On Computers

DRONE ENTREPRENEURS

Posted on December 26th, 2016 by Bob and Joy Schwabach

First there was the Drones Club, then Drone Racing and now: making some money with drones. Our friend Lee gets his family a tech present every year. Last year it was drones. Lee’s 20-something daughter, a civil engineer, started using hers to offer aerial photography and video to construction sites. Then she started her own drone business, offering these services as a certified remote pilot in Wisconsin. If you Google the phrase “how to be a drone entrepreneur,” several sites come up. The first, from Virgin.com, describes several possibilities. One is farming. Drones have been crop-dusting in Japan for 15 years, and U.S. farmers are getting started. American farms are much larger and farmers here are looking for drones that […]

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SAVE IT AND STORE IT

Posted on February 4th, 2014 by Bob and Joy Schwabach

A $500 scanner sounds like $400 too much. But the “NeatConnect” is so useful we’re going to buy it. This is our ultimate test for any product: can you sell it to us?

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CARDLESS IN PASSING

Posted on October 27th, 2012 by Bob and Joy Schwabach

We nearly always forget to carry business cards and we may not be alone in this. “InTooch” (sic) is an iPhone/Android app aimed at making business cards unnecessary.

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CHEAP PUBLICITY

Posted on August 28th, 2012 by Bob and Joy Schwabach

Trying to get publicity for your business is a time-consuming process. But when Joy did public relations for a company inCalifornia, her boss said her p-r work landed more sales than all their ads put together. In short, public relations works. (We read a study recently that claimed over half the stories in newspapers and broadcast news are initiated by press releases.)

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SMALL TOWN RULES

Posted on June 17th, 2012 by Bob and Joy Schwabach

“Small Town Rules,” by Barry Moltz and Becky McCray, $25 is new from quepublishing.com.

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STARTUP VISAS

Posted on March 26th, 2011 by Bob and Joy Schwabach

If you’re a budding entrepreneur living outside the U.S., you might get a “startup visa” under a law proposed by Senators Richard Lugar and John Kerry.

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CHILE’S GRAND TECH EXPERIMENT

Posted on December 19th, 2010 by Bob and Joy Schwabach

Chile is trying to become the next Silicon Valley. The government is offering $40,000 to each potential entrepreneur plus a visa, free office space, assistance with networking, mentoring, and fundraising. The program, called Start-Up Chile, is still in the pilot stage. It will officially launch in mid-January. You can read about some of the teams here. Some of them are tackling water problems, others have tracking systems for solar panels, another is a travel planner. Vivek Wadhwa, who helped conceive the program, says this will work where government-run technology centers tend not to.

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