Companies are trying to arrange the safe return of workers to big-city offices, but one factor remains beyond their control: the mass-transit commute.

Many workers say they are reluctant to ride subways, trains and buses into city centers, particularly when they could be in close quarters with unmasked or unvaccinated people. Several executives say their employees are citing Covid-19 fears related to their commutes as a key reason they want to continue working from home.

Climate change impacts are projected to displace 216 million people in developing regions by 2050, according to a new report from the World Bank.

Driven primarily by sea level rise and water scarcity, people will relocate within their own countries to cities and towns with more reliable access to natural resources and economic opportunity, the report finds.

John Lee Dumas (JLD), founder and host of the Entrepreneur on Fire podcast and author of Common Path to Uncommon Success, has some great entrepreneurial lessons in his book that we can apply to cold calling.

When John Lee Dumans first thought of starting a podcast, he had the idea of producing one episode per day. His friends thought that it would be impossible to produce so many episodes in such a little amount of time. There weren’t examples of others attempting this because most people weren't sure how an audience would respond to so much content every day.

The traditional dogma in the startup ecosystem is that you can’t predict whether people will want your product. Instead, you do some customer research, throw an MVP out there as fast as possible, and hope it hits. That’s not my approach.

So far in my career, I’ve been early at four startups: Udemy, Lyft, Sprig and Maven. Three of them achieved over $1M in run-rate in their first six months of going live. I don’t think this is an accident. I generally think this early success could’ve been predicted before a single line of code was written.

“Anyone who wants a COVID test can get one.” When that proclamation was made back in May 2020, it wasn’t true. There was a scarcity of testing supplies and limited sites, and it could take weeks to get back the results — making many of them essentially useless in clinical decision-making. The initial rapid tests on the market were a wild west of different companies who failed to ensure accuracy of their tests — -resulting in significant error rates.

Image: https://drjohnwhyte.medium.com

You can’t survive as an entrepreneur without resilience, because you are going to fail at least once, maybe multiple times. That’s the nature of trying something that’s never been done before. Resilience means not giving up, and being energized by what you have learned. As Thomas Edison said, "I have not failed. I have just found ten thousand ways that won't work."

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At first blush, things are looking great in the life sciences real estate market. In particular, venture capital funding is exploding, supporting new companies or expansion from existing ones that should keep demand high for properties and continue to support larger rents. But this could lead to some overheating in the property market and to a shift in the way life sciences investors want to handle real estate.

More entrepreneurs want to be socially responsible these days, but fear a negative impact on profits, growth, and the ability to find an investor. In the short run, there are real costs associated with the “triple bottom line” of maximizing profit, people (social), and planet (environment). But very quickly, it is becoming obvious to startups that the value and satisfaction exceeds the costs.

Most aspiring entrepreneurs believe that a great idea alone will assure business success. Experts argue that it’s more important to have a great plan, and personal business acumen. Hardly anyone mentions selling principles. Yet in this age when customers have a thousand alternatives, and are overwhelmed by a multitude of messages, sales efforts can make or break a business.

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One of the most common questions I get from young people looking to scale their businesses is if it’s ever too early to do it. The short answer is “yes,” but the important nuance here is that scaling a business “too early” does not hinge upon the age of the entrepreneur or even that of the business itself. Instead, it depends on how prepared you are to face the challenges of scaling a business.

Covid-19 and our efforts to combat it have caused a great deal of stress. According to the American Psychological Association, in 2020, nearly 8 in 10 American adults indicated that the pandemic was a significant source of stress in their lives.

Image: https://hbr.org

Cities, states and regions might want to dust off those Amazon HQ2 bids to enter a new $1 billion federal competition in applied science areas to help make us more technologically competitive and inclusive.

Image: Brian Darmody is CEO of the Association of University Research Parks, whose D.C.-area office is based in College Park. He formerly oversaw corporate and foundation relations for the University of Maryland. JOANNE S. LAWTON

Crowdfunding can be a dream for capital-starved startups: It’s more accessible than traditional modes of financing, and founders can retain more control. Crowdfunding campaigns tend to encourage long-term customer engagement and are a good customer and retention tactic. There’s a lot to love. 

Somewhere in India last October, a person—likely immunocompromised, perhaps taking drugs for rheumatoid arthritis or with an advanced case of HIV/AIDS—developed COVID-19.

Their case might have been mild, but because of their body’s inability to clear the coronavirus it lingered and multiplied. As the virus replicated and moved from one cell to another, parts of the genetic material copied itself incorrectly. Maybe the person lived in a crowded home or went out to buy food in a busy market, but wherever it happened, the altered virus was spread to others. Experts believe this singular situation in one individual is likely how the Delta variant now wreaking havoc in the U.S. and around the world was born.

The successful July launches of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space flights for many seemed more like a made-for-TV spectacle than a showcase of scientific advancement. But for the venture capital community it meant something different. The milestones were a sign to many investors and entrepreneurs that the commercialization of space, which has been spearheaded by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, was not only possible but might be more expansive and come sooner than originally thought — and they wanted in. 

In a misguided attempt to control drug costs, some Congressional leaders are urging the Biden administration to misapply a 40-year-old law that supports 6 million jobs, helped launch 15,000 start-up companies, and contributed $1.7 trillion to U.S economic output. The lawmakers — Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex.) — want the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as the Department of Defense, to misuse the march-in provision of the Bayh-Dole Act to set the price of federally-funded medicines — something the provision does not authorize. Such an action would undermine the intention of Bayh-Dole, while inflicting devastating damage on the U.S.

Some of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies have played a central role in the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, it’s likely no surprise that the pandemic has also been great for many healthcare businesses. In fact, in 2020 alone, the world’s 50 largest pharmaceutical companies still combined for a whopping $851 billion in revenues.

Image: https://www.visualcapitalist.com

We all have a choice. We all take in information. We use that information to make daily and life decisions. Some decisions affect only us, but most decisions affect us AND others.

As a startup mentor and investor, I am approached regularly by aspiring entrepreneurs who assert that business plans take too much time, are inaccurate, and rarely add value. They cite sources like Profitable Venture Magazine, “Why Business Plans are a Waste of Time” and this Forbes article. From my perspective, much of this advice is urban legend and just plain wrong.

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Our recent report and technical appendix examines the state of business incentives for entrepreneurial firms. Funded by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, we analyze financial, fiscal, and services (such as incubators) incentives to determine if and how they are assisting small business entrepreneurs and innovation or technology entrepreneurs, including micro enterprises, inclusive/social enterprises, and second-stage/growth firms. The research highlights several insights for policy savvy economic developers, policy makers, and program administrators seeking to design and offer incentives to stimulate their entrepreneurship ecosystem and regional economic growth.