America loves small businesses. A 2010 poll by The Pew Research Center found that the public had a more positive view of them than any other institution in the country – they beat out both churches and universities, for instance, as well as tech companies. As Janet Yellen pointed out in a speech last year, “the opportunity to build a business has long been an important part of the American Dream.”

The 10th annual UnitedHealthcare 100@100 survey found that centenarians and 10-year-old kids have very different ideas about what is considered “old.”

Each year, UnitedHealthcare surveys 100 centenarians to find out their thoughts on health and well-being. This year they included the kids in honor of the 10th anniversary.

On average, those over the age of 100 think that 87 is when someone can be considered old. But the youngsters on average think 46 is old. These results aren’t necessarily surprising, pretty cute actually, and they put into perspective what it’s like to be looking forward in time as opposed to looking back.

It’s not easy to “win” a visa in the high-skilled labor market.

The application period for those coveted so-called H-1B visas began earlier this month and the annual quota was maxed out in just a week.

Here in Massachusetts, some entrepreneurs are trying to work around the system through an experiment called the Global Entrepreneur in Residence Program.

Every year Wealth-X, an international wealth intelligence firm, releases its list of the wealthiest person in every state. 

The list is mostly made up of multibillionaires, including Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Larry Ellison. However, there are nine states with no billionaire residents, including Utah, New Mexico, Mississippi, South Dakota, Maine, Delaware, Hawaii, Alaska, and Wyoming.

Image: http://www.businessinsider.com

So small you may forget it’s there, yet packed with purpose, the Pinch multi-tool can lend a hand if you find the need to make a quick fix. Yet, coming in at an inch and a half long and a half-inch wide, it can sit on your keyring and not get in the way until you need it. Pinch boasts more than 11 different functions in under two inches. The small metal tool contains a mini pry bar, bottle opener, hex wrench, wire stripper, nail puller, 1” mini ruler, 1” mini scraper, hex bit holder, and two flat screw drivers measuring 4mm and 6mm.

Image: http://smallbiztrends.com

Recently, I arranged to videotape an interview with David Green, the internationally known urban planner from Perkins and Will. P&W is the architecture firm recruited by the University of New Mexico’s Robert Frank and engaged primarily by UNM but also by the city to help chart our course to the creation of a vibrant new urban technology corridor.

The PW framework calls for a synthesis between science and research entities and the city, county and others. Together, science and the city, we will give birth to a third new thing; an innovation ecosystem known in urban planning circles as a “Rain Forest.”

There’s no doubt about it: Women entrepreneurs face more obstacles than their male counterparts raising money, but some women are finding that crowdfunding is a way around those obstacles.

Stand Out In the Crowd: How Women (and Men) Benefit From Equity Crowdfunding, research I just completed, finds that the successes of pioneering women entrepreneurs show the way to financing that will work well for other women who are starting and growing companies.

The other day, I had the opportunity to attend an event where four founders of billion-dollar companies were speaking in a round-table format discussion.

Todd Pedersen is the founder of Vivint, a home automation company based in Provo, Utah, that sold to Blackstone for $2 billion. Josh James is the founder of Domo, a business intelligence software company based in American Fork, Utah, which recently raised a $200 million round valuing the company at $2 billion. Ryan Smith is the ounder of Qualtrics, a survey software company based in Provo, Utah and is valued at more than $1 billion. And David Elkington is the founder of InsideSales, a sales software company based in Provo, Utah that recently received a $1.5 billion valuation.

Starting your own business can be a ticket to the good life, where you decide when and where to work and set the rules. But some people struggle at it, because they aren’t prepared for the change in mindset they need to thrive.

How do you ensure you make a great living as an entrepreneur—so you can say goodbye to your day job permanently? I asked that question recently Rob Holdford, CEO of Wealth Management, Inc., in Little Rock, Ark., and a life coach who is author of LIFEonomics: Living Free of Worry and Regret, a book about how to pursue your passions while keeping your finances healthy.

When, at age 24, I told my boss (somewhat tongue in cheek) that I wanted to become a CEO, he nearly fell off his chair. It was 1974; I was a software developer working for IBM. At that time, lowly engineers were not expected to aspire to roles reserved for successful salespeople.

But my boss’ guidance helped me take a hard look at myself and make becoming the CEO a real objective. I eventually achieved my goal 30 years later at Business Objects, but it took a lot of careful planning, as well as focus and determination.

If I had to design a MythBusters episode on myths about entrepreneurship, a few ideas would come to mind.

Have the hosts drink 4 cans of Red Bull and give them a test of cognitive function.

Play a soundtrack of ambient coworking space noises and try the same test.

Have women and men pitch the same business ideas and see which ones get funded. (Oh yeah, that’s already been done.)

Myths about entrepreneurship abound, even more so lately because startups have entered pop culture along with hoodies, working in garages, drinking Bulletproof Coffee, and generally crushing it.

Although Greece is showing initial signs of recovering from its 2008 crash, its economy continues to suffer. It has become clear that the economy will not become prosperous only by the given recommen- dations of the so called Troika, namely by cutting costs and public expenditures, and by making institutional reforms, as much as these steps are needed. If nothing else changes, the country will have a steady, tourism-based economy supplemented by a food manufac- turing base. However, these components will not yield substantial prosperity increases for the Greek society. At the same time the country has a number of unexploited hidden assets, in particular a small number of excellent research institutes and a great number of top researchers, most of them however working abroad. The central problem is the lack of an innovation-oriented industry structure and of a well-functioning innovation system connecting research output with the demand of entrepreneurs and high-tech start-ups in Greece. Greece needs a strategy for a strong capacity building towards the creation of new applied research institutes. If appropriate research networks are developed out of these and if innovative firms result, creating new products with high value-added, the country has the opportunity to transform into an innovation-driven economy.

SPECIAL REPORT: If consumers put safety and security of their payments as a key priority when shopping, it is with good reason.

A huge data breach at US retailer Home Depot set off a series of fraudulent transactions through financial institutions in September this year, leading to the draining of several customer bank accounts.

Criminals used stolen card information to buy prepaid cards, electronics and even food.

Image: Printed, not booked. (Alan Levine/Flickr)

Our society, or more appropriately the entrepreneurship community, seems to have an idée fixe with the work-life balance concept. The general mind-set in the tech-preneurship community is that you should not have a work-life balance. Your work should become your life. Some go as far as arguing that if you truly enjoy what you are doing you cannot call that work, it is just another part of your life.

The world is ablaze with high-growth startups that are making headlines and raising millions. With the world economy in the state that it is, governments and private sector role players all know that global growth will need to be driven by young companies that find new ways of solving problems through innovation and technology.

Image: Louw Barnardt is the MD of Outsourced CFO - a financial consulting business tailored to startups and SME’s and understands your business' financial needs.

Call it serendipity. When the management team behind Foundation Medical Partners decided to shift their investment strategy away from medical devices and therapeutics in favor of health IT, the name change to Flare Capital Partners coincided with an exit. IBM Watson snapped up its portfolio company Explorys in a big announcement at HIMSS this month. Explorys, a Cleveland Clinic spinout, is a predictive analytics company that amassed a huge amount of data to develop cognitive insights for clinical decision support.

WASHINGTON, DC – Corporate venture groups invested $2.2 billion in 196 deals to U.S.-based companies in the first quarter of 2015, according to the MoneyTree Report™ from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC) and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), based on data provided by Thomson Reuters. Corporate venture accounted 16.6% of total venture dollars invested and 19.0% of all venture deals for the quarter. Total dollar investment in the first quarter is up significantly compared to the fourth quarter of 2014 when corporate venture groups deployed $1.4 billion in 199 deals. Part of the dramatic increase can be attributed to a $900 million investment by Google Ventures in SpaceX.

It’s funny how seemingly unconnected things come together sometimes. A recent example for me was being interviewed by China Central TV (CCTV) on the Bayh-Dole Act a couple of days after stumbling on an article on the attempt by their government to foster innovation while cracking down on political dissent. While it’s easy for us to look askance at that proposition, we may be about to launch an equally quixotic experiment of our own: seeing if American innovation can survive the undermining of our patent system.

FRANKFURT– Germany is taking aim at an endemic European problem. No, it’s not the Greek debt crisis –it’s funding for early-stage technology startups.

The Deutsche Börse Venture Network, a new, online-only platform for businesses and investors, will hopefully give investors more visibility into European startups, said Steffen von Blumröder, head of the financing department of Bitkom, an association of information technology companies.

BY FREDERIC KERREST

If you've ever tried to fundraise for a charity run or your daughter’s field trip, you know it can be hard work to persuade people to part with even small amounts of money. To build an independent, long-term company, you'll have to convince investors to give you large sums of money not just once but multiple times.