In 2008 Dave Stewart was laid off from his maintenance tech position at a Pennsylvania nursing home. The news came as a shock and, as a result, he decided to take his career in a radically different direction.

Stewart is now one of a select few Americans that make their living through eBay. (The company claims 1.3 million sellers worldwide, but experts believe the number of individual, primary-income eBay-ers to be much smaller.)

“I no longer wanted to be dependent on someone else providing me with paycheck, because I saw that you couldn’t rely on it as much as I did,” says Stewart, from his home in Bucks County, Pa. “I wanted to be self-employed, but wasn’t quite sure how to get there.”

Inspiration struck, along with a bit of luck: He discovered a stockpile of obsolete car parts in his grandfather’s cavernous garage. While his family was skeptical, Stewart was convinced there was a market for outdated parts.

“It started out as an experiment — just a few parts on the [eBay] page. They really sold fast, and I had an inkling I was on to something,” says Stewart “Pretty soon, I had an eBay store, and I couldn’t keep up with the orders.”

Stewart’s success wasn’t based on luck alone. He operates his business with the systematic, detailed approach you’d expect in a much larger operation. Every one of the 1,600 items in his eBay store is researched thoroughly and displayed with precise photos and descriptions. These days, car parts represent less than half of the items in his store.

“To be successful on eBay, you have to be a salesman. It’s like other sales jobs: If you’re good at it, you can make a living — but only if you’re good,” says Stewart. “It’s all about keeping people’s interest with new merchandise. You can’t just let it sit there and expect to make something.”

Q & A
Temple University management professor Paul Pavlou has been studying eBay for 15 years, since the company’s early days. He gave his expert advice:
How has the eBay game changed in the past five years?
A lot has changed ­— some that’s good for the individual, and some that isn’t. eBay has attempted to attract much larger sellers, and they have adjusted their model somewhat because of that. However, it’s a larger platform now, and the access to the market, logistics and infrastructure is still quite remarkable for the individual.

What sells best on eBay right now?
We’ve seen a trend toward used cars and products for used cars. eBay Motors is now one of the most popular platforms.

The post The power of one plus eBay appeared first on Metro.us.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo and top lawmakers outlined Thursday an agreement for the state budget that closes a $1.3 billion gap with no new taxes or fees.

This budget, if it passes by the April 1 deadline, will be the third consecutive on-time or early budget under the Cuomo administration.

New York has not had a budget on track this far in advance of the deadline since 1976. The last time there were three consecutive on-time budgets was in 1984.

The budget affords $1.125 billion in new tax cuts to middle class families over three years, as well as a new child tax credit of $350 per year for three years for families earning between $40,000 and $300,000.

It also includes nearly $800 million over three years in tax breaks for businesses, a move the lawmakers hope will “help reverse New York’s longstanding reputation as the tax capital of the nation.”

Just as the New York City Council recently approved a measure to help veterans get licensed for employment when they return home, the state budget adds additional incentive for hiring those just home from serving: a permanent tax credit for hiring veterans.

Lawmakers have also allocated $181 million in tax credits over three years for businesses hiring young people, and the minimum wage is set to increase to $8 per hour by the end of this year, and ultimately to $9 by the end of 2015.

Some more experimental education initiatives are receiving a support from the Capitol, including $4 million for early college high school programs, like Bard High School Early College on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, once of the first such programs established in partnership with Bard College and the Department of Education in 2001.

Another $15 million is going to “an innovative program designed to transform schools into community hubs that integrate social, health and other services, as well as after-school programming to support students and their families,” a seemingly salient allocation in light of the calls for more community programs for young people in areas like East Flatbush, where violence broke out last week following the shooting of allegedly armed 16-year-old Kimani Gray by plainclothes NYPD officers.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

The post NY state budget agreement on track and time — again appeared first on Metro.us.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been working to position New York City as one of the world’s greatest tech capitals, and his most recent initiative showcased some of the city’s youngest and most dynamic in the industry: a registry of hundreds of “Made in NY” start-ups.

The nearly 1,000 companies on the mayor’s list have harnessed the creative energy of the city to power a wide array of businesses, from online dating to eyewear, in ways that are as unique as the city they call home. Metro looked at four of the proud Made in New York businesses below.

Songza

The guys behind Songza are, in some ways, the literal posterboys for the mayor’s Made in NY platform: their photo is featured in many of the ads plastered around the city.

Songza is a music-streaming website, but Elias Roman, one of its creators, sees it as more of a “lifestyle service.” Songza offers a selection of playlists based on possible moods you could be in given the time of day.

There are no algorithms or “computer deciding what songs go on what playlists,” Roman said. The playlists featured on Songza are “hand-curated” by a team of “30 curators around New York who are just the best of the best.”

Songza has been proudly based out of Long Island City since 2007, and Roman says the neighborhood continues to perfectly suit them.

“We get our own space to be weird, to find out who we are and deliver that to users,” Roman said.

HowAboutWe co-founder Aaron Schildkrout meets with a colleague in their offices in DUMBO. (Credit: Scout Tufankjian.)

HOWABOUTWE.com

How About We is an online dating website placing more emphasis on the “dating” than the “online.”

“We had the idea that people believe in experience, they want to do things,” says owner Aaron Schildkrout. “It’s just cooler to meet based on the idea of actually going on a date in the real world than the idea of endlessly browsing profiles or chatting online forever, or ‘winking,’ whatever.”

Users sign up and propose date ideas, then are matched up with people with similar date ideas. Schildkrout describes the interface as “a lot like a Twitter stream, but it’s of dates.”

How About We is launching a new service for couples exclusively in New York: members go on free, “beautiful curated” dates monthly, Schildkrout explained.

How About We is based out of DUMBO, a location that Schildkrout said is “perfect.”

“It’s kind of the bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn, and we wanted to attract people from both areas,” Schildkrout said. “It’s kind of a great middle ground in that sense, and there’s also a really vibrant start-up culture here.”

(HowAboutWe.com.)

Warby Parker

Neil Blumenthal started Warby Parker with some friends while they were still in graduate school at Wharton in 2010, but moved the operation to the city immediately upon graduation.

As a native New Yorker, Blumenthal explained, “it’s hard to live anywhere else.”

The idea for Warby Parker came about when Blumenthal and his friends realized “glasses cost as much as an iPhone,” and decided to “find the frames that we love and make them from premium materials but charge $95 instead of $500.”

Warby Parker’s Soho showroom now brings in the same amount of sales for square foot that Tiffany’s does.

The Freelancer’s Union offices in DUMBO. (Credit: Scout Tufankjian.)

Freelancers Union

Freelancers Union is essentially an insurance company, but for the ubiquitous kind of New Yorker most insurance companies would scoff at: the (sometimes-struggling) freelancer.

Started in 1995, Freelancers Union now has over 200,000 members.

“I grew up in Brooklyn and have lived here my whole life,” said founder and CEO Sara Horowitz, explaining how she saw the need for the service. “I saw that my neighbors were piecing together their work lives in new ways — the accountant who sings opera at night, the nanny who builds websites.”

Now, Horowitz says, one in three workers is independent.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

The post Start-Up City: a look at the city’s dynamic entrepreuneurs appeared first on Metro.us.

Epstein, who chose the Wall Street location because of heavy pedestrian traffic, said business had been steadily increasing since he opened the eatery in June. A few weeks after the protest began in September, though, he said everything changed.

“All of the sudden, everything went whacky and these barricades went up,” Epstein told Metro. “And every week, it started to impact business more and more.”

Epstein said sales took such a nose-dive in recent weeks that he was forced to eliminate an entire shift of workers and change his closing time from 9 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. during the week.

“I blame it on three groups,” Epstein explained. “Protesters, city officials and police. The barricades are it.”

Many people who work or live in the financial district have complained about the barricades set up by police on Wall Street, which have led to cramped and crowded sidewalks. In the early weeks of the protest, police also temporarily closed several subway entrances in the area.

Epstein said he believes those routine hassles caused people to avoid Wall Street, leading to the sharp decline in sales at the Milk Street Cafe. When asked whether he could bring those 21 laid off employees back to work if the barricades are removed, Epstein said he isn’t sure.

“Nothing would make me happier. It depends on the business coming back,” he said.

The post Milk Street Cafe owner blames layoffs on barricades set up for Occupy Wall Street appeared first on Metro.us.

Overnight success is possible. Most people persevere for a long time and experience several setbacks before achieving an objective definition of success. You’ll be best served if you are able to move your dream forward a little bit at a time and can cope when things temporarily go south.

Controversy will propel your career. Being controversial usually generates attention for a little while, but people will probably not trust you in the long-term. Instead, work to incorporate the tried-and-true values of honesty and authenticity into your daily work life.

Employers want you to be yourself. While employers value the unique set of skills and experiences you bring to the table, they expect you to toe the line with respect to company rules and conduct. The most effective employees are those who are able to assimilate.

Being good at your job trumps everything. You can be the most talented employee your company has ever hired, but if your contributions aren’t visible and people don’t value what you do, it simply won’t matter. So instead of slaving over your job, spend a little more time devising ways to promote the great work you’re doing.

- Alexandra Levit is the author of “Blind Spots: The 10 Business Myths You Can’t Afford to Believe in Your New Path to Success.”
Metro does not endorse the opinions of the author, or any opinions express on its pages.

The post The biggest myths of business success appeared first on Metro.us.

But today, small biz gurus say that self-employment is less an entrepreneur’s fantasy than the only sure way to land a job.

“There are certainly people sitting around saying, ‘I have no other option,’” says John Jantsch, author of “Duct Tape Marketing.”

Although they should know that the option isn’t as easy as it was in the past, cautions “Small Business Is Like a Bunch of Bananas” author Jim Blasingame. “When it comes to traditional access to boot-strapping startup money, the major sources dried up in 2008,” he explains.

And nevermind the other source of startup loot for most small businesses: a house. “What banks are going to give you a home equity loan these days?” he reasons.

The good news, Jantsch counters, is that you don’t need the kind of cash you used to.

“In a way there’s never been a better time to start a business, because you can get into some fashion of a business for little or no money,” he says. “The Internet has equipped people with some incredible tools, giving them a reach that’s global. And in that regard, faced with no choice, that can make this a great time to do it.”

The competition

You’ll likely be up against ultralean, price-undercutting companies that survived a recession that only made stronger what it didn’t kill.

“The companies you are going to be competing with have come through the fire,” says Blasingame. “They know what it takes to be competitive, and if they didn’t know, they wouldn’t still be in business. If you delude yourself into thinking you can outprice them, you’re going to fail.”

All about you

Picking the moment for your small business launch may be less about where the economy is than where you are: Are you sufficiently experienced? Are you willing and able to put in 12-hour days for months on end? Do you have the clientele?

“In America, there’s never a time when you should not start a small business, but there might be a time when you’re not prepared,” Jantsch says.

The post Is now the time to start a business? appeared first on Metro.us.

Councilwoman Margaret Chin will announce proposed legislation today that would make it a crime to buy counterfeit goods.

Selling counterfeit goods like sunglasses and purses is already illegal, but no law exists that bars buying them.

Chin spokeswoman Kelly Magee told Metro that local residents complained after their streets were clogged with vans, goods and shoppers.

The maximum punishment for buying counterfeit items would be a $1,000 fine or up to one year in jail, in the same league as class A misdemeanors like:

»Stalking in the third degree

»Assault in the third degree

»Prostitution

»Riot in the second degree 

»Cemetery desecration in the third degree

»Conspiracy in the sixth degree

»Fortune telling

»Placing a false bomb in the second degree

The post Is buying a knockoff bag as bad as prostitution? appeared first on Metro.us.

The highlights:

On being inspired by the alcohol-and-caffeine mix of Red Bull and vodka:

“This is a great idea,” [Hunter] said, sounding like a Mark Zuckerberg mixol ogist. “This is the evolution—but we can do it better.” … W here public health advocates saw trouble, Hunter, Freeman, and Wright saw a potential goldmine.  “We couldn’t go wrong with this thing,” Freeman recalls. “This was our billion-dollar idea.”

On attempting to prove to the FDA that the "energy beer" was safe:

“Historically the data was there,” says Freeman. “Just look at the history: Irish coffee, Jack and Coke, Red Bull and vodka. You pull all the data, compile it into a nice big report, and get four independent scientists to say, ‘We agree.’”

On the Four Loko backlash:

"Unfortunately we were pegged the bad guys,” says Wright. “We tried to keep a low profile, but we couldn’t stay out of the news. You’ve spent five years of your life, you’ve got 70 employees, selling a perfectly legal product, and all of a sudden you’re under all this scrutiny. It’s extremely stressful.”

On the safety, or lack thereof, of Four Loko:

“We drank our product, we know it’s like any other alcohol,” says Hunter. “If you consume something responsibly you’re fine, if you don’t you’re not fine, and I don’t care if that’s Bud Light, Smirnoff vodka or Four Loko.”

On rising again after the FDA banned alcoholic energy drinks:

“We all had this big sit-down,” he says. “And we discussed the situation. We thought, ‘Hey, do we just walk away?’ We’re not rich, but we made a little bit of money here. Do we just screw our customers and our employees? That conversation lasted about two seconds. We all agreed to keep going on. Everything we made, we’re all in again.”

Read the whole thing at The Fix! It’s a treat.

The post Four Loko creators speak out for first time: ‘We were pegged as the bad guys’ appeared first on Metro.us.

When working with hair smoothing and straightening products, salon employees can be exposed formaldehyde, which has been linked to lung and nose cancer if it is inhaled, warned OSHA.

OSHA started their investigation after salon workers complained that using products like the popular Brazilian Blowout and other hair smoothing products was making them sick.

Salon workers said they cough, have trouble breathing and have watery eyes when working with some hair straightening products.

If a salon owner continues to use products that contain formaldehyde, then they must follow OSHA’s standards, warned the government: Ventilating the room, as well as wearing gloves, chemical splash goggles, face shields and chemical resistant aprons.

The post Beauty: Could Brazilian hair straightening lead to cancer? appeared first on Metro.us.

Led by writer/union organizer Jonathan Tasni, the unpaid bloggers are seeking a share of the sweet, sweet $315 million that HuffPost (and Arianna herself) received when it was bought by AOL in February.

(Full disclosure: This writer once drew an hourly wage working for HuffPost’s blog section.)

Tasni has blogged for HuffPost for free since its early days, when the site was still very much a salon for Huffington’s personal network rather the aggregation machine it has since become. He has not written for the site since February 10, three days after the AOL deal was announced.

While Metro is sympathetic to the plight of the unpaid blogger, we can not think of a lawsuit more likely to be thrown out. None of the writers were coerced or tricked into writing for HuffPo, after all. As for the argument that the bloggers provide integral value to the site: well, no. They may been the meat of the site, years ago, but they certainly aren’t now. HuffPost is in the aggregation business, and if bloggers don’t want to be in the HuffPost business, no one’s forcing them. (via Forbes)

The post Huffington Post bloggers to sue Arianna Huffington appeared first on Metro.us.

According to a new book by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the stress of dealing with an increasingly ruthless Bill Gates was the reason he left the software company in 1982.

In the upcoming memoir "Idea Man," Allen, one of the world’s richest men due to his billions of dollars in Microsoft stock, paints a picture of his friend and colleague Gates as an ambitious workaholic who frowned upon Allen’s more relaxed ways. Though Allen publicly left the company to deal with Hodgkin’s disease, he says that clashes with Gates and the company culture at Microsoft contributed to his dissatisfaction.

In a key scene, Allen notes how he stumbled upon Gates and current Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer discussing, in the wake of Allen’s diagnosis, how to water down his equity:

"I had helped start the company and was still an active member of management, though limited by my illness, and now my partner and my colleague were scheming to rip me off. It was mercenary opportunism, plain and simple."

Allen does report that Gates later apologized, and tried to convince him to stay at the company.

Throughout the book, Allen, now an investor and philanthropist who owns the Seattle Seahawks and Portland Trailblazers, does take pains to not that it is not a tell-all meant to slam Gates, whom he calls "everything you’d want from a friend, caring and concerned."

The two men have been friends since they attended the same Seattle secondary school. In a written statement, Gates said that there were no hard feelings about the book. "While my recollection of many of these events may differ from Paul’s," he wrote, "I value his friendship and the important contributions he made to the world of technology and at Microsoft." (via WSJ)

The post Paul Allen: Gates was reason I left Microsoft appeared first on Metro.us.

Yes, it seems American businesses aren’t holding up their end of the social contract, and we know exactly what to do about: tattle. As detailed in its annual report, released today, the BBB received a whopping 1.1 million complaints in 2010, 10% more than in 2009.

Receiving the brunt of Americans’ passive-aggressive ire were cable and satellite TV companies, with 31,000 complaints, followed by the mobile phone industry (27,000) and new car dealerships (24,000). On the plus side, the number of complaints for these businesses actually went down from 2009, suggesting that bad business practices are becoming more evenly distributed around the American economy.

"Industries that do a large volume of business are naturally going to have a larger number of complaints. This is why it’s important to look at how a company responded when BBB approached them with consumer complaints, and not just the sheer number of complaints," said BBB president Stephen A. Cox in a statement.

In good news for anybody with cable TV, a cell phone or a car, the big three also had the highest percentage of complaints resolved, suggesting that sometimes, running and crying to mom really is the best strategy. Suck it, bullies!

The post Everybody hates their cable and cell phone providers appeared first on Metro.us.

“It’s not good news,” Michael Crowell, a senior economist for the New York State Labor Department told Metro. “Jobs in the private sector are growing but not fast enough.”

The plant shuttering means 103 full-timers, 219 part-timers and 213 on call part-timers are set to lose their jobs.

“We will continue developing and maintaining leading business centers in [Long Island], including manufacturing, research and development,” promised Estee Lauder in a statement. 

The post Estee Lauder plant moves to Pa. appeared first on Metro.us.

The post Borders stores shutting down appeared first on Metro.us.