There’s one thing they always say about money - you can’t take it with you.

So before you go, you can at least arrange for a memorable send off.

One company in England has taken that directive quite literally to heart, creating a bizarre new business that sits on the tentative border between creativity and extreme bad taste.

Vic Fearn and Company is a 160-year-old entity that makes coffins. That doesn’t sound terribly exciting, but recent customers may make you think twice about that impression.

They’ve been coming in asking for exotic caskets to be buried in to reflect their passions in life.

It started with an odd request from a woman who was a big fan of the Royal Air Force’s acrobatic team the Red Arrows. She wanted to be interred forever in a model of one of their fighters. Read the rest of this entry »

Mobile video is all the rage in the wireless world, so how long before porn hits the two-inch screen? As Canada’s No. 2 cell phone carrier just discovered, it may take awhile.

ast month Telus, Canada’s second-largest wireless operator, quietly tried to do something that no other North American rival has done: sell pornography. But when The New York Times detailed the new service Monday, the backlash from religious groups and Telus subscribers was swift.

By Wednesday, Telus (Charts) pulled the plug on its incipient porn play. In press reports, company executives seemed nonplussed by the public outrage, noting that the company’s television unit carries adult channels with no fuss.

“There was certainly a fairly significant amount of surprise and a lack of awareness that the Internet had arrived on cellphones,” spokesman Jim Johannsson told the Edmonton Sun.

For Telus, its venture into adult content came to an end almost as quickly as it began. Notably, though, company officials left open the possibility that the carrier would sell smut in the future.

Read the entire article here.

Inc. magazine goes behind the scenes with 25 entrepreneurs who best exemplify the extraordinary drive, creativity, and passion of American business. Top 25 list, coinciding with Inc.’s 25th anniversary, spans the gamut of the entrepreneurial world, from spectacularly successful household names, such as Russell Simons, to Laima Tazmin, an extraordinary talented teenager who runs a Web consulting business, to Lance Morgan, a Native American whose network of businesses, from e-commerce to housing construction, provides hundreds of jobs for members of his tribe. No matter what the accomplishment, each entrepreneur profiled here offers a fascinating case study in what it takes to thrive in today’s economy.

1. Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com
   because “optimism is essential”
2. Betsey Johnson, Betsey Johnson
   for her stylish life
3. Russell Simmons, Rush Communications
   for his powerful example
4. Scott Cook, Intuit
   because he learns, and teaches
5. Sergey Brin & Larry Page, Google
   for their integrity. And, well, for Google
6. David Neeleman, JetBlue
   for creating an airline fit for humans
7. Tom Stemberg, Staples
   for doing it exactly right
8. Jack Stack, SRC Holdings
   for going naked
9. Judy Wicks, White Dog Enterprises
   because she’s put in place more progressive business practices per square foot than any other entrepreneur
10. Davin Wedel, Global Protection
    because he’s a lifesaver
11. Pat McGovern, International Data Group
    for knowing the power of respect
12. Steve Jobs, Apple Computer, Pixar
    because we like to be seduced
13. Lance Morgan, Ho-Chunk
    because a man must make his own arrows–Winnebago proverb
14. James Goodnight, SAS
    for saying no to Wall Street (repeatedly) and yes to the people who really matter
15. Stella Ogiale, Chesterfield Health Services
    for doing good while doing well
16. Rhonda Kallman, New Century Brewing
    for seizing opportunity– again and again
17. Laima Tazmin, LAVT
    because she’s a lot like other kids–and then again…
18. Laura & Pete Wakeman, Great Harvest Bread
    for living a little –no, a lot
19. Andra Rush, Rush Trucking
    for rolling up her sleeves
20. Kathleen Wehner, Cirrus Aviation
    for refusing to quit
21. Frank Venegas, Ideal Group
    because he parlayed a little bit of luck into a lot of good fortune for others
22. Dan Wieden, Wieden + Kennedy
    because he’s a true independent
23. John Sperling, Apollo Group
    because he stirs the pot, and apparently always will
24. John Stollenwerk, Allen-Edmonds
    for his commitment to U.S. workers. We also love the shoes
25. Mel Zuckerman, Canyon Ranch
    for showing the way

“Second Life was just unfundable,” says the man who dreamed up this virtual world. Funny how things change when you give people the ability to fly. Now everyone, including businesses of all sizes, wants a piece.

Second Life is a place where anyone can have just that. It is a richly detailed virtual world where anything a computer programmer can imagine can exist: There are minutely detailed replicas of Rockefeller Center and human-size raccoons; sex and sadism and spiritual retreats; conference calls and a currency exchange. Almost all of it is created by the people who pay to dwell in it. Linden Lab, the San Francisco company that created and owns Second Life, acts as a sort of laissez-faire government. It makes money primarily by selling property, of which it can conjure an infinite amount.

What’s real is that Second Life is a haven for entrepreneurs, with thousands of businesses selling things ranging from clothes to office buildings to body parts. Business is conducted in Linden dollars, but those can be cashed for cold, hard credit card credits. The in-world economy is now clipping along at $10 million–those are U.S. dollars–a month. Big companies are popping up, too, experimenting with what might be a look at tomorrow’s three-dimensional Web.

inc.com

Eternal Reefs

Eternal Reefs is the only company in the world that mixes the ashes of cremated people into cement to form “reef balls,” which they then lower into the ocean to help create habitats for marine life. While it certainly sounds strange, it helps if you think of it as a way of creating something that does something good for the environment–offering marine life a home that replaces the dying coral reefs.

Long-time good friends Frankel and Bawley often went diving together in the Florida Keys. They quickly noticed how the area’s reefs were deteriorating and began organizing volunteers to create reef balls–structures made of natural resources that provide homes for coral and microorganisms. Then, in 1998, Brawley’s father-in-law got sick. “He knew his time was limited,” says Frankel, “and he really wanted his cremated remains to be in a reef.” After a funeral director gave Brawley the ashes, he remembered his father-in-law’s request, and from his death, a new company was born.

“We definitely get one of two responses,” reports Frankel. “Either their eyes light up and they get it right away. Or they don’t think we’re serious.” Generally, Frankel says, if somebody isn’t excited about the idea, they often say, “That’s not really for me, but I know someone it would be perfect for.”

entrepreneur.com

http://www.citikitty.com

Rebecca Rescate found her niche the way so many entrepreneurs do: She had a need and nobody was filling it. Rescate and her husband, Christian, had moved from Pennsylvania to New York City with their cat, Samantha, into a very small apartment. They really didn’t have space for a cat litter box—or the odor it generated. Rescate had heard about the concept of training a cat to use a toilet, and there were two products on the market to help felines do just that, but they weren’t what she wanted. So Rescate developed a gadget that actually teaches a cat to do his business on the toilet. After a few weeks, the gadget can be thrown away, and pet kitties can relieve themselves on the regular toilet.

“I got a lot of people who rolled their eyes,” Rescate admits. “They’d just look and me and say, ‘Whatever you want to do.’” But once friends and family who had cats heard about it, they all wanted one. So Rescate launched her business part time and kept her day job–until Good Morning America featured her on the show and pet blogs began talking about her. “It was something that became an immediate success, so I handed in my resignation,” says Rescate, who had been working at a tech company.

Educating the public. “Very few people know about this,” says Rescate. “And the people who do know about it often think it’s a joke, that nobody can really toilet train their cat. It’s really hard to get people to understand that you can.”

entrepreneur.com