As someone who enjoys making money on my investments, I find it useful to consider where money-making investments come from.

My experience has been that luck plays a huge role. But that luck seems to be concentrated in certain parts of the world. More specifically, my most successful investments have been in startups from Boston and San Francisco that turned into shares of a publicly-traded company.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) received hundreds of thousands of comments on tax reform from taxpayers and groups after his call for feedback from stakeholders, a committee spokesperson said Monday.

“The Senate Finance Committee received hundreds of thousands of submissions from a broad cross section of citizens and stakeholders offering a variety of ideas and proposals on how to reform the nation’s broken tax code,” the spokesperson said. “Each submission will be considered as the committee moves forward with its current tax reform efforts.”

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The University of New Mexico’s technology transfer office reported another solid year of growth for fiscal year 2017, which ended June 30.

The number of startups formed with UNM technology remains at a record high for the second year in a row, with 12 new businesses launched. Licensing agreements for companies to take UNM inventions to market, and patents issued by the federal government, are also both up compared with FY 2016, as are invention disclosures by university faculty and staff.

Image: The University of New Mexico’s technology transfer office reported another solid year of growth for fiscal year 2017. Shown here is Lisa Kuuttila, president and CEO of Science and Technology Corp., UNM’s tech-transfer office. (Albuquerque Journal File)

For more than two decades, the numbers surrounding the survival rate of small businesses have remained unfortunately consistent. Only 20 percent of all new businesses make it past their first year. After five years, 50 percent of new businesses no longer exist and only one-third are able to enjoy their 10-year anniversary. 

As entrepreneurs tackle the legal formalities of assorting with a failed startup, including dissolving it with the state, they are also faced with the stigmas that surround what it feels like to have a business that failed.

Every startup lucky enough to get some traction gets to the point where they decide to hire some “regular employees” for sales, marketing, and administrative tasks. Then they are surprised to see productivity and creativity take a big dip. What they should be doing is hiring only “entrepreneurs,” meaning people who think and act as if this is their own business.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Accenture Interactive, Marriott International, and 1776, a leading global incubator and network for startups, today announced the launch of the Travel Experience Incubator, a new program designed to discover and foster startups working on innovative technologies and solutions to improve the travel experience. The incubator will bring together the hospitality industry expertise of one of the world’s most innovative companies, Marriott International, and its official Travel Experience Incubator partner, Accenture Interactive, along with participating startups, to co-create unique and inventive new experiences for travelers.

Image: http://www.businesswire.com

The countries most likely to produce the next Google.

When Sergey Brin was 16 and his family had already been living in the United States for a decade, his father took him on a short trip back to Russia. It was 1990 and the Soviet Union was collapsing. By the second day of the trip, the teenager had seen enough to grasp what his life could have been. Taking his father aside, the future co-founder of Google told him in earnest: “Thank you for taking us all out of Russia.”

Drones let us do cool things like take neat pictures from overhead views and pretend to be a pilot. But they've also been used for more nefarious purposes, like helping prisoners escape and spying on people.

NASA isn't one to mess around when it comes to security, and their Safeguard technology is clear proof of that. It can paralyze unmanned drones at a moment's notice if they become a threat.

Silicon Valley is a leader in technology and start-up innovation, and inspires entrepreneurs across the world – here are some of its teachings.

"Silicon Valley isn't a place; it’s a mindset," says Alec Wright, chief technology officer at GSVlabs, a start-up accelerator based in Redwood, California.

California's technology giants have spread across the state, most notably to downtown San Francisco, home to Salesforce, Dropbox and LinkedIn. But the ideas of Silicon Valley have spread much further. Here are four of the best.

In nearly every industry, the pace of work slows in the summer. But what would happen if you kept the relaxed summer schedule for more than just a season? The way you spend your time can tell you a lot about the life you’d really like to be living if you pay attention, says Hillary Rettig, productivity coach and author of The 7 Secrets of the Prolific.

“During summer we all have a sense of spaciousness,” she says. “Many of us think, reflect, plan, and experience. That’s exactly what people may not realize is the key to achieving any ambitious goal.”

The Unreasonable Group, an accelerator for socially-minded startups, was founded on the idea that entrepreneurs can change the world. Its name comes from a famous George Bernard Shaw quote: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.”

But unreasonableness only gets you so far, says Daniel Epstein, Unreasonable’s founder and CEO. To truly exact change, entrepreneurs need to be able to co-operate, including with corporations, governments, and the social sector.

Aspiring entrepreneurs and new business owners often ask me for a secret formula for success, and they seem surprised when I tell them there isn’t one. In my experience, every new business is best handled as a series of experiments, from which smart founders learn a winning strategy, after some mistakes. In fact, that culture of learning as you go is my secret to business success.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

The cost of hiring a freelance developer for your business could still vary considerably. A new survey says the cost of a developer — like an expert specializing in Javascript, for example — could vary by as much as $30 per hour depending on where in the world they live. The gap is even larger when looking at averages from city to city. The latest survey by CodementorX, an online developer network,  breaks down the cost of freelance developers around the world for 2017 based on location, technology stack, and experience so small businesses can find the best bargain.

Image: https://smallbiztrends.com

The annual Great Colleges to Work For survey was administered March 14 through April 15 and compiled by ModernThink LLC for The Chronicle. All survey-related content in this issue, including college presidents’ statements about what makes their institution a great place to work, was provided by ModernThink, which drew institutional data from the colleges and the U.S. Department of Education. For more details on the winners, including average salaries and turnover rates, get copies of the full report here.

Image: http://www.chronicle.com

As I gaze out the window on a sunny day at the lake in Punkaharju, Finland I am tempted to write about the peacefulness and quietness of this beautiful world class landscape. But when you see through this natural landscape, you see a Start-Up nation called Finland that continues to forge ahead its own path and place in the world of technology and innovation.

Image: CREDIT: A. SOSA-PASCUAL - Jari Handelberg from Aalto University, enters Maria 01 a former Hospital turned into an Tech Accelerator Complex in Helsinki, Finland.

The 2016 election laid bare multiple divisions in American society, but one of the biggest is geographical. In major cities like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, people are generally doing well (if not equally so), while many places situated far from urban business centers aren’t.

Remarkably, faith in the American dream runs highest in locales where social mobility is lowest. U.S. companies, which for the past eight months have been struggling to navigate choppy political waters, should see that as an opportunity—even a call to action.

Image: Photo: NASA via Wikimedia Commons

As a long-time business advisor and angel investor, I’m a believer that “two heads are better than one” in building a new business. Very few entrepreneurs have the range of skills and experience to be the solution creator as well as business creator, or operational as well as sales leader. The challenge is to recognize and recruit that ideal partner match early with minimal cost and risk.

In fact, I would broaden the definition of partner from co-founder to “business partner.” The reason is that good attributes apply equally well to “external” partners, as they do to internal partners, like a co-founder or CTO. A good overall example is the synergy between Google co-Founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, as well as Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.

Image: http://blog.startupprofessionals.com

In monetary terms, D.C.’s tech scene has been doing pretty well with investors lately: Local start-ups took in about $435 million between April and June 2017, compared with $298 million over the same period four years ago, according to Pitchbook investment data analyzed by the National Venture Capital Association.

But that funding is going to fewer and fewer companies each year, reflecting a “winner-take-all” start-up ecosystem where resources are concentrated at the top. Just 51 D.C.-area companies signed deals with venture capitalists between April and June, the second-worst quarter since 2013. That’s a far cry from a few years ago, when the number of deals per quarter tended to come in above 60.

For those who are new to the entrepreneurship world, the terminologies that are used at every startup funding stage might be daunting and confusing. However, it is very important to be well versed with the terms and the relevance of each funding stage as well. Each investment round is critical to the existence of the startup and comprehensive knowledge will give you an edge when negotiating as a startup founder or as a potential investor.

Image: https://pakwired.com

BASF Corp. is the Google of chemical companies, a twinkle in the eye of Blake Dube and generations of other college students trying to land a dream job.

And the dream came true for Mr. Dube: the global pharmaceutical, agriculture and coatings materials giant offered him a full-time position two months ago when he graduated from the University of Pittsburgh. But he turned it down, choosing instead the far dodgier path of getting his own business started.

Image: Alex Driehaus/Post-Gazette