Business 101...

Sorry for not posting for a while. I have been working on starting up a little online business that I have discussed before. It is basically manufacturing and selling little needles used to threading monofilament fishing line into hollow spectra fishing line. I won't go into all the 'details' of why these are needed, but I think there is a little niche market for them and it gives me something to do besides fish, upgrade computers, and housework.

I have setup the books on Quickbooks for the enterprise. Speaking of Quickbooks, you can get a free version of the software, called Quickbooks Simple Start 2008, at their website for free. It doesn't import anything into it, it is designed for those just starting up, and has some other limitations, but is perfect for my needs. Anyway, I have setup the books in Quickbooks. I have also started printing shipping and postage labels, via PayPal, with our little Brother QL-500 label printer - which is very cool. I have tracked down the packaging materials I need for the products and developed the labels and product materials and gathered all the parts and materials I need to produce the products.

It took me a while to figure out how to make them easily and correctly, but after much trial and error, I have it pretty much figured out at this point and they are better, cheaper and more usable than the other commercially available products out there.

I am making 6 different sizes of the needles using medical grade stainless steel hypodermic tubing and have built and sent 3 sets of product samples for potential distributors. So, we shall see how they go over. Either they will be ordering more product from me or I will be starting up an Ebay store to sell them.

Anyway, that is what I have been up to and why I have not been writting blog entries as often...

We went to Pam's Top Performers banquet at Dell last week. It was pretty underwhelming IMHO. The theme was "March Madness" to go along with all the college basketball frenzy. They had these arcade type basketball throwing games and had contests that were all disasters, again IMHO. Also, they didn't have an open bar this time, I heard the hall staff called in sick or something, so that reduced the overall fun, as usually people get more 'active' with liquor at such events...

I haven't been fishing forever. On the days I have available to go, the weather has been crappy...

Pool hasn't been going to well either. Last week, I went to play in the tournaments and both of them were cancelled due to lack of players. I guess everybody is still recovering from the league playoffs. But, they should show up again in a week or so.

Well, that is about all I can think of to write about right now - More when it happens...