You’d be forgiven if the words “SpaceX” and “Elon Musk” summon audacious images of Martian cities complete with wet bars and pizza joints. After all, Musk, the private rocket company’s founder, has repeatedly said he wants all these things on the red planet.

But behind this sci-fi visionary veneer is a serious startup that, circa 2009 — with SpaceX’s first successful launch of a commercial payload into orbit — began smashing up a walled garden and opening up a flood of ideas within, and investment into, the space industry.

Although most people believe that being a successful entrepreneur is all about having the right idea, I’m convinced from my years of experience as a startup advisor and investor that’s it’s more about you as a person. If you can brand yourself as someone to remember, and someone who can deliver, I assure you that you will have no trouble finding investors, as well as customers.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com/

Thank you so much for joining us Elizabeth! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

“Ibecame an artist four years ago. I am completely self-taught. The journey began after experiencing many detrimental losses in a short amount of time, including severe financial loss, which forced me to start working. I was a stay at home mom at the time. It all happened through Instagram as a beautiful accident. Now, I define myself as artist, designer, and entrepreneur.”

The US, Russia, and China remain the planet's most powerful countries even as other countries have seen their positions fall, according to this year's global power rankings.

The rankings, published by US News and World Report, look at how the influence of a nation, as well as its political, economic, and military power. The rankings are part of its annual "Best Countries" study, which evaluates 80 countries based on responses from 21,000 people. 

The Super Bowl has not been decided, but the NFL world believes there is a new king of the league: Patrick Mahomes.

The third-year quarterback put together another masterful performance on Sunday to help the Chiefs beat the Tennessee Titans, 35-24, and advance to the Super Bowl.

Image: Patrick Mahomes. Charlie Neibergall/AP Images

Companies of all sizes today are looking to improve the effectiveness of their social media marketing — and with good reason: Digital platforms are constantly innovating the way that brands are discovered, shared and experienced. The data speaks for itself: The number of worldwide social network users is expected to reach 3.09 billion monthly active users by 2021, and global internet users spend some 136 minutes per day surfing social networks. Many organizations have responded by allocating more resources to digital marketing — technology now accounts for 29% of total marketing expense budgets, according to a recent Gartner estimate, and digital ad spend for 2020 is estimated at about $385 billion.

Theo Jansen has spent decades creating self-propelling “Strandbeests” that are powered by the wind to roam with uncanny lifelike qualities.

Today, we are in a new era of innovation, moving at lightning speed. If you look back at history regarding the implementation of new technology, you wouldn't see the type of rapid changes you see today. The world has never moved or changed as fast as it has in this new decade—especially in a single lifetime.  

I was in SF last week and met with more than a dozen VCs over the course of two days. This was post the holidays, post their visits to the ski chalets in Tahoe and the island beaches, and in the smack dab of one of the most important fundraise periods of the year — the mid-to-late January to April stretch when all the backlog of startups from Q4 initiate their fundraises for the new year.

Venture capitalists (VCs) have long been seen as the top of the pyramid for startup funding sources, but in fact angel investors now fund over twice as many companies, according the Crunchbase. A major chunk of this activity is provided by the newer class of “super angels,” who often look more like micro-VCs, except that they are investing their own money.

One of the biggest myths in the business world is that startups are no place for Baby Boomers, that aging generation born between 1945 and 1964. They couldn’t possibly understand the new social media culture, new technologies, or have the determination to beat their younger counterparts in the market. Yet credible reports on current trends tell us just the opposite.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com/

As a small business owner, one has to adapt to the changes in the surrounding environment much quicker compared with the bigger and more established companies. The great idea you got last year may not be so great anymore or maybe it can become even greater due to the changes in the surrounding environment. Changes in the political landscape, economic and social changes may boost or kill your great idea. On top of that, we have constantly emerging technologies, global issues such as cultural conflicts and global warming that directly or indirectly influence any business ecosystem anywhere in the world.

There have been some big changes for me. We relocated from New York to Indianapolis, where I’m doing consulting work for the Indy Chamber. I’m no longer full time with the Manhattan Institute but am still a contributing editor at City Journal and still have multiple projects in the works there. I’ll continue to write for other publications too, as with my recent Atlantic piece on J. Irwin Miller and Columbus, Indiana. More on my move below.

The light bulb above your head is glowing so bright that it's threatening to blind everyone around you. But what should you do with your great invention ideas? Before you start blabbing about your invention to the wrong person or run to the first company that offers to buy it, you need to do one thing: protect it.

When was the last time you analyzed how much you should pay your board members? How do you know if you are paying too much or not enough? In this article we examine the results of our most recent research that highlights how much board members should receive in compensation.

Business size, industry, structure, complexity, the number of yearly meetings are just a number of variables you have to consider when setting your board remuneration programs. Private companies tend to struggle with board compensation because it is difficult to find accurate benchmarks for director pay.

The big deal about the just-completed J.P. Morgan (JPM) 38th Healthcare Conference had little to do with big M&A deals, because there weren’t any. This time last year, the $74-billion Bristol-Myers Squibb acquisition of Celgene was announced, as was Eli Lilly’s takeover of Loxo Oncology for $8 billion.

There were no such blockbusters this year, though there was an interesting potentially up-to-$2 billion-plus collaboration: MorphoSys outlicensed ex-U.S. commercialization rights to its anti-CD19 Fc-engineered antibody tafasitamab to Incyte, with the companies agreeing to co-commercialize the B cell malignancy candidate Stateside.

Image: A dearth of deals, Illumina’s double launches, and the usual crowds marked the 38th J.P. Morgan 38th Conference. - https://www.genengnews.com

When Daria Mochly-Rosen discovered a compound in her lab that promised to lessen the effects of heart attacks, she set out to convince pharmaceutical companies to develop it.

She couldn’t.

So the professor of chemistry and systems biology at Stanford University’s School of Medicine took a leave of absence and started her own company to further test and potentially commercialize the drug.

Why me?

I have spent the last 20 years as a serial CEO of multiple healthcare startups, as well as spending the last 3 years as a corporate/strategic venture capitalist. I have made many mistakes and gotten lucky on more than a few occasions. What I hope to accomplish in this blog is simple: educate and, on a good day, entertain. There are many that are much, much more successful than me (nearly everyone in Silicon Valley!). There are some that are worse (also in Silicon Valley...e.g. Elizabeth Holmes re: Theranos). I am not from Silicon Valley. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions (future topics), please feel free to reach out to me.

Image: https://www.linkedin.com

I talked yesterday about how VCs are just tired these days. Too many deals, too little time per deal, and constant hyper-competition with other VCs for the same equity.

One founder friend of mine noted to me last night that he has already received inbound requests from more than 90 investors over the past year about his next round — and he’s not even (presumably) fundraising. “I may have missed a few,” he deadpans — and really, how could one not?

A new report from the Financial Times says that Italy is facing a demographic crisis caused by low birth rates and decreased migration. But Italy is not alone in its struggles with a shrinking population.

According to the Financial Times, Italy's birth rate has fallen to 1.32 children per women, far below the 2.1 children needed to maintain a stable population over time. The article cites experts arguing that young Italians lack confidence in the future economic direction of the country, and are forgoing childbirth out of concerns that they won't be able to have the resources needed to raise kids.

Image: Italy's population is projected to fall 10% in the next three decades. Associated Press