Home > Entrepreneur Daily > September 14, 2007

Entrepreneur Daily

Do You Believe in Karma?

(Business News, Tech)

These entrepreneurial landlords do. The address 165 University Avenue may not mean anything to you, but maybe these companies will: Google, Logitech and PayPal. What do they all have in common? They've all been tenants at the same Silicon Valley building owned by the Amidis, a family of Iranian immigrants, along with business partner Pejman Nozad. "We believe in good karma, good energy, good feeling, and we believe some buildings have good energy," said Saeed Amidi. During the dot-com boom, Amidi and Nozad invested in several of their tenants, though they refuse to discuss their returns. But they did invest in PayPal, which sold for $1.5 billion to eBay, garnering a multimillion-dollar payout for Amidi and Nozad. Now, they’re hoping the luck follows them to their own entrepreneurial venture, a 150,000-square-foot building in Sunnyvale, near Palo Alto, called Plug and Play Tech. Here, startups can rent space and enjoy other amenities including a gym and cafeteria. So far, luck is on their side: Connections made at Plug and Play have helped tenants find about $200 million in financing.

What's Up With Tweens?

(Business Trends, Marketing)

Trendcentral has released the latest issue of its Tween Intelligence Report intended to provide an insightful glimpse into the lives of 7-to-13-year-olds. One of the most important lessons learned by Trendcentral is that the tween market is rather difficult to peg down since they're always changing. Here are some interesting statistics:

  • 88 percent of tweens have been online in the past month
  • 56 percent of tweens look to friends' purchasing habits when deciding what they want to buy
  • If they had to choose between being smart or popular, a majority of tweens said they'd rather be smart (72 percent) than popular (28 percent)
  • Tweens' favorite store is Wal-Mart

 

Bank of America Raises ATM Fee

(Business News, HR and Management)

The next time you withdraw money from a Bank of America ATM as a non-customer, expect to find a surcharge of $3 on your receipt. Up from $2, that's the highest such fee initiated by a major bank in the U.S. A spokesperson for the bank says the fee increase will help Bank of America upgrade and expand its cash machines and will reduce the wait-time for customers. Industry experts say not to be surprised if the other major banks follow suit in the near future. So far, none of them say they have plans to, though they admit they review their competitors’ pricing when setting their own.