For many small businesses, getting funded is the biggest barrier. There are lots of methods to choose from for small businesses without seeking venture funding. Small Business Trends spoke with Nevin Shetty, Co-Founder and CEO of Blueprint Registry on their successful fundraising approach. They’ve done $25 million in sales without any venture capital. Shetty supplied 10 tips for bootstrapping a start up with no venture capital funding.

What’s going on in the information and communications technology (ICT) industry? Companies that used to thrive with clearly defined product portfolios are entering one another’s businesses. Erstwhile hardware companies such as Hewlett-Packard (HP) and Xerox have moved into software services. Software companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, and HCL Technologies make smartphones. Companies that used to offshore computer services, such as WiPro, are moving back onshore and competing through the cloud.

Image: https://www.strategy-business.com

Warren Buffett — arguably the most skilled investor of our time — said reading 500 pages a day was the key to success, because "that's how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest."

Which is likely why so many important businessmen and women make reading a daily part of their lives. It's why Bill Gates reads 50 books every year (roughly one a week) and Mark Zuckerberg kicked off 2015 with the goal of reading one every other week.

Image: http://www.businessinsider.com

Applying for colleges is a significant milestone in any young person's life.

But when it comes to choosing the best college, prospective students and their parents don't always see eye to eye.

The Princeton Review released the results of its annual "College Hopes and Worries" survey on Tuesday, and it included a ranking of the top 10 "dream schools" for students and parents alike.

The survey asked more than 9,000 college applicants which school they wished they could attend if acceptance or cost weren't an issue.

Image: Students and parents both considered Stanford University to be one of the best colleges in the US.Linda A. Cicero/Stanford University/Facebook

Each year I have witnessed many “pitch” contests and participate investor pitches in locations across the United States.

If you’re not familiar with the investment pitches and contests, think ABC's "Shark Tank” television program, but with industry experts and/or investors asking the questions.

Image: Daymond John, co-founder and chief executive officer of Fubu, speaks during an interview in New York, U.S., on Friday, Jan. 25, 2013. John participates in "Shark Tank," a show in which contestants pitch business ideas to a panel of investors on Walt Disney Co.'s ABC television network. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg

Many leadership qualities have been identified that are important to great leaders across time.

But there are seven specific qualities of leaders that seem to stand out as being more important than the others.

The good news is that each of these leadership traits can be learned, and they must be learned by practice and repetition.

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Cincinnati’s local startup scene has grown tremendously in recent years. Composed partially of new endeavors in the life science and biotech fields, business is booming, and it’s due in part to partnerships and funding from CincyTech.

CincyTech serves as one of the most active sources of seed funding in the Midwest and has helped entrepreneurs evolve. It has played an instrumental role in the development of 40 active portfolio companies and the creation of 1,049 jobs.

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Dr. Chia Soo’s professional life has been dedicated to finding new and innovative treatments to promote skin regeneration for scars from burns or other skin trauma. While performing research at UCLA more than 20 years ago, she found a promising peptide drug for wound healing and eventually founded her own company. But before she could bring it to market, she would need to perform preclinical proof of concept studies, which for her, would require more laboratory space, access to specialized and expensive facilities, and a place to grow her business. 

Image: http://newsroom.ucla.edu

As an entrepreneur, it might feel like a cold and lonely world out there, but truth is there’s an entire community of other entrepreneurs out there. One of the best place to find these like-minded individuals? A coworking space.

That’s what Nick Devane, the CEO of PilotWorks, a coworking space and commercial kitchen rental company that caters to food entrepreneurs and startups, says. There are a number of benefits to working at a coworking space, including the ability to get advice and feedback, build relationships and find mentors. It’s also important to not only leverage the people but the facilities, too.

Nothing happens in business until someone makes a decision. These days, with the market moving at warp speeds, the timeliness of decision making is also critical. What might have been the right decision yesterday, may be the wrong decision tomorrow. Yet one of the most common complaints I hear as an advisor to businesses is that the decision process is arbitrary or broken.

KEN MONTGOMERY HAS always nurtured star students. One went on to become President Obama’s deputy chief technology officer; another founded a coding school in Nebraska; still others are Rhodes scholars and Harvard PhDs. But the English teacher and debate coach had no idea what he was doing right—until he started polling those former students. The secret wasn’t test prep or more homework, they told him. It was that Montgomery had encouraged them to create. What if, he thought, he built a whole school around that idea?

Image: Students enjoy a break between classes at Design Tech High School. - Jeff Minton 

On Tuesday, March 22nd, Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH) and Rep. Bill Foster (D-IL) introduced the Support Technology & Research for Our Nation’s Growth and Economic Resilience (STRONGER) Patents Act into the U.S. House of Representatives. This bill is a companion to the legislation of the same name pending in the Senate, and co-sponsored Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI).

Image: http://www.ipwatchdog.com

Amazon tops the list of the 50 most in-demand places to work according to LinkedIn’s ranking of data generated by its 546-plus million members around the world.

The companies were given a blended score based on job demand, engagement with the company, interest in existing employees, and retention (where people stay for longer than a year).

LinkedIn found that workers value a company’s purpose over its perks. For instance, employees say that getting to work on industry-leading projects is a major attraction, even though free snacks aren’t provided. Healthcare coverage is also top of mind for workers and No. 6-ranked Apple is said to be working on primary care clinics for employees.

How executives create second-act careers on boards.

Changing careers at mid-life is an option for more and more executives. Some choose early retirement, others are nudged towards the door, and others decide that doing something that they love is more meaningful and they can afford to get off the corporate track.

A portfolio career is a tailor-made cluster of activities/roles related to a former exec’s interests and motivations which together make up a ‘career’ following a full-time career role. Increasingly, executives approaching the end of their corporate career will start to build their portfolio with their first non-executive director (NED) experience, often on the board of a charity.

toToronto, Canada – Shenzhen, China (March 26, 2018) – The Second China (Shenzhen) Innovation & Entrepreneurship International Competition, Toronto Division (2018 Sci Innovation Competition) announces the 10 winners of this year’s competition on March 24th at the MaRS Discovery District.

Organized by the Canada Confederation of Shenzhen Associations (CCSA) and the Sino-Canada International Innovation Centre (Sci Innovation Centre), the competition’s 27 expert judges deliberated and selected winners from each industry category including IT technology, Biotechnology and Life Science, Electronic Science and Technology, Advanced Manufacturing, and Material and Energy.

Innovation is management. For those of us that want to create a lasting innovation culture in our companies, understanding this principle is vital to success. There may be plenty of myth making around innovation these days, but innovation is not about working on random ideas to see what sticks. Companies need to develop a clear point of view about where the world is going and the key trends that could impact their business. They then need to develop a clear innovation strategy that informs the types of new ideas they will invest in for the future.

No company or entrepreneur gets it right every time. As an angel investor, I have found that people claiming a perfect record are either lying to themselves, or they are not taking enough risk to enable a big payback. In the long run, your ability to thrive in business today is more about how you prepare for and handle the inevitable exceptions and failures, than shooting for perfection.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Maia Majumder was on Twitter earlier this month when she saw a map that terrified her.

The map recorded the number of local newspapers in each county across the United States. Large swaths were shaded light pink, denoting a county that had no local daily newspaper at all. As a record of the decline of the American newspaper industry, it was disconcerting.

Image: https://www.statnews.com

If you want to grow and scale your business over the next year, you need to have all four of these entrepreneur personality types.

Related: 10 Personality Traits of Legendary Entrepreneurs

The problem is, this is hard because you're a single person with a single personality.

But, if you want to build a successful business, there are several traits you must possess, and in essence, four "hats" you must wear. People often have one or two but struggle to embrace all four. In my experience after working with hundreds of entrepreneurs, this leads to a lot of trouble as you grow.

FALLS CHURCH, VA. — FOR decades, the educated and affluent have flocked to communities in northern Virginia, which boasts excellent schools, high-quality health care and easy access to the nation's capital.

But of all the communities in the region – and indeed, the country – one tops the rest when it comes to measuring the crucial social and physical factors that combine to shape the health and well-being of its residents.