Late last month a significant piece of legislation was passed in the US. The Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, which was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2012, finally introduced a rule that now allows anyone and everyone to invest in startups.

Citizens in the US (known as non-accredited investors) are now allowed to participate in equity crowdfunding and investment in startups and small businesses. The new rules state that startups now have the option to raise either $ 20 million or $ 50 million through two alternate ways.

California, the most populous state in the country, is attempting to legalized equity crowdfunding once again. Last year the Assembly gave it a valiant effort but the bill died ignominiously in Appropriations committee.  The execution was said to be delivered by the AARP, a group that sees crowdfunding as a potential way to defraud senior citizens.

This time there are actually two bills enduring the law making process;  AB722, similar to the bill that died last year, and the Local Securities Exemption Act.

When you’re growing a very product-focused, engineering-driven company, you find that culture is a top concern for many interviewees.

In a competitive hiring environment like Silicon Valley, prospective employees have extraordinary leverage in considering opportunities. Aside from the standard perks, they want to work in a happy, productive and respectful setting.

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A new UT Dallas-led initiative is aimed at identifying potentially marketable biomedical technologies developed at University of Texas System institutions and moving them more efficiently from the laboratory bench to the bedside. 

The University of Texas System’s Office of Technology Commercialization recently launched the Entrepreneurship Network, which has entered into a $172,500 agreement with UT Dallas to establish a Medical Technology Lean Startup Course and to implement it at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center. The project is designed to teach biomedical researchers at UT System institutions how to start new companies and transfer their life-science discoveries more quickly into the clinic. 

Image: Will Rosellini

Proceeds from U.S. private equity and venture capital initial public offerings were down 81% and 59%, respectively, from the first quarter a year ago. In its quarterly IPO review, Renaissance Capital said only five private equity-backed companies went public in the first quarter of 2015, down from 16 a year ago and down from 20 last quarter. “Instead of an IPO, firms have also taken advantage of alternative options through sponsor-to-sponsor exits and corporate sales,” Renaissance noted.

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When one of us (Walker) helped developed the idea that became Priceline.com, the challenge was to solve a decades-long problem: how could airplanes and hotels fill their last, otherwise empty and perishable rooms and seats while holding the line on the price and profitability of most bookings? Priceline’s unique “conditional purchase offer” – which allowed bidders to make low-ball offers which they were bound to honor if accepted – was an innovative solution that taught a big lesson: when underused assets are more fully exploited, everyone can win.

If you’re embracing online collaboration as a necessary evil — the only way to work with an increasingly dispersed team of global or remote workers, for example — then you’re doing it wrong. Online collaboration is not a second-best substitute for face-to-face work: It’s a complement with its own perks and benefits.

Is it better to ask for permission BEFORE or forgiveness AFTER when embarking on a new direction or innovation strategy others won’t understand until it comes to fruition?

There’s no one answer to this big innovation strategy question.

If you seek permission and get shut down, you’ll never know what was possible. If you launch your new innovation strategy and seek forgiveness for not seeking permission, you at least hope to have something to show for your effort (although you might not).

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Last fall, around the time Facebook announced it was buying WhatsApp for $19 billion, a flurry of studies offered a startling revelation: The U.S. startup rate has been falling for decades. The Kauffman Foundation, citing its own research and drawing on U.S. Census data, concluded that the number of companies less than a year old had declined as a share of all businesses by nearly 44 percent between 1978 and 2012. And those declines swept across industries, including tech. Meanwhile, the Brookings Institution, also using Census data, established that the number of new businesses is down across the country and that more businesses are dying than are being born. All this at a time when entrepreneurship had reached its cultural apex and was widely viewed as the sole sizzling ember in an otherwise cooling economy. The business and academic worlds were left slack-jawed: How could this be?

It’s a common occurrence in the startup world: A critical decision has to be made, one that will affect everything that comes after it, and may determine the fate of the company. It could be a decision whether to let a partner go or invest in a new technology. But the founder won’t consider all the options, even refusing to make what to virtually everyone else seems like the right decision.The startup flounders for a while longer. Then it fails.

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Close your eyes and imagine Apple’s logo. Now think of Nike’s. How about Target’s? We’re willing to bet that you conjured up images for each in your mind’s eye in less than a second or so. They’re that memorable.

As you can see, logos are so much more than simple symbols. They’re epic icons. Logos are the face of your company, the deliverers of the all-important lasting impression, crucial visual representations of your business, what you do and what you’re about. Accordingly, the utmost care and meticulousness should be taken when designing yours. If you already have a logo, the same goes for redesigning it. Spare no attention to detail.

You don’t have to spend money to make money. In fact, as an entrepreneur your burn rate should be nice and lean.

The magic of a lean startup is praised throughout the entrepreneurial community, but you may feel like it’s more of a concept than a reality. That’s not true. One great way to test a viable business idea or product is to create a free infoproduct first that is like a sampling of your idea. You’ll use that infoproduct as your bait to test the waters in your market before sinking a lot of time or money into a business that might not be viable.

Have you ever wondered how these and various other successful leaders are/were able to wield such a strong influence in the world of business?

The answer lies in the question itself.

They are Successful Business Leaders.

So a great follow up question will be – what qualities make them effective business leaders and help them stand apart from the competition?

Life is full of times when we have to negotiate: for a raise or promotion, on the price of a car or house, on how much of the housework you are going to do. Yet most people have at least some amount of anxiety about their negotiating skills.

To get started, it is important to think about your ideal outcome in a negotiation. The typical situation that comes to mind when we negotiate is a one-off negotiation between two parties. In this case, each one wants to get the best deal. Almost by definition, the better the deal that one party gets, the worse that the other party has done.

Though the Terrapins men’s basketball team didn’t pass the second round of the NCAA tournament, this university found success in a different kind of bracket. This university was named the “Nation’s Greenest University” by SaveOnEnergy.com in its March Mania Bracket, taking on Kansas University, Duke University and the University of Virginia before defeating the University of Louisville in the championship.

Image: Rachel George/The Diamondback

In any discussion of the attributes of successful people, persistence is always mentioned, often as the, or one of the, most important factors in success.

Major success seldom comes easily or without a great deal of effort. Often the only difference between those who succeed and those who don’t is the ability to keep going long after the rest have dropped out.

With health care costs rising in all sectors, cities have banded together to spur innovation addressing common problems in public health, community health, health services and healthcare technology.  For the right civic startup, that could translate into prize money and even seed capital.

The 2015 Multi-City Innovation Campaign focuses on health and human services challenges where technology interventions intersect, and can directly impact, city or county government services and goals. 

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has release a solicitation (NSF 15-562) seeking public and private partners for four new Big Data Regional Innovation Hubs. The hubs would build on the Obama administration's National Big Data Research and Development Initiative by creating a nationwide network of local stakeholders invested in overcoming technology barriers to large-scale data processing and interpretation. NSF plans to locate the four centers in different regions of the U.S., split between the Northeast, Midwest, South and West. Proposals are due June 24, 2015.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker announced the first 26 recipients of the 2014 Regional Innovation Strategies program grants. Managed by the Economic Development Administration, the Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) program is designed to advance innovation and capacity-building activities in regions across the country through three different types of grants:

As one of the most popular programs on television, “Shark Tank” is helping the public hear the term “angel investor ” and grasp what they do.  The TV sharks have likely invested in and coached many entrepreneurs, and helped increase their success. However, although there are similarities between angel investors and the TV sharks, I see many differences.