Aug 28, 2008
Customized shoes and clothes are pretty big at the moment. There are places online where you can put your skills to the test and create custom artwork on clothes which you can then sell. You don’t need to be a professional artist, clever composition of patterns, shapes and colours can go a long way on a design. Below are a couple of sites to get you started.
Zazzle is probably the best known one, here you can create custom art for t-shirts, cards other things too as well as shoes. You can then promote your products in your own gallery, vote for your favourites and use other social network-like features. This is the link to their custom shoe designs.
Make your own custom t-shirts online at ShirtMagic and open a store at their site to sell your creations.
At CafePress you can upload your artwork, open a store on their site and sell the custom merchandise.
Threadless is more like an ongoing competition where if they like your t-shirt design idea you get $2,500.
At Ryzwear there is a competition to design shoes until the 10th of September 2008, users will vote on it and you can win $1000 + $1 for each shoe they sell (which could be a lot!)
Here’s a new one, still in beta: Sneakart.com Here you can create custom stickers to put on sneakers. If you choose to sell your designs you can earn a commission on each sale.
Do you know of any others? Leave a comment.
Aug 26, 2008
It is day one of the Problogger writing project and below are some of the links relevant to some of the topics covered in this blog. (You too can participate until Thursday)
Aug 25, 2008
Do you run a business from home? Startup Nation is running their second annual Home Based 100 competition which you can enter no matter how new your business is and regardless of how much money it makes.
This year’s categories are:
* Best Financial Performers
* Most Innovative
* Boomers Back in Business Read more…
Aug 24, 2008
Westat is a leading research corporation in the US. They have ongoing opportunities to work from home as Telephone Data Collectors (US only).
The work
You will be calling people on the phone asking them to complete surveys, reading from a script.
The hours
You need to work a minimum of 15 hours per week in uninterrupted 3 hour blocks. Night and weekend work is available. Read more…
Aug 23, 2008
Mention of business plans tends to make people’s eyes glaze over and for their hand to reach for the mouse in an attempt to quickly click away. But every business, from network marketing to a new blog should have a business plan (unless you don’t plan on making any money!) It will bring your ideas out of their fuzzy state in your mind to a crystal clear view from which you can break your goals down into a step by step action plan to earning money.
There are three ways to write a business plan. Read more…
Aug 22, 2008
Google Checkout Trends is a tool that displays the sales data generated by Google Checkout merchants. It can be used to get a general idea of how well certain products are selling. You can compare two products, for example here is a comparison of sales for the Xbox, Playstation and wii, or you can see how well sales are doing over a period of time. It won’t give you perfect guidance as to what sells best since not every merchant uses Google Checkout but as a quick (and free) tool it can give you a general idea as to what is going on in the world of ecommerce.
Aug 21, 2008
If you use social networking sites to promote your business on a regular basis you may know that it can take a fair bit of time, especially when you have to update multiple networking sites. Updating.me hopes to make your life a little bit easier by updating your statuses across many sites from the one place. So all you have to do is login to updating.me, type in your new message and it will simultaneously update any social networking sites you wish from a list. Currently they support Twitter, Facebook, Pownce, Plurk, Friendfeed and they promise to add more all the time. They are in invite only Beta still but invitation codes can be found on their site (on their blog).
Aug 20, 2008
At Common Ties you can submit an interesting answer (or some artwork) to one or more of their questions in 50 words or less. If your answer is chosen you will be paid $50. Currently their questions include things like:
What is your most obsessive thought?
What is the best/worst advice you’ve ever received?
What happened on your most unusual date?
What is the most embarrassing thing that has happened to you/someone else? Read more…
Aug 20, 2008
When you run a business, particularly one that is brand new, it can be hard to get enough momentum to get it started. Below is a list of 10 free ways to get some traffic and with it hopefully new customers. (In no particular order)
1) Comment on popular blogs Find popular blogs that relate to your line of business and make helpful comments in their comments section. Read more…
Aug 18, 2008
I ran across an article today at Get Rich Slowly about the joys of doing odd jobs, in particular medical or other types of research. I myself, while never having participated in a medical study have taken part in paid focus groups. They’re good for some extra cash and can be quiet fun too.
Get Rich Slowly pointed to an article on MSN money on the topic. The article talked about mystery shopping, babysitting, dog sitting and other kinds of jobs that people do to earn some spare cash on the side. I have done a few of these: babysitting, focus groups, typing up people’s essays for them (before everyone had computers) and a few small sales jobs.
Do you do odd jobs to supplement your income? If yes what kind of things? Or do you consider them a waste of time, time not so well spent?
Related from Amazon:
Odd Jobs: Portraits of Unusual Occupations
