Were in a age where just about everyone is starting their own business in hopes of making a way and name for themselves.

The life of Entrepreneurship is far from easy! I’m pretty sure you’ve all seen that meme about entrepreneur’s that reads “late nights, early mornings…” and so on. Well it’s true and as women we ourselves face a series of unique challenges in the start up world, but that’s another topic.

Elite Daily recently enlisted the help of Aubrie Pagano, cofounder and CEO of Bow and Drape, to put together a list of how female entrepreneurs can successfully start their own businesses.

I just read 7 Things Never to Tell Your Spouse About Business Finances, posted by Barry Molz on Amex OPEN forum. I like it. I like Barry, too, I’ve been on his podcast and I like his work. But his tone here makes me uncomfortable.

If you’re curious, compare Barry’s tone in that post to mine in some of my (somewhat confessional) posts on me and my wife and entrepreneurship: My biggest startup boost, for example; or this true story on relationships vs. new business. And yes, my wife and I have been married 44 years, in a relationship that has survived years of scraping to support a startup, and sending five kids through college; so maybe I maybe I know something about this.

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Think you were born to be an entrepreneur? Maybe not, but what nature doesn’t provide, nurture certainly might have and the whole point of entrepreneurialism is to blaze a new path, right?

Check out this list of fifty signs you’re meant to be an entrepreneur from John Rampton at Entrepreneur, and see if you have what it takes to make it in the big, bad world of business.

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If you’re an entrepreneur you have heard the million reasons not to go into business: It’s too risky, you might go into debt, you’ll probably lose sleep, your social life is kaput, and the list goes on. But even with all these uncertainties, people are still attracted to the startup world. There are just as many, if not more reasons to take the leap and go into business for yourself. Here are just a few:

Now more than ever, companies must think outside the box and innovate in order to remain competitive and relevant in a constantly changing technology landscape. Traditionally, innovation has been a product of internal R&D departments. In recent years, though, there has been a paradigm shift toward open innovation (OI) — that is, collaborating with external parties in product development. For companies participating in open innovation, these external parties are usually customers, suppliers or universities, but can even be competitors.

Earlier this year, URX was a relatively unknown startup — a small team with a very technical product. That changed this spring when it announced a $12 million Series A and landed a series of glowing profiles from TechCrunch, The Wall Street Journal and others. Today, the company is quickly becoming synonymous with a new trend and term — deeplinking — the ability to link users to any page inside an app (vital as more people use their phones and tablets for everything they do).

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You’ve got a great idea, you’ve validated the market—but you don’t have the technical skill to build it yourself. What do you do? As a programmer myself and a member of Dorm Room Fund, one of the first venture capital funds run by students, for students, I get asked about this a lot. The advice that I give depends on how much you need done—and how much you’re willing to pay.

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Colorado college students and Jefferson County students in grades 9 through 12 are encouraged to rev up their creativity and entrepreneurial spirit, and begin working as soon as possible this summer on their innovative entries for the 2014 Innovation S.T.A.R.S.* Challenge. The deadline to enter the competition’s preliminary phase is 5:00 p.m. on Friday, August 29, 2014. (*STARS is the acronym for Student That Accomplishes Real valuable Stuff.) More information can be obtained at: http://www.JeffCoInnovators.org.

The growing skills gap is one of the most persistent challenges affecting thriving and lagging state economies—the disparity between the skills companies need to drive growth and innovation versus the skills that actually exist within their organizations and in the labor market. This disconnect, expected to grow substantially as the boomer generation retires, causes workers and companies to miss out on realizing their full potential. A sizable skills gap impacts virtually every aspect of the economy, thereby affecting our national competitiveness and, in turn, causing the economy to fall short of its potential.

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OLATHE, Kan.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Metactive Medical, Inc. (“Metactive”) announced that it was awarded top prize in a business plan competition hosted by the Medical Device Entrepreneur’s Forum, a special session held on June 20, 2014 at the ASAIO 60th Annual Conference in Washington, DC. F. Nicholas Franano, MD, President and Chief Executive Officer of Metactive, presented to a group of experts in medical device development and commercialization, venture capital, reimbursement, and regulatory affairs. Metactive placed first among a selected group of companies with innovative medical devices used for the treatment or diagnosis of disease.

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CLEVELAND, June 24, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Global innovation firm NineSigma today announced availability of a new white paper on innovation contests. Titled, Open for Business: The New Innovation Contest Does More than Deliver Solutions, it explores this finely tuned open innovation option that delivers speed, transparency and ultimately solutions that can be applied more quickly in the market.

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Deep in the treetops in the tropical montane cloud forests of Costa Rica, Franklin & Marshall College biology professor Sybil Gotsch and several students are gathering data that could answer questions about our changing global climate. Shrouded in the foggy jungle canopy hundreds of feet above ground, Professor Gotsch’s students are using sensors to track the movement of moisture through epiphytes, or “air plants,” living among the branches. As climate change lifts the average altitude of tropical clouds, the epiphytes and the microhabitats they provide for other important organisms become more vulnerable.

There’s an elephant in the room when it comes to "innovation." And it’s an ironic elephant given that we're all so hooked on data analytics, a/b testing, and getting metrics for anything and everything. Yet we all throw around terms like creativity, breakthroughs, and disruptive innovation. Companies eat up this stuff--they're fully on board. Innovation is going to shape the future. Sure--if we track and shape it.

The Proof of Principle POP grant program administered through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) has been in place since 2001. It provides a unique source of funding not only to academic researchers, but also to companies collaborating with academic researchers through matching partnered grants.

Academic researchers with commercially relevant projects should investigate funding opportunities offered by this program. Further, companies with links to academia stand to benefit from this funding program because of the opportunity for academic researchers to receive funds to match the support of a committed industry partners, which can effectively double the money available to a project. POP award recipients will certainly be the investigators to watch for their future commercialization and industry collaboration efforts.

My college friends are all struggling to find good internships. We know that work experience is as important, if not more important than a good GPA. We know that an internship inspires confidence that you can get things done beyond passing an exam – that you can work with others to solve real problems in industry.

Finding that first internship is tough, especially for students entering their Junior year. Many of my Chemical Engineering and Chemistry colleagues are taking summer jobs as laboratory assistants cleaning glassware.

Girls today need to learn how to code for two reasons: first, there aren't enough female engineers, and second, it will become an essential skill, just like reading, writing, and math.

The tech community used to be a place that wasn't exactly accommodating to women — but times are changing, and Google is making sure the next generation of coders is shaped by today's girls with Made With Code, an initiative to inspire girls (and their parents) to get interested in STEM. Read on for all the ways Made With Code helps grown-ups and little girls understand that it's a big deal to get ladies involved with programming!

Ever been to an office meeting with dance breaks?

No?

It might be just the thing to help rejuvenate workers on a day of back-to-back meetings. Or so experts said during a recent, well, meeting at Kaiser Permanente’s Center for Total Health.

As a manager, you can’t accept underperformance. It’s frustrating, time-consuming, and it can demoralize the other people on your team. But what do you do about an employee who isn’t performing up to snuff? How do you help turn around the problematic behavior? And how long do you let it go on before you cut your losses?

Cybersecurity is all the rage. It provides the plot to James Bond movies, headlines news reports and prompts presidential orders. Among other things, the cyber threat ''represents one of the most serious national security challenges (the United States) must confront.’’ The deliberations of corporate boards of directors should be no exception to the furor. This article examines the current status of cybersecurity standards, insurance for cyber risks, and how insurance may or may not inform a board's standard of care.

 

When China implemented its first economic reforms in 1978, the government accounted for more than 90 percent of GDP. By 2005, public sector contributions to GDP represented less than 50 percent. Does this mean entrepreneurs are thriving?

The plight of entrepreneurs in China has been the subject of much debate among startup communities outside China. It is especially fascinating for researchers and policy analysts monitoring the progress and potential of China’s economic transformation. To change from the government accounting for 90 percent of GDP in 1978 to less than 50 percent today speaks volumes about the comfort level China’s strong government has in entrepreneurs as innovators.

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