SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) – Police are investigating why a tow truck in San Francisco attempted to snatch a moving vehicle with people inside.

On Thursday we will learn new details about the towing company.

It was a terrible experience that Joanne and her husband are still coming to terms with.

“We freaked out, called, rolled down the window and said, 'Hey, what are you doing? You can't do that,'” Joanne said.

EXCLUSIVE: Couple shocked after tow truck tries to grab their moving car in San Francisco

An East Bay couple describes the horrific turn of events when a tow truck attempted to tow them while they were driving through downtown San Francisco.

A yellow tow truck backed up and tried to hook up her vehicle. Joanne said they were waiting at a red light in San Francisco.

“He started reversing, his lever came down and basically he was just reversing and trying to cling to our car,” Joanne said.

San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu confirmed that the towing company Specialty Towing was already known to his agency for violating state law prior to this incident.

“This company appears to be the same towing company that my office previously requested be suspended and barred from city contracts,” Chiu said.

After watching the video, Chiu said the latest incident was illegal.

“It could likely violate a number of laws – possibly even criminal ones,” Chiu said. “The fact that we've once again seen this company violate the law is unfortunately not surprising, but the video is shocking nonetheless.”

Prior to this incident, the city had received complaints from several victims who allegedly had been defrauded by Specialty Towing.

MORE: New program in San Francisco sends you a text message when your car is towed

The city subsequently banned Specialty Towing and two other towing companies under the same ownership from cooperating with the city in enforcing parking laws.

“Specialty Towing is an affiliate of a company called Auto Towing. They are basically all part of the same company. Auto Towing was illegally towing cars from a private property without getting permission from the property owner. In addition, they strictly limited the times cars could be picked up and pressured owners to pay in cash,” Chiu said.

ABC7 News called the Specialty Towing phone number listed on one of the trucks and the employee hung up. We went to Auto Towing in Bayview and looked for answers.

We were told over the phone that Auto Towing is no longer in business and the person on the phone said they are not affiliated with Specialty Towing.

The SFPD is now calling on other victims to come forward.

“It's crazy. We ask victims to contact the police immediately if something like this has happened to them,” said Officer Paulina Henderson of the San Francisco Police Department.

The prosecutor said Specialty Towing also allegedly defrauded San Francisco taxpayers to receive welfare benefits.

In this case, it is still unclear why the couple was targeted. The couple said they filed a report with police and confirmed that the car and registration were paid off.

If you use the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live

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• John and Matine Yuksel moved from San Francisco to the Midwest in 2020.

• The brothers and business partners lived in Iowa and Cincinnati while founding their startup.

• Sometimes they miss living in California, but love the friendly people and affordable prices of Cincinnati.

This essay is based on a conversation with John Yuksel, 33, and Matine Yuksel, 29, two brothers who moved from San Francisco to Dubuque, Iowa, in 2020 to start Beltways, an accelerated pavement company. The brothers then moved to Cincinnati in 2022. Their company is based nearby in Northern Kentucky.

John: We are children of immigrant parents who grew up in southern Arizona.

I always knew I wanted to be close to my brother. He's my only sibling. After college, we lived in San Diego for a few years and then moved to San Francisco in 2018.

Death: San Francisco is incredible. I've never seen such a diverse environment there and it's a world-class environment for companies, especially in technology.

John: Matine worked for Walmart e-commerce and later got a job at Apple. I worked as a lawyer.

We paid an incredibly high rent, but had the best view of the Pacific and saw the sunset outside our windows every night.

But San Francisco was in the apocalypse. During COVID, the streets were empty. It felt unsafe. My car was broken into several times.

Death: COVID helped us rethink and reprioritize things. Instead of working on bringing the next generation iPhone to market, I wanted to build a new product that few people have ever heard of.

John: Beltways is actually our father's dream. Forty years ago, he lived in Istanbul and realized that today's forms of mobility were not moving people efficiently. He came up with a modular design to make pedestrian routes ten times faster.

John and Matine Yuksel with their parents.Courtesy of John and Matine Yuksel

My brother and I always wanted to do something together and years after our father came up with the idea, we started looking into it.

Death: We founded Beltways in July 2020. We quickly realized we had to move out of San Francisco. It would have been far too expensive to do what we needed to do there.

John: It wasn't the right place for our startup. We're a large hardware manufacturing startup. It made much more sense to be near industrial technology clusters. We wanted to be in the Midwest, where manufacturing is still profitable.

Death: John met someone with experience in the sidewalk business and he offered us a deal in Iowa.

We moved to Dubuque, Iowa in 2020

John: It was a very small town in the middle of the cornfields, an hour and a half from any airport. Dubuque is a beautiful, quiet town on the Mississippi. We could drive anywhere in the city in two minutes.

We practically lived in a mansion. We had a three-story, four-bedroom house for half the price of our condo in San Francisco.

Death: The snow was definitely a change. We got our share of physical activity by shoveling snow.

It was a different way of life. We had to be focused and Iowa was good because we didn't have too many distractions. The two years we spent in Iowa flew by.

The brothers said they had to adjust to small-town life after moving to Dubuque, Iowa.Courtesy of John and Matine Yuksel

John: We built the prototype for the fastest walkway in the world when we lived there. It was a thirty-meter-long system and earned us our first VC check.

This was a huge milestone for us. We put all our money into this company. We quit our regular jobs. We refinanced our house. There was nothing more fulfilling than turning our father's invention into a commercial venture.

Death: It was a surreal day when he came out and rode the system for the first time. It was the icing on the cake to see his enthusiasm for something he dreamt up so many years ago.

John: We had to look for a new location for our company. The next step was to pilot our walkway. We were invited by several airports to do a pilot demo of our system.

We knew that CVG Airport in Cincinnati had a real track record of innovation and startup support. The area was also beneficial for manufacturing. It's super cheap. The facility we're currently in is just a little more expensive than my rent in San Francisco and is 20,000 square feet.

We moved to Cincinnati in 2022

John: We even moved our parents here. We wanted our father to work with us and be a part of the company personally. Our parents live three floors below us in our building in the Mount Adams neighborhood.

When we moved to Cincinnati, we felt like we were back in a big city after two years in Iowa. We have big sports teams and a big major airport. The climate is much more temperate.

The winters have been pretty mild so far. The spring is lush and green. You can kayak down the rivers and there are great hiking trails nearby. The air quality is great. And the summers aren't 120 degrees like Arizona.

I met my partner and now I have a child who was born here in Cincinnati. The city has become home for us. The company is here, the whole family is here.

John and Matine Yuksel enjoy a football game in Cincinnati.Courtesy of John and Matine Yuksel

Sometimes we miss living on the coast. California is a beautiful place. We love the climate and the diversity of the people. San Francisco is where technology starts and flows out. It really is the birthplace of many amazing things.

Death: But the tech scene in Cincinnati has also been very good to us. It's growing. It's a tight-knit startup community. From the moment we got here, the community was so welcoming.

John: And it's much cheaper here.

Bringing our father's dream to life was incredible

Death: We started Beltways in a modest garage in Tucson, where my brother built prototypes himself. Now we're in a 20,000-square-foot facility here in Northern Kentucky, right next to our first airport customer. And we manufacture in the USA.

John: Our goal is to become an official partner of the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and to provide temporary high-speed transportation.

Cincinnati is a great place to raise a family and run a business, and we can see ourselves staying there for the foreseeable future.

But our ultimate goal is to make our sidewalks commonplace and to spread this technology around the world. Wherever we need to go to make that possible, we will. This is bigger than us.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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SAN ANTONIO, TX — The International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO®) last week conducted its 94th annual Education and Business Conference at the Hyatt Regency San Antonio Riverwalk Hotel. The event was co-located with ASSE International’s Annual Meeting and the American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association’s (ARCSA) Annual Conference.

Steve Panelli.Steve Panelli, chief plumbing inspector, city and county of San Francisco, was elected president and Jeremy Stettler, coordinator/inspector, Davis School District, Clearfield, Utah, was elected vice president. Brian Hamner, plumbing inspector, city of Des Moines, Iowa, will serve as secretary/treasurer. John Nielsen, executive officer-program manager, Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses, state of Idaho; Carlos Flores, assistant chief plumbing inspector, city of Houston, Texas; Barry Ramsey, chief plumbing inspector, St. Louis County, Missouri; and Kevin Tindall, president of Tindall & Ranson Plumbing, Heating & Air Conditioning will serve as a district directors.

Fabian Gonzalez, training coordinator of Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 142, served as conference host and Jesse Ortiz, Local 142 president, served as conference chair.

Momentous, Successful

“This was a truly momentous and successful conference, bringing three distinctly venerable industry organizations together for shared purpose and the exchanging of Jeremy Stettler.knowledge,” said IAPMO CEO Dave Viola. “Congratulations to Steve Panelli, Jeremy Stettler and the other Board of Directors members elected to serve and immense gratitude to Immediate Past President David Gans for his incredible leadership during a challenging time in IAPMO’s history.”

The conference was sponsored by Plumbers Local Union 68 Texas Gulf Coast; California State Pipe Trades Council; Southern California Pipe Trades District Council 16; IAPMO Southern Nevada Chapter; PHCC Kansas; UA Plumbers Local Union 78; Pipefitters Local Union 211; PHCC Nebraska; MINK Pipe Trades; National Inspection Testing and Certification Corporation; Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 9 New Jersey; South Jersey Mechanical Contractors Association (SJMCA); TLD (Timelockdocs); Plumbers Local 322; WATTS; American Society of Plumbing Engineers; and the American Water Works Association.

Essay Competition

Winners of the 13th IWSH Scholarship Essay Competition were announced. First prize was awarded to Calvin Cao, Western University, Ontario, Canada, and three runners-up were Marc-Anthony Dorestan, Millersville University of Pennsylvania; Aleksander Penkov, a Bulgarian studying at Hannibal-LaGrange University, Missouri; and Seanna Kryger, George Brown College, Ontario, Canada.

IAPMO’s 95th annual Education and Business Conference will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, Sept. 22-26, 2024.

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Two of the most heavily used bike lanes in San Francisco intersect in the city’s Mission District, at Valencia and 17th streets, where there’s a taqueria, a police station, an upscale furniture store and a famous sex shop. 

One set of lanes cuts east-west, from the giant rainbow flag in the nearby Castro across the Mission into Potrero Hill. As with most bike lanes, these flank the parking lane, are generally unprotected from cars and, for the most part, don’t offend anyone. The other, running north-south through the ever-trendy neighborhood, has lately become a cultural flashpoint, a fight on par with the conflict over tech shuttle buses. 

Four months ago, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency relocated the north-south bike lanes along Valencia between 15th to 23rd streets from the sides of the street to the center, zipping them together for the span of eight blocks before unzipping them again. In the process, several dozen parking spaces were eliminated, too.

On that section of road, plastic bollards and firm barriers separate cyclists from vehicular traffic, with a buffer zone on either side. In itself, this “cycle track” configuration might be little more than a procedural tweak by a city that’s always tinkering with its streetscape, from lane-narrowing “road diets” to mileslong rapid transit projects for buses.

But something about this change in this place just hits different, as they say, perhaps owing to its perpetual popularity as a destination and its convenience as a through route. Here, solo drivers, Ubers, Lyfts, robotaxis, cyclists and delivery vehicles are ceaselessly jockeying for asphalt across Valencia’s 82 feet, 6 inches of width. 

Kevin Ortiz, co-president of the San Francisco Latinx Democratic Club, spoke during a protest this week criticizing Valencia Street’s center-striped bicycle lanes. | Source: Courtesy Roger Rudick/Streetsblog

Grumbling about this eight-block stretch has been building since summer. But the anger erupted Tuesday when several dozen small business owners occupied the street, chanting and holding signs calling on the city to remove the lanes, as Streetsblog first reported. 

The protest came just a few days after the bar and live-music venue Amado’s closed, with its owner claiming that sales dropped 80% after the bike lane was installed and created a hassle for musicians due to a lack of parking.

Opponents have seized on the bike lane as more evidence that the city runs roughshod over the small businesses that fill its coffers with tax revenue and give it character. But how does moving a bike lane by a few feet destroy a business? 

More Than Just a Bike Lane

Walk down Valencia, and it’s impossible to miss the pink-and-white signs in the windows of many shops that read, “This Bike Lane Is Killing Small Businesses and Our Vibrant Community.” 

Yasmin, a Middle Eastern restaurant that already endured arson and a legal imbroglio with its landlord, has one. So do two auto shops, businesses with something of a direct interest in car culture. Ditto for Curio and Amado’s, restaurants and live-music venues that serve alcohol.

“Everybody’s focused on the bike lane, but it’s really about a bureaucracy,” said Bill Dickenson, who sits on a steering committee of the San Francisco Small Business Coalition, which organized Tuesday’s protest on Valencia. “The SFMTA is a government agency that has gone rogue in many ways.”

Several businesses along Valencia Street have posted signs in their windows that read, “This Bike Lane is Killing Small Businesses and Our Vibrant Community,” with a QR code for the San Francisco Small Business Coalition. | Source: Astrid Kane/The Standard

In Dickenson’s view, the powers that be have pit cyclists against small businesses unnecessarily, and it’s a canard that the center-running bike lanes are part of a flexible pilot program that can be tweaked based on public input, which is the city’s current position. The transit agency giveth, and the transit agency will never, ever taketh away.

“It’s not a pilot!” he told The Standard. “There were millions and millions in there, and the [San Francisco] Bike Coalition kept pushing for more infrastructure. This is a misuse of public funds. A ‘quick-build’ would be chalk and paint.”

An April 2023 planning document appears to put the cost at $590,000, funded by several previous ballot measures, but SFMTA confirmed to The Standard that $1.5 million had been spent so far, with the total amount yet to be determined.

From the perspective of Valencia merchants, the past three years have been an unending nightmare of public-health restrictions, rising costs and a likely permanent reduction in people eating out. Now the same city government whose transit agency radically altered Van Ness Avenue to the consternation of merchants there and whose Department of Public Works has a multiyear corruption scandal has rammed through a project nobody seems to want. 

Asked if he and other small-business owners would prefer the previous bike lanes or no lanes at all, Dickenson demurred. But he claimed many people are unhappy with the current configuration, like senior citizens now forced to circle the block while trying to find parking near the corner grocery store. Or residents who live just off Valencia and are finding more cars parked on their streets these days. 

When pressed, Dickenson said he merely wants something that’s better-designed. Ticking off features, he described something much like Valencia’s previous iteration.

“Something with two directions on either side that allows public-safety first responders to move the way they used to, that allows cars to pull out,” he said. “Why did they put the curbs in there? A sixth-grader can look at this and say this doesn’t work.”

The center-striped bike lane—technically a cycle track—is part of a pilot program by the SFMTA that is subject to community feedback. | Source: Gina Castro/The Standard

Voicing a fairly widespread belief, Dickerson said he believes ride-share companies like Uber paid the city to remove parking spaces to free up room for pickups and dropoffs.

Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Uber told The Standard, “The SFMTA regularly reaches out about issues impacting safety and efficiency around the city. We did not discuss the removal of parking spaces.”

For its part, the transit agency says it’s heard business owners’ concerns and has restored some of the 70 parking spaces that were removed.

“We temporarily adjusted the type and duration of many of the loading zones on Valencia Street between 15th and 23rd streets and on several side streets (18th, 19th, 20th, 22nd) to create more general parking availability in the neighborhood,” SFMTA spokesperson Stephen Chun told The Standard in a statement. 

From October until this month, Dickenson was the interim operations director of Amado’s, the now-closed bar. But the bike lanes weren’t the only challenge for that longtime home for underground music and performance this year. In June, Amado’s suffered a flood, resulting in $500,000 in damages. A crowdfunding campaign that aimed to raise $50,000 toward repairs has garnered just half that.

Asked how many Amado’s patrons drove to a venue with, at most, a handful of parking spaces on the block, Dickenson responded with statistics about an unspecified competitor’s bottom line in the period during and after Covid. 

A cyclist passes Amado’s, a recently shuttered bar and music venue at 998 Valencia St., whose owner attributed its closure to the new bike lanes. | Source: Gina Castro/The Standard

“We reached out to a number of businesses and—I won’t name them—but one well-known business owner has a restaurant on Valencia and a restaurant somewhere else in the city,” he said. “The other place saw a 3% dip, and Valencia saw a 50% reduction when the bike lane went in.”

Already a Compromise

Despite the business owners’ complaints, study after study shows that bike lanes typically yield positive economic outcomes for businesses along their corridors. 

During Covid, when Valencia Street was temporarily pedestrianized, Yelp’s data concurred. But the idea that bike lanes are bad for business has entered the cultural bloodstream, seemingly as axiomatic as the erroneous belief that homeless San Franciscans mostly come from somewhere else. 

Pedestrians enjoy wide open space on Valencia Street in 2020, when it was closed to vehicles on weekends under the city’s Slow Streets program. | Source: Paul Chinn/SF Chronicle/Getty Images

The transit agency could strengthen its case by releasing promised metrics on the Valencia Street pilot project, but Chun said that it’s going to be a while.

“The data-gathering started later than anticipated,” he said. 

This opacity is clearly infuriating to small-business owners. But it is also a challenge for advocates who want to know if cyclists are using the street less or if drivers are zooming through intersections. 

“It’s incredibly frustrating that the SFMTA hasn’t given us the evaluation data they promised us at quarterly milestones,” said Claire Amable, a Tenderloin native and the director of advocacy for the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. “We’re four months in, and we were supposed to get it at three, six and nine months.”

The bicycle coalition hears feedback from its members, who seem to be evenly divided on the current state of Valencia, and the organization has offered suggestions for improvement while allowing the fire department to maintain emergency access. Amable says bike lanes are most successful when everyone embraces them but notes that the existing configuration on Valencia was the product of a protracted back-and-forth.

“This design was already a compromise based on merchant feedback from 2020,” Amable said. “It was presented as the only solution by the city because it preserved the most parking options, and SFMTA recently converted loading zones back into parking spaces, which we hope alleviates merchant concerns. But the answer is not more cars, but more people-centered spaces.” 

No Amount of Parking Can Solve the Problem

John Oram, a tech worker and sometime blogger known as Burrito Justice who came up with his own “Burrito Plan” for Valencia Street, sees a simple explanation for the business owners’ grievances.

“They based their business on double-parking, and now, they can’t do that. As soon as somebody double-parks, it blocks traffic,” he told The Standard, adding that since the changeover, some opponents have shown their hand. “Every single complaint about the bike lane, the next thing they say is, ‘Oh, I have $200 in tickets.’”

To him, Valencia Street’s primary issue is one of scarcity, with too many types of users competing for too little space. 

“There’s no number of parking spots you can add to solve this problem,” Oram said. “We’re in a city, and by the way, there are several 200- to 300-parking spot garages right off Valencia.” 

In 2022, Oram penned an opinion piece for The Standard, outlining his Burrito Plan as an “equitable way to distribute the three main road users—cars, pedestrians and cyclists—that involves minimal disruption and low-cost barriers.”

It called for converting Valencia to a one-way street, with bike lanes moved to one side and fully protected, and the remaining space allotted to ride-shares, delivery vehicles and people running errands—the users who shout, “I’ll just be here for a minute!” when parking enforcement turns around the corner. 

Over the summer, the cycle track’s buildout was criticized for being slow and haphazard, but some brave riders used it despite the warning signs. | Source: Jeremy Chen/The Standard

“In study after study, time after time, city after city, in any dense area, business owners grossly overestimate the number of people who are driving,” Oram said. “Who says, ‘Oh, I’m going to drive to Valencia because parking’s really easy’? It’s always been difficult! It’s just a little more noticeable 1702069577.”

Even as many locals push back on the idea that the city is in a doom loop, they’re quick to suggest the city seems to be creating one in the Mission. As Oram wryly noted, the cry that “Valencia is dead!” may be a poor marketing strategy, and some merchants seem intent on alienating the potential customers who are pedaling past their establishments twice a day. 

It’s worth noting that most of the major streets that parallel Valencia have been reconfigured in some way. Folsom Street was narrowed and restriped a decade ago, South Van Ness Avenue not long ago went from four lanes to two, with pocket lanes for easier left turns. For its part, Mission Street got mandatory turn-offs and “red carpet” lanes meant to give packed buses the right-of-way—and small businesses hated that, too.

Valencia Street is one of several major north-south thoroughfares in the Mission District whose layout has been remade in recent years. | Source: Justin Katigbak/The Standard

Why Do People Hate Cyclists So Much?

People hate bike lanes, at least in part, because people hate cyclists. And in fairness, many cyclists give non-cyclists more than a few things to hate. They pedal against traffic. They blow red lights. They wear expensive-looking Lycra jerseys that feel like flashy overkill on city streets. The stereotype skews toward six-figure-earning, middle-aged neckbeards mansplaining about derailleurs. And there’s that eternal whiff of superiority embodied by those “One Less Car” signs sometimes taped to the backs of bike seats, which manage to pack eco-smugness and a grammatical error into three syllables. It should read, “One Fewer Car,” if you want to be like that.  

At the same time, San Francisco is home to many physically fit, environmentally conscious people, plus the city charter’s explicit transportation policy is to prioritize alternatives to driving. And, whatever elitism may cling to cyclists, it’s simply true that every ride in a San Francisco bike shop will be cheaper than any new car at the dealership. 

Ostensibly, the changes to Valencia were largely undertaken for the benefit of cyclists. Several riders The Standard spoke with seem to appreciate the rejiggering of a heavily trafficked, high-injury corridor. In particular, the terror of being “doored” has been minimized.

But just as it’s possible to lament how all cars look alike while mocking the Cybertruck, it’s possible to be a daily cyclist while hating the Valencia Street cycle track, which was so haphazardly installed that pranksters installed guerrilla signage. 

Valencia’s current configuration has received mixed reviews from riders, including Sohan Murthy, right. | Source: Gina Castro/The Standard

Even fully built, many riders dislike the new layout, with its awkward flow, overdesigned signals and a general feeling like they need to crane their necks in an owl-like, 270-degree fashion in order to make a left. When ambulances use it—and it’s pretty hard to argue they shouldn’t—it’s difficult to get out of their way safely. 

“I’ve still seen some crazy stuff, like a car hopping over and doing a U-turn, or swerving in here,” said Sohan Murthy, a West Oakland resident who was riding to a friend’s house. “I don’t know if this is better than before.”

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Bay Area prefabricated construction startup Veev, which promised to slash the time and costs required to build new homes, has announced to its employees that it plans to shutter operations after acquiring unicorn status just last year.

The company, with offices in Hayward and Israel, said in a statement that the closure comes because the startup, which launched in 2008 and was once valued at more than a billion dollars, failed to close a recent financing round. This week, the company laid off most of its 250 employees, according to LinkedIn posts from employees. Veev had only recently finished construction on its first single-family home, which the company intended to bring to market in 2024.

With Bay Area land and construction costs soaring, the company promised a way to build infill housing faster and cheaper. Rather than building a home entirely on-site, Veev built panels, which included electrical wiring, plumbing and other components, in their Hayward factory. The panels could then be transported to a home site and assembled in about a month, rather than the seven months it typically takes for traditional homebuilders.

The company, founded by Israeli immigrant Amit Haller, began as a traditional development company, building luxury properties around the Bay Area. Veev pivoted to prefab construction in 2018, focusing mostly on attached homes and accessory dwelling units, commonly known as mother-in-law units or granny flats. In recent years, Veev had raised $600 million from investors like homebuilding giant Lennar and San Francisco-based venture capital firm Bond.

They benefited from a new state law passed in 2021, SB 9, which allowed owners of single-family homes to subdivide their lots or build two units where once only one was allowed. Modular construction was seen as a way to remove the headache for homeowners who wanted to take advantage of the new law.

But warning signs that the company was in distress began to appear in the last few years.

In March 2022, the company reported a $400 million funding round. The first $200 million was meant to go toward a new factory where Veev would assemble panels for multifamily buildings. But as high interest rates pushed up costs and consumers demanded lower-density housing following the coronavirus pandemic, Veev decided to turn its focus away from multifamily to single-family construction.

In November 2022, Veev pulled out of an agreement with homebuilding giant Lennar (one of the company’s main investors) to build a 102-unit attached home development in Northern California. Around that time, Veev also laid off around 100 employees, a third of its workforce.

The second half of the $400 million round never materialized. Following the company’s pivot, major investors like Lennar backed out, Business Insider reported. The company tried to raise additional funding and when that was unsuccessful, tried to get investors to fund them with a bridge loan — but they could not manage to scrape together additional funds. As of November, the company had stopped paying interest on some of the loans it had taken out to finance property purchases.

Investors Lennar and Bond did not respond to a request for comment.

Veev is not the first modular homebuilder to struggle. In 2021, Menlo Park-based Katerra, which was backed with more than $2.4 billion from Softbank Group’s Vision Fund, filed for bankruptcy.

The post Prefab homebuilder Veev to shutter after funders abandon former ‘unicorn’ | Enterprise appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

There’s a mismatch between job openings and seekers, with about 121,000 open jobs and 106,000 unemployed people in Colorado. The new Education to Employment Alliance thinks they might have the solution. 

The group, made up of business and education-oriented organizations such as the Colorado Chamber of Commerce, Colorado Succeeds and Colorado Thrives, released a report last month with five recommendations to better match workers with open positions, including adjusting the skills taught in school to better match the needs of employers. The idea being: Companies tell educators what skills are lacking, educators teach those skills to students and everyone goes home happy. 

For many businesses and lawmakers, this isn’t new. Federal and state governments have provided funding for vocational programs through the Perkins Career and Technical Education Act of 2006 and the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act from 2014. The SyncUp Colorado competition in 2021 asked organizations to develop programs for this purpose, with support from the state government, Colorado Succeeds and Colorado Thrives. 

“There have been a ton of them, but they’re very siloed,” said Ed Sealover, vice president of strategic initiatives at the Colorado Chamber of Commerce. He believes these programs are already getting more students interested, and coordinating to scale them up will help meet job demand.

Take construction, one of the industries with a consistently high demand for middle-skills workers — which require certification beyond a high school diploma, but not a four-year degree — according to the Colorado Chamber of Commerce’s 2022 and 2023 surveys. 

The Colorado River Board of Cooperative Educational Services won $350,000 from the SyncUp competition to fund high school classes where students build 200-square-foot houses. That includes framing, windows and doors, flooring, siding, plumbing, electricity, roofing, installing cabinets and more. 

It’s the kind of career-connecting program that the alliance will work to implement more consistently across Colorado, Sealover said. He believes giving students a clear idea of how to pursue those jobs and what their salaries will look like will get them interested.

“I don’t know that there’s one main barrier (to entering middle-skills jobs), but I definitely think social perception is one of them,” Sealover said. “Lack of knowledge as well. We need to remind people that these are good, sustainable careers that the students can get into with far less debt.”

John Fisher agrees. He’s both a general contractor and the teacher for Aspen High School’s tiny homes program, which is a subset of Fisher’s larger woodworking class. 

In his 55 years of teaching, he’s seen a decline in the construction, architecture and engineering classes that show students what career paths are available, Fisher said. To cut costs, schools did away with them altogether or moved them to vocational schools.

Aspen High School sophomore Ryley Benson constructs a tiny home during woodworking class on the school campus. The school’s tiny homes woodworking program is the kind of career-connecting class that the Education to Employment Alliance wants to implement more consistently across the state. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)

“Once the kids get exposed to it, just like the ones that I have that are working, they’re highly motivated, and they’re very much interested,” Fisher said. 

But he may be overestimating that interest. Last year’s project involved just eight students, and of the ones he says are most likely to go into construction, some now say they’ve never considered it — which suggests there are other factors, beyond lack of exposure, that are discouraging them. 

Junior Max Sherman said he’s always wanted to go into real estate. He plans to follow in his dad’s footsteps, going into a real estate internship after graduating high school. Eventually, he wants to open a hotel business in a big city, somewhere like Los Angeles or San Francisco. 

Sherman likes the stability of that path. “I feel like real estate will always be more or less a safe job,” he said. “There’s a lot of industries popping up right now which could either blow up or they could go away. So I’d rather do a safer choice than gamble it all.”

He’s never really considered other career paths and took woodworking not as a career interest, but because he thought being able to make things like desks and chairs would be a useful life skill. He feels like he got what he wanted out of the class, and he enjoyed it. But he pointed to the physical exertion as a reason he wouldn’t go into construction. “I don’t know if it’s something I want to do five days a week for, you know, 20 years consecutively,” he said.

It seems like great preparation for a construction career, and if he was interested, he could get guidance from Fisher on how to pursue that, Sherman said. He’s just not.

Fisher doesn’t see the physical toll or the pay as drawbacks for the right worker. “They’ll start out at, you know, maybe 25, 30 bucks an hour. Right now, most all laborers are getting 25 bucks an hour,” he said. “They see the potential to make more money by working up to that.”

The Colorado Chamber of Commerce represents business interests, and Sealover said he doesn’t track information on the employee side: what jobs currently unemployed people are looking for, and what’s worked for getting current middle-skills workers into their jobs. 

The alliance isn’t concerned with getting a specific number of students into open jobs, and they’re not expecting big changes anytime soon. But classes like Fisher’s will at least show students their options in middle-skills career paths, where the cost of education is much lower, Sealovers said. From there, he expects more and more of them to pursue those jobs.

“You just have to make students aware of the opportunities and figure that some of them are going to choose their own path,” Sealover said.

The post Colorado enterprise teams provide concepts to fulfill middle-skills job demand appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

RudderStack Profiles enables companies to unify first-party data from every customer touchpoint into complete profiles, build ML user features, and deliver powerful customer experiences

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — RudderStack, the leading warehouse native customer data platform, today announced the release of RudderStack Profiles for AWS Redshift customers. RudderStack Profiles enables data teams to quickly build complete customer profiles in their warehouse, generate user features, and activate them to deliver powerful customer experiences.

RudderStack is the Warehouse Native CDP (PRNewsfoto/RudderStack)

Data teams are often overwhelmed by the complexity of collecting and unifying clean, first-party customer data to create a customer 360 and drive valuable use cases for every business team. The process can take months or even years and cost millions of dollars. RudderStack Profiles solves this problem by providing tools for data teams that automate the SQL grunt work and automatically build a full customer 360 table natively in AWS Redshift.

With RudderStack Profiles, data teams can reduce engineering costs and reallocate their most valuable resources to focus on delivering customer data use cases, not plumbing or cleaning data. They can also improve time to value for critical projects by building on a complete view of their customer in their warehouse. Plus, they can say goodbye to inflexible black box SaaS and configure RudderStack models that generate a customer profile table in their warehouse.

StatPearls, a leading professional healthcare education and technology company, eliminated data silos and disparate schemas by using RudderStack Profiles to build a warehouse native CDP on Amazon Redshift. Now they’re able to use granular user-level data to understand attribution, accurately calculate LTV, and increase return on ad spend (ROAS). Since implementing RudderStack Profiles, StatPearls increased customer retention by 1.7x and nearly quadrupled ad spend while maintaining positive ROAS.

Story continues

“Data from RudderStack helped our team turn marketing into a math problem,” said Mike Sperduti, Head of Engineering at StatPearls. “We know that when we spend X on a particular campaign, we are going to get Y yield over time.”

Unlike traditional Customer Data Platforms (CDP), RudderStack’s Warehouse Native CDP does not persist data and is built on top of your warehouse or data lake. With the introduction of Profiles, RudderStack now has a complete platform across each step of the Data Activation Lifecycle:

• Collection: RudderStack’s Event Stream and Cloud Extract ETL pipelines make it easy to collect data from every website, app, or SaaS tool.

• Unification: RudderStack’s Profiles feature leverages our standardized schemas to significantly reduce the time it takes to build a complete view of the customer, including an identity graph and rich customer features.

• Activation: RudderStack’s Reverse ETL pipeline, real-time Profiles API, and 200+ integrations deliver complete customer profiles and user features to downstream destinations to trigger marketing automation, drive real-time analytics, or deliver personalized experiences.

“We’re excited to bring RudderStack Profiles to AWS Redshift. When Redshift users combine Profiles with our data collection and activation features, they can start driving better business outcomes with their customer data faster,” said Soumyadeb Mitra, Founder and CEO of RudderStack. “Profiles enables data teams to take full advantage of Amazon Redshift’s secure, reliable, easily scalable data warehouse while harnessing the power and flexibility of RudderStack’s Warehouse Native Customer Data Platform to deliver revenue growth and reduce cost.”

RudderStack and AWS are excited to see the success that customers have already achieved with RudderStack Profiles and look forward to helping more customers drive better business outcomes with their customer data.

RudderStack Profiles is now available to Enterprise Tier RudderStack customers on AWS Redshift. To learn more, read the blog post or schedule a demo with the RudderStack team.

About RudderStack

RudderStack is the leading warehouse native Customer Data Platform that’s purpose-built for data teams. We run on top of your warehouse or data lake and do not store data, alleviating security concerns, reducing cost, and unlocking the value of your warehouse investment. Hundreds of innovative companies like Stripe, Crate and Barrel, Priceline, and Footlocker trust RudderStack to collect and send their most valuable data to the tools and teams that need it. For more information, visit rudderstack.com.

CONTACT: Eric Dodds, eric@rudderstack.com, +18642703757

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rudderstack-unveils-profiles-in-partnership-with-aws-enabling-companies-to-drive-better-business-outcomes-with-their-customer-data-301999385.html

SOURCE RudderStack

The post RudderStack unveils Profiles in partnership with AWS, enabling corporations to drive higher enterprise outcomes with their buyer information appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

RudderStack Profiles enables companies to unify first-party data from every customer touchpoint into complete profiles, build ML user features, and deliver powerful customer experiences

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — RudderStack, the leading warehouse native customer data platform, today announced the release of RudderStack Profiles for AWS Redshift customers. RudderStack Profiles enables data teams to quickly build complete customer profiles in their warehouse, generate user features, and activate them to deliver powerful customer experiences.

RudderStack is the Warehouse Native CDP (PRNewsfoto/RudderStack)

Data teams are often overwhelmed by the complexity of collecting and unifying clean, first-party customer data to create a customer 360 and drive valuable use cases for every business team. The process can take months or even years and cost millions of dollars. RudderStack Profiles solves this problem by providing tools for data teams that automate the SQL grunt work and automatically build a full customer 360 table natively in AWS Redshift.

With RudderStack Profiles, data teams can reduce engineering costs and reallocate their most valuable resources to focus on delivering customer data use cases, not plumbing or cleaning data. They can also improve time to value for critical projects by building on a complete view of their customer in their warehouse. Plus, they can say goodbye to inflexible black box SaaS and configure RudderStack models that generate a customer profile table in their warehouse.

StatPearls, a leading professional healthcare education and technology company, eliminated data silos and disparate schemas by using RudderStack Profiles to build a warehouse native CDP on Amazon Redshift. Now they’re able to use granular user-level data to understand attribution, accurately calculate LTV, and increase return on ad spend (ROAS). Since implementing RudderStack Profiles, StatPearls increased customer retention by 1.7x and nearly quadrupled ad spend while maintaining positive ROAS.

Story continues

“Data from RudderStack helped our team turn marketing into a math problem,” said Mike Sperduti, Head of Engineering at StatPearls. “We know that when we spend X on a particular campaign, we are going to get Y yield over time.”

Unlike traditional Customer Data Platforms (CDP), RudderStack’s Warehouse Native CDP does not persist data and is built on top of your warehouse or data lake. With the introduction of Profiles, RudderStack now has a complete platform across each step of the Data Activation Lifecycle:

• Collection: RudderStack’s Event Stream and Cloud Extract ETL pipelines make it easy to collect data from every website, app, or SaaS tool.

• Unification: RudderStack’s Profiles feature leverages our standardized schemas to significantly reduce the time it takes to build a complete view of the customer, including an identity graph and rich customer features.

• Activation: RudderStack’s Reverse ETL pipeline, real-time Profiles API, and 200+ integrations deliver complete customer profiles and user features to downstream destinations to trigger marketing automation, drive real-time analytics, or deliver personalized experiences.

“We’re excited to bring RudderStack Profiles to AWS Redshift. When Redshift users combine Profiles with our data collection and activation features, they can start driving better business outcomes with their customer data faster,” said Soumyadeb Mitra, Founder and CEO of RudderStack. “Profiles enables data teams to take full advantage of Amazon Redshift’s secure, reliable, easily scalable data warehouse while harnessing the power and flexibility of RudderStack’s Warehouse Native Customer Data Platform to deliver revenue growth and reduce cost.”

RudderStack and AWS are excited to see the success that customers have already achieved with RudderStack Profiles and look forward to helping more customers drive better business outcomes with their customer data.

RudderStack Profiles is now available to Enterprise Tier RudderStack customers on AWS Redshift. To learn more, read the blog post or schedule a demo with the RudderStack team.

About RudderStack

RudderStack is the leading warehouse native Customer Data Platform that’s purpose-built for data teams. We run on top of your warehouse or data lake and do not store data, alleviating security concerns, reducing cost, and unlocking the value of your warehouse investment. Hundreds of innovative companies like Stripe, Crate and Barrel, Priceline, and Footlocker trust RudderStack to collect and send their most valuable data to the tools and teams that need it. For more information, visit rudderstack.com.

CONTACT: Eric Dodds, eric@rudderstack.com, +18642703757

Cision

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rudderstack-unveils-profiles-in-partnership-with-aws-enabling-companies-to-drive-better-business-outcomes-with-their-customer-data-301999385.html

SOURCE RudderStack

The post RudderStack unveils Profiles in partnership with AWS, enabling firms to drive higher enterprise outcomes with their buyer information appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

RudderStack Profiles enables companies to unify first-party data from every customer touchpoint into complete profiles, build ML user features, and deliver powerful customer experiences

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — RudderStack, the leading warehouse native customer data platform, today announced the release of RudderStack Profiles for AWS Redshift customers. RudderStack Profiles enables data teams to quickly build complete customer profiles in their warehouse, generate user features, and activate them to deliver powerful customer experiences.

Data teams are often overwhelmed by the complexity of collecting and unifying clean, first-party customer data to create a customer 360 and drive valuable use cases for every business team. The process can take months or even years and cost millions of dollars. RudderStack Profiles solves this problem by providing tools for data teams that automate the SQL grunt work and automatically build a full customer 360 table natively in AWS Redshift.

With RudderStack Profiles, data teams can reduce engineering costs and reallocate their most valuable resources to focus on delivering customer data use cases, not plumbing or cleaning data. They can also improve time to value for critical projects by building on a complete view of their customer in their warehouse. Plus, they can say goodbye to inflexible black box SaaS and configure RudderStack models that generate a customer profile table in their warehouse.

StatPearls, a leading professional healthcare education and technology company, eliminated data silos and disparate schemas by using RudderStack Profiles to build a warehouse native CDP on Amazon Redshift. Now they’re able to use granular user-level data to understand attribution, accurately calculate LTV, and increase return on ad spend (ROAS). Since implementing RudderStack Profiles, StatPearls increased customer retention by 1.7x and nearly quadrupled ad spend while maintaining positive ROAS.

“Data from RudderStack helped our team turn marketing into a math problem,” said Mike Sperduti, Head of Engineering at StatPearls. “We know that when we spend X on a particular campaign, we are going to get Y yield over time.”

Unlike traditional Customer Data Platforms (CDP), RudderStack’s Warehouse Native CDP does not persist data and is built on top of your warehouse or data lake. With the introduction of Profiles, RudderStack now has a complete platform across each step of the Data Activation Lifecycle:

• Collection: RudderStack’s Event Stream and Cloud Extract ETL pipelines make it easy to collect data from every website, app, or SaaS tool.
• Unification: RudderStack’s Profiles feature leverages our standardized schemas to significantly reduce the time it takes to build a complete view of the customer, including an identity graph and rich customer features.
• Activation: RudderStack’s Reverse ETL pipeline, real-time Profiles API, and 200+ integrations deliver complete customer profiles and user features to downstream destinations to trigger marketing automation, drive real-time analytics, or deliver personalized experiences.

“We’re excited to bring RudderStack Profiles to AWS Redshift. When Redshift users combine Profiles with our data collection and activation features, they can start driving better business outcomes with their customer data faster,” said Soumyadeb Mitra, Founder and CEO of RudderStack. “Profiles enables data teams to take full advantage of Amazon Redshift’s secure, reliable, easily scalable data warehouse while harnessing the power and flexibility of RudderStack’s Warehouse Native Customer Data Platform to deliver revenue growth and reduce cost.”

RudderStack and AWS are excited to see the success that customers have already achieved with RudderStack Profiles and look forward to helping more customers drive better business outcomes with their customer data.

RudderStack Profiles is now available to Enterprise Tier RudderStack customers on AWS Redshift. To learn more, read the blog post or schedule a demo with the RudderStack team.

About RudderStack

RudderStack is the leading warehouse native Customer Data Platform that’s purpose-built for data teams. We run on top of your warehouse or data lake and do not store data, alleviating security concerns, reducing cost, and unlocking the value of your warehouse investment. Hundreds of innovative companies like Stripe, Crate and Barrel, Priceline, and Footlocker trust RudderStack to collect and send their most valuable data to the tools and teams that need it. For more information, visit rudderstack.com.

CONTACT: Eric Dodds, [email protected], +18642703757

SOURCE RudderStack

The post RudderStack unveils Profiles in partnership with AWS, enabling firms to drive higher enterprise outcomes with their buyer information appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Seasonal business ventures remain one of the hottest small business trends thanks to the numerous business opportunities and the unique benefits these options offer budding entrepreneurs. After all, seasonal businesses such as those that only operate during the winter season allow small business owners to take extended breaks during their lengthy off-seasons or to spend that time strategizing ways to boost sales the next year. Before you can run a successful seasonal business in the cooler months, however, you need some innovative winter business ideas.

Choosing the Best Winter Business Ideas: Our Methodology

The winter season brings unique business opportunities, some of which are seasonal while others may extend beyond the colder months. Here’s how to evaluate the best winter business ideas:

1. Seasonal Relevance and Demand
   • Importance: Crucial
   • Focus on businesses that either solve a winter-specific problem (like snow removal) or cater to winter activities (like holiday-themed products).
2. Start-Up and Operational Costs
   • Importance: High
   • Consider the initial investment and ongoing costs. Some winter businesses may require more equipment or higher operational expenses due to the weather conditions.
3. Profitability and Revenue Potential
   • Importance: High
   • Assess the potential income. Some winter businesses might offer high short-term profits due to seasonal demand.
4. Scalability and Year-Round Potential
   • Importance: Moderate
   • Evaluate if the business can be scaled or adapted for other seasons, which can be important for sustained income.
5. Local Climate and Geographic Relevance
   • Importance: High
   • The success of winter business ideas often depends on the local climate and geography. Choose a business that aligns with the winter conditions in your area.
6. Flexibility and Time Commitment
   • Importance: Moderate
   • Consider the time commitment required. Some winter businesses may be more intense during the season but offer more flexibility during off-season months.
7. Competition and Market Saturation
   • Importance: High
   • Analyze the level of competition. Entering a market with less competition can provide more opportunities for success.
8. Customer Base and Marketing
   • Importance: High
   • Understand your target customer base and how to effectively market to them during the winter season.
9. Regulatory and Insurance Requirements
   • Importance: High
   • Be aware of any special regulations or insurance requirements for winter-specific businesses, especially those involving outdoor activities or equipment.
10. Impact on Lifestyle and Personal Preferences
    • Importance: Moderate
    • Consider how the business fits your lifestyle and personal preferences, especially considering the demands of winter weather.

By considering these factors, entrepreneurs can identify winter business ideas that not only capitalize on the unique aspects of the season but also align with their goals, resources, and the market demand.

Best Winter Businesses to Start

Starting a successful winter business is an achievable goal. Looking for seasonal business ideas that can operate during the winter months? The following 32 winter business ideas should get you started right.

1. Fake Snow Business

If you live in a location where snow is scarce during the winter season, then selling fake snow can be a great business idea. Fake snow can be in high demand during the festive season among organizations, companies and even families who want to experience a winter wonderland.

2. Gift Wrapping Service

Gift wrapping services remain an in-demand business idea during the holiday season. If you’re a skilled gift wrapper, you can sell your services near any busy shopping area, and you’re almost guaranteed to attract plenty of customers.

3. Christmas Tree Farm

While selling Christmas trees during the winter season might not be an option for every entrepreneur, Christmas tree farming can grow into a successful and profitable winter business idea for small business owners who own land where they can grow evergreen products so they can sell Christmas trees.

4. Towing Service

Towing services are businesses that are in need all year long, but the demand grows during the winter season when road conditions often deteriorate. The owner and operator of a tow truck can still turn a profit if they only operate seasonally.

5. Ventless Fireplace Business

Ventless fireplaces continue to grow in popularity since so many properties no longer are equipped for the traditional variety. A ventless fireplace installation business is a solid business idea, provided the entrepreneur gets proper clearances from the fire department.

6. Winter Sports Equipment Rentals

Many consumers enjoy playing occasional winter sports, but they don’t own the proper equipment for seasonal pastimes. In the right market, an entrepreneur could achieve great success by renting this needed winter sports equipment as a business.

7. Sell Gift Baskets

Unique gift baskets remain at the top of many holiday shoppers’ gift lists, so there’s never been a better time to start a seasonal business selling holiday gift baskets. You could create a variety of gift baskets or focus on a specific niche in the market.

8. Sell Winter Garments

Do you have an eye for fashion? You could start a successful seasonal small business by selling winter garments. You could obtain a seasonal lease and start a local boutique, or you could excel in the online selling marketplace.

9. General Errand Service Business

More people seek assistance with running errands during the winter months than when it’s warm outside, making a general errand service business another profitable idea for entrepreneurs seeking a seasonal venture.

10. Ice Cream Shop

Ice cream is a popular treat all year long, but many ice cream shops only operate during the summer. Opening a wintertime ice cream shop is a great way to fill a gap in the market.

11. Winter Weather Baskets

Who says it needs to be a holiday to send a gift basket to a friend or loved one? A small business specializing in the more generic, yet still seasonal winter weather baskets is sure to be a hit in almost any community.

12. Chimney Sweeper

Naturally, homeowners use their fireplaces far more frequently during the colder months, which makes a chimney sweep business another great idea for a successful seasonal company.

13. Hot Beverage Pop-Up

Hot beverages are in demand during the winter season, which makes the colder months the perfect time to start a hot beverage pop-up business. Just establish a small retail space for your hot beverage stand in an area with regular traffic and sell options like coffee, hot chocolate and hot tea.

14. Sell Home-Made Cookies

When it comes to holiday treats, it’s no secret that plenty of people prefer cookies. With just a small capital investment, you can start a cookie business and offer an assortment of sweet treats, including good-quality cookies.

15. Sleigh Ride Service Business

While some winter seasonal businesses appeal to a narrow demographic, others cater to all age groups. A sleigh ride service is a seasonal business that can draw customers young and old as they seek exciting holiday experiences.

16. Home Winterization Service

Are you skilled with the tips and tricks to successfully winterize a home? You can start a winter seasonal business helping homeowners prepare their properties for severe winter weather by insulating, closing any gaps in windows and using other weatherization techniques.

17. Cake Shop

The holiday season is cake time for many families, so a wintertime cake shop can become a profitable seasonal business activity. You can offer a variety of baked goods for your products and specialize in festive cakes like the popular Yule log cake.

18. Sell Firewood

Firewood is in far greater demand during the winter months compared to the rest of the year. Many entrepreneurs who own wooded land have established successful seasonal small businesses by selling firewood.

19. Snow Removal Business

One of the more profitable winter business ideas in areas with consistent winter storms is a snow removal service. There is little overhead to offer snow removal services in nearby residential areas, and the demand is all but guaranteed anytime it snows. By purchasing the proper equipment, you even can expand to a snow plowing business.

20. Party Rental

The party rental business is one of the more popular small business ideas all year long, but it can also be successful during only the winter months. Such a business might specialize in renting winter holiday-themed party supplies, decorations and equipment, including that geared toward Thanksgiving, Hanukah, Christmas and New Year’s.

21. Liquor Delivery

Looking to start a new business during the winter months? Consider a liquor delivery service since the demand for many hard beverages increases during the winter when people also are less likely to savor a cold trip to the store. Be sure, of course, that you are following all local laws and regulations.

22. Christmas Retail Outlet

The various holiday seasons are prime time for retailers around the world, so it’s no wonder why more entrepreneurs are starting Christmas retail outlets and turning them into successful seasonal businesses.

23. Senior Errand Services

If you’re looking for a way to earn extra money during the winter season, consider starting a senior errand service and performing odd jobs for the elderly in your community. Since it’s harder for many seniors to get around when it’s cold outside, a helpful entrepreneur can turn a profit with this seasonal option.

24. Winter Storage

Many consumers use storage facilities for seasonal purposes as they pack away clothing, furniture and equipment they don’t plan to use for several months to save space. These semi-yearly habits make owning a storage building with individual units another great seasonal business option.

25. Pet Sitting

Pet sitting easily can grow into a successful year-round business, but demand for pet sitting services tends to increase during the holiday season. An animal-loving entrepreneur easily could start a small business by safeguarding pets during the winter season.

26. Furnace Repair Service

There will always be a demand for those skilled in repairing appliances, and a furnace repair service is a natural seasonal venture since there will be little demand for the niche during the warmer months. When it’s cold, however, someone who is skilled at repairing heaters can be a hot commodity.

27. Handcrafted Wreaths

With just a small investment, a crafty entrepreneur can create beautiful handcrafted wreaths for the holiday season or for all winter long. Wreaths can be sold locally at flea markets and craft fairs, or they can be sold online and shipped to customers.

28. Quilt & Blanket Company

Quilts and blankets are in high demand during the winter months in many places, and an entrepreneur with quilting skills can meet this huge demand by starting a quilt and blanket company. You can start your own quilt trading store, or you can maximize your profits by selling quilts from an online marketplace like Etsy.

29. Holiday Home Decorating Business

How many members of your community wish they could decorate their homes for the holidays but simply don’t have time in their busy schedules? Decorating homes for the holidays is another profitable winter business idea that requires little overhead.

30. Local 32 Winter Business Ideas

Starting a local cleaning service is a lucrative winter business idea since so many consumers have less time to spend cleaning during the winter months even as they welcome and entertain holiday guests. A seasonal business that meets this increased demand is sure to be a hit.

31. Custom Ornament Sales

The business of Christmas ornaments delivers products to a massive market, but it’s definitely a seasonal venture with most sales occurring in the winter months. Crafty entrepreneurs can choose to create a plethora of options, and they can sell their creations at local stores and craft fairs or through online marketplaces like Etsy or Amazon Handmade.

32. Delivery Business

Just as many people seek assistance running errands during the cold winter months, there is also a local market demand for delivery services. With a reliable vehicle, you can start a successful delivery business initiating services to local neighborhoods.

Check Your Small Business Insurance Coverage

When establishing a successful seasonal small business, it’s vital for entrepreneurs to fully prepare for a winter storm by checking on their small business insurance coverage. Harsh weather conditions create the perfect environment for accidents… and the possibility of a lawsuit. Do you have plenty of liability insurance to cover such instances? Don’t let your seasonal small business become a victim of insurance vulnerabilities.

Exploring the Winter Business Frontier: From Concept to Success

As the winter season approaches, it brings with it a world of unique business opportunities. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur looking to launch your first venture or an established business owner seeking to diversify, the colder months offer a distinct market waiting to be tapped. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the essential steps to navigate the winter business landscape, from ideation to execution. Let’s embark on a journey to uncover the secrets of building a successful winter business that not only thrives during the chilly season but also lays the foundation for potential year-round success.

Market Research and Idea Selection:

• Identify innovative business ideas that align with the specific needs and trends of the winter season.
• Thoroughly research your market, potential customers, competitors, and gaps in the industry.
• Consider factors such as location, target audience, and the unique demands that arise during winter.

Effective Business Plan:

• Craft a comprehensive business plan outlining your goals, strategies, and operational details.
• Define your business’s value proposition, unique selling points, and how you’ll meet seasonal demands.
• Provide a clear financial projection covering startup costs, expected revenue, and potential expenses.
• Address potential challenges and establish contingency plans for uncertainties.

Securing Finances:

• Determine the financial requirements for your winter business, including initial investments and ongoing expenses.
• Explore various funding options, such as personal savings, loans, grants, or investors.
• A well-structured business plan will play a pivotal role in attracting support from lenders or investors.

Investments in Marketing, Equipment, and Supplies:

• Allocate a portion of your budget to effective marketing strategies that raise awareness and draw customers.
• Invest in high-quality equipment and supplies aligned with your business offerings.
• Ensure sufficient inventory to meet customer demands during the peak winter season.

Transitioning to Year-Round:

• If your seasonal business shows promise, strategize ways to extend operations beyond the winter months.
• Research and plan how to adapt your offerings or introduce complementary services for year-round viability.
• This transition could lead to steady income and sustainable business growth.

Hiring Seasonal Employees:

• Based on your business’s scale, consider hiring seasonal employees to manage increased demand.
• Recruit individuals who can provide excellent customer service, ensure smooth operations, and handle the winter rush.
• Offer proper training to align your seasonal staff with your business values and goals.

Accounting and Tax Preparation:

• Implement accounting software to maintain accurate and efficient financial records.
• Manage income, expenses, and transactions effectively to ensure financial transparency.
• Prepare for tax season by understanding tax regulations, maintaining accurate records, and seeking professional guidance if needed.

Business Compliance:

• Open a business checking account to keep personal and business finances separate.
• Obtain the necessary licenses, permits, or certifications required for your business.
• Adhere to local laws and regulations, especially those related to operating a business in winter.

Remember, the key to success in the winter business realm lies in meticulous planning, adaptability, and a relentless commitment to delivering value to your customers. With a well-crafted strategy and focused execution, your seasonal venture can thrive during the colder months and potentially evolve into a year-round operation.

Conclusion

Embracing the realm of seasonal business ventures opens up a realm of promising possibilities for budding entrepreneurs. This article has illuminated the vibrant landscape of winter business ideas, encapsulating the potential for both innovative concepts and entrepreneurial success. In the ever-evolving realm of business, seasonal ventures stand as a testament to the adaptability and the capacity to capitalize on unique opportunities.

The allure of seasonal businesses lies not only in their profitability but also in the inherent benefits they offer. Entrepreneurs can bask in extended off-season breaks or utilize the downtime to strategically enhance sales for the upcoming year. Winter, with its crisp air and festive vibes, ushers in a plethora of business prospects that cater to various consumer needs and preferences.

Venturing into a successful winter business holds achievable aspirations, with a myriad of options at your disposal. From creating winter wonderlands with fake snow to offering specialized services like gift wrapping, Christmas tree farming, and beyond, the winter season fosters a fertile ground for entrepreneurial growth. Niche opportunities such as ventless fireplace installation, winter sports equipment rentals, and home winterization services allow you to carve your unique niche while catering to specific demands.

Entrepreneurs can also explore the thriving market of hot beverages, cake shops, firewood sales, and even senior errand services, capitalizing on the seasonal shift in consumer preferences. The article’s comprehensive exploration of various winter business concepts ensures that regardless of your expertise or inclination, a viable venture awaits your vision.

As with any business endeavor, proper preparation is paramount. Ensuring adequate small business insurance coverage is imperative, safeguarding your venture from unforeseen challenges. Crafting a robust business plan, delving into market analysis, and securing necessary resources form the foundation of your journey. Whether your winter business idea revolves around a traditional Christmas tree farm or the innovative realm of hot beverage pop-ups, each endeavor encapsulates the spirit of entrepreneurship and the art of fulfilling unique seasonal needs.

In a world where business landscapes evolve swiftly, the seasonal avenue is a testament to innovation and adaptability. Armed with ingenuity and a dash of holiday spirit, the journey into the realm of winter business ventures invites you to manifest your entrepreneurial aspirations and bring warmth to the hearts of customers seeking seasonal delights. As winter whispers its frosty symphony, let your venture resonate with the melody of success, embracing the magic of the season and the promise of prosperous beginnings.

Image: Envato Elements

More in: Develop an Idea

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