a little boy he wanted to go into space. Now that Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is selling seats on their spaceship for rides into space for only $200,000, Jean-Jacques can finally go. There’s only one problem: he doesn’t have $200 grand.

Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal : The focus of recent weeks may have been on Olympic Athletes, but only 1 in 10 who responded to a recent Business Pulse survey said that they would prefer their child to become one. Readers were presented with a very limited set of career choices for their children in the Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal online survey: Olympic athlete, U.S. Senator, doctor or entrepreneur.

Using parts from his family barbecue, parts from his wife’s car, and the control lever from his daughter’s motor scooter, New Zealand inventor Rudy Heeman has created a flying hovercraft, reports the Telegraph.co.uk . Looking like a conventional hovercraft but with the addition of detachable wings, the vehicle cruises at 56mph when flying, has a range of more than 140 miles, and reaches a height of about 10 feet.

It’s simply a fact of life that when parents travel with children their favorite toys must come along for the ride. Even if that means mom and dad are stuck carrying it all. Before having her son, Lise Lafontaine chalked up the need for parents to tote toys around as simply a responsibility. After he was born, though, she quickly learned how much of a pain that could really be. Inspired by that realization, determined to make it easy and fun for kids to carry their own stuffed friends, Lise came up with Carry Me Babies

Here’s a question for you: Where did your business idea come from? What was the spark of inspiration that sent you on your way? From Business Opportunities Weblog .

photo credit: pingnews The following a guest post from the great people at Company.com . Health insurance — even with a crazy deductable — is not an optional expense for a startup. Judith Starkey spent half a lifetime arguing with government bureaucrats and health insurance companies on behalf of people trying to get coverage. You might think that decades of advocacy would create a bottomless well of sympathy and compassion for the uninsured

It was at a party when Faith Saunders first came into contact with make-your-own greeting cards, reports My Central Jersey . “I got bored with what they were doing, so I just started making my own stuff,” Saunders said.

The Week : New Zealand’s a announced they are beginning production of the as-yet unnamed device — which stands five feet tall, weighs 254 pounds and will cost a cool $77,000 — at an initial rate of 500 units per year. Powered by dual propellers, it will be capable of whisking a pilot along at 63 mph at a maximum altitude of 8,000 feet. In case of emergency, the construction includes a roll cage and a low-altitude parachute. Martin Aircraft CEO Richard Lauder expects the product — no pilot license required — to sell to a wide variety of customers, including emergency personnel and the military. Video after the jump.