Google co-founder Larry Page recently revealed in his commencement address to the University of Michigan that the basic platform for google was based on a sleep dream he had in college. Page, then 23, took the source material of his dream and worked it until it became a minor internet player.

Page told the college grads that he had a “vivid dream” at age 23 that woke him up in the middle of the night that he just had to write down.

Well, I had one of those dreams when I was 23. When I suddenly woke up, I was thinking: what if we could download the whole web, and just keep the links and… I grabbed a pen and started writing! Sometimes it is important to wake up and stop dreaming. I spent the middle of that night scribbling out the details and convincing myself it would work. Soon after, I told my adviser, Terry Winograd, it would take a couple of weeks to download the web — he nodded knowingly, fully aware it would take much longer but wise enough to not tell me. The optimism of youth is often underrated! Amazingly, I had no thought of building a search engine. The idea wasn’t even on the radar. But, much later we happened upon a better way of ranking webpages to make a really great search engine, and Google was born. When a really great dream shows up, grab it!

There is nothing inherently special about Larry Page that isn’t also in all of us. He just took the ball and ran like Forrest Gump with it.

examiner.com

Larry Page founded Google on a sleep dream is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The study by Sara Mednick, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at UC San Diego and the VA San Diego Healthcare System, and first author Denise Cai, graduate student in the UC San Diego Department of Psychology, shows that REM directly enhances creative processing more than any other sleep or wake state. Their findings will be published in the June 8th online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

“We found that – for creative problems that you’ve already been working on – the passage of time is enough to find solutions,” said Mednick. “However, for new problems, only REM sleep enhances creativity.”

Mednick added that it appears REM sleep helps achieve such solutions by stimulating associative networks, allowing the brain to make new and useful associations between unrelated ideas. Importantly, the study showed that these improvements are not due to selective memory enhancements.

physorg.com

Creative problem solving enhanced by REM sleep is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Someone crazy enough, in a bad economy and with a newborn son, to start a free local magazine about barbershops. Someone driven enough to load 20,000 copies of Barbershop Digest each month into a Chevy truck his dad gave him and deliver them to 600 shops all over metro Atlanta.

He and his pages celebrate the barbershop as a sanctuary from the societal message that African-American men aren’t valued. For Egeston, this is where life became vivid and full of possibility.

In 2005, he hatched the idea for a magazine. “I went to my barbershop and was listening to some barbers talk trash about jumping rope. They issued a challenge to anyone who could jump rope for three minutes without stopping. Someone bet me $100 I couldn’t do it,” he recalled.

“Three minutes later, I was a barbershop legend. I never got the money but instantly saw the camaraderie and the spirit of barbershops in a different light. I wanted to take the barbershop experience home.”

Egeston persuaded his co-worker and neighbor Travis Hudgons to design the magazine. College friend Angus Wilson takes pictures when he’s not working at UPS.

The ads haven’t sold well, and by March, the third issue, Egeston asked his wife to dip into her retirement account. She never considered no.

“My hustle is laying in my lap as I write this message … without a care in the world and without a clue that his daddy won’t be sleeping the next few days. Not because he keeps me up with diaper changes and feedings. But because I share a common trait with the kats holding clippers and the dudes selling wares and the activists fighting for change. That trait is, we all found our reason to hustle.”

ajc.com

Trips to barbershop inspired entrepreneur is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

The invitation-only community, ConnectedInvestors.com was founded in 2005 by real estate investor, entrepreneur, and author Ross Hamilton. Hamilton says he started the real estate investor focused social network to help other investors create a community to support each other as well as to serve as an online way to track deal flow and utilize all of the best-of-breed available web marketing tools like automated customer list building, automatic customer follow up, and audio/video compatibility.

Hamilton, author of “Real Estate Investing in Your 20s,” also indicated that part of his motivation was to build a personal network because, “it was a little lonely working as a full-time real estate investor in my 20s. I didn’t have many peers my age, so I just focused on networking with other investors.” His efforts appear to be paying off as website popularity tracking company Alexa.com reports that his site has experienced 400% growth in the past three months.

Invitation-Only Social Network for Real Estate is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

“I’m passionate that this is something that will save babies lives”
Chris Ebejer

Chris Ebejer, 42, who runs the Melford Inn, said he had a eureka moment six years ago in an unusual place when he woke up on the couch one morning following a party. In a flash of inspiration the father of one decided he would design a baby suit that changed colour when the baby’s temperature went up. And now the pint pulling part-time scientist will see his ‘Babyglow’ invention flying out of production plants around the world at more than a million a month

‘Babyglow’ took six years and more than £700,000 of investment to get to the manufacturing stage.

The £20 garments, which come in pink, blue and green change to white when a baby’s temperature rises above 98F (37C).

With a £12.5 million deal already signed with manufacturers Quality Workwear 4U in Milton Keynes, Chris is working on deals in the U.S. and is in negotiations with major High Street stores.

dailymail.co.uk

Pub landlord signs multi-million pound deal for baby suit invention is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Lambert also uses a potent mix of marketing savvy and passion, spiced with some serendipity, to run his site. The Beerbelly, by the way, is a neoprene bag that fits under a shirt and can be used to avoid paying $9 for drafts at sporting events.

eCommerce-Guide

Beer Belly is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

“We’re calling the phone ‘the brand in your hand’ — you’re never more than a foot away from it, 24 hours a day,” said Fareena Sultan , associate professor of marketing at Northeastern University’s College of Business Administration. The challenge, Sultan said, will be to produce an advertisement for the phone “that excites the person holding it.”

Fueled by faster wireless networks, more capable phones, and increasingly popular data services, the cellphone ad space is poised to grow, according to industry watchers, and a cluster of Boston start-ups have positioned themselves as the middlemen who bring brands to the screen.

Boston-based Enpocket Inc. partnered with Sprint Nextel Corp. to place banner ads on the carrier’s mobile browser homepage last year. Third Screen Media Inc. , also in Boston, builds cellphone-sized banner ads for major brands such as Burger King Holdings Inc. , Bank of America Corp. , and Toyota Motor Corp.

uLocate Communications Inc. in Framingham plans to unveil mobile advertising that uses global positioning technology to send ads to phone users in specific locations later this year. Lexington-based Mobot Inc. used its mobile visual search — in which users search and browse the Web using pictures taken with a cellphone camera — to power a Starbucks Corp. visual scavenger hunt and Acura sweepstakes this summer. VeriSign Inc. bought m-Qube Inc. , a Watertown company that provided mobile marketing services, for $250 million last year. MobileLime in Watertown turns the phone into a mobile membership card that receives coupons and store alerts from grocery stores and fast-food restaurants.

Cellphone Billboard is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Mr. Adams founded Heelys Inc., a Carrollton, Texas, company that makes sneakers that work like skates when the wearer shifts weight to the heels. The company has sold more than 4.5 million pairs of Heelys, as they are known, world-wide since they debuted in 2000 and they keep rolling: In the six months ended June 30, 2006, sales rose to $44.6 million from $16.1 million a year earlier.

In the fall 1998, he was sitting on a friend’s porch in Manhattan Beach, Calif., watching roller skaters, skateboarders and bicyclists on the boardwalk, thinking back to a “happier, simpler time” at his family’s roller rink. That led him to an idea. “It occurred to me that all those things — roller skates, skateboards, bikes — had been around for a hundred years,” he says. “It seemed to me that there had to be some new way to have fun on wheels.”

His friend had a workshop in his garage. He heated up a butter knife and began cutting apart some Nike sneakers and experimenting with metal balls and wheels. He “cannibalized at least four pairs” of sneakers in the first few hours. He tried them repeatedly and kept falling until he accidentally discovered the proper stance — one foot in front of the other to maintain balance.

He took the prototypes to seven different shoe companies and six sporting-goods companies, but none of his meetings resulted in a deal. Finally venture capitalist Patrick F. Hamner offered funding. Heelys was incorporated in May 2000 and had an initial public offering in Dec. 2006. The company now has a market capitalization of $932.77 million.

startupjournal.com

How an Inventor Got A Skate-Shoe Rolling is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

When Danny Tuff was growing up in Newfoundland, his father often prodded him and his siblings to switch off the lights and turn down the heat. If only there were a way to plainly show how electricity translated into real money, his father used to say, people would waste less. Years later Danny and his brother Maurice launched Blue Line Innovations and chose a home meter reader as one of their first projects.

“We wanted a device that any customer could install without the help of an electrician,” Danny says. But technical hurdles seemed too high. Then one afternoon, after Maurice’s cat had been chasing the dot from his laser pointer, Maurice shot a beam through the bottom of a power meter. Could that be the answer? After modifying the idea to use low-power infrared instead of a laser to track a mark on the meter’s spinning disk, they dropped other projects and raised $4 million in financing.

The brothers presented their Power Cost Monitor to Ontario utility Hydro One, which found during a test that newly alert customers used an average of 6.5 percent less electricity. Hydro One bought 30,000 units, netting Blue Line a cool $4 million. Now at least 50 more utilities, including NSTAR (Charts) in Massachusetts, are eyeing the device, which is cheaper and easier to install than technologies that let people track power use online. In the end, it seems Dad was right – electricity can indeed translate into real money.

FSB Magazine

Turn off that light! Energy usage in real dollars is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

One way to encourage this is to periodically review your notebook to remind your subconscious mind about some of your recorded ideas. Then give your conscious mind a break from concentrating on the topic and do some novel and interesting activities. When you do this, it gives your subconsciousness a chance to freely explore the idea without the constraints that you impose upon your conscious thinking.

braingle.com

Work Hard, Play Hard is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Using an electrical charge to infuse tap water with ozone, the system acts as a natural powerful sanitizer and removes the need for chemical use in the home.

Steve Hengsperger, who almost five years ago embarked on inventing a new water purification system, happened on the sanitizer idea “while doing research for the original idea.

“I had no idea how powerful ozonated water was and how it could be used as a more powerful sanitizer than hydrogen peroxide or any of the over-the-counter bleaching and cleaning agents.”

So far, Hengsperger and Tersano, the company he established to market the sanitizer, has sold about 20,000 units through Canadian Tire in Canada, the Sharper Image in the U.S. and on the company’s website.

Diane Hengsperger, Steve’s wife, said she has been using a version of the product for the past four years and has virtually “eliminated the use of chemical cleaning products in our home. It took five years to come together from idea to product, but Steve’s patient and it’s paid off.”

According to the company’s website, ozone-activated water is widely accepted as a safe and effective way to decontaminate foods such as meats, poultry, seafood, fruits and vegetables.

Ottawa Citizen

The lotus Sanitizing System is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

Apparently many hair salons have made the practice of providing women with a brown bag of hair coloring to match the coloring they just got put on their heads. A woman named Nancy Jarecki decided why not sell a product like this over-the-counter.

The Betty Story

I hadn’t planned on starting a cosmetics company. But sitting in a hair salon in Rome a few years ago, I made a discovery. As I saw women leaving the salon, I couldn’t help noticing that some would linger by the door. After a few minutes, their colorist would come back with a little paper bag, hand it to them and send them cheerfully on their way.

When I inquired about this mysterious ritual, the receptionist said: “Per sotto, per farli combaciare,” meaning: “For the hair down there… to make it match.” I thought, “How genius… A home coloring kit for the hair down there!” I knew there were no specialized products like this in America.

Coloured Hair Down There is a post from: Top Business Opportunities

While homeless in Portland, Maine, Yates taught herself how to make jewelry. With the help of friends and family, she found a home and started over.

In 1983, with a roof over her head and a young child to support, Yates turned a tiny attic above her apartment into a studio, where she launched a line of hand-made jewelry. Over the next few years, demand for her work grew.

In 1989, in a moment of inspiration, she combined a rectangle with a triangle to create a metal pin in the shape of a house.

“I heard this voice go off inside my head that said, ‘wouldn’t this make a great fundraiser for the homeless?’ ” Yates said. “I don’t know about you, but when I hear voices inside my head, I listen.”

Yates contacted a local homeless shelter and encouraged the organization to use the pins to raise money for the homeless. She sold pins to the shelter for $6 each. The shelter, in turn, sold them for $10 and used the profits to support the organization.

A Realtor soon bought a pin, starting a national phenomenon. Realtors from across the country were soon using Yate’s pins to raise money for the homeless.

“The first year, I grossed $89,000,” said Yates. “The next year, I grossed $300,000, then $1.4 million, then $2.6 million. I had challenges you can’t believe. I had no experience. I simply did the same things I did on the streets. When I ran into problems, I figured out a way to solve them.”

Over the years, Yates’ jewelry-making operation expanded from her 75-square-foot attic studio to 8,000 square feet of manufacturing space. The company now has a line of 11 theme-based fundraising pins, international distribution and a work force of more than 50 employees.

Designs By Lucinda now is a business dedicated to creating affordable jewelry for the purpose of bringing financial help and awareness to nonprofit organizations and their causes.

Since the company’s inception in 1989, Designs By Lucinda has sold more than 4 million pins and helped raise more than $24 million for charitable organizations.

“People who hire me to speak are looking for an inspirational story,” said Yates. “They’re looking for a female entrepreneur who has actually done it from the ground up. There are plenty of women who went to Harvard and work for a Fortune 500 company. My story is, holy cow, where’d you come from? And how does your background tie into what you’ve achieved?”

For more information about Lucinda Yates, visit www.lucinda.com.

Rags-to-riches, Lucinda Yates is a post from: Top Business Opportunities