I’ve been a VC for the last 14 years. Prior to that I was a software entrepreneur.  In 1999, we sold our technology startup in the craziness of the dotcom bubble. I was successful as an operator, but the day-to-day grind was tiring. I thought the VC role looked like a lot more fun. 

As a VC, I got to partner with management teams to help conceive and evolve the strategy, but I wasn’t asked to work down in the details. This was great. I enjoy helping small groups of very talented people work to build important companies. As a VC, I had my share of big wins and big failures, but the portfolio effect is a great thing. I have been able to generate returns for investors.

There are ideas trapped inside Penn State University just waiting to break free. Researchers toil away, publishing papers on their groundbreaking findings before moving on to the next big discovery, often without patenting their ideas. Now, new funding at the school aims to capitalize on university innovations, putting those great ideas to good public use and creating jobs for students and Pennsylvanians.

Image: PATRICK MANSEL

Last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved 41 new drugs and biologics for use in medical treatment, the highest number of approvals in 18 years. And yet despite this high, the output of new drugs over the past several decades has demonstrated fluctuating yet flat trends in number of approvals. At the same time, pharmaceutical industry R&D spending continues to rise dramatically, leading many to question the efficiency of the drug development and regulatory review process.

Image: http://www.brookings.edu

Today, Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) introduced a new version of the Innovation Act, a bill designed to curb so-called patent trolls. Patent trolls have no business beyond acquiring patents and suing other companies, knowing that many will pay a settlement rather than pay the $1 million or more it can cost to fight a patent through trial.

Image: House Judiciary Committee

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has called for the elimination of the Emerging Technology Fund, a program that gave $200 million in taxpayer dollars to Texas startups but was hindered by bankruptcies and other issues.

This may be a reasonable decision. After all, when programs are not cost effective, they need to be changed or eliminated.

Early-stage entrepreneurs rightly keep their focus on creating an innovative product or service. After celebrating success at that level, they often find themselves ill-prepared to move to the next stage, for scaling their business into a high-performing enterprise. That’s where I see too much entrepreneur burnout, growth plateaus, and founders being replaced, to their chagrin.

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Coalition of Small Business Innovators (CSBI) today expresses support for the Start-up Jobs and Innovation Act, which would incentivize investment in emerging, pre-revenue, research-centric businesses and support the search for cutting-edge technologies that help to fuel our nation’s economic health and prosperity. CSBI thanks Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) for introducing this vital piece of legislation, and Senators Pat Roberts (R-KS) and Tom Carper (D-DE) for cosponsoring the bill.

If you've ever heard a new startup described as "the Uber of ...," you know that in the modern business world, there is a lot of talk about creating "category-defining companies." New technologies are unleashing an abundance of immense creativity — and the capital markets are rewarding that creativity with historically high valuations. But what does that mean for entrepreneurs? Should that change how you approach founding your company?

One of the objectives of the companies going through Techstars and other accelerators is to secure financing. Most companies are coming in focusing on accelerating their business and then securing capital to continue to accelerate growth. As the common shareholder in the company, Techstars is completely aligned with on these objectives.

"In two thirds of America’s 100 largest cities, anchor institutions such as universities and hospitals are the largest employers." That statistic comes from the Anchor District Council, a trade and advocacy group comprised of community service corporations, hospitals, universities and institutions and companies in anchor districts.

Image: cleveland credit: BOB PERKOSKI

Many aspiring entrepreneurs I cross have it wrong. They believe building a wildly successful business will just happen with a snap of the fingers. As if out of nowhere, a good genie in the sky will appear to bless their idea and suddenly fill their bank account with billions.

Time to wake up.

After playing this game for over 30 years, I can say one thing: building a successful business in theory is very simple, as I will show below.

In today’s ever changing business climate, an entrepreneur can easily become overwhelmed. It’s vital, though, to stay focused on your goals for the company.  

Even with a firm strategy in place, every entrepreneur should do these six things to clear a path to success:

If you ask freelancers and entrepreneurs why they decided to set out on their own, their stated motivations will vary. They may have wanted to solve a problem, or to pursue a sense of purpose. Others were lured by the possibility of making more money or the independence of being their own boss. And then there are those who were focused on defining their own work-life balance. For me, four of the above were contributing factors -- to varying degrees, of course.

Boise State's College of Innovation and Design is meant to bring faculty from across disciplines to look for ways to enhance students' education beyond their traditional courses of study.

The school was approved by the State Board of Education last year and expects to enroll its first students this fall.

Initial startup cost is about $400,000.

Equity crowdfunding is moving into the mainstream.

In September 2013, after Title II of the JOBS Act went into effect, new possibilities opened up in the world of crowdfunding. Instead of just offering a product, discount, or small reward in exchange for monetary funding, crowdfunded projects can now offer equity in exchange for public funding—if they use accredited investors.

In his later years, when asked how he invented the shipping container, freight magnate Malcom McLean would offer an anecdote. One day in the 1930s, the former truck driver was waiting at a pier to deliver bales of cotton. Watching dockers load thousands of cartons and barrels aboard the ship, young McLean wondered why the cargo was not assembled in containers to speed up the process. From that brainstorm, McLean said, the modern shipping container was born two decades later.

Almost every company will face disruption in 2015: The dynamics of reaching customers are changing, technology shifts are speeding up demand for new products and innovation, and efforts to maintain margins have become a high-wire act. But when you look hard enough, these hurdles represent opportunities. Pulling from Strategy&’s recent analysis of industry trends, we’ve unearthed the hidden strategic gem for the most threatened sectors.

Lynda Rae Harris was in her 20s and the owner of a Los Angeles–based ad agency when she met her second husband, Stewart Resnick. He was an entrepreneur who had built a successful janitorial business from scratch after his father won an industrial floor scrubber in a contest. Together, the couple made their first joint acquisition—of the floral wire service company Teleflora—in 1979. They followed it with acquisitions of agricultural land in California, and of the Franklin Mint, all chosen because of Stewart’s penchant for service businesses with repeat customers.

What is college? To Madison Comer, a confident 6-year-old, it is a very big place. “It’s tall,” she explained, outlining the head of Tuffy, the North Carolina State mascot, with a gray crayon. “It’s like high school but it’s higher.”

Elizabeth Mangan, who plans to be a veterinarian because she loves her puppy, pointed out that she, too, would attend North Carolina State. “Me and Madison are going to the same college,” she said.

Image: College awareness starts early for the first graders at Johnsonville Elementary School in Harnett County, N.C. Video by Nathan Clendenin and Chris Giliberto on Publish Date February 4, 2015. Photo by Travis Dove for The New York Times.

In this brave new world of the Networked Economy, one adage rings truer than ever: no company is an island. Mobile, cloud, social media and machine-to-machine (M2M) technologies are creating connections between people and organisations in more ways than we have ever seen – and these smarter, faster and more global networks are already starting to transform business in ways never thought possible.