Monthly Archives: April 2020

3 Signs it’s Time for You to Change Your Brand Packaging | The Startup Magazine

Posted on April 30, 2020 by knjohn | Leave a comment

Your packaging is arguably the most important part of the product. The packaging is the key to selling the product in the final stage of the sales funnel, and it protects the product on the shelf and in the customer’s home. It can also easily cause the product to be lost in the crowd, or you to lose the sale if you haven’t kept up with the times. This is why you should always consider whether your packaging is up to par, and whether it could use a redesign. Here are three signs that it is time for you to change your brand packaging.

Leave a comment

Posted in Tools and Information

Tagged Brand Packaging, change your brand packaging, redesign your package

The Boss: Male investors didn’t get my billion-dollar idea | BBC News

Posted on April 30, 2020 by knjohn | Leave a comment

The BBC’s weekly The Boss series profiles different business leaders from around the world. This week we speak to Katrina Lake, founder of online fashion business Stitch Fix.

For the first six years running Stitch Fix, Katrina Lake wasn’t comfortable with being labeled a female business leader.

“I didn’t join the women in business clubs, and I just never thought of myself as a quote-unquote feminist,” she says.

Leave a comment

Posted in Tools and Information

Tagged fashion business, Katrina Lake, Stitch Fix

How Entrepreneurship Can Help Millennials Build Wealth and Cut Student Debt | Inc.com

Posted on April 29, 2020 by knjohn | Leave a comment

It’s a favored tradition amongst well-established generations to look at younger generations with contempt. People love to tease millennials — calling them lazy, entitled, and self-involved — but research by Boston Consulting Group shows that these stereotypes are unfounded.

Yes, there are generational differences — driven largely by technology and social trends — but millennials as a whole are ambitious and idealistic. Not only do they want to “make the world a better place,” but a new report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that millennials work significantly more hours and have higher levels of education than previous generations.

Considering that education costs have risen 65 percent and food costs have increased 26 percent since 1996, it’s clear that the struggle is real. Many millennials live in survival mode, trying to keep up with basic expenses.

Leave a comment

Posted in Tools and Information

Tagged entrepreneurship, millennials, student debt

Alphabet grew more than expected in Q1, but its ad business saw ‘significant slowdown’ in March | TechCrunch

Posted on April 29, 2020 by knjohn | Leave a comment

Today after the bell, Alphabet, parent company of Google, reported its Q1 2020 performance. The company’s $41.16 billion in revenue for the three-month period came in ahead of expectations, besting analyst estimates of $40.33 billion. However, its earnings per share came in under expectations, with the street anticipating $10.38 in per-share profit, while Alphabet delivered a slimmer $9.87 in per-share income.

Shares of Alphabet rose around 2.8% in after-hours trading after shedding 3.3% in regular trading.

Leave a comment

Posted in News and Views

Tagged Alphabet, Alphabet earnings, Google

How to Make Better Coffee at Home | WIRED

Posted on April 28, 2020 by knjohn | Leave a comment

MANY OF US are sheltering in place, which probably means forgoing that morning trip to the coffee shop. Fear not though, it’s possible to make coffeehouse-quality coffee in your own kitchen.

Engineering a better cup of coffee isn’t difficult. But first you need to figure out what “better” means to you. There is no single right cup of coffee, there’s just the best version of what you love. Do you love your coffee rich and dark—thick enough to stand a spoon in, as my grandfather used to say? Or do you prefer something brighter, more of a medium roast that doesn’t overwhelm you with bitterness? Or perhaps you prefer a light coffee with some cream and sugar.

Leave a comment

Posted in Tools and Information

Tagged coffee, how to make a better cup of coffee, how to make better coffee

6 Strategies You Need to Run Your Company Through Uncertainty | Entrepreneur

Posted on April 28, 2020 by knjohn | Leave a comment

Well, I didn’t expect this to happen — and I’m guessing you didn’t either. If you’re a small-business owner, you need a plan more than ever. These are the strategies I’m relying on as a small-business owner to help me lead through this extremely uncertain time.

1. Time

You need to give yourself a little time to process the impact this coronavirus will have and the challenges and opportunities that it has created for you, your business, your family and others. Most of us will be a little dazed for a while. Unfortunately, just because some of us have more time on our hands doesn’t mean we’ll spend it productively. Right now, I’m mostly focusing on taking a deep breath.

Leave a comment

Posted in Tools and Information

Tagged run your company during uncertain times, small business owner, uncertain times

A New Generation Of Zoomers | Getentrepreneurial.com

Posted on April 27, 2020 by knjohn | Leave a comment

Can’t stop confusing your Zoomers and millennials? When it comes to hiring, the differences matter. According to Pew Research, millennials were born between 1981 and 1996 which makes them 24 to 39 years old in 2020; Zoomers (or Zers or Generation Z) were born starting in 1997, so the oldest turn 23 this year. This all means your potential hiring pool will change as Gen Z is 24 percent of the global workforce this year, according to research by Manpower.

Although, you may think these successive generations aren’t all that different, their experiences, needs and actions are diverse enough to pay attention before you hire them. Here’s what you should know.

Leave a comment

Posted in News and Views

Tagged Gen Z, millennials, Zoomers

Jaunt’s ROSA gyrodyne: The first eVTOL air taxi that actually looks safe | New Atlas

Posted on April 27, 2020 by knjohn | Leave a comment

This eVTOL air taxi design looks like a weird helicopter/plane hybrid, but it’s the safest of all the eVTOL designs we’ve ever seen, and it has another killer advantage in that it requires no special certification. That’s huge news in the emerging 3D commuting market, because it could make this thing much, much cheaper to get off the ground.

To understand why this thing is such a great idea, let’s recap two of the main hurdles that every other eVTOL designer is facing: safety and certification. The safety issue seems huge to us, although many of the eVTOL manufacturers we speak to don’t seem to see it as insurmountable. In a total failure scenario, all eVTOLs designed around multiple small rotors have a bit of an issue: they’ll simply plummet to the ground.

Leave a comment

Posted in Tools and Information

Tagged air taxi, eVTOL, eVTOL air taxi, helicopter, plane

Polaroid Now | CoolBusinessIdeas.com

Posted on April 23, 2020 by knjohn | Leave a comment

In an age where instant photography means whipping out a smartphone and immediately sharing the digital image with friends online, a boxy camera that produces self-developing prints seems like a huge backward step. But that’s exactly what instant film cameras provide, and a revamped Polaroid has announced a new model called the Now.

The Polaroid Corporation was founded by Edwin Land in 1937, a company that originally sold polarized sunglasses. But Land went on to develop a “magic camera” that produced instant prints, which was described in a 1973 issue of Popular Science as “perhaps the most fiendishly clever invention in the history of photography.”

Leave a comment

Posted in Tools and Information

Tagged Polaroid, Polaroid Now, smartphone

Oil prices may be at all-time lows, but it’s still worth buying an electric car | Mashable

Posted on April 23, 2020 by knjohn | Leave a comment

For the first time in 34 years, the price of a barrel of oil has dropped to historic lows — below $0 somehow, confusingly — but that shouldn’t erode efforts to go electric, especially for any future car purchases.

Sure, because of coronavirus social-distancing measures in most cities and states, roads are largely empty, cars are parked, most flights are canceled, and the buses and trains that are still running barely have passengers. Even auto insurance companies are recognizing how little we’re moving and offering discounts.