Cactus Thieves Inspire Three Business Ideas

In the Arizona Republic today there is an article titled “Cactus Thieves Beware: Saquaros get Microchips”. Apparently people are stealing cactuses, or cacti as some people say. In fact, in January 2007 alone, there were 17 stolen. The state is looking to implant microchips in medium size cacti between four and seven feet tall. Saquaros take dozens, even hundreds, of years to grow, and if someone wants to buy one for landscaping they can cost $100 or more a foot. This article leads me to three possible business ideas:

1. Manufacture the microchips, similar to those found in dogs and cats. These microchips can be used to tag cacti, pets, elk antlers, and even elephant tusks – basically anything that is worth lots of money.
2. Learn how to implant the microchips in cacti and be the vendor for the state. Government contracts are not as difficult to obtain as it sounds – most often being the lowest bidder and minority or women owned businesses have a huge advantage in many local government contracts. You can register online for most government agencies and receive bid opportunities via email. While this article is about saguaro tagging, you can register to bid on just about any commodity for the government (state, city or federal).
3. Buy land with lots of saguaros already on it and sell them at $100/foot. There is land throughout the state of Arizona with hundreds of cacti. You need a permit and to pay the fees to move the cacti – see the following link – but once the land is stripped of the cacti and sold to landscapers, the land is still valuable as land. Land is selling cheaper these days in AZ than a couple years ago so this is a good buying opportunity.

Has this article inspired anyone else?

Contest to Win 100 Free Business Cards from PrintPrintPrint.biz

In the past I have worked with several printing and graphic design companies to help me with marketing materials for companies. I've been really annoyed with one company, in particular, that gives me a million ads to click through before I can make my purchase. There's a new website www.printprintprint.biz that addresses the same issues I have had with online printing companies. They strive to offer the fastest, best quality printing and design for the best pricing.

The company is offering one lucky commenter 100 free business cards. To enter the contest, leave a comment on this post and you will automatically be registered to win. Contest ends midnight September 2, 2008.

Here's an excerpt from our interview:

1. How did you get the idea for your company?

I started doing freelance graphic design at a very young age and I was always in search of the cheapest priced printing with the best quality and turnaround that I could find. After all, that's how I made part of my profit! After finding a few good companies to work with, I noticed that none of them had easy to use websites. I also noticed that the shipping costs changed for all my "internet" based clients, so I always had to re-quote my customers jobs which made me look extremely unprepared. This is why/when I said I would start my own online printing & design company and provide 5 things: cheap priced printing, great quality, quick turnaround, and the same shipping costs for everyone in the continental United States - all available from an easy to use website.

2. What was your background prior to starting your business?

Graphic Design & Custom Web Development

3. What has been your biggest challenge in starting your own company?

Getting everything right on the website so it is easy to use for all customers. This is an ongoing challenge but we seem to have most of our bases covered at this point...

4. How long did it take to get the company up and running?

Roughly 5 months. The website took the longest to complete

5. What goals do you have for the company?

We hope to steal all of our competitors customers based on our Cheap Prices, Great Quality, Quick Turnaround and easy to use website!!! Did I say that out loud?

We really want to show our customers the advantages of using us by providing them with a great product & service. Over time, we will to continually lower our prices (instead of raise them like our competitors) based upon receiving higher volume's of orders. Check out https://www.printprintprint.biz/index.php?location=about
for more about our business & customer goals. It all basically
boils down to: We save money by receiving more and more orders daily,
so we then in turn pass this savings on to our customers.

6. What is your competitive advantage?

Well 1 thing is - people can get their total price right from our homepage as our shipping prices are the same throughout the entire US which is not seen on any of our competitor sites. We also exceed the quality, turnaround time and prices of most of our competitors. This, combined with offering custom graphic design on our website allows us to continually gain market share.

We also have extremely low overhead. We don't have huge office space, tons of employees, and different departments. We all basically wear many hats to keep costs very low for us and our customers!

7. Are you planning to sell t-shirts on your site as well in the future? I didn't see any.

Yes - we are planning on selling custom printed t-shirts at an extremely low price. But, we are launching an entirely new site for that... The new website is http://www.signsignsign.biz/. We'll be offering custom printed t-shirts, yard signs, vinyl banners, bumper stickers, and vinyl & magnets for your car. We're looking to launch that site within 1 months time.

8. When dd you start the biz?

http://www.printprintprint.biz/ was started back in March 2008.

Don't forget to leave a comment and you will be registered to win the contest for 100 free business cards.

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Free multimillion dollar business idea for anyone interested

I grew up on a farm but I really don’t have a green thumb and I am not educated at all in the trade. However, I do know a bit about economics and supply and demand, and it seems the US should be trying to produce a bit more saffron. I just read an article that the spice saffron is one of the most expensive “foods” in the world. The spice costs over a thousand dollars a pound to purchase. The threads are the stigmas of crocus plants, primarily grown in India, Iran, Spain, and Greece. Each crocus has only three stigmas, so many blossoms are needed to produce even a small amount of spice. One acre of land produces one pound of spice, approximately, yielding roughly $1000/acre.

I just did a google search and found the average price of corn is $2.28/bushel, and the average Iowa farm gets about 180 bushels/acre. That equates to roughly $410/acre. The difference in price per acre between those producing saffron vs. corn is $590, more than double. Now I know certain products grow better in certain climates and farmland. However, given the high price people are paying for this spice and with today’s technology and irrigation, shouldn’t it be possible to plant saffron at least somewhere in the US effectively using machines instead of handpicking? I had this same question before regarding the truffle industry, and lo and behold there is someone trying to plant truffles. I would like to see a similar project in the US for saffron. And, I bet people would be willing to spend more on US versions of saffron over Iran’s stuff, for political reasons. If anyone knows about someone who successfully plants saffron in the US, please let me know and I will do a write up on this.