Ever wonder what makes an entrepreneur decide when to take a risk? Examples of entrepreneurial risk-taking range from the calculated to the fool-hardy.

You’ll never hear me minimize doing due diligence on your entrepreneurial dream. Indeed, an entrepreneur’s hunch without some foundation is like a belt without belt loops. Still, there will come a time when an entrepreneur must take action without all the answers.

By 2025, Gen Y is going to make up 75% of the global workforce and their independent-thinking and entrepreneurial mindset is going to change the future of the workplace. 

Unless employers can understand this, they'll risk losing their top talent, says Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding and author of the new book "Promote Yourself."

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, a yearly report funded by Babson College, concluded Wednesday that Americans are more bullish than ever about starting a business--even if their entrepreneurial ambitions will never materialize into the profitable business they believe it will become.

So does their entrepreneurial optimism actually lead to starting businesses?

According to the report--yes. But are those businesses successful? That's harder to prove.

Performance measurement — if done right — can be a core activity to move the health care system to higher value for the American public, while rewarding health professionals and health care institutions for doing the right thing for their patients. Yet, policy makers, private and public, have a duty to the public, patients, and providers to get it right — to measure and report accurately and meaningfully.

Harlan Krumholz and Peter Pronovost have been among the most important contributors to the development of performance measures for quality and safety of health care.  At the same time, each has written powerful critiques of particular aspects of the current measurement enterprise with suggested improvements. 

We all know at least one entrepreneur who always gets things done, and appears unstoppable in his quest. All of you probably know many others who talk incessantly about their great ideas, but never seem to even get started, or they give up at the first obstacle. What are the attributes that make an entrepreneur unstoppable, and is it possible for people to learn to be unstoppable?

According to my own observations, and a new book by Bill Schley, “The UnStoppables: Tapping Your Entrepreneurial Power,” there are some key “emotional mechanics” that put entrepreneurs in motion, and some principles that help entrepreneurs succeed in startups, as well as big companies. I believe we all have the power within us to learn and adapt to these principles.

After two and half years of helping to foster entrepreneurship, the Startup America Partnership has announced they will be rolled into Startup Weekend, which is backed by the Kauffman Foundation. The two brands will live under the new brand, Up Global which according to their announcement is backed by the Kauffman Foundation, the Case Foundation, Microsoft, Google for Entrepreneur and Coca-Cola Company.

Founded in 2011, the Startup America Partnership was blessed by President Obama and initially funded by the Case Foundation and Kauffman Foundation as a three year program to dramatically increase the development, prevalence and success of innovative, high-growth U.S. startups. It was led by Steve Case who appointed Scott Case (no relation) to drive the program. The news of the transition was shared with one hundred regional champions from twenty regions at the fifth Startup America regional summit in Phoenix in mid-April but then reiterated with more details last week.

If you think that participating in crowdfunding simply means investing in smaller companies that launch games and devices on Kickstarter, think again. With crowdfunding volumes reaching $2.7 billion in 2012, it has emerged as a viable, scalable alternative to public and private finance across the globe.

After surveying more than 350 active crowdfunding platforms, including IndieGoGo, CrowdCube, Symbid, and Gambitious (full site directory at crowdsourcing.org), and completing an in-depth analysis of market trends, research firm Massolution has identified five major crowdfunding developments for 2013 and beyond.

Whether you are just graduating with a Bachelor's, MBA, or some other graduate degree, you have probably heard how hard it is to find a job. But before you to take any opportunity that comes your way, stop and think: Far worse than continuing to look for a while longer is having a job with a bad boss, who won't just make you miserable in the short term. In fact, a poor manager can have a seriously negative impact on your career. This is particularly true for your first job after graduation. Without a sense of what your abilities are, a bad boss can make you feel trapped in self-doubt and erode your self-confidence.

So when job-hunting, don't just look at title and salary; pay a lot of attention to the person you will report to. One newly minted MBA I know left ten thousand dollars in salary on the table in order to work with a CEO he (and his industry) respected. The CEO told him in the interview, "I can't meet your salary requirements yet, but if you work for me, I'll teach you all I know." That decision was such a good one, the MBA is now an executive himself.

As a competitive swimmer, I took a few minutes out of my day to look at the changes that have occurred to one of the few pieces of equipment I routinely use – goggles. I was surprised to discover that there had been over 60 US patents issued since 1995. All to Herman Chiang of Taiwan.

Herman’s patents are a common example of bad intellectual property strategy, but before I get into why, I need to give a very brief background on the last forty years.

Two of the public policy things I care about are patent reform and immigration reform. I believe our patent system – especially with regard to software and business method patents – is completely and totally broken. And our immigration system – especially concerning immigrant entrepreneurs – is an embarrassment.

There is suddenly a lot of focus and attention on both of these issues. That’s good, and I’m hopeful that it will result in some meaningful positive changes. It pains me to see other countries – such as Canada, the UK, and New Zealand – be more progressive, open, and forward thinking around entrepreneurship and innovation than the US. There are days when I’m discouraged by our political system, but as I’ve gotten older and spent more time with it the past few years, I’m getting to a zen state of not being discouraged, but rather accepting the reality of the process and just being consistent and clear about what I think is important and how to fix it.

Moderated by Rick Badie

Women and minorities face tougher hurdles when it comes to start-up capital and financing, according to research commissioned by the Small Business Administration’s Office of Advocacy. Today, the researcher explains her findings, while the Georgia district SBA director outlines what that agency does to level the playing field. And we learn about “angel investors.”

Today is Demo Day for Techstars Boston.  I love Techstars Demo Days for many reasons, not the least of which is the amazing community that gathers to hear the brief, well-rehearsed pitches from the various start-ups who have spent months planning for this big event.

As accelerators like Techstars gain in popularity, many entrepreneurs wonder whether they should be applying and, if admitted, joining an accelerator and when they shouldn't.  I get this question a lot from my students, particularly as they're graduating and scrambling to figure out where they should start their company, how to raise capital and whether an accelerator is right for them.  Here are a few guidelines that I would think about if I were an entrepreneur making such a decisions.

For tech startups looking to go public, there's no better place than the U.S., as Tableau Software reminded us last week.

The provider of digital charting tools raised $254 million, the largest initial public offering for a U.S. tech company this year. Tableau delivered an off-the-charts return of more than 3,000 percent on its opening day to New Enterprise Associates, an early investor.

Startup America Partnership, a Washington D.C. nonprofit created two years ago by AOL Inc. co-founder Steve Case to jumpstart entrepreneurship, is joining forces with Startup Weekend, another nonprofit based in Seattle.

The move, which is expected to be announced Thursday, is being described as a way for Startup America to extend its three-year mission to boost startup activity in regions outside of technology hubs, like San Francisco or New York. Startup Weekend's chief executive, Marc Nager, will be leading the combined effort, officials say.

Alberta’s push for increasing commercialization of university-led research is raising concerns on campus about growing pressure to produce for profit and how to protect academic independence.

Supporters and critics of commercialization agree that without private sector cash, many breakthroughs and inventions might not make it out of the lab and into market. Many professors are keen to move into a commercial aspect of their research.

QUESTION: WHAT ARE SOME CHALLENGES YOU DID NOT ANTICIPATE WHEN DECIDING TO START YOUR OWN BUSINESS?

Question by: Ashley

CASH FLOW IS A COMMON STRUGGLE

“We started with clients from day one, so we’ve always been profitable, but one thing we didn’t think about when we started was cash flow. Many profitable businesses experience famine and feast, due to invoice scheduling or higher sales during certain parts of the year. You must have a plan to spread profits from the most profitable times to cover times when cash flow is slower.”

Last weekend, I went back to Wesleyan, my alma mater, to talk to undergrads interested in startups about internships in New York this summer. These meetings were part of a new initiative from Digital Wesleyan, a group represented by Jim Friedlich, Jake Levine and myself, to fund 10-week internships for Wes undergrads at startups. We've noticed a supply-demand paradox that would benefit from an entity funding, matching and placing students at companies. Interns are smart and eager but not all can afford to work for free; startups are in constant need of body and mind power but few have cash to spare even for 10 weeks of genius. So, if we can find a way to cover the cost of living for a few interns and place them well, everyone stands to benefit, short- and long-term.

The method is demonstrated by the laboratory of Dr. Gil Atzmon at New York’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Atzmon hopes that the dissemination of this technique will lead to the development of a “genetic thermometer” to assess a patient’s health in relation to other individuals of the same age.

The JoVE publication will feature a technique that measures telomere length. Recently, telomeres have gained attention because they serve as “caps” to chromosomes. As such, they mark the ends of genetic material and ensure that genes do not degrade as cells divide. Starting with the first replication of DNA and division of a fertilized egg, chromosomes shorten because the DNA replication process is imperfect. Certain organs, like the stomach or skin, are composed of tissues that reconstitute themselves frequently.

There is a pressing need to improve the ways in which the output of scientific research is evaluated by funding agencies, academic institutions, and other parties, say journal editors, researchers and scientific bodies, in the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment

The outputs from scientific research are many and varied, including: research articles reporting new knowledge, data, reagents, and software; intellectual property; and highly trained young scientists. Funding agencies, institutions that employ scientists, and scientists themselves all have a desire, and need, to assess the quality and impact of scientific outputs. It is imperative that scientific output be measured accurately, evaluated wisely, and used thoughtfully.

Negotiations over IP are acknowledged as one of the biggest bottlenecks in university/industry collaborations. A number of piecemeal schemes aim to overcome this, but a systematic approach is required to create more liquid markets for research outputs

In common with its peers across the pharmaceutical industry, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) is turning to university collaboration as a source of innovation. Since 2010 it has offered academic partners the chance to become core members of drug discovery teams – sharing the risks and rewards – through its Discovery Partnerships with Academia (DPAc) scheme.