Entrepreneurship is a challenging venture with numerous obstacles. As outlined in previous posts, many of the barriers faced by Native American entrepreneurs are encountered by entrepreneurs on a broad scale.

But research suggests that for Native Americans, especially on reservations, “the challenges to starting a business may be greater by virtue of their more isolated geographic location and the associated lack of available resources.”

We Americans are a touchy lot when it comes to our sense that we earned what we got. We love the mythos of the self-made striver, and have cultural freakouts when our president dares to declare that "you didn't build that." The thought that our accomplishments are not our own both enrages and terrifies us.

Image: http://theweek.com 

I’ve been attending PTC’s flagship conferences for a decade. While the keynote speakers are always exciting, Malcom Gladwell’s presentation this year was especially meaningful. I’ve always understood what was being discussed at a technical level, but this year Gladwell didn’t talk technical – he told a story – one that I connected with deeply.

Innovation is widely regarded as important to long-term business performance. However, CEOs often don’t have the career background and education that would equip them to personally lead the process of new product development. We’ve found that CEOs of big pharmaceutical companies, for example, are more likely to have a background as company lawyers, salespeople, or finance managers, than one in medicine or pharmaceutical R&D.

A common request I hear from aspiring entrepreneurs is for an assessment of their latest idea. I don’t even try to assess things at the idea level, since I can’t read minds. I can assess execution plans, if you have any. Yet I believe that business success is more a function of the person than the idea or the plan, so the best idea is one that is a best fit for you, and only you can assess that.

1.  Followed an Instinct and Signs That a Big Opportunity Awaits Lesson 1: Pay attention to your radar.

Popcorn came to David's attention after he saw people blending things into popcorn, from M&Ms candy to Hot Tamales.

Tapping into his entrepreneurial spirit, David thought specialty popcorn was something that could sell — even before the big popcorn trend.

Image: http://foodbeverage.about.com

So, you have taken the bold step of crowdfunding your project. You may be an artist who wants to fund a project that's important to you personally but not supported by traditional sources of distribution. Or maybe you're an entrepreneur with a product you believe can be the next Pebble SmartWatch or Flow Hive that hasn't yet been endorsed by angel investors or venture capitalists.

In today’s economy, making a profit is tough and maintaining profit is even harder, but doubling and tripling it is a whole other ball game.

We know it’s not all about the money, but without money you cannot realise any of the dreams that you have for your business. We have managed to more than triple our bottom line profit from the previous period within the first half of this year. Our team is now applying the keys and practices that enabled this growth to our clients’ companies with similar success.

Everyone wastes time. I know I do. I’d like to waste less time, but doing that requires identifying which time is wasted. And that’s a tricky question.

Open time isn’t wasted time. Sometimes white space is where the best ideas take root.

Watching TV and surfing the web are often low-value activities, but they’re not automatically wasted time. These things sometimes bring pleasure, and pleasure is a good in its own right.

Researchers at the University of California San Diego are working on a wireless transmission system that uses the human body’s magnetic waves to send a data signal to a device.

“What’s that, again?” you might be thinking. You’ve read it right. The research team has already created a proof of concept prototype to send transmissions from one device, across a person’s body, and to a second device.

The technology could one day provide an alternative to Bluetooth for sharing data between a smartphone and smartwatch, or other wearables.

Image: http://liliputing.com

Back in May, Tesla turned heads when it announced its plans for a new battery product, which would allow homes and large-scale commercial operations to store energy from solar panels or serve as a backup power source during grid outages.

Image: The Tesla Energy Powerwall Home Battery is unveiled by Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk during an event in Hawthorne, California April 30, 2015. Tesla Motors Inc unveiled Tesla Energy – a suite of batteries for homes, businesses and utilities – a highly-anticipated plan to expand its business beyond electric vehicles. REUTERS/Patrick T. Fallon

In today's increasingly complex manufacturing operations, Murphy's Law is only an unexpected hiccup away—anything from a data error to an errant vibration to a dulled cutting tool can undermine production. But in a future with fully effective sensing and information technologies that anticipate and avert potentially harmful process spasms, everything that might go wrong, simply could not.

Although Israel’s high-tech industry is already quite mature, and being a start-up entrepreneur is not really an innovative idea, founding a company, let alone a company that will survive, is not easy. Moreover, the process is liable to turn out to be quite hard as time goes by, with the pace of technology innovation almost as fast as a Formula 1 racing car.

Image: http://www.globes.co.il 

Tech in South Africa is interesting. We have a relatively sizeable and connected (at least via mobile) population, which makes any internet or web based service relatively accessible.

We have a large English speaking population and thus can immediately download and use the latest apps and web startups churned out by Silicon Valley before they are actually “internationalised”. We also have an active financial services and corporate sector (traditionally big buyers of tech products and services).

On the heels of a successful crowdfunding campaign, raising over $500,000 in just 31-days, we sat down with Will Africano, GNARBOX Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) to ask the ultimate head scratcher: How did you do it? The pocket-sized portable device, that stores, edits, and shares HD footage on the go, garnered a viral following through the 31-day Kickstarter. The crowdfunding campaign raised $540,776 from 2,988 backers, exceeding their funding goal of $100,000 by 541%. Africano laughed, “It wasn’t easy! There were a lot of sleepless nights leading up to and through the campaign, but we pulled it off. We couldn’t be happier…but now it’s time to roll up the sleeves once again and finish building the product.” 

Image: http://business.transworld.net 

A little bit of creativity can go a long way in the morning. For some coffee drinkers, a cup's appearance can be just as important as its taste. Recent surveys have even shown that some people are willing to pay more for an especially creative latte. 

Image: Reuters/Romeo Ranoco Coffee artist Zach Yonzon's latte portrait of world champion boxer Manny Pacquiao.

The federal government is applying its technology experts to fix what ails its workforce.

How can a team of engineers, designers and developers improve morale and build “the next generation federal workforce,” as the General Service’s Administration’s 18F team claimed it will do in a blog post this week?

We have all heard that content marketing is new wave of marketing, and that if you are not in content marketing you stand to fail miserably. However, there are a few golden rules that, if followed correctly, could make this transition into content marketing far easier and show some results faster than you would have received otherwise.

Crown-of-thorns starfish are one of the greatest threats to Australia's Great Barrier Reef, and a team of researchers have a robot that's going to fight back.

The starfish species, which is native to the Indo-Pacific region, feeds on coral and a serious outbreak can have a devastating impact on reef health. Some estimates suggest the organism has accounted for a 40% decline in coral cover in the World Heritage-listed site.

Image: QUT 

Facebook's usage growth may have plateaued over the past 3 years, but Americans still appear to be huge fans of the world's largest social media site.

According to stats from the Pew Research Center, charted for us by Statista, Facebook is the runaway leader in user engagement among all social media sites in the US. The percentage of US Facebook users who said they logged in every day reached 70%, while 43% said they do so multiple times a day. Facebook's percentage of daily users far outpaced other leading social media services, including Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. 

Image: http://www.businessinsider.com