Archive for June, 2008
Entrepreneur brings in $10 Million in 1st year
Murray set up the company in September last year after spending five years in R&D to get the technology up to scratch. She invested £200,000 of her own cash into the start-up, but it was tough going from the off. “I could have given up a thousand times,” says Murray. “There were so many complexities involved in designing the actual device. Radio is a black art, you can’t theorise a working system. It’s all about trial and error.”
The service currently boasts 4,000 customers. Murray predicts this figure will hit 10,000 by 2009 and pull in a turnover of £4m
2 comments June 26, 2008
Make Money While You Wait for people .
Waiting around for the cable guy tops the list of customer grievances about cable service, according to a recent survey by TeleNav, a company that makes GPS tracking devices. But one entrepreneur, Herve Aimable, sees opportunity in frustration. He runs a service in New York called Wait For Me. It’s exactly what it sounds like: He has hired and bonded five people who do nothing but wait in people’s homes for the cable guy. Each four-hour block costs $250. Since 2006, Aimable has brought in $60,000 from cable-sitting. “This is a valuable service, but it’s sort of a paradox, because you are getting paid for waiting,” Aimable says. Well, not just waiting—these are mostly actors. Says Aimable: “They sit around, they think, and they vocalize.”
Back to BWSmallBiz April/May 2008 Table of Contents
Quittner is a staff writer for BusinessWeek in New York
1 comment June 4, 2008
