My partner Greg Bettinelli (worth following on Twitter) was recently named by The LA Business Journal as the “Top deal maker in Los Angeles in Venture Capital.” Numero uno. I was nowhere to be found. And that’s a true reflection of just how successful and prolific Greg has been in LA. In a world that is hyper competitive – even amongst VCs – I can honestly say that not only is the media recognition accurate but it is amongst the proudest days I’ve had in developing Upfront Ventures and our future. Earnestly.

For poor Americans, the place they call home can be a matter of life or death.

The poor in some cities — big ones like New York and Los Angeles, and also quite a few smaller ones like Birmingham, Ala. — live nearly as long as their middle-class neighbors or have seen rising life expectancy in the 21st century. But in some other parts of the country, adults with the lowest incomes die on average as young as people in much poorer nations like Rwanda, and their life spans are getting shorter.

Social networks such as Facebook and Twitter have always been in an arms race with bots—software that impersonates a user, often used by spammers. Twitter listed spam accounts as a “risk factor” in its recent annual report, estimating that 5 percent of active accounts are fake, but conceding it could be higher.

But social networks and messaging companies are now moving to welcome bots into their networks. Helping companies set up marketing or customer service bots is seen as a new revenue source.

After spending a decade as an entrepreneur, Vani Kola turned Venture Capitalist in 2006 supporting world-class entrepreneurs in building their companies. Gaining perspectives on being both sides of the table, she feels she’s better able  to empathize with founders. Sharing her biggest challenge as an entrepreneur, Kola says, “I am an engineer by training. When I started my first company, it was very hard to drop my engineer’s hat and don the business person’s hat. It took me a good year to nurture those skill-sets and build a real business with real customers and a strong sales operation.” 

Following my recent article titled, “The Venture Capital Industry is Still Rightsizing,” this week let’s turn to venture capital trends and commitments and the number of companies financed.

2016 Venture Capital Trends

Figure 1 shows venture capital commitments — the amount of money that the industry has invested in startup companies measured in inflation-adjusted dollars — from 1980 to 2014. The dotted line in the figure is the five-year moving average.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com

My brother, Mike, is a jazz musician in New York City. Over the years, he's invested countless hours developing his skills and reputation in the music scene. He’s lugged his saxophone all over New York and all over the world, gradually moving up in his industry and making a name for himself.

If you ask him why he chose to be a musician, his answer is simple: Music chose him. That was the only thing he ever wanted to do, and he made the sacrifices required to do it, especially in the early days when he could barely pay his bills. With success, he’s found that he can live a much better life than he might have imagined a decade ago. Perhaps he’ll even hit it big someday.

Image: Flickr user C2 Montréal

The University of North Carolina intends to comply with a new, widely criticized state law banning people from using public bathrooms and changing facilities that don’t correspond with their biological gender. But Margaret Spellings, the system’s president, stressed on Friday that doing so “is in no way an endorsement of this law.”

In a conference call with reporters, Ms. Spellings said she was “absolutely” worried about the implications of the law, particularly “what it might suggest with respect to the culture we would be engendering on campuses.”

Image: Gerry Broome, AP - Margaret Spellings, president of the U. of North Carolina system, expressed concern about a new state law banning people from using public bathrooms that do not correspond with their biological gender. “Is this a state that’s unwelcoming of people of certain kinds?" she said. "This particular law suggests that might be the case.”

The division technique works by dividing a product or its components functionally or physically and then rearranging them back into the product. Division is a powerful technique in the SIT Method because it forces you to break fixedness, especially structural fixedness. Division forces you to create configurations by rearranging components in ways you were not likely to have done on with on your own.

To apply the division technique, you start by listing the product’s internal components. Next, you divide the product or one of the components. There are three ways you can do this.

Image: http://www.innovationinpractice.com

The loud lacrosse bros, eerie employee disappearances and lack of any discernible leadership should all have been clear warning signs that something strange was going on at HubSpot.

But it took a teddy bear to really drive the point home for Dan Lyons, a veteran technology writer who joined the billion-dollar marketing startup in 2013 in his early 50s to kickstart a second career and support his family.

Image: Dan Lyons, a longtime technology writer, offers a hilarious, eye-opening look inside the maddening world of billion-dollar startup HubSpot.IMAGE: RMBURNES/FLICKR 

A troubled murmur spread through the investment community in recent months, built on speculation that Africa’s economies are losing momentum after a decade of stellar growth. Turmoil in the foreign exchange market elicited doubts among investors as they watched the Nigerian naira, South African rand, and Zambian kwacha take a beating against the major world currencies. Economic growth in Africa’s largest economies — South Africa and Nigeria — decelerated to low single digits and stoked fears of stagnation and recession.

Image: http://ventureburn.com

“Won’t you stay just a little bit longer?” Employee retention may not be what the 50s crooner Frankie Valli had in mind when he sang that iconic line from the song “Stay,” but it is a topic of concern for every employer who fears losing top-tier talent. That is particularly the case for small businesses where the loss of a single employee may represent an entire job function or department. Add to that the strain involved in recruiting, hiring, and training a replacement — it’s a headache no employer wants.

Whether you are actively involved in the Knoxville-Oak Ridge entrepreneurial ecosystem or just an observer and hopefully champion, you have to agree that the past couple of weeks have been filled with very positive news. In fact, the only somewhat downer piece of news had a real positive upside.

You might think about these recent events and announcements as the equivalent of 3D-printing our entrepreneurial ecosystem. Why do I use that metaphor? I’ll explain at the end, but let’s first review the developments over the past 14 days or so.

A lot more seed and early-stage capital could begin flowing into fledgling startups at New Mexico State University this summer thanks to a new innovation fund being set up by NMSU’s Arrowhead Center Inc.

Arrowhead, which manages all of the university’s technology transfer and commercialization programs, announced its intent last year to establish a $2 million Arrowhead Innovation Fund to make $50,000 to $150,000 investments in startups that either work to develop and market new NMSU technologies, or that were launched by NMSU faculty, staff, students or alumni with compelling ideas for new products and services.

Every startup founder loves to prompt for questions from investors and potential key team members about their vision, and the huge opportunity that can be had with their disruptive technology. Yet if you are on the other side of the table, there are some other key questions that you need to ask, which will tell you more about the real success prospects for this business.

Bill Reichert, one of the most prominent venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, will  discuss getting to WOW!  when delivering an elevator pitch. 

Bill will also listen to some elevator pitches and provide feedback.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6MS9AtJDTE

If you would like to apply to pitch to Bill send an email message to:

 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Put this in the subject header:

 T 4/12   Pitch Applicant -  Pitch Your WOW! to  Bill Reichert  

Pitching slots in the formal line up are limited.

  Even if you are not slotted to pitch, you will learn a lot from listening to Bill's presentation and hearing his feedback to presenting startups.  All are welcome to attend and learn from Bill!

 There will be demo showcase tables for startups and tables for startup service providers on display during the networking portions of the event.

   If you would like table space for your startup, or if you are a startup service provider and would like a sponsor table, please send an email message to:

  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

While being an entrepreneur is one of the most amazing jobs in the world for sure, the trade-offs for your health may not be that alluring.

According to an analysis conducted by Gallup-Healthways for The New York Times, entrepreneurs tend to eat healthier foods and exercise more often than other workers, yet they are also more exposed to stress and are less likely to have health insurance. As a person, who wears many hats daily and is responsible for staying motivated and leading the team no matter what, you also need to align time for self-care.

Being an entrepreneur as you’re raising a family is hard, but it's not impossible. In fact, there are plenty of lessons you learn as a parent that can transfer over to entrepreneurship. Entrepreneur parents gain a unique perspective into the everyday lives of millions of Americans, plus your kids can inspire new venture ideas.

However, the pressures of home and family, coupled with operating a business, can build up a mountain of stress. To be successful at both, here are a few tips that I've incorporated into my life as a parent-to-be to manage both very well.

While attending CGI University last weekend for the first time as president of the Clinton Foundation, rather than a university president, I found it hard not to constantly remind students to study, get some sleep and keep their dorm rooms clean. But I know my worries are mostly unfounded — relative to other generations, today’s young people are all right.

Technical entrepreneurs love to compare the number of features in their product to competitors, and they love to keep adding features -- just because they can. Unfortunately, this approach often turns off mainstream customers, who find the result hard to use. Even worse, this “feature creep” often makes the final product late to market, sluggish and more expensive than competition.

The note from Purdue University midway through last week didn’t sound right.

After recently committing $250 million over the next five years to target the life sciences and a week after one of the splashiest research finds of the year – a team of researchers had mapped the structure of the Zika virus, a step toward a possible cure for an international public health emergency – Purdue announced that it was looking for $50,000 between now and April 28 to keep the project rolling.

Image: Mark Simons/Purdue University