Customer Reviews

1101 Businesses You Can Start From Home (Wiley Small Business Editions)

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The first thought that comes to mind is if they took the silly (selling chipmunks as pets), illegal( importing and selling exotic animals), and impratical for the vast majority (gun smithing and instrument building) ideas from this book they would have to call it "78 Non-Profitable Ideas That You May Start From Home But Must Do Someplace Else". Since this title is obviously too long and not nearly cathcy enough for the 90's, its clear that they decidede to add 1023 ideas to the book and sell it to an unsuspecting public.

On reading this book I was struck by the complete lunacy of some of the suggestions. The author is suggesting starting a business going door-to-door teaching people how to tie knots and also manages to put forward the idea of breeding chipmunks for pets. There are numerous bizarre ideas like this.

The worst part of it is that most of the suggestions could be bested by a simpleton with half an hour of free time and and a sharp pencil.

This book is completely absurd, however I would recommend getting from the library in order to laugh at a great number of its ideas for businesses, numerous of which are obviuosly illegal or unethical.

It was hard to believe this book was published in the 90's. There was a suggestion that stuffing envelopes was a suitable job for handicapped people. He suggested raising domesticated chipmunks, running a puppy mill, going door-to-door to teach people how to tie knots, repairing guns... It goes on in that vein. I also question how many of these jobs qualify as home-based. This book is definitely worth a perusal since it is amusing but it is not worth buying.

This book is not worth the paper it's printed on. Several of 1101 ideas are repeated under different headings and most are truly idiotic! For example, only a few of the 60 ideas under the "FOOD" heading make mention of any government food safety regulations. The author suggests you can sell peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at your local mall, sell hot gourmet dinners out of your truck to train and freeway commuters to eat before they get home or bottle your own water. Huh?? This book assumes you can acquire many of the highly specialized skills needed to be a blacksmith, butcher, glass blower, embalmer, real estate agent, etc. naturally in no time or cost. Offers no resources, websites, or bibliography to help the bewildered and bemused reader actually attempt any of the ideas.

This book does have some...imaginative ideas, but most of them are not that bad. I read through the entire book and found some really helpful ideas. To tell the truth, I've seen more and more strange business ideas turn into profit on the internet. This book acctually has quite a few possibilities. If you're truly thinking about working from home, but not sure what to do, this book has some great ideas. But they are not "get-rich-quick-schemes". My suggestion would be to check it out at the library to see if you're interested first. If you like it, THEN buy it. That's what's so great about libraries.