Even with instant two-way communication via the Internet and mobile phones, your greatest new solution or service won’t found or properly recognized without marketing. The challenge is to rise above the clutter, and stand out in the rush of over 500,000 other new businesses that get started in the U.S. every month. I find that digital marketing is the most visible and effective place to start.

Small businesses make up 99.7% of all businesses in the US, making them a vital part of our economy. And it’s not just the US that benefits from small businesses. Countries all over the world benefit from the innovation, new business, and fresh ideas that startups bring to their economies and business culture. It’s no wonder that entrepreneurship is becoming more and more popular! In the US alone, the rate of entrepreneurship has increased by 15% in the past two years, according to The Kauffman Index.

Creating a startup offers promise for generating revenue that can lead to big profits down the road. Most think that the only way to start a business is to build a product from ground up -- layout the blueprint, make your first hire and build from there.

This isn't the only way to start a company, especially if you want to become an entrepreneur but don't have a concrete business idea or maybe you feel that age isn't on your side.

As drivers of innovation, entrepreneurs are key to a thriving economy. Yet the startup ecosystem lacked a timely measure of its relative health and a way to gauge its directional trends. Enter the Inc. Entrepreneurship Index, a new economic indicator that monitors the condition of the U.S. startup economy in a data-rich analysis expressed in a quarterly score.

The latest reading of the Index, clocking in at 85 for 2018's second quarter out of a total score of 100, shows U.S. entrepreneurial activity staying fairly steady. The number represents an ebbing from a score of 87 in the first quarter, continuing an easing from its 2014 high. This metric reflects the persisting challenges that small-business owners face in the tight hiring market, even as access to capital opens up for them, as Inc. data scientist Arnobio Morelix, explains in his column.

“The only success that is valid is the success that comes at the end.” – Jean-Claude Biver

Last week Jean-Claude Biver, president of the LVMH Watch Division (Hublot, TAG Heuer and Zenith), announced that he would be stepping down from daily running of the brands. I’ve worked with Biver, sharing his lessons about innovation and leadership with my students, and can attest that he is a rock star of the watch world. His vision transcends the world of luxury goods and can be applied across innovative industries.

When he was visiting our Europe campus to speak about “The TAG Heuer Carrera Connected Watch” case study, Biver offered extraordinary insights about his own personal leadership lessons and path to success.

Got writing troubles? You are not alone. In this week’s Two-Minute Tips, Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz offers six helpful hints to make your prose sing. From setting goals to embracing editing, this advice will get you motivated to pick up the pen and get writing. For more advice on improving your writing, check out Michael Munger’s article “10 Tips on How to Write Less Badly.”

One of the most common questions candidates are asked during a job interview is “What are your strengths?” Having a firm knowledge of what you can offer a potential employer will help you sell yourself, but which areas should you highlight?

While hard skills are often necessary to fulfill job requirements, soft skills can set you apart from the rest, according to a recent survey by NetQuote. The company polled hiring mangers to find out which answers to that strengths question were the best received. Here are the top five:

Can running a business be a launchpad for a career in politics? The 2016 election would indicate yes. But looking past Trump, a number of entrepreneurs have been drawn to the political arena recently, from Giant Spacekat CEO Brianna Wu to Chrissy Houlahan, who helped start nonprofit organization B Lab.

And this year has seen a record number of women running for congressional seats, with 255 women on the ballot in November as major party candidates and the rise of upstart progressives like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Companies that invest heavily in research and development are more likely to benefit from locating near dissimilar businesses, while companies that invest less in technology are better off near businesses in their own industry, according to new research by a team of economists. The findings can help business owners and policy makers design better business strategies and economic policies.

Image: https://news.psu.edu/

It’s stunning but true that we know more about the surface of the moon than about the Earth’s ocean floor. Much of what we do know has come from scientific ocean drilling – the systematic collection of core samples from the deep seabed. This revolutionary process began 50 years ago, when the drilling vessel Glomar Challenger sailed into the Gulf of Mexico on August 11, 1968 on the first expedition of the federally funded Deep Sea Drilling Project.

Image: The scientific drilling ship JOIDES Resolution arrives in Honolulu after successful sea trials and testing of scientific and drilling equipment. IODP, CC BY-ND

Earlier this year, Norway's minister of international development visited Ghana.

Minister Nikolai Astrup had a simple request: He wanted to spend some time with his team collecting trash from beaches in the developing nation. 

His team assured him that could be arranged. Then he was asked the most telling question of all: Where would they put the trash once it was collected?

"That's the point," he responded. 

Developing countries like Ghana lack the necessary infrastructure to properly dispose of waste, meaning that trash ultimately ends up in rivers and streams that dump into the ocean. 

Now, Norway is trying to change that. 

Over the years I’ve written numerous times about not only the growth in crowdsourcing and other methods of open innovation, but the various studies seeking to understand how we can do so effectively.  It probably reached peak popularity a few years ago, when numerous studies emerged looking at everything from Innocentive style challenges to GalaxyZoo style citizen science projects.

When he campaigned for governor, Philip D. Murphy leaned on a recurring quip in his stump speech: “New Jersey was Silicon Valley before there even was a Silicon Valley.” He was conjuring the New Jersey of a decade ago, when the state was a leader in new and thriving companies in industries like biotech.

Image: https://www.nytimes.com

While it is important to consider the competition, says Dropbox Co-Founder Drew Houston, time and energy are better spent on factors within your control. Houston asserts a strong internal focus is far more important than worrying about competition, because for startups, "suicide is a much more common cause of death than homicide."

Image: https://ecorner.stanford.edu

I worked with Laura Teusink for many years when I was the deputy editor of Travel + Leisure, and I’ll never forget reading her application to be the brand’s associate managing editor. Among other duties, the role of a managing editor at a magazine is to make sure that all deadlines are met. And when you’re at a travel magazine with a staff of editors who are constantly on the go, that role is even more vital.

Image: Yoga and meditation teacher Laura Teusink shares advice on making a career switch.PHOTO COURTESY OF LAURA TEUSINK

Cases of unauthorized persons stealing or accessing sensitive small business data like intellectual property, employees’ personal information or even financial records have been rising. What’s sad is that when a data breach occurs, companies take an average of 191 days to realize it has happened, according to a recent report highlighted by TekMonks, a global enterprise software development and IT services company.

This slow response to cyber-attacks is alarming. It puts small businesses in a precarious position and demonstrates a dire need for cyber-security awareness and preparedness in every business.

Image: https://smallbiztrends.com

Understanding how blockchain creates business value is essential for companies to identify the right use cases and move beyond small pilots to widespread adoption.

In this episode of the McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey partners Brant Carson and Matt Higginson speak with Simon London not only about how companies can drive business value through blockchain—but also how business leaders can determine when blockchain is and isn’t the right innovation.

In this episode of BioTalk, Jeff Galvin, CEO & Founder of American Gene Technologies (AGT) joins host Rich Bendis to discuss genetic medicines, funding strategies, company goals, and the BioHealth Capital Region. 

Jeff earned his BA degree in Economics from Harvard in 1981. He has more than 30 years of business and entrepreneurial experience including founder or executive positions at a variety of Silicon Valley startups. Several of his companies were taken public and/or sold to public companies. In 2007, he met Dr. Roscoe Brady, an accomplished research scientist at National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and founded American Gene Technologies with the mission to transform peoples’ lives with genetic medicines. Jeff Galvin’s current focus is to grow AGT and he expects AGT’s patented, lead candidate for an HIV Cure to enter the clinic in 2019. AGT is a gene and cell therapeutics company with a proprietary lentiviral platform targeting major diseases, including HIV, Phenylketonuria (PKU) and cancer. The company has a diverse portfolio of patent filings surrounding key tools and components in viral vectors, gene therapy, and regenerative medicine. AGT’s immuno-oncology approach of stimulating gamma-delta (γδ) T cells to attack a variety of cancers has recently been awarded four patents. In collaboration with Stanford Medical School’s Dr. Dean Felsher, this novel approach to stimulate the body’s immune system to attack solid cancer tumors is showing promising results in animal models and is expected to enter human trials in the next 24 months.

A total of 54 ventures are participating in this year’s fall semester of the Harvard Venture Incubation Program, the 12-week acceleration program for startups from every Harvard school.

This fall’s teams represent a diversity of industries: 20% are focused on social impact, cultural entrepreneurship or education; 32% on consumer products or services; 22% on health and sciences; and 26% on enterprise or high tech.

Who are we watching closely? Definitely PionEar (winner of $75,000 in a recent Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge contest), but also Umbulizer (winner of this year’s social enterprise track at HBS’s New Venture Competition) and Hellofriend (called by his co-founders “a morally correct social media”).

Cash flow is a basic survival metric for every startup. Investors check your burn rate to assess your efficiency, and project your remaining runway before you run out of money and into a brick wall. Don’t wait until you are almost out of cash before managing every dollar spent, or looking for the next refueling from investors. Desperate entrepreneurs lose their leverage and die young.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com