A black semi truck is parked in front of a nondescript office building in Southfield on a recent crisp fall afternoon.

“You’re looking at a state-of-the-art facility,” says Terence Jackson Jr. as he enters the vehicle, dressed in all black. “When you come inside, you just forget that you are actually in a trailer at all.”

Image: Image credit: Laura Herberg/WDET

Many founders might not admit this, but entrepreneurship can be daunting and at times scary, especially when starting out. Many people who start a business begin with a real buzz; they are passionate, determined and ambitious with dreams of seeing the dollar or pound signs mounting as their success grows. 

When I started my first business, like many, I was attracted to the glam and glitz of entrepreneurship. But I soon realized that staying motivated and productive required me to learn new skills and habits.

The stakes are high if you want to invest some capital in a venture capital firm. Here are some things to consider when vetting a firm.

Lindsay Manseau famously said, "Starting your own business is like riding a roller coaster. There are highs and lows and every turn you take is another twist. The lows are really low, but the highs can be really high. You have to be strong, keep your stomach tight and ride along with the roller coaster that you started."

Despite the pandemic and an economic recession, businesses and governments continued to pursue their decarbonization plans in 2020, according to Deloitte. Even without a direct incentive for green infrastructure development in the economic stimulus measures passed in response to COVID-19, clean energy demand in the US proved resilient, as renewables and storage recorded declining costs and rising capacity and usage factors.

The so-called demographic cliff up ahead might not be quite as imposing as previously thought, but it’s still very much a cliff.

That’s one takeaway from the new edition of Knocking at the College Door, a report published every four years by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, known as Wiche. Its latest projections, published on Tuesday, provide a crucial glimpse of the number of high-school graduates that higher education can expect to see.

Three current Yale students and nearly a dozen recent alumni were named to Forbes magazine’s annual “30 Under 30” list, which recognizes some 600 individuals under the age of 30 who are innovators and leaders in a range of fields.

Anna Zhang, a Yale College sophomore, Nyuol Lueth Tong, a doctoral candidate in comparative literature at the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, and Max Jordan Nguemeni Tiako, a fourth-year student at the Yale School of Medicine, were chosen from thousands of nominees for the honor.

Image: Left to right: Medical student Max Jordan Nguemeni Tiako (Photo by Harold Shapiro); Yale College sophomore Anna Zhang; doctoral student Nyuol Lueth Tong

Even in the best of times, starting a business is like running a marathon with the odds stacked against you. In a global recession, you also have to endure the headwinds of reduced consumer spending and more selective investors. If legs of steel were essential before, they are absolutely critical now. You may also need a new strategy.

Singapore has unveiled its plan to sustain investments of about 1% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), equal to $25b, for research, innovation, and enterprise activities from 2021 – 2025.

Deputy Prime Minister and National Research Foundation (NRF) Chairman Heng Swee Keat announced the plan at the launch of the Research, Innovation, and Enterprise (RIE) 2025 plan.

The plan seeks to build on the progress of previous RIE investments, as the government has identified that science and technology (S&T) will be key to Singapore’s ability to meet future challenges and to respond to shifts in the global economy.

For many years, much of American innovation — particularly tech innovation — was concentrated on the coasts. Just five metropolitan areas (Boston, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and San Jose) accounted for 90% of all U.S. high-tech job growth between 2005 to 2017.

Those days are coming to a close. The modern map of innovation and entrepreneurship is starting to shift as companies and innovators move inward toward the heartland. U.S. states primarily known for their agro business are becoming known for their hubs of innovation, with high rates of startup growth and growing networks of business owners and entrepreneurs.

In the Spring of 2020, members from seven university tech transfer offices met with partners from six venture capital firms to discuss challenges both parties routinely face when working on life science deals together. Below is the resulting set of best practices, meant to benefit universities and VCs more broadly. Individuals interested in sharing feedback on the below guidelines should contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and include their name, organization, and work email. Please note that not all of these recommendations may be appropriate for startups outside of the life sciences. Comments and feedback will be posted at the bottom of this page. 

Image: https://techventures.columbia.ed

Celebrating 20 years of supporting women-led companies and industry transformation, Springboard Enterprises announces Natalie Buford-Young as its first CEO. Buford-Young will work alongside Springboard President and co-founder Amy Millman, broadening the breadth and depth of the organization.  To date, Springboard’s portfolio numbers 819 women-led companies, which have created $27.2 Billion in value.

Image: https://www.linkedin.com

2020 was a stop, start year. Normal levels of activity until around March, a three to four-month pause, and then almost back to pre-pandemic levels. 

As we go into 2021, the funding market is experiencing a high degree of bifurcation, with early-stage funding slowing down and later-stage funding experiencing something of a mini-boom. Here are two trends to watch.

Much has been written about managing through the lockdowns of the pandemic. But what can managers do to set themselves and their teams up for success when lockdowns and social distancing requirements are eventually lifted?

A lot of parents (myself included) are always looking for ways to expand our children’s mind - especially when it comes to entrepreneurship. If you are eager to teach your kids about being a business owner, there are a few books that stand out. I sat down with Eevi Jones, an award winning & bestselling children’s book author, and the founder of Children’s Book University™, to get her take on what makes a children’s book great for budding entrepreneurs. She has extensive experience turning complex business concepts into lessons even a 5-year-old can grasp.  

Welcome to the depths of December, a time in which the news cycle should be slowing down. Instead it’s accelerating, giving me the firm worry that our holiday cycle is going to be mostly work this year.

Regardless, we have no time for my usual bullshitting, so let’s get right to work. First up: How to find your next venture capitalist.

Image: Image Credits: Nigel Sussman

Jeff Bezos is one of the world’s most admired entrepreneurs, primarily because of his humble style and his growth from a regular person background to a current net worth in the neighborhood of $200 billion dollars. He is the founder, CEO, and ten percent owner of Amazon, the world’s largest e-commerce retailer, with an estimated employee count now approaching one million.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Pandemic fatigue: it’s plaguing organizations and employees right now. In 2020, we’ve endured a global pandemic, a massive economic crisis, and widespread social unrest. Layer on top of that forces that are fundamentally reshaping societies—technological innovation, business-model disruption, societal inequality, and workforce automation—and it’s clear that an epidemic of stress has been building, with the COVID-19 crisis as the tipping point.

Climate change continued its relentless march in 2020, which is on track to be one of the three warmest years on record. 2011-2020 will be the warmest decade on record, with the warmest six years all being since 2015, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

Ocean heat is at record levels and more than 80% of the global ocean experienced a marine heatwave at some time in 2020, with widespread repercussions for marine ecosystems already suffering from more acidic waters due to carbon dioxide (CO2) absorption, according to the provisional WMO report on the State of the Global Climate in 2020.

Venture capital is a type of private equity that primarily invests in start-up and small companies exhibiting long-term growth potential. They invest both in companies that have already shown impressive growth and companies showing high growth potential. Venture capital firms get funds from investors and usually put them in businesses that banks consider as too risky to lend money to. In this article, we will discuss the top Venture Capital Firms of 2020.