In the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, there is much discussion of the ’10,000-hour rule.’  The rule states that it takes about 10,000 hours of dedicated practice to truly have mastery of any skill – whether it be playing bass guitar, web development, skateboarding, or ping-pong playing.

Two of Gladwell’s strongest examples are Bill Gates and The Beatles. The empowering message here is not that Bill Gates or The Beatles are freaks of nature or flukes, but that they each had over 10,000 of dedication to their chosen craft.  While we may not all be as quippy clever and musically gifted as the Beatles or as doggedly determined in cracking codes as Bill Gates, the message is we all have what it takes to succeed – if we dedicate the time and type of attention required.

On November 8, 2012, the BioPark hosted Rachel King, CEO of GlycoMimetics, as part of its Business of Bio speaker series. Ms. King spoke before an active, question-filled audience from the University of Maryland campus in Baltimore and from bioscience companies throughout the region.

Opening her discussion with a review of the venture financing climate within the life sciences industry during 2012, Ms. King said, “There is a challenge today with respect to the risk level that a venture capitalist is willing to take. Investments are going towards later-stage programs. That’s not to say early deals don’t get done – but they are harder to secure.”

So much noise in the world. So much chatter.

Most of it sounds like the adults speaking on Charlie Brown: “mwa mwa-mwa mwa mwa”

But sometimes between all the mumbo-jumbo comes ear piercing wisdom. Yes — pure unfiltered advice in search of a landing pad in the brain of startup entrepreneurs.

And so my question when having an audience of rock star entrepreneurs is always this:

While I have been an entrepreneur for more than 20 years of my life, I have been an angel investor for less than one.  As such, I have a pretty unique position of still being able to understand exactly how entrepreneurs feel, while now sitting on the other side of the table negotiating against them as the investor.

Filling this new role at this time in my career is somewhat comparable to being that 20- or 30-something young parent who is still cool enough to remember what it is like to be the teenager, but now has to play the role of the grown-up who sets and enforces rules. You feel a bit like a little kid in a grown-up’s life.  I can empathize completely with the angst these entrepreneurs are experiencing as they have put everything on the line and are just trying to make it. But at the same time, I know that, as an investor, I must play the part of setting expectations and enforcing fair valuations. I decided I would tap into my “still cool enough to remember” side in this column and try to give the best advice I can to those entrepreneurs who are trying to win over an investor.

The new patent law put into place by the America Invents Act on September 16, 2011, goes into effect Spring 2013. This marks a fundamental change in US patent protection, moving away from the current first-to-invent rule to the international standard, first-to-file.

“Effectively, this creates a race to the patent office,” according to Patrick Richards of Richards Patent Law PC. “In a race of established, well-funded businesses with defined intellectual property protection strategies (and patent attorneys in-house or working closely with the business) versus entrepreneurs that may not have any experience with the patent system and the funds to pursue robust patent strategies, the advantage clearly goes to the businesses,” Richards said.

In Silicon Valley, we’re so often mired in jargon that we forget to ask the most basic questions about how venture capital works.

Christine Herron, director at Intel Capital and a venture advisor at 500Startups and StartX (a Stanford-affiliated nonprofit accelerator), addressed an intimate audience of investors and entrepreneurs this afternoon at Startup Monthly’s Smart Money conference.

She answered questions like: ” What are capital calls?” “Where does money come from?” “How does  a venture capital fund work?” She also offered her personal perspective on investing — bear in mind that there may be some discrepancies among investors.

What the federal information technology world needs is an efficiency button. Push it and IT projects come in on time and on budget. They perform as described, requiring minimal human and technical resources.

Sorry, no button.

Instead, government IT initiatives—some monumental, some incremental—are helping managers deliver results in new ways. These strategies aim to improve agency efforts to design, buy, implement and troubleshoot IT projects.

IT faster, cheaper, smarter: Here are five approaches to getting it done.

Classes—and even entire degrees—in entrepreneurship are popping up all over the country, at schools from Stanford to Harvard. Yet the value of an entrepreneurship degree isn’t quite as clear-cut as, say, an accounting degree. Think of all the different variations on how an entrepreneur can found a business—how much of that do you think is possible to pack into a four-year degree? Before you take out those student loans, you need to know what you’re paying for. That’s even a bigger issue if you may need a business loan to put your knowledge to use.

It's one of the biggest decisions that startup entrepreneurs must make - when to quit their day jobs.

Chantale Trouillot has been debating that question for the past five years. She dreams of when she can permanently exchange her nurse uniform for a business suit. For now, she juggles caring for patients with selling decision makers on her innovative product, a more functional hospital gown.

The balancing act, she said, "hasn't been easy," but from a practical standpoint, "we have to pay the bills."

Recently, I wrote a column suggesting that, in the field of social change, we’re getting smarter. I went so far as to say that we may even be going through a new Enlightenment. I mentioned three ways we’re improving — employing new understandings about human behavior to get better results, using evidence more regularly to assess and guide problem-solving, and constructing integrated solutions to social problems. I also promised to highlight some other advances.

Today, I’m focusing on a key innovation that underlies much of these gains: the recognition of the role played by entrepreneurs in advancing positive social changes. I don’t mean businesspeople solving social ills, but people spreading new approaches — through nonprofits and businesses, or within government — to address problems more successfully than in the past.

The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) and Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) announce today the identification of three chemical series targeting the treatment of deadly neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), through DNDi’s screening of MMV’s open access Malaria Box. The resulting DNDi screening data are among the first data generated on the Malaria Box to be released into the public domain, exemplifying the potential of openly sharing drug development data for neglected patients.

The open access Malaria Box is an MMV initiative launched in December 2011 to catalyse drug discovery for malaria and neglected diseases. It contains 400 molecules, selected by experienced medicinal chemists to offer the broadest chemical diversity possible and is available free of charge. In return, MMV requests that any data gleaned from research on the Malaria Box are shared in the public domain within two years. To date, more than 100 Malaria Boxes have been delivered to over 20 countries for research on diseases including malaria, neglected diseases, HIV and cancer.

What happens when the FDA approval process slows down and imposes higher hurdles, when cost-reduction becomes central to the healthcare provider business model, when clinical trials and commercialization costs for medical devices and biotechnology products spiral through the roof, and when exit returns are compressed by general economic conditions and the decline of the IPO market?

Venture capital funding for early stage life science companies markedly contracts. In fact, venture capital funding for these companies declined consistently over the last few years. Even if federal grant funding for basic research increases, there will still remain the proverbial “valley of death” in funding the necessary first steps of translating research into products and ideas into companies. The emerging life sciences company must find a bridge to the development and commercialization of new life-saving technologies.

So you’ve had the next big idea, or your startup’s been going along quietly for a little while. Now you’re ready to take it out into the big bad world. If you find yourself asking “Umm…what next?” you’re not alone.

If you’re in an emerging market like South Africa, knowing what to do next is getting easier, but it’s still not as easy as it might be in a more traditional market.

Sure there are a growing number of angel investors, venture capitalists, incubators and accelerators, but if you want to get their interest you really have to stand out. The way to do that is to constantly interrogate what you’re offering.

Have you ever been asked for feedback — but had the feeling that it wasn't a genuine request?

Take this example: A friend of mine who works for a large global corporation recently sent a note to her CEO, sharing her views on questions that he raised on his internal blog. The next week she received a call (more of a reprimand) from HR asking why she had emailed the CEO. She responded, "Well, the CEO said, 'Let me know what you think.' So I did." Sure enough, that statement was removed in the CEO's next blog post.

Choosing the right crowdfunding platform for your business or project can be an overwhelming process. At face value, many of the popular sites can look identical, and the numerous factors involved can turn this into a complicated decision. The first step in choosing a crowdfunding platform is to ensure that you have a solid idea that will appeal to the crowdfunding model.

It’s helpful to keep in mind that people tend to pledge money for three different reasons:

1. They relate to the message or cause behind your project

2. They connect to the creative presentation of your materials

3. They are interested in a physical aspect of your project, i.e. the rewards

Over the past few years, a lot of people have started companies. Between 2007 and 2011, more than 200 digital startups were created in New York alone.

The companies have been able to survive because they've been able to scrounge together some cash, often from wealthy individuals (angel investors) or early stage venture capital firms.

Just because a house is pre-fabricated doesn’t mean it’s easy to move. But Connect Homes’ innovation is to make them fit in shipping containers, so high-end green design can end up anywhere on the planet.

Pre-fab homes have found a new wave of enthusiasm among eco-minded architects and home builders: It’s a cheaper way to bring sustainable features to the masses. But talk with architects Gordon Stott and Jared Levy, and they’ll tell you that the biggest challenge green pre-fab manufacturers face isn’t the design, but getting those homes around the world. Their company Connect Homes expects to change that, by being the first pre-fab home builder to take advantage of shipping containers as a mode of global transit, allowing them to inexpensively reach consumers anywhere in the world.

My friends and Mother Teresa have something in common. I suspect you do, too.

Brett, Christina, Jon, Marty, Mike, Russ and Todd all could be retired and living a life of luxury but instead are nose-down struggling to be successful every day. They all started their companies from nothing and sold them for millions. But like most of the entrepreneurs I know, they didn’t retire to some sunbaked part of the world to enjoy fine wine and leisure. Instead, they pushed the reset button and took on another industry, another challenge, another cause, another headache, another banker, another recession.

Why?

With over 100 startup accelerators active today, going through an accelerator can seem like a rite of passage. It’s what startups do – the logical step between Startup Weekend and a round of funding. But an accelerator is actually a substantial commitment. You give up around 7 percent equity in your startup. You might have to move to a different city. And you’re agreeing to work late hours for a few months straight. As long as you’re doing all this, you might as well pick the best program for you.

Before you take the plunge into an accelerator, here are five questions to ask yourself:

1. What’s their track record?

There is so much written these days about how to attract investors that most entrepreneurs “assume” they need funding, and don’t even consider a plan for “bootstrapping,” or self-financing their startup. Yet, according to many sources, over 90 percent of all businesses are started and grown with no equity financing, and many others would have been better off without it.

According to the book, “Small Business, Big Vision,” by self-made entrepreneurs Adam and Matthew Toren, it’s really a question of need versus want. We all want to have our vision realized sooner rather than later, but it can be a big mistake to bring in investors rather than patiently building your business at a slow, steady pace (organic growth).