Noobpreneur is a mix of two words. The word noob which refers to newbie or a rookie, and the word entrepreneur, a person who takes risks to set up a business for profit. Although putting the word noob or newbie with a word that consists of taking risks do not usually sound good together, this blog makes it work.

Noobpreneur is a business blog that is full of information for people who are starting off as entrepreneurs or thinking about becoming entrepreneurs while being stuck at a different job. Articles such as Small Business Ideas for Budding Entrepreneurs really show how this website is meant to walk through from step 1 of being an entrepreneur to step 100 with you by providing you with articles that are full of knowledge. The blog is also fully interactive, provided with comment section that you can thumb up or thumb down which helps the new entrepreneurs to hear from other new entrepreneurs or different perspectives on a specific topic.

One flaw I have found with this website though is that it should try to minimize its advertisements as it pops up on inconvenient places such as middle of the page when you are trying to scroll down. Other than that, this blog is a great blog for not just new entrepreneurs but every type of businessmen.

Picture: Directly from noobpreneur.com

To sum up Maddie’s blog post, Wal-Mart has been underpaying its employees and their concern for raising the wages of the workers is the possible decline in stock from stockholders thinking that they are not getting enough value from the employers with the amount of money they will be paying them. However, a recommendation is shown that with a raise, Google had seen a 60% increase in stocks, the opposite of what Wal-Mart executives were assuming.

Although what happened during the increase of Google’s stocks (maybe a new Google program could have launched) is not disclosed, Google’s increased stock could be explained by using an example of another company. Zappos is famous for providing great care for their employees which includes covering for all of their health care which is a big sum of money to cover in the U.S. Zappos’s philosophy is that when employees are treated better, they will be happy and therefore being fully productive.

As much as raising wages for employees does not sound like a profitable decision for Wal-Mart on paper, looking at a company like Zappos can really give Wal-Mart a new perspective on what the impact of raising wages could be.

Picture:

(Web Photo). Retrieved from http://wpmedia.business.financialpost.com/2012/07/0717lululemon.jpg?w=620

Megan’s blog post on Chip Wilson’s recent comments have provoked me to wonder why big successful CEO’s such as Chip WIlson and Mike Jeffries (owner of Abercrombie and Fitch) put their companies at a significant risk by saying that a certain type of people (referring to people who may be obese or larger in figure than most people) are not fit to wear their clothing.

Then I realized it is because they have spent such a signifcant time trying to build brand positioning for their company that they do not want to take a chance to ruin it. Companies use brand positioning to create an image for themselves that they would like to be seen as for the general public. Since Chip Wilson had built its company to have the brand positioning of an athletic brand, him wanting to maintain that image probably provoked him to make a risky comment as such.

Although brand positioning is great to attract a target market, professionals such as Chip Wilson should know better to make comments that may be offensive.

Picture:

(Web Photo). Retrieved from http://www.mullen.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/zappos-team.jpg

For smartphone owners continuously frustrated with having to replace the whole phone because of damage to a specific part of the phone, or consumers worried about the environmental impact of the smartphone waste, a solution has arrived.

Although this solution is not a reality yet, Phonebloks are smartphones that you can customize, upgrade, repair easily to fit your needs unlike the current smartphones in the market.

Dave Hakkens, the creator of Phonebloks came up with the idea of it and created a YouTube video that would present its concepts and gather interest from the viewers.

This video, which currently has almost 18 million views in two months has made it clear that an undoubtedly a huge number of consumers are interested, there are entrepreneurs willing to invest/help, and there are also many engineers who are willing to build prototypes for this idea. Hakkens has not just created a video that completed market research, but also established a way to move onto the next step for the idea and further develop it to satisfy the high demands of consumers. Although it is unclear whether Hakkens meant to do it or not, Hakkens has conducted a market research through this video.

References: Kremer, W. (2013, October 24). Phonebloks: the phone you can build like lego. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24490331

Picture: [Web Photo]. Retrieved from http://www.thefoxisblack.com/blogimages//phonebloks-2-Copy.jpg

The Food and Drug Administration of the U.S. is taking actions to help its citizens by taking the necessary procedures to take out partially hydrogenated oils which are the major factor of trans-fats. Although there is a large demand for the trans-fat containing foods such as many types of pizza, hamburgers, potato chips, and other classic American foods, the FDA is putting a stop to trans-fat for the health of the citizens.

From a business stand point of view, this could hurt many businesses as the businesses who have used partially hydrogenated oils had no problem selling their products but due to the ban, they may have to find an alternative of the oil which could result in either a more expensive substitute or a substitute that would change how the food tastes or worst case scenario, both of those cases.

The article also mentions that a lot of food services had taken out trans-fat causing oils out of their products even before the FDA had announced the upcoming elimination of the oils. This could also be thought of as a business ethics problem. Does the producer use trans fat oils knowing it will be detrimental to customers but cheaper for them to produce or does the producer spend a little more to make a healthier product?

FDA’s actions will certainly have a significant effect on many businesses.

References: Mulholland, A. (2013, November 07). u.s. fda moves to ban artery-clogging trans fats, no timeline set.Ctvnews. Retrieved from http://www.ctvnews.ca/health/u-s-fda-moves-to-ban-artery-clogging-trans-fats-no-timeline-set-1.1532101

Picture: Markstein, G. (Photographer). [Web Photo]. Retrieved from http://www.tuscany-diet.net/lipids/trans-fatty-acids/

Sriracha sauce is one of the staples of many Asian restaurants and increasingly other restaurants as well. Some people can’t live without it, some Vancouverites even refer to the sauce as “Vancouver Ketchup” and smother all of their food items with it.

However, looking at the operations side of the high demand Sriracha sauce, they are not doing so “hot” as the sauce itself.

Complaints have been reported of odour coming from the factory that’s located in Irwindale, approximately 20 miles east of Los Angeles. The odour has been so pungent that some residents of Irwindale has started moving away from the city and has put in a formal complaint which has halted the plant from continuing production until action is taken.

It is the job of the person managing operations to make sure that an essential part of the business, the production, does not get stopped as it just did. The operations manager should have taken into account the odour that it will produce and taken actions for it. Now the high demand sauce will see a decrease because of a simple operations error. Nothing would hurt an owner’s greed more than having high demand but low supply because of a mistake.

References:

Huffington Post. (2013, October 29). Retrieved from Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/29/sriracha-odor-lawsuit-stinging-stench_n_4172997.html

Hunt, K. (n.d.). 8 awesome rooster sauce tributes to help you cope with the Sriracha-pocalypse. Retrieved from http://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/huy-fong-lawsuit-sriracha-fan-art-to-cope-with-the-irwindale-city-lawsuit