Many of the entrepreneurs I advise or invest with spend considerable time on the Internet, keeping up with technology, customers, and competitors, but very few feel the need for an early personal presence. In fact, some totally avoid it, assuming their product or solution will speak for itself later. They don’t realize that you need to build positives early, to offset any negatives later.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Private capital fundraising had a bombshell year in 2019.

A whopping $888 billion was raised across 1,064 private equity, venture capital, infrastructure, and real estate funds. This is the most private capital ever raised on an annual basis, according to a new PitchBook report. On average, institutional investors increased their allocations to private markets yet again by lowering their allocation to hedge funds and/or public equities.

Consulting is one of the most lucrative and competitive fields to break into.

We've all heard of big firms like Bain, McKinsey, and Boston Consulting Group, but few people know what it takes to land a job as a consultant. 

Business Insider has created a handbook for anyone who is curious about the ins and outs of working for a consultancy. Here's exactly what you need to know.

Labs for three physician researchers will occupy the UPMC Immune Transplant and Therapy Center in Bloomfield when it opens in the fall of 2021, a cornerstone in the city’s plans for an innovation district and new economy.

Steel and heavy industry long dominated Pittsburgh’s economy, but all that has been changing.

The new center will house the labs of Mark Jay Shlomchik, chair of the department of immunology at the University of Pittsburgh; Robert Ferris, director of the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center; and Fadi Lakkis, scientific director of Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, in 245,000 square feet of a sprawling historic building where Model T Fords were once assembled on Baum Boulevard.

Image: https://www.post-gazette.com

The Illinois Technology Association will join forces with 1871, a Chicago-area tech incubator that focuses on small companies. Together, the groups say, they create a full package to support the state’s tech sector. It’s not unheard of for technology incubators to work directly with associations to help build out new ideas. The Washington, DC-based 1776 has done this on repeated occasions with a variety of trade groups.

One in 4 companies (24%) say that social media is the least effective method of recruiting. 80% of businesses believe that interviews are an essential way to hire the best talent. However, 21% of companies say they regret relying on interviews alone in the hiring process, and instead say they had wished they had also tested candidates’ skills. These recruiting statistics were unveiled by a new survey compiled by Clutch, which surveyed 505 full-time employees in the US.

Living paycheck to paycheck is an unfortunately common hallmark of American life.

Having it all — the ability to cover basic expenses, while still having "fun money" and contributing to savings — can be a difficult feat.

That total amount, also known as an annual "living wage," varies significantly depending on what state you're in.

GoBankingRates recently determined the necessary living wage in each state using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the 50/30/20 budgeting rule. This popular general budgeting rule allocates 50% of annual income to necessities like housing, 30% to discretionary expenses like travel, and the remaining 20% to savings.

Tiny houses are painted as a minimalist utopia. And while many tiny home dwellers love the lifestyle that brings, it doesn't come without a few challenges.

Tiny houses have their perks — they're both environmentally and budget friendly. But living in such tight quarters can create unexpected problems, like difficult zoning laws, easier wear and tear, taking care of compost toilets, and quick messes, to name a few.

Tiny houses may have their appeal, but they're not the right fit for everyone. There are a few things to consider before plunging into such a small space.

Image: Tiffany the Tiny Home - https://www.businessinsider.com/

We’re in the business of helping bright ideas become businesses while nurturing a workforce to support our 21st century economy. As you’ll see in this impact report, we operate in three distinct but interconnected ways: we help commercialize; we convene; and we cultivate the STEM talent pipeline.

Image: https://sciencecenter.org - From website.

Passion is the fuel that entrepreneurs need to keep going. Research shows that passion is a key predictor of entrepreneurs’ creativity, persistence, and venture performance. In other words, the more passionate the entrepreneur, the more likely they are to succeed.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- The U.S. Small Business Administration announced today the launch of its 17-state SBIR Road Tour. The Road Tour will stop at cities in the Southeast, Midwest, Rockies and the Central South.  It will connect entrepreneurs working on advanced technology to one of the country's largest source of early stage funding – the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs.

"SBA is focused on helping small businesses grow and expand. The $4 billion in federal early stage funding is often a critical piece to maturing an entrepreneur's research idea into a product or service. The Road Tours bring the federal managers to the entrepreneur and target areas and individuals that are underrepresented when it comes to receiving federal R&D funding," said SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza. "This tour reflects our continued commitment to ensure those innovators are aware of SBIR/STTR program resources." 

By all accounts, 2019 was a year of continued robust healthcare M&A activity by private equity firms, significantly outpacing 2018. Private equity firms continued to deploy significant capital broadly across the healthcare industry during 2019 as demands to solve for industry inefficiencies, value-based payment models, and overall cost reduction all point toward private equity investment as an attractive option for healthcare businesses with aggressive growth strategies. In addition to the sustaining performance of the U.S. economy as a whole in 2019, the changing reimbursement and regulatory landscape of the healthcare industry contributed to deal volume overall and in particular sectors.

As the robotics market continues to grow beyond expectations and market predictions, the time is right for many entrepreneurs and roboticists to get into building a robotics company. But in addition to a company and product to offer, budding robot companies will need to think about where to start as well.

While many areas across the U.S. are appealing for startup companies, when it comes to robotics, Silicon Valley, Boston, Pittsburgh, Austin and Denver stand out in the U.S. We will discuss the upsides and potential downsides of each of these locations.

From Megxit to “canceling” to swearing off Facebook to “Veganuary” and beyond, today’s quitting culture shows no signs of . . . quitting.

It was inevitable, then, that the quitting culture would invade the workplace, too.

Working as an HR professional for nearly 20 years, I’ve seen lots of people quit their jobs to take advantage of great opportunities. That’s not new, of course. What’s different now is that many talented professionals, without any effort on their part, are routinely bombarded by recruiters with employment opportunities offering great pay and attractive perks.

Following a successful career in finance, Torsten Thiele has devoted himself full-time to the challenging cause of ocean conservation and stewardship, which led him to start the Global Ocean Trust. Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter discusses themes from her new book, “Think Outside the Building,” as she and Thiele explore how changing the narrative is imperative when looking for ways to solve big problems. This episode is based off of the case “Torsten Thiele and the Global Ocean Trust.”

Since the dawn of the internet era, experts have predicted that technology will replace salespeople, and it’s easy to find examples. From 2005 to 2017, U.S. pharmaceutical companies slashed one-third of their salespeople, while the use of digital information sources (email, podcasts, mobile apps, websites) grew. From 2009 to 2019, industrial supply distributor W.W. Grainger cut more than a quarter of its branch locations and numerous field sales jobs. Since the mid-1990s, Grainger had been investing in digital capabilities to supplement its network of branch stores and salespeople.

The Mad Men era may be behind us, but the art of copywriting is alive and well. And we're not just talking about ad agencies. Still bootstrapped and getting your business off the ground? You'll probably be writing copy for your website, social media, ads, decks, and more — all on your own. Working in marketing? You'll likely find yourself writing a tagline or two. Sales? Try selling without copy. Essentially, there are very few entrepreneurs who wouldn't benefit from improving their copywriting skills.

Most companies would admit that they miss more often than they hit when it comes to talent.

McKinsey & Company recently cited three rather stunning stats about talent: (1) 82% of Fortune 500 companies don’t believe they recruit highly talented people; (2) Of companies that do believe they recruit great talent, only 7% believe they can retain it; (3) and only 23% of managers and senior executives that deal with talent-related issues believe their current strategies actually work.

Image: https://biobuzz.io

At this point, it sounds like the movie “Groundhog Day,” but 2019 was another impressive year of growth and success for the greater Boston life sciences real estate market — and that growth shows no signs of subsiding any time soon.

Strong levels of venture capital investment, big pharmaceutical partnerships and merger and acquisition activity continued to fuel unprecedented demand for life sciences space, not only in and around Cambridge but also in submarkets like the Seaport, Watertown and certain Route 128 corridors.

Image: Pictured is DivcoWest's Cambridge Crossing mixed-use development in Massachusetts. - https://rebusinessonline.com

Public health efforts depend heavily on predicting how diseases such as that caused by the 2019 novel coronavirus, now named COVID-19 by the World Health Organization, spread across the globe. During the early days of a new outbreak, when reliable data are still scarce, researchers turn to mathematical models that can predict where people who could be infected are going and how likely they are to bring the disease with them. These computational methods use known statistical equations that calculate the probability of individuals transmitting the illness.

Image: https://www.scientificamerican.com