As a startup founder, you know that life as an entrepreneur can be challenging, fulfilling and stressful. As an Executive in Residence (EIR), I’m here to support your businesses development and increase your odds of success.

Depending on your needs, EIRs play the role of advisor, mentor, connector and even coach; and while the work we do takes on many forms, there are five primary ways we help you startup and grow your business:

It's crunch time for Tesla Motors.

The Silicon Valley automaker is losing more than $4,000 on every Model S electric sedan it sells, using its reckoning of operating losses, and it burned $359 million in cash last quarter in a bull market for luxury vehicles. The company on Wednesday cut its production targets for this year and next. Chief Executive Elon Musk said he's considering options to raise more capital and didn't rule out selling more stock.

Image: Thomson Reuters - New all-wheel-drive versions of the Tesla Model S car are lined up for test drives in Hawthorne, California. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/r-insight-tesla-burns-cash-loses-more-than-4000-on-every-car-sold-2015-8#ixzz3iSMyuM9x

New to the program this year, up to $2.5 MM of the i6 competition funds will be awarded to rural organizations focused on expanding capabilities for entrepreneurs. Special considerations will be given to applicants prioritizing populations and communities that are underrepresented in innovation and entrepreneurship.  

Join the RIS team August 18th at 2:30 pm EDT for an informational webinar about the program. This webinar will outline the parameters of each competition, discuss tips on the application process, and provide general guidance on ways to build a competitive proposal. After the formal presentation, OIE will open the session for Q&A.  

Please submit any questions you have ahead of time via email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., using the subject line, "Questions for Rural Webinar."  

Date: Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Time: 2:30 p.m. EDT

Hosts: White House Rural Council, US Department of Agriculture, US Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration

Login: https://cc.readytalk.com/r/rss4zgckqmz8&eom    

*** EDA is also hosting another general webinar with SSTI on Thursday, August 13 at 4 p.m. ET. REGISTER HERE

While Lexus teases us with hard to obtain hoverboards, a more practical kind of futuristic skateboard has been unveiled by an inventor in Japan: the WalkCar.

About the size and shape of a standard laptop computer, the electric mobility device moves like a Segway by changing direction in response to your shifting weight, and can easily fit inside of a backpack or briefcase.

Image: http://mashable.com

What’s the biggest threat to the City? There are plenty of candidates: tougher new European Union regulations, the chancellor’s addiction to ever higher banking levies and fines, and over-zealous regulators micro-managing every aspect of the sector’s activities in an attempt to prevent a repeat of the crash of 2008. But the greatest threat might be something that is not yet on anyone’s radar screen.

Image: http://moneyweek.com

Every entrepreneur believes that their product or service is memorable, and that every customer will quickly see the advantage over competitors. Yet true product differentiation in the eye of the customer is rarely achieved. According to a classic survey by Bain & Company, 80% of businesses believe they have differentiated offerings, but only 8% of customers agree.

There is a wide range of definitions for the terms “Creativity” and “Innovation”. The one I use the most has two elements to it. From a domain perspective, Innovation is an organizational function, while Creativity is an individual function. From a process perspective, Innovation is a Creative idea that got implemented. The implementation of a creative idea generated by an employee is an organizational prerogative, and the tool typically used at the beginning of that process is the “innovation funnel”.

Image: http://www.innovationexcellence.com

This spring Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne called out the auto industry for the staggering amount of money it wastes in the design and manufacture of cars. His solution is based on classic business principles: consolidate and eliminate redundancy. Local Motors CEO Jay Rogers perceives the same challenge, but he's attacking it from a completely different direction. For Rogers, the problem stems not from business organization but from the fact that we still build cars the same way we did in 1915, on assembly lines with thousands of individual parts. It doesn't have to be that way, and the proof is parked in his Knoxville, Tennessee, garage, charged up and ready for a drive.

Image: Troy Stains

Sharath Mekala’s two-person tech startup isn’t a textbook government contractor. 

Village Defense, spawned through a startup incubator called 1776, develops a free app that lets neighbors send real-time alerts to one another if they notice suspicious activity. A premium version, which costs $125 a month, is designed for homeowners associations. 

Ray Kurzweil popularized the Terminator-like moment he called the “singularity," when artificial intelligence (AI) overtakes human thinking. With all the advancements that have been made within the robotics industry and artificial intelligence, are we finally at the cusp of this reality?

Last year, when we published a blog post identifying the 10 coolest New York City enterprise startups, few, if any, of those companies were household names. Since I wrote that piece, the companies have gone on to raise more than $100 million combined, and at least one, if not two, have their sights on an initial public offering in the not too distant future.

Image: Office space for startups at Work-Bench in New York on Dec. 11. Image Credit: Jordan Novet/VentureBeat

Despite the “very low to non-existent” unemployment rate in Qatar, authorities are still encouraging young Qataris to establish their own business to help diversify the economy, an official of Injaz Qatar said. Citing 2014 statistics from the Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics (MDPS), Injaz Qatar executive director Emad al-Khaja said Qatar’s unemployment rate is at 0.2%, which he described as “very low.”

Image: Al-Khaja: Developing business and leadership skills for the youth.

Technology has changed the way everyone works and one of the big changes involves a rise of independent workers who can work from home for companies across the globe. With more than 16 million users, Freelancer.com is one of the top websites for people who are looking for independent work, helping employers contact potential workers. In one of his infrequent stops in his native Buenos Aires, Sebastián Siseles, International Director of Freelancer.com, met with the Herald in a trendy private club in Palermo popular with well-off expats to talk about how the company has expanded as it gets ready to open up a new office in Buenos Aires.

Image: http://buenosairesherald.com

The word “diversity” often does not apply to the world of technology and startups. Just three percent of America’s venture capital-backed startups are led by women, and only around one percent are led by African-Americans. Companies like Google have come under fire for their “appalling” lack of diversity, and venture capitalists like Mitch Kapor are calling out the glaring discrepancies.

Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker announced the launch of the Economic Development Administration's (EDA) 2015 Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) Program competition to spur innovation capacity-building activities in regions across the nation. Under the 2015 announcement, SBA will commit $10 million for two funding opportunities:

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) released a request for information (RFI) that invites comments and suggestions from the public to help in the development of its new five-year strategic plan. In response to a request from Congress, the new NIH-wide strategic plan is intended to advance NIH’s mission of supporting biomedical research in pursuit of fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to extend healthy life and reduce illness and disability.

Corporate venture investors are increasingly active in 2015 and finding themselves in some of the largest recent deals in venture, including rounds to Slack, Zenefits, and 21 Inc. In the first six months of 2015, corporate venture capital investors participated in $7.85B of US-based financings across 357 deals. At the current run-rate, CVC deal activity is on track to top 2014’s high. Corporate VC arms have participated in more than $3B of deals in each of the last 3 quarters.

Law360, New York (August 7, 2015, 9:22 PM ET) -- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has given the green light to a plan to conduct traditional private placements on the Web, a move attorneys say offers some much needed clarity to venture capital firms looking to finally take their business of matching investors with portfolio companies online.

When pitching to investors, entrepreneurs always seem to start with a customer pitch, then add a slide or two about the business. In reality, they need a separate pitch about the business, carrying over only a slide or two about the solution. Remember, investors are buying into the business, not the product. Investors are business experts, while the entrepreneur is more likely the product expert.

To some he's a joke. To others, he's great. Here's what I think. He's successful, rich and a leading candidate to be the next President of the United States. So, while we read his latest comments and form our opinions, I'm thinking it might serve us well as business people to pay attention to the things about him that have helped him get where he is. Here are a few of those things: He's not afraid of ruffling feathers. In fact, he might even enjoy it. Because he's a maverick and he knows, and embraces, his brand: The Anti-Politician. Continue Reading

Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump#/media/File:Donald_Trump_by_Gage_Skidmore.jpg