• About

Notable Business

~ discussing the businesses that stand above

Notable Business

Monthly Archives: June 2012

Proof Wood Eyewear’s Unique and Sustainable Glasses

26 Tuesday Jun 2012

Posted by notablebusiness in Environment, Fashion

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Brooks Dame, Proof Wood Eyewear, Tanner Dame, Taylor Dame

Brooks Dame grew up in the wood industry. In the 1950s, his grandfather started a humble sawmill that eventually grew into a successful family business. Every summer, Brooks and his brothers, Tanner and Taylor, would work in the mill, leading them to learn about wood, as well as appreciate it.

Brooks subsequently began making glasses using the familiar material for family and friends, who told him he should sell them. So in January of 2011, he and his brothers started Proof Wood Eyewear. Based out of Boise, Idaho, the company offers prescription glasses, sunglasses, and accessories made from sustainable woods like bamboo, ebony, and lace wood.

Shortly after launching the then-small business, the Dames participated in the MAGIC accessories show in Las Vegas. Brooks recalls that they didn’t know what to expect. The day they were setting up their booth, the vendor across them told them not to expect too many visitors at first, due to the fact that they were newcomers to the industry. That night, Brooks returned to his hotel room wishing he had waited until after their brand was more established. Fortunately, however, their products were a hit. By the end of the show, 13 stores had signed on to carry Proof glasses.

Proof Wood Eyewear now sells up to 1,800 pairs per month in 120 stores and chains. While Brooks holds an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management, he has never used a business plan. “I think you can overthink a product,” he says. “You want to perfect it and make it right, and that stifles you, and by the time you get it out there your time has passed. I think if you believe in your product, you should go for it.”

Proof’s slogan is, “Look good. Do good.” Hence, the company is involved in various projects that make a positive impact in the world, such as supporting eye clinics in India and replanting Haiti’s forests. The Dames have also initiated the eyewear industry’s first sunglass recycling program.

Advertisements

iFixit Helps You Repair Your Own Gadgets

26 Tuesday Jun 2012

Posted by notablebusiness in Technology, Tools

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

iFixit, Kyle Weins

TechCrunch once called iFixit “a how-to site for crazy people”. After all, its users take apart MacBooks and iPhones, among other devices, and then post photos of the disassembled pieces on the website. But all this dismantling is carried out for a good reason – to learn how to fix gadgets and help others do the same.

Based in San Luis Obispo, California, iFixit was founded by Kyle Weins, a 28-year-old with a penchant for DIY. When his iBook broke in 2003, he decided to repair it himself, but realized there was no product manual available for him to refer to. Weins figured there were probably other people in similar situations, so he started iFixit to provide free online manuals to anyone who needed them. He coded the website himself, of course.

Aside from providing illustrated repair guides and troubleshooting tips, iFixit also sells service parts and repair tools for less. There’s an online community where users can ask questions and discuss problems as well.

Talktala: Inexpensive and Professional Therapy Sessions Online

19 Tuesday Jun 2012

Posted by notablebusiness in health care, Technology

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Oren Frank, Talktala

Need someone to talk to? Talktala is a new website that offers affordable group therapeutic conversations. Created by Oren Frank after consulting with Dr. Irving Yalom of Stanford, Talktala makes professional and supportive advice accessible to all. It also provides a safe environment where people can talk about their everyday challenges, such as addiction, stress at work, and relationship issues.

Group sessions can accommodate up to seven people and cost an average of $9.99 per hour, which is a lot cheaper than traditional therapy. Therapists who host the sessions are screened beforehand, so there’s no need to worry about spilling the beans to shady characters.

Talktala users can participate in meetings via text chat, audio, or video, and those who wish to stay anonymous can do so. For people who aren’t entirely comfortable sharing their story with a bunch of other people, Talktala offers one-on-one sessions for a higher rate as well.

High Quality Fashion Jewelry, Minus the Hefty Price Tag

19 Tuesday Jun 2012

Posted by notablebusiness in Fashion, retail

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Amy Jain, BaubleBar, Daniella Yacobovsky

Best friends Amy Jain and Daniella Yacobovsky share a love for fashion. So much so, that they used to spend their afternoon breaks shopping at Saks Fifth Avenue while they were working in finance several years ago. It was during one of those shopping sprees that the two realized that while their closets were filled with clothes, shoes, and handbags, they rarely bought any fashion jewelry. Yacobovsky and Jain observed that boutiques and department stores only offered new products once every season, and there weren’t any places that sold high quality pieces without a high price tag. After probing around, the pair learned that retailers were marking up jewelry as much as 20 times above cost.

Hence, during their first year at Harvard Business School, Yacobovsky and Jain came up with the idea for an online fashion jewelry store that offered high quality yet affordable pieces, with plenty of variety. Once they had gotten about 30 designers to sign on, they created a website called 816. Because Jain and Yacobovsky sourced their collections straight from the designers and didn’t have a physical store, they could set their prices for less than those of retail stores. To build credibility, they partnered with established jewelry company Erickson Beason and allowed free shipping and returns.

Soon, 816 was attracting a lot of customers, but the site could still use some improvement. So after raising $1.1 million from Accel Partners, Yacobovsky and Jain renamed 816 to BaubleBar and gave the website a makeover. The duo also decided to leave the world of banking to focus on their venture full-time.

BaubleBar now gets 200,000 unique visitors per month, with a conversion rate of 4-5 percent. The company introduces new collections twice a week (Mondays and Wednesdays) and has become the only independent retailer of DKNY jewelry as well.

Oyster.com Helps Travelers Avoid Unpleasant Hotel Surprises

12 Tuesday Jun 2012

Posted by notablebusiness in Services, Tourism

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Ariel Charytan, Elie Seidman, Eytan Seidman, Oyster.com

For six years, entrepreneurs Elie Seidman and Ariel Charytan spent most of their time going around the United States as they worked on growing their first startup. With all that traveling, the pair has seen it all – the good, the bad, the ugly. Unfortunately, it was often difficult to know beforehand if a hotel they had booked would meet their expectations. The pair found it frustrating that even with the Internet, it wasn’t always easy to find a decent hotel. Hotel websites aren’t exactly unbiased sources – the photos may have been edited, and the text is usually vague, marketing copy. Meanwhile, user-powered travel sites are filled with mixed, subjective reviews by strangers.

Thinking that the lack of independent hotel reviews may just be an online search problem, Ariel and Elie contacted Eytan Seidman, who at that time was working for Microsoft’s Internet search business. Eytan had a different explanation, however. “Search can’t provide the answer if the underlying content doesn’t exist,” he said.

Thus, in the spring of 2008, the three started Oyster.com, the first hotel review site that offers impartial, in-depth reviews based on the firsthand experience of hotel experts. It’s also the only site that makes inspections in person – Oyster investigators visit, photograph, rate, and review every hotel featured on the website. Using Oyster’s own consistent, uniform, and objective “pearl rating system”, reviewers rank hotels based on the services available, quality of rooms and amenities, and overall state of the property, among other criteria.

“A vacation is very unique because you can’t try it before you buy and you can’t return it once you arrive,” Elie says.

Oyster may not have been to every hotel on the planet yet, but as of February 2012, it has reviewed 3,000 hotels in 242 cities in 30 countries. Its readership, which is currently at 10 million, grows at a rate of 300 percent per year.

Anghami, the Middle East’s First Music Streaming Service

12 Tuesday Jun 2012

Posted by notablebusiness in Services, Technology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Anghami, Eddy Maroun, Elie Habib

Popular music streaming service Spotify may not be available in the Middle East, but that’s okay. Lebanese entrepreneurs Eddy Maroun and Elie Habib will soon be introducing Anghami, which will especially cater to music lovers in the Middle East. The first service of its kind in the region, Anghami will deliver both Arabic and international tunes to its users’ ears – legally, of course.

Backed by Turkey-based VC Middle East Venture Partners, Anghami will first launch as an iPhone app. It was originally set to debut as a web-based service, but this has been pushed back to second priority. “We believe that it’s the age of mobile, more than web, especially when it’s about music,” Maroun says. “You listen to music on your mobile more than on your computer.”

With deals with major Middle Eastern and global labels secured, Anghami will offer a diverse library that will surely satisfy various tastes in music. It has also partnered with Dolby to access the Dolby Pulse encoding technology, which compresses files into small sizes without compromising sound quality.

Dr. Gustavo Stringel and Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital

06 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by notablebusiness in health care

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

American Lung Association, Dr. Gustavo Stringel, Maria Fareri Children's Hospital

An accomplished medical professional with a long resume of achievements on the clinical and research fronts, Dr. Gustavo Stringel currently applies his skills as Surgeon in Chief and Director of Pediatric Surgery and Minimally Invasive Surgery at Westchester Medical Center’s Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital (MFCH). Maintaining his leadership role at the Valhalla, New York-based healthcare facility since 1994, Dr. Stringel has implemented a wide array of general efficiency and inter-departmental improvements, endeavors specifically designed to increase the hospital’s already high standards of care. In conjunction with his daily responsibilities supervising operating room and surgical services activities, Dr. Gustavo Stringel spearheaded the recruitment of extensively trained physicians who specialize in cardiac surgery, neurosurgery, liver transplantation, plastic surgery, anesthesiology, and numerous other pediatric subspecialties. Dr. Stringel also played a key role in developing the hospital’s Division of Minimally Invasive Surgery, leveraging his ties in the local and national medical communities to negotiate the purchase of cutting-edge Storz OR 1, laparoscopic, and robotic daVinci Surgical System equipment.

Additionally functioning as Chairman of the Maria Fareri Children’s Hospital Surgical Services Committee, Dr. Gustavo Stringel devotes a considerable amount of time and energy toward ensuring the treatment center’s continued expansion and long-term success. A world-class pediatric hospital that houses an extremely sophisticated Level IV Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), the facility further boasts distinction as the only Pediatric Organ Transplant Center in the region. MFCH continues to flourish under Dr. Stringel’s deft supervision, offering state-of-the-art, compassionate care to more than 20,000 boys and girls on an annual basis. Thanks to the impressive efforts put forth by Dr. Stringel and his colleagues, the hospital earned coveted sponsorship backing from the American Lung Association (ALA), funds allocated directly to the Pediatric Asthma Clinical Research Center, one of only five in the entire United States.

Bigger Is Better at Niner Bikes

06 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by notablebusiness in Design, retail

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Niner Bikes

Started by a team of passionate cycling enthusiasts in 2005, Niner Bikes is a Torrance, California-based company that makes and sells mountain bikes with bigger wheels than normal. The 29-inch diameter wheels, which are 3 inches larger than regular ones, provide more control and stability, even on the roughest trails. According to the company, cyclists on Niners ride above the terrain, rather than in it.

To create a bike that didn’t require a learning curve, Niner didn’t just slap larger wheels on to an existing chassis; the company had to carry out a lot of work and testing to get it right. The result is an award-winning product that consists of a patented Constantly Varying Arc (CVA) suspension design, a tapered headtube that offers better steering precision, and top quality carbon bike frames and components, among other advanced features.

Throughout the years, Niner bicycles have been critically acclaimed by various cycling magazines, including Bike, Dirt Rag, and Mountain Bike.

Koncept Technologies Reinvents Task Lamps

06 Wednesday Jun 2012

Posted by notablebusiness in Design, Technology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Koncept Technologies

Founded by a group of manufacturing and industrial design professionals in 2002, Koncept Technologies is an award-winning innovator of contemporary LED floor lamps, desk lamps, and lighting elements for home and office. With the discriminating consumer in mind, Koncept designs and develops products that are sleek, elegant, and energy-efficient, transforming ordinary task lamps into modern, artistic fixtures.

Koncept’s product line is backed by years of manufacturing experience with surge protectors and other electrical wares. The Monterey Park, California company’s flagship product, the Z-Bar High Power LED desk lamp, gives off a brighter and broader light while consuming less electricity. Its built-in dimmer and flexible design also allow the user to bring the correct amount of light where it’s needed. Over the years, the Z-Bar has garnered numerous accolades; it earned the platinum honor from the Awards for Design Excellence (ADEX) and was named one of “The Best Inventions of the Year” by TIME Magazine. In addition, the Z-Bar has been chosen as a permanent display in the Die Neue Sammlung museum in Germany.

Encouraged by the popularity of the Z-Bar, Koncept introduced the Equo LED desk lamp in 2009. This product, too, was met with commercial and critical success. A fusion of clean lines and energy efficiency, the Equo has won awards from Next Generation Luminaires, SPARK Design and Architecture, ADEX, and Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design. In 2011, it received the highly sought after Red Dot recognition for design excellence.

Despite their achievements, the team behind Koncept Technologies still have their eyes on the same goal they had when they started, which is to create innovative products that set high standards in the industry and make people’s lives simpler, safer, and greener. Last year, the company came in at number 709 on the Inc. 5000 list, jumping 142 spots from its previous position of 851.

Ellen Scharaga’s Oversight Responsibilities With OncoMed Pharmacuetical Services

04 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by notablebusiness in health care

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Ellen Scharaga, Oncology Services, OncoMed

Ellen Scharaga has served as Senior Vice President of Operations with OncoMed Pharmacuetical Services since 2009. With oversight responsibilities spanning the entire breadth of oncology pharmacy operations and services, she undertakes hiring, training, and recruiting of personnel. She additionally manages inventory, and develops and maintains policies and procedures.

Great Neck, New York, based OncoMed Pharmacuetical Services has partnered with hundreds of doctors in the past 13 years, providing just-in-time delivery of bio-oncology drugs and adjunctive medications designed to address side effects. The firm regularly assists managed care providers in navigating complex cancer care markets, providing streamlined coverage and authorization management.

OncoMed takes pride in the consistently high quality of product, with all compounding and mixing undertaken in an oncology-certified pharmacist supervised class 5 clean-room environment. Recognizing the unpredictable needs of physicians and their patients, OncoMed maintains bio-oncology certified pharmacist on hand 24/7, assisting in determining the appropriate prescription plan.

Ellen Scharaga has overseen significant operational improvements over the past three years, notably guiding OncoMed to full Joint Commission accreditation for key facilities. She has also improved turnaround capacities, expediting prescription processing by 30 percent while expanding operations staff by 50 percent.

Ms. Scharaga’s current achievements with OncoMed build on nine years of leadership experience with Group Health Inc. as Vice President of Pharmacy and Director. Faced with a substantial call volume increase, she notably increased the physician pre-authorization call center’s speed by 100 percent. She also maintained and annual trend average nearly half below the industry average, exceeding all pharmacy indicators.

Recent Posts

  • Montpelier Re Holdings, Ltd.: An Insurance Holding Company
  • Markel Corporation: A Global Holding Company for Insurance Businesses
  • Wildlife Forever: Provides Funding Support for Conservation Programs
  • Wild Salmon Center: Champion of Fishes
  • GNC Holdings, Inc.: Marketing Nutritional Supplements

Archives

  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011

RSS WSJ Business News

  • Walmart Posts Strong Holiday Sales Gains in U.S.
  • Ford to Exit Heavy-Truck Business in South America
  • Pentagon Cloud-Computing Contract Sought by Amazon Faces New Hurdle
  • Karl Lagerfeld, Chanel's Creative Force, Dies
  • Companies Roll Out Gunshot Detectors at the Office
Advertisements

Blogroll

  • Bloomberg Businessweek
  • The Wall Street Journal
  • The Washington Post

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy