It is January 2021, and you are getting ready to begin the new semester.

Fall term was a wild ride, as Covid-19 continued to rack the nation. The pandemic roared through and receded in repeated cycles of infection, relative safety, and reinfection as death tolls rose. During viral lulls, campuses welcomed back students and faculty and staff members, then sent them off campus again as infections and death rates soared. HyFlex term, some called it, a blending over time of face-to-face and digital-learning experiences. Meanwhile, colleges froze or cut spending while the economy staggered through on-again, off-again recessions.

Image: Nate Kitch for the Chronicle

As an entrepreneur, you need to be your own cheerleader. Many entrepreneurs do not have the luxury of hiring marketing or public relations teams. Staying top of mind was easier pre-pandemic when we were able to go to events and conferences and meet with people regularly in person. Even though things have started to open up in limited ways around the country, it will be a long time before they will be back to pre-covid routines. Additionally, people have varying comfort levels with meeting in person now and it is important to be respectful of those levels. However, there are still things that you can do right now to ensure that you stay visible and grow your business. Here are my top 3 tips:

In 2009, the Obama-Biden Administration elevated the startup entrepreneur as a key piece of America’s recovery from the Great Recession. This wasn’t a particularly partisan decision—there was broad-based Republican support for it. Nevertheless, it was a fundamental transformation in how the federal government views entrepreneurs. 

The decision to invest government resources to promote high-growth startups was based on three important facts. The first was data from the U.S. Census Bureau showing that young, high-growth businesses were responsible for the majority of net job creation in the United States economy from 1980-2009. Secondly, through the work of Steve Blank and Eric Ries, there was greater awareness that startup companies are different from small businesses and large corporations. They share characteristics of both at different times in their existence but need distinct policies to reflect their unique growth trajectory. And thirdly, there was a realization that America’s large companies in 2009 had embraced a policy of offshoring and outsourcing and would not likely be enticed to build large factories in America without significant subsidies. 

Frequent the business section of your favorite newspaper long enough, and you’ll see mentions of private equity (PE).

Maybe it’s because a struggling company got bought out and taken private, just as Toys “R” Us did in 2005 for $6.6 billion.

Otherwise, it’s likely a mention of a major investment (or payout) that a PE firm scored through venture or growth capital. For example, after Airbnb had to postpone its original plans for a 2020 initial public offering (IPO) in light of the pandemic, the company raised more than $1 billion in PE funding to plan for a new listing later this year.

Image: https://www.visualcapitalist.com

We all face pressure in our lives, but there’s nothing like that of an entrepreneur facing customer crises and the competitive challenges of a new business. Don’t believe the myth that all you have to do to get rich is bring up an ecommerce website, and the money rolls in while you sleep. Most successful business leaders have learned how to reframe pressure situations into opportunities.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Start-ups were once synonymous with Silicon Valley or London – but that’s no longer the case. Here we look at five emerging global start-up hotspots, and ask which factors make each one so attractive to today’s tech entrepreneurs.

COVID-19 has upended the world and our global society at a pace and in a manner that are both unprecedented. In this era of uncertainty, start-ups play an ever more important role by bringing to market innovative solutions for tackling the challenges and mitigating the negative impacts caused by the pandemic. These days, however, such solutions do not originate solely in Silicon Valley or London; they are coming from other regions of the globe with strong start-up ecosystems and unique values and cultures.

The Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program provides grant or contract funding to small businesses seeking to commercialize innovative technologies. With $3.2 billion allotted to SBIR each year, there are twelve different agencies that have set aside SBIR funding. One agency is Health and Human Services which provides funding through the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIH has three grant funding proposal deadlines a year. The next deadline is January 5, 2021. On the NIH/SBIR website, NIH states that the electronic submission process for grants can take from six to eight weeks, so this is a reminder to start now. Below are five key tips to help small businesses in their NIH SBIR electronic submission process.

It seems that most of you entrepreneurs I meet in my role as business advisor are convinced that starting a new business requires equity investors, exponential growth, and a plan to go public via IPO. I often recommend a less painful alternative, called the lifestyle entrepreneur approach, where your focus is on making a living and a work-life balance, rather than changing the world.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Starting a business is not for the weak. Nearly half don’t make it to five years, and even fewer make it to the ten-year mark. And every successful business can look back on their history and recall moments where they could have quickly put the nail in the coffin too.

Just look at some of the biggest household brands in history. Stakeholders of Walt Disney rejected the concept for Mickey hundreds of times, and despite wild success with early films like Pinocchio and Snow White, debt mounted. FedEx almost went under but was saved by $27,000 in blackjack winnings (something I wouldn’t recommend as a fallback for struggling entrepreneurs). And let’s not forget how Apple faced more than a decade of financial loss.

Healthcare, business productivity and fintech startups have dominated the unicorn class of 2020 as an exponential rise in demand for services in these sectors during the coronavirus pandemic has changed VC investing trends.

Since January, 71 companies in the US have reached a valuation of $1 billion or more, while 79 companies were minted unicorns in all of 2019, according to PitchBook data.

Keeping kids safe at home is more important than ever – including safely storing medicines. Especially, as many families are living a new normal with children spending more time at home due to the pandemic.

Every hour in the United States, 5 children under age 6 are rushed to emergency departments for medication poisonings, many due to unsafe storage practices. There has been a 142% increase in prescribed medications over the past two decades. At the same time, an aging population and drastic increase in three-generation households, kids living with their parents and grandparents, are likely contributing to approximately 200,000 children visiting emergency departments each year due to adverse drug events.

This Election Day, many Americans are wondering whether bipartisanship is even possible anymore.

For the millions suffering from cancer and other debilitating diseases, I hope so. Because 18 years ago, when I faced a deadly diagnosis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), bipartisanship laid the foundation that gave me my life back.

The treatment that saved me resulted from years of research that would have amounted to nothing without the law authored by two senators, Indiana Democrat Birch Bayh and Kansas Republican Bob Dole, in 1980.

Image: Senators Birch Bayh and Bob Dole at the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 21, 1978. The Bayh-Dole Act has helped private drug companies bring government pharmaceutical research to market—saving lives, writes Betsy de Parry. JOHN DURICKA—AP IMAGES

In more than 15 years of early-stage investing, our team has backed hundreds of companies, met with thousands of founders and kept a laser focus on doing everything we can to help small startups make it big.

As an extension of that work, back in 2013 we started First Round Review, where we share long-form stories on how tech entrepreneurs can build better companies. When we started The Review, we had two goals: 1) to share the advice that usually only gets passed down through one-on-one coaching sessions, and 2) to make sure readers walk away not with high-level, generic advice they’ve already heard before, but instead unique, incredibly actionable tactics they could use today.

Image: https://review.firstround.com

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted on Monday to raise the limits on Regulation Crowdfunding offerings from $1.07 million to $5 million in an effort to support entrepreneurs and emerging businesses.

The SEC aims to expand investment opportunities as the amendments will promote capital formation. The commission plans to simplify the overly complex exempt offering framework.

How do you prepare yourself for what might be a large, perhaps even life-changing, disappointment? Is it better to think it through ahead of time? Or do you just end up wasting energy and causing yourself anxiety when you can’t know the outcome yet anyway? The first thing you need to do is ask if worrying really helps. If your anxiety motivates you to take action that can affect the outcome, then it might be useful. Worry can also compel you to gather resources – such as social support – to help you stay resilient if the worst-case scenario comes to fruition. But you should balance any agonizing with some sense of hope, as long as you aren’t overconfident that things will go your way. Definitely don’t wallow in misery. You can’t prepay your pain. And if you have trouble quelling unhelpful, negative emotions, try distracting yourself with something fun or meditative.   close

Venture capital has become somewhat romanticized over the last few years, thanks to its involvement in the tech start-up sector, an influx of private capital, and its association with various well-known and celebrity investors in the media. As such, its increased profile, combined with a certain mystique, has made it an increasingly attractive choice amongst individuals looking for an exciting and varied career. And as more people look to break into the sector, new training programs are emerging, promising to give them a head start.

Image: VC training can't replace real-life experience PHOTO BY PIXABAY FROM PEXELS

Home again ... It’s not your fault. Downsizing, the global health crisis, injury or accident, brutal divorce, or simply that your parents are needing YOUR support. Whatever the reason us independent and modern adults find ourselves living with our parents after 35… it sucks.

Why? Let’s list a few reasons, to stay on the same page:

Lack of freedom. I don’t know about you, but my parents mean well when they ask “where are you going?” or “what’re you doing?” or “when will you be home?” Srill, I find myself living within their hours, trying to get home before they get to bed so as not to disturb them and sneaking out when they are at work so I can get private errands taken care of. 

It’s an honor to be sharing a virtual stage today with Senator Bob Dole and with Chris Bayh in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act.  I’d like to thank the Bayh-Dole 40 Coalition members for their tireless advocacy as champions for the enduring impacts of this seminal legislation.

40 years ago, Senators Birch Bayh and Bob Dole had a shared vision – that innovations arising from federally funded research could have monumental economic and societal impacts for American citizens.  They led the bipartisan charge in writing the Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act of 1980, which today is widely known by their names – the Bayh-Dole Act.

Image: https://www.ipwatchdog.com

Every startup and every new business needs a unique selling proposition (USP) to get people’s attention these days, and make it stand out in the information overload we all see. Your concept has to be understood by customers and investors in 30 seconds or less, and everyone needs to immediately see how awesome it would be, or that they would be nuts not to have it.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

The flow of venture capital in 2020 has been surprisingly strong given the year’s general uncertainty, but while investors have showered plenty of dough on growth-stage companies, seed-stage startups are down 32% last quarter compared to the year before.

There have been plenty of recent conversations about alternative funding routes for founders, and one of those oft-overlooked paths has been equity crowdfunding. While crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter push consumers to back unrealized projects in exchange for products or other services, equity crowdfunding allows consumers to actually invest cash and receive a piece of the company. It’s not a conventional path, but it can be a viable option for companies that have a close relationship with an engaged customer base.