Eighty percent of urban trips are less than two miles long. So why do so many of us make them in big, inefficient, and expensive vehicles? Tech analyst Horace Dediu, who coined the term “micromobility,” joins Azeem Azhar to discuss why the future of cities lies in “looking up,” rather than “looking down,” and what that tells us about a new era of consumer behavior both on- and offline.

They also discuss how the micromobility industry has grown so fast, how an urbanizing population will further boost the market, and how big tech firms like Apple and Alphabet might claim a piece of the pie.

Image: https://hbr.org

Fight or flight responses have kept humans alive for millions of years, but another trait that’s ensured our existence is entrepreneurship.

“All humans are born entrepreneurs; we wouldn’t survive if we weren’t,” saidBill Aulet,managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. From their earliest days, “People made things, traded things, or provided services to survive.”

Today, Angelle Consulting is shy of its 4th anniversary. While I'm proud to have made it past the dreaded three-year mark, in the midst of Covid-19 no less, I'm just now building my team. And, it seems like I couldn't have chosen a worse time to do so with the talent shortage at an all-time high. Not a single day passes without news of the Great Resignation's impact on companies big and small. As a result, businesses are competing for workers more than ever before, and they're not afraid to leverage higher wages, better benefits, and all kinds of perks to their advantage. But, as a budding enterprise, my company is simply not in a position to compete.

CHAPEL HILL – Employment grows at a much faster rate at venture capital-backed startup companies than other private-sector firms —roughly eight times faster, a new report finds.

The analysis of employment data examines “employment dynamics” of more than 67,000 U.S. companies that received venture capital (VC) investment during the period between 1970 and 2020. It was conducted by researchers at the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA).

As a business advisor and technologist, I often think about the large array of opportunities for entrepreneurs as technology seems to be evolving faster and faster. Yet I still too often hear the question, “Can you give me a really sure-fire idea for starting my own business?” My standard answer is that ideas are a dime a dozen, and success is all about smart execution, not ideas.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Change is about the only thing constant in the world of startups. Despite their own focus on changing the world, they often forget that they too have to change rapidly and often as the market evolves. Too many find that out too late, and are left chasing a rabbit that is long gone.

Accelerating advances in quantum computing are serving as powerful reminders that the technology is rapidly advancing toward commercial viability. In just the past few months, for example, a research center in Japan announced a breakthrough in entangling qubits (the basic unit of information in quantum, akin to bits in conventional computers) that could improve error correction in quantum systems and potentially make large-scale quantum computers possible.1 And one company in Australia has developed software that has shown in experiments to improve the performance of any quantum-computing hardware.2

The vivid blue color of a new brand of Dutch soda doesn’t come from food coloring: The startup making the product, called Ful, makes the drink with spirulina, a blue-green algae that gives the soda more of a nutritional punch than the standard carbonated beverage. The company wants to use the product to make algae a more popular ingredient in order to help shrink the carbon footprint of the food system.

Image: Photo: courtesy Ful

The wind finally blew the other way last night and kicked out the smoke from the burning Sierra. Down here in the flatland of California, we used to regard the granite mountain as a place apart, our getaway. But the distance is no more. With all those dead pine trees in thrall to wildfire, the Sierra, transmuted into ash, is right outside our door. 

Family offices with venture portfolios have an average of 27 investments, according to a new report. And these investments – on average 17 of them direct and 10 of them funds – are helping family offices reap the rewards of a worldwide rise in venture capital investing.

Brilliant ideas are few. There are fewer than 100 truly large markets in the world. And there is no point in developing a second Twitter or a second Snapchat.

So, every good idea has already been tried, right? And it either took off (and it’s too late to repeat it), or it didn’t take off (and it won’t take off with you, you are no better than tens or hundreds of predecessors). There will be no more hugely successful startups anymore, correct?

I see more and more entrepreneurs who seem to have everything going for them – vision, motivation, passion, even a good business plan, product, and money, and yet they can’t close customers. Maybe it’s time to look harder at the mantra of a new breed of gurus and successful entrepreneurs, including Steve Blank and Eric Ries, called “nail it then scale it” (NISI).

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Maryland’s life sciences ecosystem has become a key hub along the eastern shore of the United States due to its position in infectious disease research and vaccine development and manufacturing. While the state saw an infusion of billions of dollars in government financing in the development of vaccines, Maryland’s Biotechnology Investment Incentive Tax Credit, is a tool that has been used to attract venture capital funding in the state.

The tax credit was established in 2005 to incentivize venture capital investment into the state of Maryland. Since 2016, the most recent year for full data, the state has offered more than $70 million in tax credits to 114 different entities. That, in turn, has generated about $140 million in investments into the state’s life sciences ecosystem, the Baltimore Business Journal reported. 

BROOKLYN, NY—New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) announced a $50 million investment in life sciences at BioBAT to expand their lab space as part of the city’s LifeSci NYC initiative. NYCEDC and BioBAT officials toured the space that will receive funding to build new labs at BioBAT located at the Brooklyn Army Terminal.

IT infrastructure refers to all of the hardware, software, and equipment that forms an IT network. Without proper IT infrastructure, the network is at risk of breach or malfunction.

Every company’s IT infrastructure will look slightly different. However, there are a few general components that form pretty much every network. These components include a network switch, routers, network servers, and firewalls.

Don’t charge the hill until you are “ready.” This probably seems obvious to military types, but I see entrepreneurs violating this rule all the time. They approach key potential investors way too early, trying to talk their way up the hill, with no supporting business plan, and before they have a support team around them. Needless to say, they usually get shot down, and get no second chance.

The past two years have shown a major increase in the amount of money allocated to digital marketing and communications, which has created challenges for senior-level marketers who have not been able to keep up with the changing times. The speed at which new techniques in digital advertising, social media marketing and SEO are growing and changing is faster than it has ever been.

C corporations are preferred by venture capitalists because investing in C corporations means taxation on their profits, whether they receive their distributions or not. For investors or venture capitalists in a S corporation, they would be subject to S taxation, such as LLC investors. There is also variation in state taxation structures when it comes to S corporation taxation, which presents investors with a complex accounting problem.

In trying to help solve a problem that was causing some conflict among my teammates many years ago, I approached my manager with a suggestion. He immediately became irate and told me in response to my suggestion, “I would like to stay home in my pajamas all day and have my paycheck mailed to me, but that's not how life works.”

When Kelvin Liu began his doctorate degree in biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University in 2004, he knew his resume was unusual. His previous work painted him as more of an inventor and entrepreneur than an academic. Even before starting his doctoral research, Liu already had two patents under his name. Now, he has eight. Less than two years after graduating with his Ph.D., he became CEO of Circulomics, a biotechnology startup in downtown Baltimore.