Snack Attack Get the lowdown on news, trends, programs and more.

Matthew Labul finds the chocolate-covered prunes of Polanddelicious. But when he and his brother Eric launched TheInternational Junk Food of the Month Club in 1996, they didn'tput prunes on the lineup due to their use-as-needed stigma inAmerica. Who knew snacks were worth such scrutiny?

The brothers Labul knew. Snacks, after all, are their calling.Consider the origins of their New York City company, World CandyStore: While in the Navy, Eric, 33, sampled junk food around theglobe. Back home in New York, Matthew, 32, worked as an advertisingcopywriter (and still does). Sense the winning combination?

To find worthy snacks, the brothers scouted grocery stores inlocal ethnic neighborhoods. "We'd bring [our findings]home and have a massive taste test and a gallon of water,"says Matthew. The criteria: must not taste like an American snack;must have sealed packaging; must not be so foreign-tastingAmericans won't like it.

Their efforts--perhaps fueled by snack-inducedhyperactivity?--paid off. Advertising in high-end magazines such asBon Appetit and The New Yorker (clearly, this is noordinary junk food), World Candy Store has built a mailing listnearly 27,000 strong. For monthly fees starting at $19.99,customers can sample the "chosen" junk foods of countriesranging from Switzerland to Trinidad and Tobago. For those whocan't commit, onetime gift packs are also available.

What fare do the Labuls favor? Matthew prefers Japan'ssnacks and misses its now-discontinued strawberry-flavoredchocolate-covered raisins. Eric finds happiness in ZagZag--a chunkyJapanese cookie stick. Whatever your favorite, go ahead andmunch, encourages Matthew: "As long as you brush your teeth,you'll be fine."

They've Gotta Have It

What junk food do you crave? We asked some oftoday's hottest young entrepreneurs what tastes they can'tlive without:

By Victoria Neal

Name: Dineh Mohajer
Company/Location: Hard Candy/Beverly Hills, California
product: Funky cosmetics
"Any In-N-Out Burger. I start to crave it around 7 in themorning. It's sinfully yummy."

Name: Paul Frank
Company/Location: Paul Frank Industries/Costa Mesa,California
product: Fashion design
"A Carl's Jr. Western Bacon Cheeseburger. Thatcharbroiled, barbequey goodness harks back to my ancestors'days as cavemen."

Name: Jeanine Lobell
Company/Location: Stila Cosmetics/Los Angeles
product: Cosmetic products
"Auntie Barbara's Organic Cheese Puffs--I got hooked when[I] had kids and wanted to find snack foods that were healthy.[They] satisfy my snack craving without a sugar rush."

Names: Tish and Snooky Bellomo
Company/Location: Manic Panic/New York City
product: Punk/alternative hair color and cosmetics
"Our father, who lives in Argentina, introduced us to Dulce deLeche [a sweet, milk- and sugar-based sauce], which we smuggledback home," says Snooky. "Now we have it shipped overevery chance we get. We practically live on it!"

Name: Laura Groppe
Company/Location: GirlGames Inc./Austin, Texas
product: Interactive software for girls
"Kit Kat bars. Why? I like the waxy chocolate film left overin my mouth. Where? At the movies--it's a quiet candy to eat. Ieat it before the movie even starts; [then] I try to make thepackage look like there's still food in it so my boyfrienddoesn't think I porked down the whole thing in threeminutes!"

Will Your Idea Fly?

By Karen Axelton

You've got the greatest idea ever. Yep, this one's awinner.

Not so fast. Before you pour your blood, sweat and cash intothat big idea, test it the Silicon Valley way.

"In less than 20 years, [Silicon Valley] has become theundisputed global high-tech leader," writes high-tech execElton B. Sherwin Jr. in The Silicon Valley Way (PrimaPublishing, $20, 800-632-8676). In this compact but powerful book,Sherwin shares 44 techniques Silicon Valley's most successfulentrepreneurs and execs use to decide whether new concepts arewinners or losers.

Consider this book a boot camp for whipping your ideas intoshape. Can you explain your concept in 10 seconds? Outline yourentire business plan in 45? You will by the time Sherwin'sthrough with you.

When you're finished reading, you'll emerge a lean, meanentrepreneurial machine, ready to do battle with the fiercestventure capitalist and win.

Upwardly Mobile

By Laura Tiffany

Americans. We like to be on the cutting edge, to live up to themoniker pioneers. Well, the bad news is Germany andSwitzerland have beat us to the starting gate in establishingcar-sharing as an alternative means of transportation. The goodnews? There's a virtually untapped market here in the UnitedStates.

Car-sharing allows people who don't own cars, or who need asecond car occasionally, to "share" a car in a network.Members pay a refundable deposit to join the network; they reservea car when needed and pay a mileage and hourly fee that'sbilled to their credit card. "Our rates include insurance,gasoline, repairs and maintenance," says David Brook, founderand owner of CarSharing Portland Inc. in Oregon, one of the onlycar-sharing companies in the nation.

Early on, Brook participated in a government-sponsoredfeasibility study to see if Portland was a good location forcar-sharing. After finding enough interest to justify the service,he launched the business last March with a small governmentsubsidy. Today, Brook has eight cars serving 100 members.

The main ingredient for success is a compatible location."[Downtown] is where our niche is. It's not thesuburbs," says Brook. "Clearly, it's going to be anurban phenomenon." Cities with excellent public transportationsystems (think San Francisco or Boston) will be the best bets, aswill cities where it's costly to own a car.

At least one for-profit car-sharing venture is under developmentin the San Francisco Bay Area. "In the next five years, Ithink you're going to see car-sharing in all the major citiesof the U.S.," contends Brook. "There's a significantnumber of people looking for different ways to live their lives.They're making personal, financial and environmental statementsabout how they want to live."

Top 10 List

When you own your own business, life is just one big picnic.No worries. No sweat. No stress.

By Karen Axelton

No, not really. But some worries do disappear onceyou're your own boss. Our personal picks for the Top 10 ThingsYou'll Never Have To Worry About Again Now That You're AnEntrepreneur:

10. Those ungodly hoicking sounds the guy in the next cubiclemakes every morning at 9:15 sharp

9. Spilling hot clam dip on the CEO's tie at the companyholiday party

8. Ties, in general (ditto, pantyhose)

7. Being tapped for a make-or-break-your-careerproject . . . in which you're teamed with"Stinky Duane," the guy who clips his toenails duringconference calls

6. Getting hit up to chip in for a gift every time one of your8,500 co-workers gets married/pregnant/a year older

5. Team-building exercises (especially anything involving aparachute, a trampoline or a sheer rock cliff)

4. The frightening degree to which your life is beginning tomirror "Dilbert"

3. Whether taking a few packs of Post-it notes home (byaccident, really!) truly constitutes "stealing" asdefined by federal and state authorities

2. Producing memos, proposals, summaries, reports andbillable-time logs to justify your existence to your boss, yourboss's boss and your boss's boss's boss

1. Your boss, your boss's boss and your boss'sboss's boss

Anatomy Of An Inbox

By Laura Tiffany

8 am Monday morning. Forty-two e-mails, 19 new voice-mailmessages and a pile of snailmail left over from last week. It'senough to make you want to crawl back into bed and pull the coversup real high.

How do you dig your way out of a paperwork pile when you'replaying the role of secretary as well as boss? "Once you pullsomething out of your in-basket and look at it, don't put itback in," advises David Allen, a personal organization andproductivity consultant in Ojai, California. "You need a goodsystem downstream from the in-basket." Here'sAllen's:

Immediate Action: If the item will take two minutes or less oryou can delegate it, do so immediately.

Action Items (things to be placed on to do lists) fall into fivecategories:

No-Action Items (things that don't require immediate actionor don't need to be placed on a to-do list) fall into threecategories:

"Your calendar and [running next] action lists need to beseen daily," Allen says. "Review projects,someday/maybes, and waiting-fors weekly."

Keep your lists in whatever format works for you." `List' really means grouping similar items for easyreview," Allen explains. That can be a paper-based list, adigital list (like on a PalmPilot, in Microsoft Outlook or in LotusOrganizer), or a file folder (like one labeled "WaitingFor").

Five lists may sound like a lot, but Allen insists they actuallymake life easier. "If you have fewer than five lists, you haveto blend at least two of these categories," he cautions."Which are you going to put in the same list? If you [blend],you have to rethink the list every time you look at it, which istoo much trouble."

Now's Your Chance

By Shara Lessley

The race is on for federal contracts. But don't assumeyou've got no shot at a procurement opportunity just becauseyour company is small. With its new Very Small Business (VSB)Set-Aside Pilot Program, the SBA has leveled the playing field,giving even the nation's smallest businesses a chance to gain afoothold in the $200 billion federal marketplace for goods andservices.

Under VSB guidelines, federal procurement contracts between$2,500 and $50,000 are set aside for businesses with 15 or feweremployees and less than $1 million in average annual receipts.Bidding companies must be located in one of the regions designatedby the VSB program. Contracts aren't set aside, however, untilthe feds receive bids from at least two very small businesses thathave the capacity to execute the full contract.

"Your first contract is the most difficult to get in thefederal system," says the SBA's D.J. Caulfield. "Ifthe system works the way it's supposed to, [entrepreneurs] willgrow [their] businesses beyond the threshold of 15 employees and $1million to the next level: the small-business set-aside."

The pilot program, which started in January and runs throughSeptember 30, 2000, operates in 10 geographical areas, includingthe entire states of Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts,Michigan and New Mexico, and various cities and counties throughoutCalifornia, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

For more information about the new VSB Set-Aside Pilot Program,contact the SBA at (800) 8-ASK-SBA for the area office forgovernment contracting nearest you.

Contact Sources

CarSharing Portland Inc., (503) 872-9882, http://www.carsharing-pdx.com

David Allen, http://www.davidco.com

World Candy Store, (212) 580-0571