America's Most Promising Social Entrepeneurs

This story in Business Week highlights 28 social entrepreneurs. You can vote through April 26 for your favorite entrepreneur. Read the full story here.

Perfect your pitch

Brad Feld offers eight mistakes entrepreneurs should avoid when pitching for capital.

Do you really need a business plan?

The experts aren't so sure--but entrepreneurs like the founders of Roaring lion energy drink say it's a must. here's how to know if writing a business plan is for you. Read more.

Starting a business during an economic downturn

Here are three recent articles on starting a business during a downturn. Thanks to Danny Smith for bringing these to my attention.

USA Today

BusinessWeek

TheStandard.com

Invention at Play

For those of you who might be visiting the DC area, be sure to visit the newly-renovated and opened National Museum of American History. The Lincoln Exhibition is great, but I really enjoyed the Innovation at Play exhibit on the first floor. It's interactive, very visual and tactile, and very imaginative.

Willie Watson - Friendly Reminder

An electronic flat screen daily planner with touch screen capabilities called “Friendly Reminder.”
As a college student, we have tons of obligations that pile in by the second. It is not a day to pass where we do not remember a task or that we recall at the last minute and our old friend “craming” comes to bail us out once again. Not only is this a problem with college students, but also managers, CEO’s, and all sorts of business oriented people. Yes, there are PDA’s cell phones, and those unreliable paperback daily planners that alert us during the day, but to be more effective on remembering upcoming appointments should be the first thing we see in the morning. I plan on inventing a digital wide screen calendar/planner that suspends from your wall. The calendar will allow you to program your appointments in the system with the option to “dispose after completed” for tasks typing a paper or the option to make it a daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, or yearly for events such as paying bills and birthdays. The most amazing feature about this calendar is the priority lighting system. It consists of three different colors; red, blue, and green to let you know as soon as you open your eyes in the morning whether you got something to do. Red is for task or events that is due that day, Blue is for events that week, and green is events longer than a week but approaching. So if you wake up in the morning to a room filled with flashing red lights, you might want to jump out of bed and check your calendar. The most convenient feature is that it talks to you and tells you exactly what you have to do, so no more wasting precious time instead you can continue getting dressed or whatever else you need to do to prepare for the day. I will have the greatest financial success with this product on college campuses so I am going to release it in campus supply stores and eventually branch into electronic stores such as Office Max and Circuit City. From an estimated cost of production, I figured that a price of $124.99 would be a legitimate price to make a substantial profit.
With all new products comes hesitant customers, and this product will provide no exceptions. It will pose the question “Do I really want to invest this much money into a calendar?” One major problem that the calendar will face is convincing people of the quality of this unproven product. College students are usually strapped for cash and have a tight budget, therefore it will be a problem marketing this product in the beginning.I will be faced with the obstacle of heavy marketing to insure my target market is knowledge of all the features and in result willing to invest in my invention. Another issue I face is creating a dual image for the product. Friendly Reminder must be trendy enough to appeal to college students and professional enough to appeal to the corporate world.

Gabriele Plate - Water Purification

We ran out of battery power on the camera for Alex and Gabriele. Read Gabriele's pitch through this link.