The forecast is looking sunny for hungry entrepreneurs who want to get an idea off the ground.

According to a recent Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index survey, small business owners are the most optimistic they've been in five years, expecting their revenues, cash flows and staff size to grow.

A new state funding program for high-tech entrepreneurs opened Aug. 1, with $1 million in matching funds available.

SBIR Advance will funnel matching funds to eligible companies getting federal Small Business Innovation Research or Small Business Technology Transfer grants. Up to $75,000 is available to tie with Phase 1 awards and up to $250,000 for Phase 2 awards.

The definition of the word "success" in the business world is almost always interchangeable for “profitable.” When that word is used in boardrooms and executive speeches, the meaning is usually pretty clear.

But what does the word "innovation" signal?

It’s been perhaps one of the biggest corporate buzzwords and initiatives for decades. Mention the word innovation to two people in the same organization and what are the chances they would give you the same definition?

Too many entrepreneurs tell me they are looking for an investor, and can’t differentiate between venture capital (VC) investors versus accredited Angel investors. They argue that the color of the money is the same from either source. They fail to realize that the considerations are quite different for each, which can make or break their investment efforts, and ultimately their startup.

ABSTRACT: The low adoption rate of new technologies by rural communities in developing countries in the 1970s and 1980s revealed a need for a different approach to the setting of research agendas and technology transfer. More recent programmes have shown a shift away from 'top-down' researcher-led projects, towards a 'bottom-up' participatory approach...

It’s not unusual to talk some business during a round of golf.

But a recent area tournament subjected its well-heeled participants to full-on pitch at every hole.

It was all by design as 18 of the 22 companies competing for admission into Velocity Venture Capital’s entrepreneur accelerator program made their pitches to foursome after foursome Monday at the Serrano Country Club in El Dorado Hills in hopes of polishing their presentations and earning points toward participation in the coveted program. While the pitchfest did give the entrepreneurs face time with 50 potential investors, the primary goal was improving through the real-time feedback and score points.

Image: Manny Crisostomo / This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Neal Liggins of technology startup LocalStar pitches his company’s concept – designed to help independent musicians reach their fans – to golf tournament participants at Serrano Country Club in El Dorado Hills on Monday. Listening at left is potential investor Josh Pietak. 

Crowdfunding has come a long way in its short history. Today, it is even changing the way we consume. What was once a way to give a largely ready product a helping hand on its final push to market has become a means for consumers to get involved with something still on the drawing board, or simply to buy innovative new products before they’re in the shops.

Image: LeadingMemo.com

When Richard Branson was 16, he started a magazine called “Student.”

Six years later, he opened up a recording studio. The company’s first song — a track called “Tubular Bells” by Mike Oldfield — stayed on the U.K. charts for 247 weeks.

The Virgin empire had begun.

Now at 64, Branson is equal parts man, myth, and legend. His Virgin Group is composed of 400 companies, employs 60,000 people, and operates in more than 30 countries. He has an estimated net worth of US$5 billion.

Nearly 10 years ago, Excite founder Joe Kraus, now an investor at Google Ventures, declared "there has never been a better time to be an entrepreneur." Kraus was talking about the economics of startups—the cheapness of servers, networks, and other raw ingredients of computing.

A decade later, Andreessen Horowitz investor Sam Gerstenzang has one-upped Kraus. In a recent blog post, he argues that it's not just costs that are at historic lows. So, too, is the level of competence required to engineer a product

In a divided government like we have seen in Washington since 2011, it is obviously difficult to get things done. Both parties represent constituencies with deeply different ideologies. As representatives of our states and districts, we in Congress reflect that divide and defend the beliefs our constituents hold dear while doing our best to effectively govern.

Admittedly, divided government offers us too few opportunities to work together to find consensus on problems. That is why it is so disappointing that the Senate was not able to complete work this year on patent litigation reform to crack down on patent trolls that stifle innovation in every industry throughout our economy.

Image: sxc.hu

Structural shifts in the venture capital market have squeezed early stage venture capital (“VC”) funds over the last five years: the number of early stage funds raised and their capital share have been cut in half (see the chart below). But, early stage VCs have hidden assets, and they are deploying strategies to capture more of the value they create, e.g., by creating Opportunity Funds to fully utilize pro-rata rights. And as the early stage segment contracts and the later stage expands, there will be more money chasing the best emerging companies, shifting the terms of trade in favor of the first investors. (Disclosure: New Atlantic Ventures, in which I am a partner, is an early-stage VC fund).

Image: http://www.forbes.com

The average NBA player makes $4.5 million a year, which is higher than the average of any other sports league in the world.

And if you’re one of the best players in the game, your salary can easily top $20 million a year.

That's why if you're an entrepreneur seeking investment, it's a good idea to know which NBA players are investing in startups.

Move over, guinea pigs… There’s a menagerie of fauna that have contributed to helped researchers gain some novel insight into treating human disease. Here are just a few of these amazing animals:

Jellyfish

The glow of these brainless beauties has been found to help with tumor imaging - te bioluminescence of jellyfish tentacles has inspired technology that can detect cancer, microbes and viruses, according to science. Using a green fluorescent protein called GFP that’s found in crystal jellyfish, proteins associated with cancer and other disease can be tagged and tracked in small animals.

Image: http://medcitynews.com

Startup founders are known for their passion for their startup idea, and for their passion to kill every competitor. Thus they often overlook the fact that their biggest growth opportunity may be a win-win collaboration with a serious competitor, known in the business as coopetition. Of course, this path involves some risk, but you never get anywhere unless you take a chance.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

The notion of genius gets a lengthy examination; an incubator aims for greater female participation in the technology world; your business model may need to be replaced by four different models at once.

Crowd funding is not new, but crowdfunding is. Completely intuitive, both terms mean funds conveyed by a crowd to a solicitor.

Crowd funding is actually traditional banking, insurance, stock markets, charities and the like, where the crowds are relatively small and absolutely defined. Now a new word, crowdfunding is very similar except that it’s conducted on the Internet where the crowds are innumerable and possibly anonymous.

If developed and managed correctly, internship programs can add substantial value to your company. In this series on internship programs, I will provide advice on the best practices on implementing an internship program and managing interns.

Image: http://labs.openviewpartners.com

This summer, colleges and universities across the country graduated a fresh new class of 20-somethings who are hot on the trail for their first employment opportunity. These recent college graduates are hungry, eager to make quick impact, and are working overtime to overcome two obstacles: A transitioning job market and a label that holds a negative connotation — millennial.

Image: http://labs.openviewpartners.com/

As more and more college graduates go on to become entrepreneurs, many of them wonder if the time and money they spent on their education was worth it. While some young startup founders do end up using the skills they learned in college, others feel that they could have gotten to where they are now much sooner had they dropped out or not gone at all.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

The Irish Times has teamed up with AIB to launch the AIB Start-up Academy, a new initiative to support entrepreneurs across Ireland. The Academy programme will begin in 2015 and is designed to rapidly provide value to a venture and prepare start-ups for growth. In the meantime, we need to select the participants.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net