If you’re starting a small business or developing a new product, you need to give it a name. That name will become your brand name and it has the potential to become very valuable. You need to make sure you pick something amazing. However, picking an amazing brand name isn’t enough to position your business or product for success. Before you invest time and money into developing a brand reputation around that amazing name, there are some critical brand name legal questions you need to answer to avoid getting into big and expensive trouble later.

Y Combinator head Sam Altman agrees with other recent complaints that early stage startups are often overvalued.

But he blames investors, not the founders who started those companies.

His remarks counter a Twitter rant earlier this month from Dave McClure of rival accelerator 500 startups, who criticized some founders for insisting on high valuations, then balking at terms that would protect small investors in case of an early exit.

Visionary, team builder, mentor, he shows us some timeless leadership lessons but also some glaring failures.

Although the ‘Great Man’ theory of leadership belongs to the scrapheap of history, its allure continues to mystify. Underlying this theory is the assumption that if the right man (yes, it is often assumed to be a man) for the job emerges, he will almost magically take control of a situation and lead a group of people into safety or success. While such leaders are rare, there are times when a singular individual steps out from the crowd and serves as a paragon of leadership.

Image: Free Digital Photos

Han Min-jin, a 26-year-old engineering student at a local college in Seoul, is living his dream. He founded a small business named Byit last year offering services for community sports events.

“Starting a business was a dream come true after a mundane internship with a local accounting firm,” Han said in an interview last week.

Han is among the thousands of Koreans in their 20s and 30s who founded their own companies in the ongoing South Korean start-up boom of the 2010s.

Creativity in primary and secondary education is badly lacking. Reports have shown that current widespread standardized education models have been ineffective in instilling principles such as innovation across student bodies.

In fact, findings showed that ” the education system itself is a barrier to developing the creativity that drives innovation. Parents and educators agree that today’s education system places too much emphasis on testing and not enough investment in the training, tools and time needed to teach creativity”.

Image: Richard Branson - Image via Virgin

In promoting Entrepreneurship I have come up with a number of definitions, which I think captures the essence of the role of the Entrepreneur in Nation building and in developing society. One of the most important is the ability to solve problems. I will however go over the five Pillars of Entrepreneurship again:

Image: http://www.ngrguardiannews.com

The digital marketing train has left the station. Thankfully, more than 7,000 eager passengers jumped aboard the fast-moving Adobe Digital Summit last week in Salt Lake City.

As an invited guest and panel leader, I met panoply of marketers, bloggers, analysts, and Adobe executives. Here are the biggest insights that will impact every marketing leader’s digital manifesto for the coming year:

“That’s a great idea!” is a line we’ve all said. Sometimes to ourselves, sometimes to others and the best? Someone’s said it to us

Many of us dream of being entrepreneurs. Taking that great idea and turning it into a business. Designing, building, and delivering. Reaping the adulation – and dollars – that come with success. But we may also tend to overlook the toll extracted by starting a truly successful business. Toiling for hours, days, weeks, months even years before seeing results. Taking big risks with money, time and sometimes, relationships. Think you’re cut out to be an entrepreneur? Many are but here are some signs you might want to stick to the day job.

Before you break an arm patting yourself on the back for being an entrepreneur, consider these folks:

Elon Musk, Thomas Edison, Sir Richard Branson, Oprah Winfrey, Wayne Huizenga, Benjamin Franklin, Jerome Lemelson and Geroge Bernard Shaw.

They're serial entrepreneurs.

Image: http://www.cincinnati.com

Admit it: just the thought of watching a PowerPoint makes your eyes glaze over.

We’ve all endured endlessly boring, unimaginative PowerPoint slides and that’s why alternatives like Prezi and Haiku have become so popular – particularly with the under-30 set.

Microsoft even rolled out its own PowerPoint killer called Sway last November.

Image: http://venturebeat.com/

Is Israeli cyber-security worthy of its global reputation? Are the impressive price tags of recent M&As in the field justified? And will the field of cyber-security continue to be a driving force in the Israeli hi-tech ecosystem?

Over the last several years, we’ve seen a burst of activity in the cyber-security domain here in Israel. Just in the past three years, we at JVP have looked at some 270 cyber companies (almost 100 in the past year alone) from a variety of areas in the field, including network security, next-generation firewalls, mobile/BYOD, and others.

Before Silicon Valley became a world-renowned technology hub, the home of US innovation was in Dayton, Ohio. It's almost impossible to go one day without using one of its inventions. But how is it faring now?

One particular valley springs to mind when thinking of American innovation. It's where brilliant engineers and scrappy entrepreneurs tinker late at night in their garages, until they come up with the perfect solution to a problem. And then they found start-ups that make them fabulously wealthy.

Is there such a thing as a “good death?” George Washington University nursing researcher Dale Lupu is convinced there is, and says too many Americans don’t get one as they receive medical interventions they don’t want at the ends of their lives. “We’ve spent a lot of money on people for what they don’t even want because we didn’t ask them about their preference or values,” said Lupu, an associate research professor at GWU's nursing school. Lupu is among hospice and palliative care experts trying to change a long-standing problem in health facilities by boiling it down to a top 10 list of recommendations for improving end-of-life care.

Image: Erin Julius, George Washington University

Every startup fears that one angry and unfair customer who can jeopardize the business by a negative post on Ripoff Report, Yelp, or one of the hundreds of other consumer complaint and review sites on the Internet. Most entrepreneurs don’t even know how to keep track of what people are saying about them on the web, much less how to respond or remove it.

Behind the stories of most first-time venture-backed CEOs building startups and attacking markets at breakneck speed, there is usually a tight network of mentors and peers showing them the ropes of company building. That’s certainly been my experience at Pantheon—we likely would not exist if not for the crucial help of James Lindenbaum, Adam Gross, Steve Anderson, Ryan McIntyre, Brad Feld, and all of the advisors who have assisted us on our journey.

Every entrepreneur with a new technology tells me that his innovation will be industry-disrupting, meaning that it will render the existing technology obsolete, and create a new market. Yet truly disruptive innovations, like the smartphone from Apple and the rise of the Internet, are very rare, and are generally unpredicted. So why would any investor ever believe any of these claims?

Relais & Châteaux Africa has uploaded a video made up of drone footage that showcases the true beauty of Africa. The footage was shot using a DJI Phantom 2 with Zenmuse H3-3D Gimal with GoPro 3+ at 2.7K with an ND filter attached. The drone captures enchanting views of Africa. As it takes flight, over different landscapes, it captures stunning visuals of Zambia, South Africa, and Botswana.

Image: http://memeburn.com

Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Nanjing are the leading cities in China in terms of opportunities, and they lead others in technology, innovation and sustainable development, a new report from global consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers said on Wednesday.

Other cities on the list include Wuhan, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Xi'an and Tianjin, said the report jointly prepared by PWC China and the China Development Research Foundation. It examined the overall development of 20 Chinese cities (excluding Beijing and Shanghai) on the basis of 10 indicators to explore the directions they are heading in, the opportunities they have, as well as the steps taken to safeguard sustainable development in the new economic climate.

AUSTIN–Jeffrey Cardenas stepped on stage to give his company’s one-minute pitch. Grabbing the microphone, he began by posing a question to the large banquet hall, which was filled to capacity with investors, entrepreneurs and technology executives attending the South by Southwest technology convention in this state capital.

Image: Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas) was one of many speakers at SXSW who expressed frustration with the current political system in Washington. (Andrew Harnik for The Washington Post)

For the last two years, a few independent inventors have been walking the halls of Congress knocking on doors, requesting meetings and educating congressional staff on what patent reform really is. We are not lobbyists. In fact, we did not even know where the Senate was on the first day we went to Washington. So far, we have met with staffers in over 60 Senate offices and somewhere around 100 House offices. It has been an eye-opening experience.