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Still Made In America: Evinrude
What does an outboard motor and ice cream have in common? The Evinrude. Evinrude was the world’s first outboard motor, and it has a story that thrives today. Manufactured in Wisconsin, where the brand...
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Inventors Whose Inventions Killed Them
Inventing is a wonderful pastime, unless your invention also ends your life. Business Insider has pulled together a list of ten inventors and their inventions that killed them. Here are five of those...
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World’s Dumbest Inventions
Rocket Mail, 1931 Before “rocketmail” was the name of a short-lived free e-mail service in the late ’90s, it was an idea propounded by German inventor Professor Oberth, who thought it was a good idea...
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Hedy Lamarr: Actress and Inventor
Most people know Hedy as the beautiful actress who pushed the boundaries on what was allowed in early films. What most people do not know is that she had an interest in science. She also patented the...
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Save Your Pennies: They’ll Be Worth Millions Some Day
You know what they say: “a penny saved is a penny earned,” especially if you can hang onto it for 219 years. In Orland last weekend, a penny minted during the first year of the US Mint’s service, in...
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Alexander Graham Bell Letter Up For Auction
A little piece of history has been placed up for auction recently. It is a letter from Alexander Graham Bell to his father, with a drawing of his plans for the telephone. Bell writes in the letter,...
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Could Morse Patent The Internet?
Samuel Morse may have come long before the invention of the Internet, but that didn’t stop him from trying to patent the basic idea behind it, reports The Wall Street Journal. This would have been a...
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Marketing With Historical Fiction
Don’t you wish your product has this kind of “history” (even if it is fictional): In early 1849, Joshua Shelby was working as a cook in a fancy St. Louis restaurant. The hottest topic among the...
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Business Opportunities Weblog Turns 11!
Eleven years ago today I began the adventure that became the Business Opportunities Weblog. My father and I had a small business in Modesto, California called Nickel News. We published what we called...
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Opportunities in Wine Packaging: Cans of Wine
Wine wasn’t always stored in glass bottles. Wine was originally stored in terracotta containers called amphorae. During the Roman Empire, glass bottles were invented in Syria and wine quickly moved...
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Ideas Are The Easy Part: Thomas Edison
In 1926, Thomas Edison sent a brief letter to one of his employees congratulating him on his ideas but warning him about the road ahead. A transcript of the letter is below: My dear Mr. Emmet:- I want...
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How Potato Chips Are Made Today
Ed Herr of Herr Foods estimates that if they currently made potato chips the same way they did back in the 1940s, they’d cost about $25 a bag. In the video below, he describes other ways the potato...
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Infographic: The Evolution of the Entrepreneur
When we hear the word “entrepreneur,” we tend to conjure up images of tech magnates or other computer-based startup business owners. However, the process of small business ownership goes back much...
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