Here’s some great entrepreneurial creativity from The Book of Business Anecdotes:

When F. W. Woolworth opened his first store, a merchant on the same street tried to fight the new competition. He hung out a big sign: “Doing business in this same spot for over fifty years.”

The next day Woolworth also put out a sign. It read: “Established a week ago: no old stock.”

Aridni is joining Blog Action Day!

On October 15, 2007, Todd and I are joining thousands of blog voices with Blog Action Day. Everyone will be writing an article about the environment. For us, we’re thinking of all the ways you can save money while still improving the environment and starting environmentally friendly businesses.

If you’re a blogger, join in the challenge.

I just ran into this article about finding the balance between self promotion and integrity. Where do you draw the line, and how should you promote yourself towards you boss and others? Without isolating yourself of course.

The ideas in the article come from a book called Selling Yourself without Selling Out: A Leader’s Guide to Ethical Self-Promotion. I haven’t read it yet; however I hope to get a chance to pick it up sometime this fall.

The five ideas in this article are:

1. Educate up.
2. Expand your network.
3. Tap other people’s expertise.
4. Acknowledge your team.
5. Celebrate success.

Check out the whole article over at Marketwatch. Of course they have a description and example on each of those five ideas.

I think that I am finally approaching a point in my life where I can start saving and investing in the market. Instead of investing in something like the stock market, I want to start a ROTH IRA. I knew that this form of investing in mutual funds and national and international portfolios made sense; I just didn’t realize how much sense it actually made. Check it out:

1. You invest after-tax money. All of the money you withdraw is tax free. You never have to pay taxes on the interest!
2. You can pull the money out early if you need to without being taxed as long as you’ve had the account for five years.
3. This year, you can invest $4,000, and you have until tax day in April to consider your money a 2007 investment. In 2008, you can invest $5,000.
4. The IRAs and 401(k)s require you to start withdrawing money at age 70½. You’re never required to withdraw this money, so if you don’t need it, you can keep doing tax-free investing.
5. When you die, your heirs don’t have to pay ANY taxes on what they inherit from your Roth.

Seems like a logical savings plan to me!