From the moment you start each workday, you’re subject to two basic human impulses: to excel and to conform.

If people in your immediate environment are amazing performers, you might be able to do both at once: By excelling, you fit the norm of your spectacular coworkers. But that’s rare. I’m pretty sure that in most work environments, as soon as you excel, you stop conforming. If you choose a high-performance path, you separate yourself from your coworkers. You’re not quite one of the bunch anymore

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Equity crowdfunding, where investors (accredited only for the moment) buy securities in privately owned companies, is still relatively new.  The increasing appeal of investing in startups is understable for investors who are looking to diversify their portfolio, looking to get uncorrelated returns and have determined that their risk appetite is aggressive. However, there have been a number of claims about equity crowdfunding that I felt compelled to surface and address. Having been in the space since 2011, here are the top three misconceptions:

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Scientists will soon have access to their very own clouds. Not the meteorological sort—although these clouds might help advance weather research as well as improve medical systems and power-grid management.

The new clouds for scientists are the kind that store data on servers, as part of a trend known as cloud computing. Consumers use the commercial variety to store documents, photographs, and music. Researchers use those too, but they sometimes need more control over and information about cloud systems than host companies, such as Apple and Amazon, provide.

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But that doesn't mean other regions and countries aren't trying to capitalize and emulate this hugely successful model. Is it just a matter of time before another area comes into global prominence?

What would it take? According to EY's Bryan Pearce and Jeff Grabow, here's what has helped make Silicon Valley the center of the startup world:

The University of Washington is a world-renowned institution. The school most recently finished No. 20 worldwide in the 2014 Academic Ranking of World Universities, while the new Times Higher Education rankings had the UW ranked No. 26.

But despite all the world-class research and bright minds coming together on campus, the UW doesn’t quite have a reputation as an entrepreneurial hub — a place where innovation is fostered throughout every department, and where the next great startup idea makes it out of the dorm rooms and science labs into the real world.

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Just 5 out of 1,000 people have the potential of a Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg and Sara Blakely to start and grow a big business, according to recent Gallup research. That equates to 150,000 "future blue-chip entrepreneurs" now in fifth through twelfth grade.

And the key to turning around the American economy—so these stars can launch more job-creating businesses—is identifying them early, through a testing system similar to the ones we use to spot athletic and academic prowess, and then nurturing their gifts, argued Jim Clifton, chairman of the polling company Gallup, in a new book called "Entrepreneurial StrengthsFinder."

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Mobile Internet companies raked in a total of $19.2 billion in new investment over the last year, more than double the previous period, according to investment advisory firm Digi-Capital.

The big winner? Mobile commerce, with $4.2 billion.

Investors beware, however: Only nine of the 16 investment sectors Digi-Capital tracks are actually generating positive returns so far.

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Let’s start with a quiz…

1. How many senses do you have?
2. Which of the following are magnetic: a tomato, you, paperclips?
3. What are the primary colours of pigments and paints?
4. What region of the tongue is responsible for sensing bitter tastes?
5. What are the states of matter?

If you answered five; paperclips; red, yellow and blue; the back of the tongue; and gas, liquid and solid, then you would have got full marks in any school exam. But you would have been wrong.

Entrepreneurs will often talk about the “entrepreneur’s rollercoaster.”  Starting a company is certainly something that induces ups and downs, victories and defeats, failures and successes and a ride full of differing emotions.

Allowing yourself to go through ups and downs is counterproductive, tiring, and unhealthy.  It is imperative to be so strong that nothing can knock you down and so humble that nothing can make you overly excited.

Consider the 4 pieces of advice recognized hereinafter.  Get off the roller coaster and make your entrepreneurial adventure more like a ride in a luxurious automobile.

According to The MoneyTree™ Report by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association based on data from Thomson Reuters, venture capitalists invested $13.0 billion in 1,114 deals in the second quarter of 2014, which is the most money invested in a quarter since the first quarter of 2001. The PwC/NVCA MoneyTree Report further notes that companies receiving a venture investment for the first time accounted for 32 percent of the 1,114 deals completed last quarter.

Invest Michigan announced this week that it has invested $275,000 in four early-stage tech startups through the Michigan Pre-Seed Fund 2.0. The four startups also secured co-investments worth $3.4 million from private investors, far exceeding the minimum 1:1 matching funds required by Invest Michigan.

“All of the startups we funded look like very promising companies with very strong management,” says Charlie Moret, president and CEO of Invest Michigan. “We look at it as the beginning of a relationship, and we hope to grow with them.”

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Insulting your own employees, losing sight of the big picture, ignoring your gut: Are you guilty of these progress-killing mistakes in starting a new business?

Blowing a ton of money too quickly is an obvious startup mistake, but you can also be too ambitious, or get along too well with your cofounder. Too much of a good thing can ruin the best-laid business plan.

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Think you’re too old to start a business? Think again. Mark Zuckerberg may have started Facebook at 19, but he’s in the minority of entrepreneurs. Through the years, there have been plenty of successful people in business and other endeavors who didn’t get started until a bit later. Funders and Founders recently shared an infographic outlining late bloomers who displayed proficiency in a variety of fields showing that great achievements don’t always happen at a young age. Among these are J.K. Rowling, who taught school until age 23. Vincent Van Gogh, who didn’t paint until 27. And Martha Stewart, who didn’t get into home decorating until 35.

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Virginia Tech's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is gearing up to launch a new investor group that will focus on funding high potential startups spearheaded by Hokies near and far.

The group, which goes by the name of the VT Investor Network, sees value in supporting businesses launched by some of their own, which is why it's on the lookout for promising startups to finance that are associated with Virginia Tech. These startups must have a founder, board member or active investor who's a Virginia Tech graduate, student or faculty member, according to Director of the Center Derick Maggard.

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In 2011, two business school professors put numbers to an idea that many assumed true: that a vibrant research university can drive an economy. They studied companies started by alumni of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and found that those businesses had provided 1.7 million jobs and generated $1 trillion in revenue annually.

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Marcus Whitney just left Moontoast (now Spendsetter) to accept his new role as President of Jumpstart Foundry last Friday. Marcus’ full-time commitment comes at a pivotal moment for Jumpstart Foundry, as the team gears up for what they plan to be the “best cohort yet.” Remember on Demo Day when I wrote about how Jumpstart had their sights set on Y-Combinator status, because they planned on giving away 100K to every startup in 2015?

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Marc Andreessen said valuations for startup companies are “running a little warm,” but may reflect a view that Internet technologies can generate more successful companies.

By 2030, according to the UN, there will be 41 mega-cities around the world with populations of greater than 10 million people. Not only will these mega-cities control the lion’s share of the world’s global economic and financial resources, they will also largely determine the future of innovation — and that could have a major impact on how we think about America’s hub-and-spoke model of innovation.

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A rocket is a controlled bomb. The fully fueled Saturn V ‘moon rocket’ held an explosive force of about half a kiloton of TNT, enough to do some serious damage if catastrophe had struck. And as much as the recent Antares launch failure has captured the attention of social media, it was just business as usual – rockets are tricky beasts, you expect them to fail, you just try to minimize the chances of it happening.

Image: One of the lucky ones...Saturn V launch (NASA)

On what the research is about:

The research I’m going to talk about is part of a long agenda. It has to do with the way that central banks and governments intervene in the economy.

For the last 20 or 30 years, central banks have, by and large, focused on fighting inflation. After we had the big shocks in the 1970s, that was the major problem, and that’s what they’ve spent their main efforts doing. Some of the central banks, like the Federal Reserve, have a dual mandate. In addition to worrying about inflation, they also have to worry about unemployment.