Before you pursue any plans into an entrepreneurship track, it’s important that you realize the very real costs of starting a company. Sure, you may have a (possibly) great startup idea, but recognize that in order for your idea to succeed, you need to implement a business model that can ensure a stable cash flow to keep your startup alive. In reality, cash flow concerns are the top challenges that entrepreneurs face.

Image: (Consero Group)  

What would you do if your back gave out -- after 100 miles of nonstop running?

What would you do if you were in a tent in the most remote part of the Hebrides, swallowing gnats when you were breathing?

What would you do if you were so injured that you had to re-learn how to walk?

What would you do if you were held hostage for 92 hours, hung upside down and whipped until you bled?

In today’s tech-driven business world, the title “serial entrepreneur” is a coveted badge of honor. A quick look at Google, for example, yields no less than 830,000 mentions — with “how to become a serial entrepreneur” topping the list of popular searches. And all the while, the phrase increasingly pops up in personal bios, job applications and everyday conversation. Of course, it’s easy to understand the appeal of the phrase. It suggests that someone is so full of groundbreaking ideas they can’t channel all of them into just one company. Instead, they choose to focus their genius on creating an array of world-changing, money-making businesses.

Mashable recently hosted a special #Mashies Twitter chat to discuss how to adapt to the changing landscape of digital marketing.

Over the course of an hour, @MashBusiness covered an array of questions, ranging from some of the challenges brands and agencies face in digital marketing today, to different ways brands can adjust to the various changes social networks make to their platforms.

The classic model in angel investing goes something like this: You look at a large number of potential companies and winnow them down to a handful of the best companies and invest a relatively large amount in each of them.

Will the model give you great returns? I don’t think so.

The success of this model depends on your ability to pick winners. You probably can’t. I don’t mean that there is something wrong with your selection skills. But that when outcomes are truly uncertain, human beings can’t pick winners and losers. The information they need to make these choices doesn’t exist.

A lot of the jobs small businesses are looking to fill across the country are primarily the same as those larger companies are working to fill, too. There are some places where small businesses can actually be competitive when hiring, according to data from Indeed. Indeed has identified the top 10 jobs being filled by small businesses nationwide. According to that data, office and administrative support positions are most in-demand by small businesses. Management positions are second-most in demand by small businesses in the U.S.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com

India just set a new national record heat benchmark when the small city of Phalodi, in northwest India, recorded a high temperature of a whopping 51 degrees Celsius, or 123.8 degrees Fahrenheit, on May 19. 

The data, recorded by the India Meteorological Department (IMD), shows that the high temperature eclipsed the previous national high temperature of 50.6 degrees Celsius, which was set way back in 1886. 

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the President will award the National Medal of Science and the National Medal of Technology and Innovation in the East Room of the White House. The Medals presented to 17 individuals are the highest honors bestowed by the United States government on scientists, engineers, and inventors.

“These scientific laureates exemplify the American spirit and ingenuity that have enriched our society and the global community in profound and lasting ways,” President Barack Obama said. “Their ambition and accomplishments are an inspiration to the next generation pursuing careers in the essential fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.”

LYDIA DISHMAN 05.19.16 5:52 AM The number of new businesses opened is important to the economy. But that number doesn’t effectively measure impact. That’s why the Kauffman Foundation is building on its annual Index with an in-depth study of Growth Entrepreneurship.

The Growth Entrepreneurship Index measures both business revenue and job growth using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Business Dynamics Statistics on all new employer firms, regardless of industry. The measurement is based on three indicators:

Cade Massey: Tell us about your organization.

Kate Glazebrook: The Behavioral Insights Team was started in 2010 as a very small unit in the prime minister’s office in the U.K., and the basic function was to bring the literature in behavioral science to bear on public policy design and delivery. We try and drag out the great insights of some of our colleagues, do good work in behavioral science, put it in a public policy context and also rigorously evaluate. We do something that governments are not used to doing, which is truly testing whether or not their programs really work.

When we look at how the U.S. economy is performing, we usually focus on the largest metropolitan areas. But some 29% of non-farm jobs in the U.S. are in small and midsize metro areas. And since they tend to be less economically diverse and more volatile, these metro areas often are where we can more clearly see the fissures in the economy — the sectors that are growing, and which are shrinking.

In this year’s edition of our Best Cities For Jobs survey, 13 of the 20 metro areas with the fastest job growth are small (under 150,000 total nonfarm jobs) and medium-sized (between 150,000 and 450,000 total nonfarm jobs).

Image: http://www.newgeography.com

BOSTON – There’s change afoot at the top of the economic development agency charged with fostering electronic health records, expansion of high-speed internet access and the state’s so-called innovation economy.

In a letter on Thursday, Pamela Goldberg, the chief executive of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative and a prominent player in trade and tech efforts under former Gov. Deval Patrick, announced her resignation.

Goldberg expressed pride in the work she had accomplished leading the quasi-public agency since 2011 and announced she would resign effective May 31.

Image: Detail from the cover of the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative's 2015 annual report. (Image courtesy of the MTC)

Entrepreneurs in residence are appearing in numerous companies across different industries around the world. But what does that really mean and how are they helping to foster intrepreneurship? We caught up with Elizabeth Gore, entrepreneur in residence at Dell, to find out more…

A new overtime rule is about to greatly impact the American middle class.

The Department of Labor (DOL) has announced an updated regulation that increases the salary threshold for paid overtime from less than $455 per week to $913 per week. Before, salaried workers were only entitled to paid overtime if they made less than an annual salary of $23,660. Today, employees who earn yearly salaries of $47,476 or less will be entitled to paid overtime if they work more than 40 hours a week.

Image: Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — States need to focus on using their IT operations budgets to pay for data center maintenance rather than relying on hefty infrastructure upgrade investments, according to a panel of state IT leaders.

At a discussion at the National Association of State Technology Directors’ Eastern Region conference here Wednesday, IT officials from up and down the East Coast stressed that they were increasingly moving away from using capital expenditures to overhaul their data storage facilities in order to keep up with the rapid pace of technological development. 

Image: Dean Johnson, chief operating officer for the Georgia Technology Authority, speaks at a panel at a conference in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Wednesday. (StateScoop)

This is not Ron Ben-Zeev’s first go-around at entrepreneurship.

The 55-year-old has started several companies, to varying degrees of success, before he started the travel startup Sqygl about nine months ago.

But, for the first time, Ben-Zeev sought out the help of a network of mentors at Starter Studio for his new startup Sqygl.

Image: http://www.orlandosentinel.com

It was a question that almost seemed to be rhetorical.

“Do you think funding is a good thing or a bad thing?”

The question was posed by Bianca Gates (a sales executive at Facebook and co-founder and president of Birdies) to Andy Dunn (founder and CEO of Bonobos) at Vator Splash Spring last week in a fireside chat. But the answer given by Dunn was anything but simple or typical.

Image: http://vator.tv/news

Are things getting better or worse when it comes to women in the venture capital industry?

We don’t know, because no one is regularly collecting data on the issue. Not the National Venture Capital Association, the industry’s major trade association, and not the Cambridge-based New England Venture Capital Association.

Image: WENDY MAEDA/GLOBE STAFF Maria Cirino, cofounder of .406 Ventures in Boston, says the venture capital industry has a made a good start on tracking diversity.

Advocates for small businesses and the U.S. research community are once again at loggerheads over pending legislation to expand a multibillion-dollar federal program that promotes commercialization of academic research. It’s shaping up as another long, hard fight: Science lobbyists are playing catch-up but have time on their side, while small business leaders say they don’t understand why more academics aren’t in their corner.

Image: A federal small business research grant helped the Ocean Renewable Power Company of Anchorage, Alaska, develop this floating generator, which produces electricity from river currents. Ocean Renewable Power Company