Crunchbase, an online start-up database, indicates that single-founder companies do at least as well as, if not better than, two-founder companies. In fact, amongst start-ups which have managed an exit (via an IPO or an acquisition), more than 50 percent were founded by a single individual.

Single-founder start-ups are neither obligated to find a co-founder, nor doomed if they don’t find one. Therefore, if a co-founder has to be brought in, it must be for the right reasons.

In my experience running a venture acceleration programme, founders often add co-founders for cosmetic effect – how they would appear in a pitch – or as zero-salary employees. Both approaches soon fail.

Decisiveness is often cited as a desirable trait in leaders. Definitions of decisive include “having the power to decide; conclusive” and “characterized by decision and firmness; resolute.” Yes, a leader must make decisions, but effectiveness depends on when and how the decision is made, not just that it was made.

I have observed and interviewed leaders in the response to crises such as the H1N1 pandemic, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Superstorm Sandy, and the Boston Marathon bombings. Such high-stakes, high-pressure situations bring into stark relief the reality that decisions must often be made with incomplete, sometimes conflicting information.

Although most signs point to continued growth in the U.S., an overwhelming economic pessimism seems to have taken hold in many parts of the country. Not a day goes by that I don’t read about the roboapocalypse — the massive job loss to be wrought by automation. These are real and valid concerns to be sure. Technology today is disrupting nearly every sector at a speed that eclipses previous revolutions. But to adopt a negative view of the future, to focus on what we may plausibly lose, is to miss out on what we have the potential to gain from this coming “Third Wave” of technology, both in terms of innovations and job creation.

The Singapore government has announced new plans to drive the commercialisation of deep tech projects developed by startups and research agencies, as well as help polytechnic students and alumni grow their business ventures.

Heng Swee Keat, Minister of Finance and Deputy Chairman of the National Research Foundation (NRF), unveiled the slew of initiatives at this year’s SWITCH (Singapore Week of Innovation & TeCHnology), a government-backed tech innovation conference, during his opening address.

Image: https://e27.co

Siemens and the Hong Kong Science Park have entered into an agreement to create Hong Kong’s first smart city digital hub. The hub will be powered by MindSphere, the cloud-based IoT operating system from Siemens, to tackle the city’s challenges through an open, interactive and holistic approach.   Siemens has also extended its cooperation with Zhuhai for a tailored intelligent traffic management solution and deployed embedded city sensor boxes in the Suzhou Industrial Park to help reduce congestion and air pollution, optimise infrastructure operation and improve public safety.

I often get asked, “Do I have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?” Truthfully, if you’re asking that question, it may not be the right fit for you.

Being an entrepreneur requires you to have an idea that changes a system or creates a new experience. In essence, you are changing behavior. Steve Jobs did this with the iPhone, not only by creating a product, but a completely new market for smartphones along with it. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is taking us to new levels of sustainability and style with Tesla and to the moon with SpaceX!

As someone who has taken the plunge into entrepreneurship more than once, I am always drawn to Thomas Edison’s statement, “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.”

Running your own business is hard work, and it takes a great deal of perspiration to succeed. But there are plenty of attributes beyond hard work that are shared by successful entrepreneurs.

At SCORE Traverse City, we were recently introduced to the Entrepreneur Index created by eCareerFit. Based on interviews with thousands of entrepreneurs who have exceeded the five-year threshold for business success, the Index zeroes in on 12 behavioral traits that help to predict potential satisfaction and potential success as an entrepreneur.

Joining the ranks of Chicago, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and many others, the city of Madison, Wisconsin, has built a tool to help residents visualize the data that makes municipal government tick.

Mayor Paul Soglin introduced the tool in conjunction with his 2018 capital budget last week, the Cap Times reports. It’s basically a geospatial depiction of the numbers — one-time expenses like building and infrastructure projects — in the form of a color-coded map. Madison was one of 16 cities to join Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities initiative in October of 2016, and this project is a result of that partnership.

Image: Credit: City of Madison

Calum Forsyth is a man on a mission. One that some cynics might place in the impossible category. That endeavour is to create Scotland’s next billion-dollar business – or “unicorn”. However, the co-founder of Scotland’s first dedicated pre-seed tech accelerator has no time for the doubters.

Edinburgh-based Seed Haus – the brainchild of Forsyth and business partner Robin Knox, the co-founder of point-of-sale specialist Intelligentpos – has just selected its first cohort of start-ups in a bid to unearth the next Skyscanner or FanDuel.

Image: Calum Forsyth on left and Robin Knox on right, both of Seed Haus - http://www.scotsman.com

When we’re put in the awkward position of having to turn someone down—for a job, an invitation, or a relationship, for example—we at least want to let them down easily. Now, research suggests one way we can potentially make those rejections sting a little bit less: Don’t apologize.

The study, recently published in Frontiers in Psychology, contradicts pretty much everything we’ve ever been told about manners, communication, and basic human decency. But its authors say that if we really care more about minimizing hurt feelings for the rejectee (and not just for yourself), you may want to skip the requisite “I’m sorry.”

Embracing the sting of failure may not sound enjoyable — but new research shows it's the best way to learn from mistakes.

A study in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making found that people who ruminated on their emotions about failure were likely to try harder to correct their mistakes than those who made excuses or didn't let their failures bring them down.

This notion of feeling the pain in order to progress may be counterintuitive to those who believe in shaking off failures. But it's actually motivating to learn how bad it feels to fail, according to study co-author Selin Malkoc, a marketing professor at The Ohio State University's Fisher College of Business.

Every so often a promising entrepreneur seems to freeze in the oncoming headlights and gets run over by his competition. Why is it that his idea which seemed so fundable only months ago fails to attract investors today? The team is the same. The company's market is the same.

The only change might be a visible new competitor, or another economy downturn, resulting in investors holding their money, and that makes all the difference. Herein lies a key principle of decision making - “Any decision is better than no decision.”

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

In 2010, as the dust from the financial crisis settled, three women working in disparate parts of the economy noticed that startups in “hard science” (think biology or chemistry rather than tech) weren’t getting the attention they deserved from big investors. They joined forces with the foundation of Peter Thiel, the well-known contrarian investor, to launch Breakout Labs, an incubator program to help such companies turn their ideas into viable businesses.

Image: The key people behind Breakout Ventures (from left): Lindy Fishburne, Julia Moore and Hemai Parthasarathy. Winni Wintermeyer

Finland’s startup scene has stirred in recent years, with growing amount of capital and interest flowing into sectors like mobile, energy and gaming. Just last week, Rovio announced its forthcoming public listing at unicorn value. Boosted by global interest garnered by startup event Slush, the country’s tech sector seems to be key in the country’s future growth. 

Image: Petri Anttila / Slush Press, Flickr

Carnegie Mellon University serves as an “economic engine”, providing nearly $2.7 billion in annual economic impact for the local, regional, and state economy in Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia’s Econsult Solutions explains in a recent report from the 2016 fiscal year that part of the reason Carnegie Mellon has a huge spillover effect is because the university ensures that its inflow of education, research, and commercial activities are directed into Pittsburgh’s economy.

Image: Lisa Qian/

St. Louis already has one pre-eminent research university — and it’s not the one located on Grand Boulevard.

Ken Olliff wants that to change.

“St. Louis needs two great research universities,” says the recently hired vice president for research at St. Louis University.

Olliff is in charge of SLU’s campaign to build itself into one of them, with the ultimate goal of positioning the soon-to-be 200-year-old institution as one of the world’s premier Jesuit research universities.

If you read the headlines you may well think cryptocurrencies are a either a radically new way of paying that is our savior from ossified, corrupt governments or on the other side that they are speculative Ponzi schemes. The reality of course is that cryptocurrencies can be both and can be liberating and corrupting at the same time.

My goal with this post is to lay out a simple framework for anybody unsure whom to listen to orient your own views and develop a healthy skepticism for arguments lacking merit often by friends telling you how much money they’ve made.

In the conference room of a spacious loft office near 30th Street Station, Usman “Oz” Azam and Michael Christiano huddle for a meeting. They’re CEO and chief business officer, respectively, of Tmunity Therapeutics, a start-up launched to commercialize some breakthrough research out of the University of Pennsylvania — a method of reengineering a patient’s own immune system cells so they can destroy cancer tumors.

The two execs are the company’s sole employees so far. Their new headquarters still contains chalkboard-style signs and leather couches from the prior tenant, some sort of hipster

telemarketing operation.

Image: Illustration by Muti.

Diversity has long been a goal of businesses, universities, and communities. In addition to providing basic fairness to those who might otherwise be shut out, a diversity of experiences and points of view is believed to be beneficial to organizational performance. A new study co-authored by Professor Olav Sorenson extends this idea by showing that ethnically integrated communities get greater benefit from venture capital investment than more segregated ones. 

Startup accelerators have been a critical component in the creation of thousands of startups, including such familiar names as Airbnb, Twitch, Stripe, Dropbox, Twilio, Simple, Pluto TV and ClassPass.

These startup-creation machines provide some combination of education, capital, co-working space, product-development support and access to a strong support network. They enable companies that are ready for venture capital to quickly get up to steam.

Image: https://www.entrepreneur.com - Techtars