I have started a few different websites recently which I am excited about.  It is a little bit of an experiment, but that is the fun in creating websites.  They are rather simple right now, but I have a master plan to build them out further into niche cooking sites.  My initial chicken recipe websites include:

Roast Chicken Recipes

Chicken Casserole Recipes

Chicken Salad Recipes

Chicken Pasta Recipes

Honey Chicken Recipes

Lemon Chicken Recipe

Chicken is such a versatile meat, loved by most people around the world.  Over time, I hope to add more chicken recipes and cooking tips to these sites.  Watch this space!

Have you ever had a plumber or electrician come into your home and put their muddy feet everywhere and not clean up after themselves? And as a woman, how safe do you feel knowing that a male stranger is in your home and you don’t know anything about him? You end up with a filthy house and/or you feel vulnerable in your own home.

Targeting women customers, property maintenance and building service in the UK called A Woman’s Touch is offering plumbing, decorating, tiling, plastering, electrical work and carpentry services carried out by a team of female tradespeople who are highly qualified, reliable and courteous.

By women carrying out the work, the need for safety and respect for other peoples’ property is met.

Founded by Kerrie Keeling, she decided to move from the corporate banking world to start up her own company. A Woman’s Touch is now turning over GBP 1.2 million and is ready to be franchised. This company is certainly shaking things up a bit by taking on an industry that is traditionally a predominantly male profession.

This is a good business opportunity either as a start up or to partner with A Woman’s Touch to franchise the organization in other countries.

Watch the video about “A Woman’s Touch” below. The image link will take you to another website which the video will play a QuickTime movie. You will need the QuickTime media player to be able to view this.

In Auckland, New Zealand, Greg and Sue Sweeney won the 2007 Westpac Enterprise North Shore business excellence awards with their wool-based thermal insulation product called Eco Insulation.

Started in the couple’s dining room, Eco Insulation keeps houses warm in winter, cool in summer and reduces noise and dampness in the home. It is a product that overall helps fight global warming as it assists in reducing the amount of energy required to warm or cool a house.

Eco Insulation has supplied insulation to more than 12,000 homes in New Zealand, including 7000 Housing New Zealand units, saving many millions of kilowatt hours of energy.

These wool-based insulation products are for both home and commercial buildings using excess fibre from the manufacture of woolen carpets.

Launched in the late 1990’s, the business struggled for the first 2 years which forced Mr Sweeney back into teaching until sales picked up. However, Eco Insulation is booming and has recently moved into new premises to accommodate growing staff and product. It’s pricing is quite competitive since it purchases the excess wool fibre from carpet manufacturers.

Mr Sweeney says “wool is a natural insulator, non-toxic, sustainable, recyclable and draws moisture from living spaces.” The idea was born when the Sweeneys were blowing loose wool fibre into lofts to form a bed of insulation above the ceiling of a spare room. They realized this approach was not suitable and that is when Mr Sweeney approached a textile manufacturer with the idea of turning loose wool fibres into thick thermal blankets.

Eco Insulation sells its product both in New Zealand and internationally. This is a great opportunity for international businesses who wish to partner with Eco Insulation or resell their products. Since sustainable environmentally friendly products are part of a growth industry, Eco Insulation is an excellent product to consider.

If you are creating a me-too product, the way you package it will go a long way towards getting it seen in an overcrowded market and that’s exactly what Wild Bunch in Singapore did.

Launched in January 2007 Wild Bunch offers a premium range of made to order 100% organic juices that are presented in eye-catching designed bottles. They target bars, restaurants, healthcare centers, spas and beauty therapy clinics, and home and office clients.

WildBunch state on their website that their juice product is “farmed environmentally without the use of chemical herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers and with organic certification.”

Some of the organic vegetable and fruit recipes include Eazy Peazy (Carrots, Peas and Parsnips), Rootine Check (Beetroot, Carrots, Parsnips), Red Dragon (Dragon Fruit, Beetroot), Pineapple Zinger (Pineapple, Ginger) and more.

Each 250ml bottle ranges from $10 to $20 of which they are requesting from particular customer segments to pay a monthly subscription or minimum order. The monthly subscription for home or office is $255.

With a growth in a health conscious and environmental sustainability movement across the world, Wild Bunch has created a product and brand that is successful.

Have you ever had a yearning to invest in property or buy a beach house but can’t quite afford it? What about other exciting toys out of your budget range such as a boat, car or aircraft?

If you don’t mind sharing with others, then all this is within your reach through websites such as Yours2Share.com and HalfShare.com where a matchmaking service is provided to people who would like to participate in fractional ownership or renting of property. It enables the benefit of ownership but at a much lower cost.

One of the major benefits of ownership, especially with ownership of property, investors gains capital gains growth and an opportunity to generate rental income.

Similar to an online dating service, buyers are matched based on their interests, tastes, backgrounds and hobbies. The sites also enable potential co-owners to meet one another in person, by phone or online.

So how do these types of sites make money?

• Real estate people find new ways of selling property under their existing industry revenue models and the co-owner match maker service is free of charge
• Non-realestate companies could offer a membership service for a small monthly or annual fee.
• Alternatively, the service could be provided for free and funded through advertising.

An opportunity exists to create similar fractional ownership or renting match making services in other regions around the world.

In United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, “fish and chips” is a treat that most families love. Even with the advance of fast food brands over the last 20-25 years, fish and chips is still as popular as ever.

Tefal has recently invented a new technology called the Tefal ActiFry that makes reduced fat, home style chips, at about 3% of the fat of regular fries. Its new fry cooker uses fans and motions to coat 4 potatoes in approximately 1 tablespoon of oil.

Although the ActiFry has been developed as a home market product, there is an opportunity to use similar technology to provide a healthier version of the chip to the public through fish and chip shops. It appears that the ActiFry technology could become a franchisable opportunity for this segment of the take-away industry. A business opportunity still to be developed.

Watch the Tefal ActiFry promotional video.

To learn more about the components of buying a traditional fish and chip shop, click here.

I was driving to the office the other day and saw a truck with a sign on the back “How’s my driving?” displayed with a specific number associated with the vehicle. I promptly jumped online when I got to work to check out www.howsmy.co.nz, however was disappointed that the site was “under construction”.

Despite not being able to get more information about this particular company, we can make some assumptions about this business type.

Business owners in the transport industry are responsible for their drivers’ behavior on the road. They have concerns over fleet safety, finding ways of reducing accidents and costs as a result. The company’s brand and reputation is also at risk of any bad driving from their branded fleet.

The “How’s My Driving” program enables the public to provide feedback on any reckless driving on the road by specific vehicles to allow the company to build risk profiles of their drivers.

As a result, drivers are more aware of their on road behavior and driving incidents are reduced.

The business model could possibly work as a subscription model on a per driver, per vehicle or per company basis. Likely target markets include trucks, taxis, buses, rental vehicles and corporate fleets.

As reported by Britannia Encyclopedia, in 2002 New Zealanders were driving 380,297 trucks and buses. If you captured 5% of that market and charged $5 per truck or bus per month to be part of the how’s my driving program, the business would be generating $95,074 per month. A small business generating over a million dollars worth of annual business is quite significant. Imagine what the market reach and potential would be in the other vertical transportation markets!

The main costs would include sales, marketing, a call center and the up keep of the website management application.

In my opinion, this is an excellent start up business opportunity.

A German business called MyMuesli.com recently started an online business selling “made-to-order” muesli allowing you to mix and match up to 70 different ingredients.

This business concept is proving quite popular with Europeans as less than two weeks into starting the website, they had run out of packaging of which they estimated would last 8 weeks.

Customers are able to firstly select the base mix (oats and other grains), secondly, add fruit, nuts and seeds and then finish the cereal customization with added goodies such as organic gummi bears, banana chocs and alfalfa.

Each ingredient adds additional cost to the overall price depending on what you select, plus extra for shipping. All ingredients are organic which adds to the total cost.

The muesli mix is then given an ID and a name by the customer, which allows for easy reordering and recommending to friends, family and colleagues.

Components of this business would entail:

• Relationships with ingredient suppliers
• Commercial kitchen to prepare orders
• Design and build of an e-commerce website
• Promotion of the website through offline and online channels
• Shipping partner to deliver orders
• Setup of a credit card merchant account to take order payment

International shipping laws of this type of product will also need to be investigated.