What does it take for a regional ecosystem to be more than just the next innovative hub of their industry? How does a city realize that big companies and startups have to do more than just get along?

In some cases, it may take a new global HQ announcement. Sometimes, it comes from a unicorn exit. Other times, it requires a massive company to leave town to set new conditions.

When I heard a friend and business mentor say, “Your startup won’t fail if you don’t quit,” I realized that every entrepreneur should adopt “never give up” as their mantra. Rather than quitting, there are always alternatives, like pivoting the business model or merging with new partners for support. Either could improve the statistic that half of startups fail within the first five years.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

When legal issues rear their ugly head, many entrepreneurs put them off and hope that they'll be resolved somewhere down the road. Entrepreneurs have enough things to worry about, from developing a proof of concept to hiring the first employees; the life of a startup is incredibly busy. Moreover, with all of these demands on an entrepreneur's time, legal matters can slip through the cracks.

In 2009, the rules of pitching competitions were rewritten by an innovative, socially-driven entrepreneur from Hult International Business School.

His name is Ahmad Ashkar, and he is the brain behind the Hult Prize.

The son of Palestinian parents who moved to the US in the 1970s, Ahmad began his career in finance in 2002, working on Islamic mortgage securities in the run up to the financial crash.

Image: from left) Taylor Scobbie, An-Nung Chen, Andres Escobar, & Juan Diego Prudot make up IMPCT Coffee

Oatmeal is a near-universally beloved breakfast. While it has historically been enjoyed across Europe, Russia and the U.S., oatmeal is rapidly gaining popularity in developing countries because of its affordability and its perceived health properties. But is oatmeal really good for you?

To answer that question, it’s first important to differentiate among all the different types of oatmeal. There’s steel-cut and rolled, quick-cooking and instant. But all of these terms refer to different methods of preparing hulled oats for cooking.

Buying a home has long been part of the American dream. But with middle-class incomes stagnant and home prices rising, for many that goal can feel out of grasp.

The U.S. home ownership rate is now lower than it’s been in decades, and millennials are more likely to live at home than any generation in living memory. And yet there are still several places in the country where home ownership remains well within reach of the typical worker.

As entrepreneurs, we talk a lot about having a seat at the table — and how you need to do whatever it takes to get there. For some, it takes weeks, months or even years just to get in front of the right people. So when you do, you’re ready to hit the ground running and make a difference, right?

The average person sends and receives about 235 emails a day and spends between 2.5 and 4.1 hours a day in their inboxes, depending on which study you believe. Either way, that’s a lot of time—and what do you do with all those messages?

How many hours do you work each day? If you’re like most of the U.S. working population, you probably think you get a solid eight hours in. That’s 40 hours a week. Around 1,800 a year (minus 2 weeks’ vacation). Not too bad.

Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic started teaching MBA students more than 15 years ago.

Back then, all his students wanted to work for corporate giants like Goldman Sachs, IBM, and Unilever.

A decade later, Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon were the big draws.

But now, graduates aren't flocking to the corporate world at all, whether IBM or Amazon. When I interviewed him by phone in July, for a story about the dangers of "entrepreneurship porn," he said of his students that today, "the vast majority tell me, 'You know, I'm going to be a startup guy. I'm launching something. I'm going to create the next big X, Y, Z."

Image: Corporate giants may be less appealing than they once were. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is pictured. Courtesy of Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic

Knowledge@Wharton: Can you tell us about your research?

Nikolai Roussanov: In this paper we examine the role of technological transformation in the changing composition of the U.S. labor force over the last 20 years, but also focus in particular on what happened during the Great Recession and in the years subsequently.

Since Rust Belt voters tipped the results of the 2016 election, interest in effective strategies for supporting new business and job growth in this important region has intensified.

Such interest recognizes that the states of the upper Midwest share more than their swing state status. A unique economic and social development storyline unites the industrial heartland, extending across all or part of 12 states from Minnesota and Missouri in the West, through the Great Lakes and up the Ohio River Valley to Western New York, and to Pennsylvania and West Virginia in the East.

Image: https://www.brookings.edu

Not all problems need immediate solutions. 

Entrepreneurs can feel like most of their job is extinguishing metaphorical fires, but spending too much time trying to solve problems can burn the chance for success. 

On the second episode of "Masters of Scale," LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman explains why it's important to let fires burn. 

"Deciding which fires you let burn, and how long you let them burn for, can make the difference between success and failure," says Hoffman.

Trish Costello, founder and CEO of investing platform Portfolia, holds the giveaway up high, offering the 60-plus conference attendees gathered in this Boston ballroom a chance to take a look. Dubbed vSculpt, the product is a vaginal rejuvenation device designed for women who suffer from low bladder control and other pelvic floor issues, post-childbirth. At any other conference, vSculpt might prompt some awkward throat-clearing (“leakage,” anyone?). But here, in a room full of women angel investors, the crowd lets out a whoop.

In late April, when Mike Massaro set out to get $40 million to $75 million in funding for his payments start-up, Flywire, he contacted a small group of investors he already knew. But word quickly got around, and other investors flooded his inbox with $200 million of investment offers, half of which he turned down.

Gusto, a payroll and benefits software company, raised $140 million in July, but could have done five times that, according to Joshua Reeves, its chief executive and founder.

The number of venture capital firms in Australia has increased by 70% over the past three years, while number of accelerators and incubators have more than doubled, according to data from Decode System, a data and networking platform owned by venture capital firm Artesian.

But Jeremy Colless, managing partner and chief executive of Artesian and founder of Decode, says while the growth reflects a maturing of the market, it’s this kind of data that’s key to maintaining it.

Image: Managing partner of Artesian Jeremy Colless. Source: Supplied.

A rapidly-growing company focused on early cancer detection will soon have a permanent home and room to grow at University Research Park (URP) in Madison, Wis.

Today, executives from Exact Sciences and URP broke ground on a new, 138,000 square-foot building, named Innovation One, located between 441 Charmany Drive and 501 Charmany Drive. The building will serve as Exact Sciences' corporate headquarters from which the company will continue its work to eradicate colorectal cancer and combat other cancers through early detection. When complete in early 2020, the building will unite team members and departments currently dispersed across multiple sites in the Madison area.

Image: Rendering of Innovation One, a 138,000 square-foot building being developed by University Research Park to serve as Exact Sciences’ corporate headquarters. 

In 25 years, the items in your grocery basket could be as high-tech as the smartphone in your pocket.

Alpha Food Labs, a New York-based company that makes prototypes of future supermarket staples, has a new list of “concept foods” its team is incubating — some in partnership with existing food companies, some purely theoretical for now. If Alpha is successful, we’ll soon be munching on lab-grown burgers, genetically modified chips, and 30 other sci-fi inspired snacks.

Image: courtesy of Alpha Food Labs

European venture capital was slow to recover from the euro-zone financial crisis in the early years of this decade, but in 2018 it’s now poised to set records in both money raised and capital disbursed. And in contrast to investment ...

Last summer, ExitEvent published an interactive 101-style guide to the Triangle startup community before the publication merged with WRAL TechWire. The guide was meant to be a gateway into the world of startup for twenty-something or student innovators and creatives interested in launching their own ventures here in the Triangle.