During the day, Benjamin Popa is an electrician for the University of Michigan. The rest of the time he is an entrepreneur working to turn a number of side businesses into cash cows.
"It's time to step out of the comfort zone and do something different," says Popa, president of Popa Enterprises, the holding company for all of his businesses.
The first step was starting is own frozen-drink-based company. A friend in California turned him onto renting frozen drink machines (think slushees and cocktail mixes) out to parties and events about four years ago. That led to the creation of Fabulous Frozen Drinks, which serves the Ann Arbor area.
That bite from the entrepreneur bug prompted Pastor to brainstorm his own ideas. The first is the RC Card project. The idea is to put all of the information from receipts and coupons on a debit card-like technology.
"It came from looking at my wife's purse and seeing a mess of coupons and receipts," Popa says. "I thought there has to be a better way of doing this."
He is pursuing this idea from Ann Arbor SPARK's Central Business Incubator in downtown Ann Arbor with the help of a few independent contractors. He hopes to commercialize this idea (and create a more than a few jobs) by the end of 2010.
Source: Benjamin Popa, president of Popa Entreprises
Writer: Jon Zemke
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