Every new business quickly realizes that revenue coming in every period on a committed basis is the Holy Grail to survival and growth. According to many experts, getting new customers is five to ten times harder than getting additional revenue from existing customers. Thus the subscription model (low fixed monthly payments), is rapidly becoming the norm for new products and services.

Subscription pricing has been around for a long time for magazines, cloud-based software, and gaming, but now I’m seeing it used for just about anything, including for more stylish clothes via Mr.Conection, gourmet foods via TryTheWorld, and toys for your kids via SparkBoxToys. If you are an entrepreneur not using this model, it may be time to consider a pivot.

The American International Toy Fair is the stuff of dreams—both childhood and adult. All the newest toys, including magnetic sand, remote-controlled pterodactyls, stuffed-animal Grumpy Cats and endless construction sets, are not only on display throughout three massive floors—they’re unboxed. With wide eyes, Scientific American scoured the aisles in New York City’s Javits Convention Center this February for the standout science and technology toys of 2015. Here are our favorite six:

To be a successful technology start-up these days, you need a few ingredients: money, a novel idea and a catchy name. By late 2014, Beepi had achieved the trifecta. In less than a year, the Los Altos, California–based start-up had amassed $79 million in funding and a $200 million valuation. The company’s guiding idea — that the process of buying and selling a used car was needlessly difficult and in dire need of improvement — allowed investors to situate Beepi within a fashionable narrative of disruptive innovation. (Who better to disrupt than used-car salesmen?) And Beepi’s name observed the two- syllable rule made safe by

About a dozen people sit around a large table, listening intently as engineer Ryan Liang explains the science behind his latest creation, a virtual reality headset. He passes it around, and anticipation builds as the face of each person who tries it lightens up. "Wow. It's very … real," says one.

The group, intrigued by the device, overwhelms Liang with questions on its uses, technical specifications, and whether one day they'll be interacting with each other in the virtual world.

In the last three years, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has taught more than 700 teams of scientists how to commercialize their technology using serial entrepreneur Steve Blank’s “Lean Startup” method. Sharing a common interest to promote societal benefits, NSF teamed with the National Institute of Health (NIH) to pioneer the same program to support biomedical innovation and translation.

Throughout 2015 Emory University and its Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) are celebrating 30 years of guiding innovative discoveries from the laboratory with the ultimate goal of creating commercial products.

Emory's OTT, which had humble beginnings 30 years ago as part of the Office of Sponsored Programs, now includes a 17-member staff that not only guides inventors through the complex process of technology transfer, but also works to increase the value of inventions and reduce the risk they may falter along the path to development. OTT's robust product pipeline currently includes 39 products in the marketplace and 13 more in various stages of testing and development.

The state of Michigan may soon get out of the venture capital business.

The state House Commerce and Trade committee takes up legislation tomorrow that would sunset a state program that has made hundreds of millions of dollars in tax vouchers available for investment.  

Ned Staebler, Wayne State University’s vice president for economic development, has been appointed as president and CEO of TechTown Detroit.

The Detroit business accelerator and incubator was founded in partnership with the university in 2000. Staebler will continue in his current role at Wayne State while starting his new job at TechTown on March 9.

So here's a weasel on a woodpecker.

The furry hitchhiker was caught on camera in east London's Hornchurch Country Park by photographer Martin Le-May and caught the attention of a Twitter user on Monday night.

While it might look like an adorable pairing, Le-May reckons the wily weasel had supper on its mind.

IMAGE CREDIT: TWITTER/MARTIN LE-MAY

To Helena Valencia, Miami was home. She had grown up there. It was the place that had shaped her understanding of people and launched her into the wider world. In fact, her love of the city’s mingled cultures and vibrant local businesses was one of the things that had inspired her to cofound Unamano, now a world-renowned nonprofit that supported entrepreneurship in emerging markets.

Life on earth evolved from simple single cell organisms into complex multi-cell life forms over billions of years by adapting to the ever-changing environment on our planet. Through all these changes, one thing has remained constant, the force of Earth’s gravity. In all living organisms, their up-down and left-right asymmetry, structural strength, size and shape of force-producing elements, sensory systems and how they age have evolved with a constant compass, 1g force.

What if we subtract that 1g force? Would cells/organisms live shorter or longer, would they become structurally stronger or weaker, would they develop more or less disease, would medications we use to treat disease have more or less effect? In the vast majority of cases the answers here are…we simply don’t know.

A software developer, a tech start-up, a tracking device manufacturer and a cold pressed oil producer present their businesses in front an audience of more than 100, in the amphitheater of the Economic Studies Faculty in Cluj-Napoca, in the heart of Romania. They seem open to discussion and questions from the audience and willing to experiment with a new instrument: financing via the capital market.

Thirteen other companies have already presented their investment cases in front of interested investors, in Bucharest, and announced plans to get listed on the new AeRO market, Bucharest Stock Exchange’s alternative market dedicated to small and medium enterprises and start-ups.

When you start out in the working world, you’re just concerned about doing your job. You’re probably at the lower end of the totem pole, just trying to complete all of the tasks that come your way to the best of your ability.

At least, that’s how I was. Until I had a direct report.

Compiled from post-startup reflections written by Intern Fellows at Wharton Entrepreneurship, these tips are sure to give you a leg up on the competition!

1) Network early

Luke Chernosky (WG’14) found his internship through networking, and you can too! Today, networking can be as simple as connecting with someone over LinkedIn or, in David Pankiewicz’s (W’14) case, striking up a conversation in a coffee shop. Opportunities can present themselves at any time and in any place, so stay attentive. The earlier you make valuable connections the easier it will be to break into the start-up of your dreams. And because start-ups are frequently a close-knit group of colleagues, the right conversation with one can lead to an even better conversation with another!

We scribble notes on an already crowded whiteboard, surrounded by the buzz and hustle of one of San Francisco's popular co-working spaces. Across from me is the head of marketing for one of the startups I first invested in as an angel. The founder had asked me to weigh in on their first major product launch plan, and I see they have a lot of good ideas, but the big picture is missing. The rollout lacks one cohesive message that will tie it all together.

Digitization is upending many core tenets of competition among industries by lowering the cost of entering markets and providing high-speed passing lanes to scale up enterprises. At the extreme are hyperscale businesses that are pushing the new rules of digitization so radically that they are challenging conventional management intuition about scale and complexity. These businesses have users, customers, devices, or interactions numbered in the hundreds of millions, billions, or more. Billions of interactions and data points, in turn, mean that events with only a one-in-a-million probability are happening many times a day.

Y Combinator will likely raise a fund that could be several billion dollars, three sources confirmed to Business Insider.

The seed capital company will use funding largely to support investments in its startups that are now on the cusp of either a big IPO, or, also, multi-billion dollar valuations, as hedge funds and non-traditional investors rush to plow cash into private tech companies. 

We're learning more about what Kleiner Perkins, a successful venture capital firm, looks for in a senior partner.

Ellen Pao, a former junior partner, is suing Kleiner for gender discrimination.

The Badger Fund of Funds, which was seeded with $25 million in state dollars, will launch its first venture capital funds in Madison, Oshkosh, Green Bay and Vilas County, according to the Wisconsin Department of Administration.

The fund of funds has raised more than $5 million in additional private capital and expects to finalize its first funds in the next few weeks, the department said in a letter to the Legislature's Joint Finance Committee.

Sustainability must be reframed as an opportunity if it is to take hold.

We’ve heard the word sustainability a lot lately. Climate change scientists warn countries and companies of the dangers of current levels of carbon emissions. Board directors are being called upon to be more transparent and punish bad behaviour. NGOs and social groups want companies to earn a licence to operate by committing to social good. A few weeks ago, the CEO of the Singapore Exchange announced that following a year of discussions to decide precisely how this would get done, corporations listed in Singapore will be required to report on their environmental and social impact.  Sustainability is everywhere!