Jon Gosier is one of those well-to-do tech entrepreneurs you may have never heard of. That might be because he made his money heading not to Silicon Valley, but to Uganda.

It's there that he was introduced to angel investing, a sort of financial backing used to help startups or small companies get going that typically has a warm and friendly vibe. Gosier found himself investing in several companies not only in Uganda, but also in 11 other African countries, and succeeding nicely along the way. Now he's hoping he can bring this brand of investing to the land that so heavily restricts it: the United States, of course.

No one grows as a leader without the support of other people. Effective peer-to-peer coaching can offer the encouragement people need to overcome the fear of starting something new. Peer coaches, like professional coaches, can also hold their “clients” accountable for moving in a new direction.

Setting up a peer-to-peer coaching network on the team you manage can accelerate your team’s learning. I’ve been providing peer-to-peer coaching opportunities for decades, in my Wharton courses and in all kinds of organizations, and most recently in a MOOC (massive open online course) I teach on Coursera called Better Leader, Richer Life. In this piece, I’ll explain how to set up a non-directive coaching peer coaching network, in the Socratic tradition (in which the client discovers solutions to problems via dialogue), as opposed to instructional, evaluative, and directive feedback (in which an expert coach solves the client’s problem).  Through compassionate, caring inquiry, everyone can develop and improve their abilities through practice and reflection on what works (and what doesn’t).

It’s impossible to have a good strategy poorly executed. That’s because execution actually is strategy – trying to separate the two only leads to confusion.

Consider the recent article, “Why Strategy Execution Unravels — and What to Do About It“ by Donald Sull, Rebecca Homkes, and Charles Sull, in the March 2015 issue of HBR.  Articles like this are well meaning and all set out to overcome the shortfalls of “execution.” But they all fail, including this one, and for the same reason: you can’t prescribe a fix for something that you can’t describe. And no one can describe “strategy execution” in a way that does not conflict with “strategy.”

If only the work on patent legislation in Congress had the rigor and reliance on sound principles of the engineering and science that produce inventions and medical breakthroughs protected by patents. I am an engineer, and earlier in my career have worked with engineers from around the world to find the best technical solutions to include in standards for wireless communications. Fascinated by the legal and economic structures that support innovation, I later pursued a Ph.D. in economics, and now I study the role of patents, technology standards, and patent litigation in the innovation economy. As an engineer and economist who reveres the scientific method and empirical research, I find myself compelled to engage in the currently ongoing patent debates for getting the record right on some dubious data currently being cited as “facts”.

SINCE 2011, OVERSTOCK.COM, from my home state of Utah, has been targeted by 28 so-called patent “trolls,” seeking to enforce vague patents. Often these trolling lawsuits come from shell corporations that don’t make or sell anything. Because Overstock refuses to settle such abusive suits, it ends up spending millions of dollars in litigation costs.

BECO Capital has been associated with some of the most successful technology venture capital (VC) transactions in the region. The firm is a hands-on partner that assists its portfolio companies through growth finance and operational support. Its team brings a rich and diverse experience in venture capital, technology, entrepreneurship and finance, triggering value creation across all the business and operational functions of portfolio companies. This includes helping them to expand to new markets across the GCC, acquire key talent, implement operational improvements, adopt corporate governance practices and raise further growth capital. When looking for potential businesses to invest in, here are the five things BECO Capital looks for in a startup:

American higher education isn’t badly broken, according to John L. Hennessy, president of Stanford University. It’s still "the envy of the world." But it has to reckon with serious problems, including rising costs and falling degree-completion rates, he told the American Council on Education’s annual meeting here on Sunday.

In a keynote talk on "Information Technology and the Future of Teaching and Learning," the Stanford president, who built his academic career in electrical engineering and computer science, sketched out ways in which technology could help. "My goal is to provide higher education that is affordable, accessible, adaptable, and enhances student learning," he said.

Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Milan, March 16-19th. This is an event that, in an Italy always crowded with intermediaries and policy makers, will see them well represented in the Milan event, for it is strong the lure of public money and European funds that revolve around the creation of enterprise. The opportunity is therefore tempting to ask why policymakers lose sight of the purpose of the emerging entrepreneurial society. All the more so in Italy where the Jobs Act has eclipsed the Start-up Act.

As emerging economies around the world stumble along, one exception stands out — India, where growth is set to overtake China soon. Now a new report ranks Asia’s third largest economy as the fourth largest startup ecosystem in the world. The report, released last month by India’s IT association Nasscom, places the country behind only the US, the UK and Israel and notes that should the current trend continues, India could rank second by 2017.

Image: http://ventureburn.com

If an entrepreneur doesn’t find themselves in over their head at least 20% of the time, they are probably not pushing the limits, not taking enough risk, and probably not working on an idea that’s worth doing. The challenge in to know when and how to ask for help, and not let bravado and ego mask anxieties. The best people know when they don’t know, and know how to find the right help.

This week is sponsored by the word "no." Not that we're going negative, it's just a chance to look at how powerful these two simple letters are in changing up the way you do business.

Read on for the power of "no." 

No VC was more active in Canadian Tech in 2014 than Montreal-based BDC Venture Capital which invested in a range of companies including D-Wave Systems, BuildDirect, and BliNQ Networks.

Real Ventures was the second most active VC in Canada Tech overall in 2014, investing in Breather’s $6M Series A, as well as Frank & Oak’s $15M Series B, among other tech startups.

MaRS Investment Accelerator Fund rounded out the top 3 with a slew of early-stage investments including Flybits $3.75M Series A and Askuity’s $1.8M Seed VC round.

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwired - Mar 13, 2015) - The Mass Technology Leadership Council (MassTLC) today released its annual State of Technology report -- highlighting successes while calling out key areas where more and faster progress is critical in terms of jobs, investment, education, business climate, government policy and competitiveness.

Issued by Massachusetts' premier trade association serving the innovation ecosystem, the report updates stakeholders at the halfway point of its 2020 Challenge. In 2010, MassTLC called upon the state's public and private sectors to work together on investing in the Commonwealth's innovation economy. The goal was to stave off complacency, emphasize the state's existing strengths and anticipate what's next in order to add 100,000 new jobs.

The problem companies face when they hire a lot of people is that you have to put those people somewhere so that they can work. Over the last 20 years, two trends have become commonplace: cubicles and open offices. These two methods have one thing in common: they trade space for productivity.

The cubicle surrounds a desk with a set of walls, giving employees a semi-private workspace. Initially, most cubicles were high enough that most people could not look over the walls to see you, but more recently, the trend has been to create half-height cubicles, which creates a more open feel to the office.

Image: http://www.fastcompany.com

HERE we go again. At Harvard, Emory, Bucknell and other schools around the country, there have been record numbers of applicants yearning for an elite degree. They’ll get word in the next few weeks. Most will be turned down.

All should hear and heed the stories of Peter Hart and Jenna Leahy.

Peter didn’t try for the Ivy League. That wasn’t the kind of student he’d been at New Trier High School, in an affluent Chicago suburb. Most of its graduating seniors go on to higher education, and most know, from where they stand among their peers, what sort of college they can hope to attend.

Image: Ben Wiseman

March 15, 1985, might not be a date etched in your memory (if, indeed, you were even alive), but that was when the first .com (“dot com”) domain name was born — 30 years ago this weekend, as it happens.

A computer manufacturer called Symbolics registered Symbolics.com at a time when it quite literally had the choice of any word or name on the planet to procure for its domain. But given the company’s name, well, Symbolics.com made the most sense.

As entrepreneurs, we’re all familiar with the phrase “fail fast”, but what does that really mean? And how do you put it into practice? In addition, what is a “pivot”; can it be done without abandoning everything and starting over?

Failure can take many forms. It could be a feature, it could be product-market fit, it could be the business model, the choice of a cofounder, a hire, or the whole idea of starting a business in the first place. Fail fast does not apply to all of these categories. Let’s break it out.

“Scope creep” (or feature creep) is an insidious disease that kills more new business solutions than any other, especially high-tech ones, and yet most founders (who may be the cause) never even see it happening. This term refers to the penchant to add just one more feature to the product or service before first delivery, just because you can.

According to most definitions, an entrepreneur is one who envisions a new and different business, meaning one that is not a copy of an existing business model. Many entrepreneurs have a passion and an idea, or even invent a new product, but are never able to execute to the point of creating a startup. Even fewer are able to grow the startup into a viable business.

University College Cork is seeking out talented aspiring tech entrepreneurs to participate in the EU-XCEL European Virtual Accelerator, which will create entrepreneur teams that are incubator-ready.

Successful applicants from across Europe will participate as part of newly formed international start-up teams alongside some of the most promising and talented tech entrepreneurs in intensive, specially designed entrepreneurship training and mentoring programmes over five months. 

Image: http://www.siliconrepublic.com