Shoestring Theory

A friend alerted me this morning that an item had been removed from his Zazzle store because it contained imagery related to Route 66, the iconic US highway that ran from Chicago to LA. A company based in the Netherlands, Tempting Brands, apparently claims to own the trademark to Route 66 and has been sending […]

Once upon a time, we’ll refer to this as the pre-house days, I used to talk about running a small business on this site. I would like to get back to that, perhaps not every post, but at least on a regular basis. As the country has moved through the recession, there are some buying […]

This is a bit dated, as the ProStore features I’m discussing were released in the spring, but I was late picking up on them. My previous disappointment in some ProStores features hadn’t led me to be a quick adopter on some of their changes. I was also delayed further by activating the two features below […]

Wired’s got an interesting piece up on the nature of business models that rely on a “Free” product. Think things like flickr, YouTube, Jonathan Coulton, Facebook, etc, though the opportunities range far beyond that. It’s not groundbreaking, but strikes me as more of an introduction to an in-depth conversation. Which is convenient, as Chris Anderson […]

A mysterious supplier who can beat my prices on every item I carry, but is always out of stock. A routine email for me to receive: “Hi, I usually buy this product at five percent of what you are selling it for, but my supplier is currently out of stock (shocking! –ed). Would you be […]