It is getting close to the end of the year, and for the writers at BeHeron, it is our favorite time of the year. Why you ask? Because at the end of the year, all of the “Best of” lists come out. Today, we bring to you the Winners of the 2008 Collegiate Inventors Competition. Of the winners, our favorite was the graduate student winner, Paul Podsiadlo. By mimicking a brick-and-mortar molecular structure found in seashells, he and his professor were able to create a composite plastic that’s as strong as steel but lighter and transparent. It’s made of layers of clay nanosheets and a water-soluble polymer that shares chemistry with white glue. See a great summary of this technology here and Paul's web page here.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody. We at BeHeron are taking a much needed vacation. Phew!

But before we go, we'd like you to read this article here. Everyone knows the holiday season is when most retail businesses make their money, but did you also know that holiday related merchandize also makes a bundle? Ok your right, that's obvious. We all know holiday stuff makes cash. But perhaps this holiday season, not only will you be with your beloved family, but you will also take the opportunity to make some extra dough. Oh, how do we love a straightfoward article!

You know how we talked about brand merchandising in the previous months? Well, today, we are going to talk about a cousin of brand merchandising, franchising. For those who have the entrepreneurial spirit, we are sure this is not a foreign concept. In fact, even something as remote as "franchising pros and cons" is a popular search topic on google.

True, franchise does offer certain pros. For one, it gives your business an instant recognizability. Someone that used to cut their hair at a local supercut will be more likely to cut their hair at a different supercut when they are either on vacation or after moving to a new city. In addition, you may enjoy the many benefits your corporate office bestows on you, either in the form of national advertisement campaign or corporate training sessions to put you on your feet.

Of course, that being the case, franchising is also an expensive way to own your business. Even though you have the help of the corporate office, you will also have to follow their rules. For one, portions of your earing goes directly to the corporate office. For two, you may have to follow the corporate pricing sheet, which may decrease your ability to compete with your non-franchising counterparts. Lastly, geographical restrictions. More often than not, the corporate office will not put two stores bearing their name within a pre-defined miles of radius. And we haven't even begun to discuss the extensive startup costs!

Overall the key to franchising is like real estate, location, location, location! It's up to you to find a customer set that have not been served. If you find the right match then money can really roll in. Your upfront research is paramount to whether or not you will be successful. So remember to investigate fully before venture into it. After all, pre-startup research only costs time!

Remember how only days ago, we at BeHeron were talking about opportunities in a down economy? Well, apparently, we are not the only one trying to drive that point home. Immediately after we posted our last blog, we at BeHeron got a copy of the most recent Entrepreneur magazine. Lo and behold, there it is. The front page feature - "lucrative opportunities in a down economy". Ha! It must be all in the drinking water.

Anyway, why don't you read the articles yourself.

It goes to show you, opportunities are everywhere. We just have to sit down, pay close attention, and seize the opportunity. If you don't succeed the first time, try try again. Remember, it only took Edison 1,000 times before he finally got the lightbulb to work.

With any economic downturn, there is always a plethora of bad news. But the key is to pay even more attention. Bad news, at times, can provide an excellent business opportunity; or, it may just give you the direction to approach and solve an individual problem.

We at BeHeron recently read an article in the San Francisco Business Times regarding the fact that VC's are forcing tech firms to cut costs due to capital drying up. This is not only bad news for companies already funded, but horrible news for those seeking funding.

However, while this means that VCs will be extremely picky, it also means that entrepreneurs that are well prepared will have an even larger leg up. So what should an entrepreneur have prior to going to a VC? We believe in three key topics.

1. Ensure that you convey your value proposition. What specifically are you providing your customers?
2. Ensure that you demonstrate how you will monetize the product. Don't worry so much about revenue projections, those will always be wrong. Rather, focus on how large the market is or could become.
3. Ensure that you describe how you will protect your intellectual property or fend off your competition. If your business model depends on being the "low cost" producer to remain competitive, it probably won't fly. VC's are looking for unique value propositions that others can't easily duplicate.

Practice these three points with your friends and ensure that they can be conveyed in 5 minutes. If they don't work with those you know, they probably won't work in front of a VC!

Couple of weeks ago, we at BeHeron heard about the new Blackberry Storm. Being blackberry addicts ourselves, we were instantly intrigued. Is the new blackberry storm really the new "it" product? Will it compete with apple's 3G iPhone? We did some digging, and apparently the Storm has similar platform as the iPhone, designed to compete for the marketshare currently held by Apple. Both look pretty much the same, will have touch screen and be smartphones.

So, we wondered, since iPhone currently hold the advantage in market share for similar product, will storm be able to compete? Will they overtake iPhone? We would bet it's possible, but difficult. There are already tons of articles written by tech writers regarding why one would pick Storm over iPhone, and vice versa. Majority of which picks iPhone over Storm. This is not to say that iPhone is a much superior product, but rather, it has more cult followers. This leads to our next point, in business, obtaining a dominant market share position is very important, especially when one product have no discertainable advantage over a similarly situated product. As they say, the early bird does get the worm. Remember, market your product early and smart, and you too, shall receive the rewards.

“Traditional Electricity Companies Are F*&$#d”. We at BeHeron would like you to guess where this statement came from. An overzealous day trader? A bitter laid-off utility employee? An exuberant Greenpeace tree hugger?

Nope, all of those are wrong. Believe it or not, this is the official name for PHOTON Cunsulting’s "Second Solar" Conference, taking place on December 4th. It’s called the TECAF conference for short. Don’t believe us? Well you can read the Market Watch article here, or the Photon TECAF official website here.

You heard us in the past say, sometimes rather loudly, that alternative energy is coming and you had better be ready, but let’s not get cocky folks!

A couple of days ago, a client came to us at BeHeron, and asked us about an online service called Legalzoom. Imagine our surprise! We've initially heard about Legalzoom about 6 months ago while driving to an undisclosed location. In the ad, they promised flat rate legal forms at affordable cost. We did some digging, and found their service to be quite comprehensive. It has several large practice areas including business formation and trademark application.

Of course being the little diggers that we are, we had to see it for ourselves! We chose a simple incorporation package, and found the forms to be fairly straight forward. Of course, the forms are so straight forward, you can easily find similar documents on line. Now, don't get me wrong, legalzoom is a great place to start your process, especially if: “A” you can't afford large legal bills but nonetheless want to get some type of protection, or “B” you don't want to canvas the web to infinity to find the legal format you can use.

That being said, although legalzoom is fairly comprehensive and straight forward, it is still computer based, and no match for a specially formulated legal plan. Not only is face to face still a much preferred method to engage your attorney, it offers personalized product that you are to be sure matches your need 100%. In the end, sometimes it pays to save money and sometimes it doesn't. Just be sure you understand the limits of every product out there!

In our ongoing quest to inform our readers about the entrepreneurial opportunities involved with alternative fuels, we would like to go back to a topic we discussed back in August, algal biodiesel. At that time we discussed technology developed by Sapphire Energy (see the article here). Today, we bring to you, Solazyme, a company that offers a similar technology. While Solazyme does not extol the benefits of avoiding agricultural sugars (as Sapphire does), they do proudly exclaim the benefits of creating oil in three days!

Even more, Solazyme have recently provided a press release that boasts the world’s first microbial-derived jet fuel. Don't quite believe the hype yet? See for yourself. Like we said before, the challenges of meeting our energy needs of the future are going to create new opportunities for entrepreneurs everywhere! Will you be the one?