The Road to Success: Essential Steps in Launching and Growing Your Fleet Business | The Startup Magazine

January 8, 2024January 7, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Love vehicles? Want to turn it into a profitable business? You can merge your passion and strategic mind to create and grow a fleet management business. Fleet management is different from many mainstream business ideas out there. But once you understand the tidbits and create a process flow, you’re all set to launch a fleet business startup.

We have listed a few steps for starting and maintaining a fleet management business below. Let’s take a look.

Have a Clear Plan

This step is essential for any business. As the very first step of the venture, prepare a clear roadmap for your journey to success. Decide your organizational hierarchy, how many people you will hire, and in what roles. Write down your growth expectations for the next three to five years. Research the target market and pinpoint the exact need you’re aiming to fulfill. Determine whether the market is large enough to serve profitably for at least five years.

For your fleet business startup, calculate a rough cost of operations and find out the breakeven point. Now, calculate your return on investment projections and decide how you want to price your services. Chalking out all these details ensures that you know what your business will look like when you start it and what it will become by the time you break even.

Carrefour to halt Pepsi sales over price rises | BBC

January 5, 2024January 4, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Grocery giant Carrefour will stop selling Pepsi products in France, citing “unacceptable price increases”.

The supermarket started putting up signs in stores on Thursday to inform customers of the decision, which will affect products such as Pepsi soda, Doritos and Quaker cereals.

Pepsi said it would continue to try to negotiate in “good faith”.

The spat comes as France continues to grapple with food prices that are rising uncomfortably quickly.

The most recent report from the government statistics agency estimated that food prices rose 7.1% in December from a year earlier.

San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge gets suicide net after 87 years | BBC

January 5, 2024January 4, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A suicide prevention net at the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco has finally been completed, officials say.

Around 2,000 people are known to have jumped to their deaths from the bridge since it opened in 1937 in the US city.

For decades, families who lost loved ones to suicide at the bridge have called for a solution.

The suicide deterrent system, also known as the net, has been installed around approximately 95% of the 1.7-mile (2.7 km) bridge.

23andMe tells victims it’s their fault that their data was breached | TechCrunch

January 4, 2024January 3, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Facing more than 30 lawsuits from victims of its massive data breach, 23andMe is now deflecting the blame to the victims themselves in an attempt to absolve itself from any responsibility, according to a letter sent to a group of victims seen by TechCrunch.

“Rather than acknowledge its role in this data security disaster, 23andMe has apparently decided to leave its customers out to dry while downplaying the seriousness of these events,” Hassan Zavareei, one of the lawyers representing the victims who received the letter from 23andMe, told TechCrunch in an email.

In December, 23andMe admitted that hackers had stolen the genetic and ancestry data of 6.9 million users, nearly half of all its customers.

This Ultrasound Bra Could Detect Cancer Sooner | WIRED

January 4, 2024January 3, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

In 2015, Canan Dağdeviren was working as a postdoc at MIT when she learned that her aunt, Fatma, had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Dağdeviren, whose work focused on building flexible devices that could capture biometric data, flew to the Netherlands to be with her relative in those last moments.

At her aunt’s bedside, Dağdeviren sketched an idea for an electronic bra with an embedded ultrasound that would be able to scan breasts much more frequently and catch cancers before they got the chance to spread.

It was just a way of offering her aunt a slice of solace at an unimaginably difficult time. But when Dağdeviren became a faculty member at MIT the following year, the bra stayed on her mind. Today, she’s an assistant professor of media and arts at the MIT Media Lab, where she leads the Conformable Decoders research group. Her lab’s mission is to harness and decode the world’s physical patterns—one thing that means is creating electronic devices that conform to the body and capture data.

New Law Prohibits Tourists From Stopping on Las Vegas Strip | Entrepreneur

January 3, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The Las Vegas Strip is changing as we know it.

A new ordinance was approved this week that will make stopping on the pedestrian bridges on the Strip a misdemeanor crime.

“The Pedestrian Flow Zone ordinance will help to ensure our world-class tourism destination remains a safe place for people to visit and transverse,” Clark County officials said in a statement. “Through this ordinance, to maintain the safe and continuous movement of pedestrian traffic, it is unlawful for any person to stop, stand, or engage in an activity that causes another person to stop or stand within any Pedestrian Flow Zone.”

Exploring the Customer’s Buying Journey: Why It Matters in Your Marketing Efforts | Getentrepreneurial.com

January 3, 2024 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Have you ever wondered why customers choose to buy from your business? Do you truly understand their pain points and the factors that influence their buying decisions? Without this knowledge, your marketing efforts and referral generation may fall short. It is crucial to comprehend your customers’ buying cycle in order to effectively engage with them.

The Importance of Understanding Your Customers’ Motivations

Customers make purchases because they have a problem that needs solving, regardless of the product or service. Let’s consider a simple example. During a long drive, I needed water for hydration. Although water is readily available, I chose to buy bottled water from Coles service stations due to their convenience, the opportunity to earn Flybuys points, and the ability to recycle the bottles. While other options might have been cheaper, the convenience and additional benefits made Coles my preferred choice.

This portable PC can be carried like a briefcase — it has a kangaroo pouch, too | Mashable

December 22, 2023December 20, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

I’m obsessed with the new HP Envy Move. How can you not be? It’s an all-in-one PC that, thanks to its sturdy handle, can be carried around from A to B like a briefcase.

While carrying it, I look legit — like a Wall Street banker heading to my luxe high-rise office.

It comes with a keyboard, too, that can be stored inside its back pocket — a feature I endearingly call the kangaroo pouch.

But of course, despite my adoration for then Envy Move, even this glitzy device can’t escape my critical eye. Let’s dive into what I like and dislike about this snazzy all-one-PC.

Southwest, pilots reach tentative agreement for contract worth $12 billion | CNN Business

December 22, 2023December 20, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

After three years of negotiating, Southwest Airlines and the union representing the airline’s pilots reached a tentative agreement on a new contract on Wednesday.

“We know that the last few years have been difficult for our pilots as well as our customers, but we believe that this TA rewards our pilots as well as improving reliability for our passengers,” said Southwest Airlines Pilots Association President Casey Murray in a statement.

The SWAPA union’s 25-member board approved the deal Wednesday after union leadership reached an initial agreement in principle with Southwest earlier this week.

But the deal isn’t guaranteed to go to contract: the union’s nearly 11,000 members can vote on whether or not to approve the contract until January 22.

Toyota recalls 1 million vehicles over airbag sensor glitch | CNN Business

December 21, 2023December 20, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Toyota is recalling about 1 million cars and SUVs in the United States due to a possible defect that could cause the passenger airbag to fail to deploy in a crash.

The recall involves 15 different 2020 and 2021 model year Toyota and Lexus models including the Toyota Camry, Rav4, Sienna and the Lexus RX350 and ES350. Lexus is Toyota’s luxury vehicle brand.

Specifically, the Occupant Classification System sensor that detects when someone is sitting in the front passenger seat could short circuit. In some of these vehicles the sensor was improperly manufactured.