Peel Your Face

Over the years we have seen countless business models and markets move from traditional bricks and mortar to mobile service models. 

It appears that 28 year old founder James Vivian has established a niche market in the Skincare sector with The Travelling Peelsman

Holding a Bachelor of Health Science (Dermal Therapies) degree, James travels around the country to peoples homes and provides one on one medical grade face peel treatments to his clients. The Travelling Peelsman currently operates in Sydney and Melbourne. In just a few months he has established over 600 clients using his advance and personal treatment service.

The cosmetic industry is growing at an exceptional rate, consumers are prepared to pay for advanced treatments that are personalised and work in making them look and feel good. 

Perfect example of a startup entering a staturated health and beauty market and creating a niche untouched market segment for themselves.

The Travelling Peelsman, I sense a perfect candidate for a franchise model. No doubt James Vivian is on the case.

Blow Dry Bar

The hair and beauty industry is well established and saturated with businesses on every corner. Taking weekly visits to the hair salon is a costly and time consuming luxury that not everyone can afford. To alleviate this problem, a new trend is emerging which focuses on a niche segment of the hair salon market, the "Blow Dry Bar".

With little to no hairdressing knowledge to his name, Founder of Blow Dry Bar Nathan Cuneen has brought the concept to Australia after spotting the concept in New York about a year ago. With 12 salons operating in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, Blow Dry Bars are a chain of express beauty salons offering a Blow Drying service only.

For $35, a complimentary glass of champagne and 30 minutes later, women can get the Hollywood look and still have time to have lunch within there lunch break.

Perfect example of new concept targeting a niche problem area of a well established saturated market.

I can hear the "Blow Dry Bar" franchise train coming!

Video Hired the Star Employee

We've moved into the age of the internet, streaming this and connectivity that. There's barely an internet user that doesn't have access to a Skype or VOIP account. And every now and then we meet people who we've never met in the offline life whom request a Skype interview or two. Mostly it's a prospective work opportunity, someone trying to get a better understanding of who you are from the other end of the ethernet cable.

But what if you didn't have to swap those Skype names, or spend time trying to wrestle your way out of a dud candidate?

In comes the likes of Ovia and VidCruiter, online based startups that take the pain out of a recruiting process by screening ALL potential candidates for you.

An online HR department fully dedicated to getting the hiring process down efficiently. It's their specialty, and the only thing they work on.

Huge clients are already on board, Philip Morris International, AT&T Interactive, Best Buy and Hard Rock are some.

At the end of the process the companies leave you with only the most qualified candidates. A process of screening from a team of operational management experts, human resources specialists, serial-entrepreneurs, business development consultants and an information technology team.

Sleepbox

Moscow's Sheremtyevo Airport is notorious for it's poor signage and general user-unfriendly systems but there's a new addition that certainly lifts this status an unusual bit.

The Sleepbox, a seven foot deep, nine foot high box designed for weary travelers to sleep in by the hour has appeared in the Moscow airports aisles. Outfitted with reading lamps, WiFi, a TV and an alarm clock the Sleepbox is available to travelers for $15 an hour or $50 per night.  

But creators of the Sleepbox, Russian architecture firm Arch Group, don't want to limit it's use to simply airports. The Sleepbox website encourages the placement of it at railroad stations, hostels or offices as well. Available for public purchase at EU7000 per box, it takes 2 months to produce and up to a month to deliver. The Arch Group also encourage the idea of hosting a collection of Sleepboxes to create a 'Sleepbox Design Hostel'. Suggested rates topping at $60 a night. 

Certainly aesthetically pleasing, the Sleepbox has faired a lot of positive press thus far. An integrated production process, patented design and solid positioning I hope to see a Sleepbox in an airport, railroad station, hotel or hardworking office near me soon.

Buy Yourself Some Gamification with CrowdTwist

Gamification's a big buzz word these days. It's always been a part of the human psyche, competition, fight for survival (getting ahead of the pack) and reputation. In current consumer times we're all very familiar with lotteries and raffles. But as of late, metrics and technology have truly stepped up the game in consumer engagement.

You've got the front runners, Foursquare doing their Leaderboard thing. Reputation building associated with venues, and point galore. But here's a service that packs it into a nice package ready to implement onto your supermarket chain site or hangbag small business or however it seems.

CrowdTwist pretty much sells a gamification package to push your product or service reach. They help you generate a social network of sorts which follows your users/customers around the web and through their social profiles. This following around leads to an understanding of how these users help spread the word. But where the gamification steps in, is that the more these users promote your product, the more they engage and spread the word, the more they can be rewarded. Through gifts, credit, monetary rewards, this seems to be up to the company's discretion.

CrowdTwist keeps your online profile together, communicates with your market and gets them engaged. I'd love to see this in action on a platform already at work.