“Old” beer, wine & spirits becomes fuel

 Beer is the third most popular beverage in the world after water and tea, It tends to reason then, that there’s lots of “residue” left over from the production of and consumption of this popular beverage. Enter a new company, E-Fuel MicroFueler that on the fly, and in the comfort of your own garage, converts “stuff” to ethanol-based fuel to run your compatible vehicle. A “Fact Sheet/pdf” on the company and process is linked here: Interesting stuff. BTW, a search on YouTube = MicroFueler will yield numerous results if you care to explore this new and innovative concept further. Hank

Twitter’s Demographics

Later on in the semester teams in my ENTR200 classes are going to analyze and present Twitter as a recent and ongoing “Success Case.” Last Monday I posted a blog about  Moms who own iPhone and their unique demographics. I followed this with a blog about like characteristics of “gamers.” This blog explores what is known about the heavy-half of Twitter-users, or those who frequently Tweet, to use the common vernacular.

Heavy Tweeters are not from an age bracket that one might expect. We have come to accept [wrongly it turns out] that “Boopers” [young group that supposedly popularize innovation] are leading the way. Not so says ComScore as quoted in the NYTimes. In fact, in many leading innovation categories such as Social Networking – think Facebook, older segments such as the 35-54 age group, or increasingly over 65ers are leading the pack. In my own experience, I have found Gen-Yers [yes, the target market of this blog] to be actually unfamiliar with many common aspects of technology. See graph from ComScore below. The world is not always as we assume. It should blow your minds that the over 65 crowd are more into Twitter than EITHER 12-17 or 18-24s. My thanks to Stewart for pointing this out. Hank

Peace Through Business

This is a program all students of entrepreneurship should be aware of. Why? Because the women involved in this program are facing much greater obstacles than any of you are, but they are "doing it." A profile of the women involved is located here: Hank 

Have A Happy Friday: Geoffrey Gallante Is @ 8 yrs old

Read more about him here:

Jennifer Woodsmall: Bag Lady

Jennifer is cofounder of J.L Lane, a startup that offers gorgeous handbags, clothing and accessory items. "She, along with her mother, founded J. L. Lane in 2003 to design and import handbags manufactured in Vietnam.

J. L. Lane handbags are distributed in department stores in the Midwest and Southeast, as well as on the web. A portion of the company’s profits are donated to micro-finance groups that assist women in Third World countries to help them sustain their ventures. " {Quote from here} The company’s blog is here and has background on how the company got started. A more in-depth but still short article on Jennifer’s company, JLLane, is here. Interesting reading. Hank

Algae-based Digester Coming To Area

Curt Slyder writing in the 6/7/09 Journal & Courier, p. C1 had a very interesting article titled “BioTown’s next step has role for algae.” About 9 months ago I started blogging about use of algae to produce a substitute for diesel fuel, while at the same time producing animal feed, all a very fast growing simple organism – algae. Seems it is now coming to BioTown USA, the moniker hung on Reynolds back in 2005 by Governor Mitch Daniels. Indianapolis-based algae-wheel Inc. plans to have online in short order a 6,500 ft^2 greenhouse to process up to 90,000 gallons of wastewater per day.

According to algae-wheel’s “About” page, the company was founded by “Christopher A. Limcaco, Founder & CEO, B.S. Environmental Civil Engineering, Purdue University 1992, started Algaewheel, Inc. in 1998 after working in wastewater design and consulting for 7 years. Christopher developed the algaewheel in his home and has been working on its perfection for nearly fifteen years.” How their system works is located here: Their contact information is given below. Pretty interesting technology and could work in series with the waste water treatment facility in W. Lafayette, now, couldn’t it? Recall the Capstone generators are multifuel Hank

CONTACT US

Algaewheel, inc.
9333 North Meridian Street
Suite 108
Indianapolis, IN 46260

877.algaewheel
317.582.1400 ph
317.536.3810 fax
info@algaewheel.com

Yesterday iPhone Moms, Today Gamers

Yesterday’s blog was about the psychographics of iPhone moms. Today’s blog pushes this kind of entrepreneurial insight a little further down the road. Why? Thursday, Adam Black will be visiting both ENTR200 classes. He is an avid gamer, and is in the throes of starting a 24/7 gaming facility in the general Purdue area. In Maymester, he and his team, while enrolled in ENTR200K, did a great job of researching the Purdue student population to ascertain interest in gaming in general. This raises the question: Does the Purdue student population map closely to the general paychographics of gamers ? Should Adam expect gamers outside the Purdue population to be attracted to his concept of a 24/7 gaming facility? What do we know about gamers in general? The picture is not pretty.

Wired Magazine recently published a study of gamers. They found:

• The average gamer is a 35-year-old man who is overweight, aggressive, introverted and … often depressed
• When children and teenagers become game players, a trend toward physical inactivity and corresponding health problems extends and exacerbates into adulthood
• Half of gamers are between 18 and 49 years old, while 25 percent are 50 and older
• Men reported that gaming gives them a “reason to get together,” while women are looking more for a diversion than social interaction.
• Both male and female gamers were more likely to report being overweight, having more poor-mental-health days and being less socially outgoing

From the findings, we would hope that Purdue’s student gaming population does not map to the general gaming population. Would you have guessed that a full 25% of avid gamers are 50 or older? Certainly reaching this target market requires a different medium, media, and message from college-age gamers. Adam has his work cut out for him. Hank

Mom + iPhone = $$$$ for Entrepreneurs

Mothers comprise a substantial constituency among tech users. And the Internet is empowering mothers with a strong voice, not to be ignored. Mom’s arsenal of tech tools includes everything   from smartphones and netbooks to automatic bottle warmers and high-tech strollers. But there is much more for entrepreneurs than just the techie aspects of “Mother.”

What information can be gained from only knowing that a Mother is an iPhone user that can assist the entrepreneur in sharpening target marketing? In other words, knowing that a Mother uses an iPhone, how can I make money from this knowledge? Mother + iPhone=$$$$? BTW, there is even a web site dedicated to the iPhone Mom, www.theiphonemon.com.

This month [August 2009] Katie Berk, Marketing Manager @ Greystripe released an exhaustive survey of Moms with iphones titled “Greystripe Mobile Advertising Insights Report: The iPhone Mom Q2 2009.” A brief summary of some of her major findings include:

• 67%  of iPhone moms have pets [48% dogs, 31% cats, & 14% other]
• 37% of iPhone moms use coupons every time they shop
• 57% of iPhone moms ALWAYS go online to find out which store has the best price
• Almost half [47%] of iPhone moms tend to use recipes when they cook
• 81% of iPhone moms are “very concerned about eating healthfully”
• More iPhone moms eat/cook @ home than buy takeout [52% to 27%]
• iPhone moms are not likely to give themselves at home spa treatments
• 41% of iPhone moms are more likely to do all home improvement projects themselves versus 28% who don’t
• iPhone users tend to be more educated with only 17% having never/not yet attended college
• Only 25% of iPhone moms do not own at least one gaming console [30% xBox, 47% Wii, 40% Play Station, & 19% Other]

The next time you see a mom with an iPhone, think opportunity! The juice of an entrepreneur is figuring out what it is. Stay tuned. Hank