Atlanta, GA, January 14, 2011 --(PR.com)-- 40Billion.com, a micro-funding platform that facilitates business capital fundraising through gifts and loans from an entrepreneur's network of friends and family online, today announced the launch of new social networking tools for students and alumni to raise money for businesses.

Using the free Internet service, college students and alumni can build their social networks of contacts, including classmates and friends from the same school and from different schools, and use these connections to raise money, resources, and support for entrepreneurial ventures. Members create personal profiles that include their education information, such as school name, degree, major, and graduation year. They can add one or multiple schools to their profiles and then invite people they know from each school to join their network. The service even suggests new contacts, automatically, based on their profiles.

As China’s Internet companies grow in wealth and stature, they’re facing the decision of whether to look to the developed countries of the West or the developing world as they expand beyond China’s borders. 

For Gary Rieschel, founder of Qiming Venture Partners, and a longtime investor in both the U.S. and Asia, the answer is to forgo the markets of the West for higher growth opportunities in markets closer to China in temperament and growth.

The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council recently released its Small Business Survival Index for 2010. The index ranks the climate for small businesses in the 50 states (and D.C.) based on public policy factors that include 38 major government-related, or imposed costs.

A few of the issues included in the ranking are:

• Taxes

• Regulatory costs

• Government spending

• Property rights

• Health care

• Energy costs

• Crime rate

Under30CEO

Under30CEO is a great blog for “Leading Gen Y to stop doing sh*t they hate.”  Read start-up advice, start-up profiles, interviews with entrepreneurs and more.

Quick Sprout

Quick Sprout is one of the best young entrepreneur blogs out there. Neil Patel, the blogger, has founded many companies and will teach you a ton, while accommodating a vibrant community.

The good thing about braving the crowds at the Consumer Electronics Show is that you get to see a lot of the future’s gadgets. And if you see the same thing over and over again, that’s a trend. Last year, every TV maker embraced 3D and web connectivity. That trend continued this year with more than half of all new TV models including those features. This year, we’ve sniffed out similar trends that could play out throughout 2011 as companies execute on their grand ambitions:

1. Tearing down walls between industries and platforms. This never used to happen with frequency. But there is so much disruption going on that it is becoming common for a company in one industry to tear down the walls and invade its rivals’ turf. The main beneficiary is the consumer, who enjoys the benefits of more competition.

NASVF in partnership with the National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer (NCET2) are pleased to offer the new online Seed and Venture Capital Training Course Program. The Seed Funding and Venture Capital Course Certificate Program is an insider view to the venture capital process offered. Topics covered in the courses includehow angels and VC's identify investable startups, what needs to be in the business plan, how to build effective leadership teams, how to do a deal and what terms to avoid, and what to do after you get funded. The cost of the course is $297.00 and students with verification is $75.00. The list of instructors and registration information can be accessed through the following link:

http://center.ncet2.org/index.php?option=com_joomla_lms&Itemid=53&task=course_guest&id=32

Venture-capital investors, apparently spooked by declining returns over the past ten years, raised less money for investment in early- and mid-stage startups in 2010 and flocked to late-stage startups.

Funding available for startups was down 14 percent in 2010, to $11.6 billion, from $13.5 billion in 2009, according to a report by Dow Jones. 119 funds raised money for investing in startups last year, compared to 133 funds in 2009.

Despite some positive activity in the exit market, it looks like investors are still less willing to take significant risks on early- and mid-stage startups that haven’t found some significant traction yet. Exit activity was up 25 percent in 2010 when compared to 2009, but the average size of each exit was lower than what was paid out before the recession began in earnest in 2008.

It’s not a stretch to say that the story of Bill Draper is the story of venture capital.

The iconic 83-year-old founder of Draper Gaither & Anderson, Sutter Hill Ventures and Draper Richards virtually created the West Coast incarnation of the industry when he and his partners founded DGA in 1959 and set the stage for the massive growth of Silicon Valley over the next five decades. He is also part of a family line of investors – his father preceded him in the business, and his son, Tim, co-founded Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Draper, who is the author of a new book, “The Startup Game,” was interviewed by Ann Winblad of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco Monday night. He engagingly recounted the beginnings of his career, some of his most notable investments, and his feelings about entrepreneurs. Asked about what he would say to his grandson were he to follow in the family footsteps and get into venture capital, he said: “Make sure you have operating experience, do your homework, try to be humble at all times, think about each opportunity from the entrepreneur’s standpoint, and be gracious to all of them, because they are the future of this country.”

1 Emerging Markets Growth

US and EU-based algae producers and licensors of technology are increasingly looking to the Emerging Markets in Latin America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East for faster economic growth, increasing market demand, and more supportive government and regulatory climates for accelerated commercial growth. This follows a key trend by Shell and BP investing $12 and $8 billion respectively in sugar-based conglomerates in Brazil to produce ethanol, bio-butanol, drop-in fuels, and bio-based chemical products.

The Business Innovation Programme is a new programme designed to help build in-company innovation capability and find high-quality jobs for unemployed graduates and professionals, to help industries and individuals with redundant skills.

The crash in the housing market and subsequent credit crunch has hit many countries hard. It has also created a generation of unemployed white-collar professionals in areas such as architecture, engineering and the legal profession. Many of these professionals had illustrious careers before the Great Recession, running their own firms and employing thousands of people across the world. In countries like Ireland the unemployment rate among the architecture profession is over 70%, while higher education produces new ones each year. After 5, 10 or 20 years in construction engineering or architecture what was a person to do? Very late for a major change in career, and how many of these could be turned into ‘smart economy’ software engineers? And worst of all, most of these people had good innovation potential – a history of innovative design, project management, cost control, planning, creative solutions - all elements needed for Innovation and new produce development.

At the same time Western countries are looking increasingly to their small and medium-sized business (SME) sector to be a catalyst for growth and job creation, yet these companies often lack the resources or in-house knowledge to drive innovation and new product development. In the European Union’s Innovation Index, Ireland in particular suffers from low innovation levels in its SME sector.

We all know that physical activity is important for good health—regardless of your age, gender or body weight, living an active lifestyle can improve your quality of life and dramatically reduce your risk of death and disease. But even if you are meeting current physical activity guidelines by exercising for one hour per day (something few Americans manage on a consistent basis), that leaves 15 to 16 hours per day when you are not being active. Does it matter how you spend those hours, which account for more than 90% of your day? For example, does it matter whether you spend those 16 hours sitting on your butt, versus standing or walking at a leisurely pace? Fortunately or unfortunately, new evidence suggests that it does matter, and in a big way.

No matter how much you travel, knowing when and how much to tip in a foreign country can be confounding.

Gratuity rules vary by region and what you consider a token of your appreciation might be interpreted as an insult -- regardless of the amount.

To help you avoid those awkward moments, we scoured the Internet and compiled a global tipping guide, starting with places where you tip least to countries where tips are greatly appreciated, if not expected.

Most people think brainstorming sessions are all about ideas -- much in the same way Wall Street bankers think life is all about money.

While ideas are certainly a big part of brainstorming, they are only a part.

People who rush into a brainstorming session starving for new ideas will miss the boat (and the train, car, and unicycle) completely unless they tune into the some other important dynamics that are also at play:

I recently filmed a show for This Week in Venture Capital in which I talked about how to prepare for a VC meeting: whom you’ll meet, who should attend from your side, what materials you should bring and how you should run the meeting.  I wrote the summary notes in this blog post.  That notes only told part of the story.

As an entrepreneur, your personal integrity is critical for getting and keeping the support of investors and team members, and your company’s integrity is critical for getting and keeping customers and vendors. But in a practical sense, what does that really mean?

Most definitions of integrity include something like “the quality of being honest and morally upright.” Yet, I’ve found through experience that both honesty and morality are relative terms, depending on the reference point of both the speaker and the receiver. In business, the only view that counts is that of the receiver.

The next LeBron James?

Maybe that's premature, but five-year-old K.J. Farfan is already a top basketball prospect.  He's received personal letters from Kansas State coach Frank Martin and Florida coach Frank Haith and he's had a one-on-one meeting with Isiah Thomas.

Why?  Because he's really good.  The kid can't even read but he was playing against seven and eight-year-olds when he was just four.  He now plays in three leagues for kids under the age of 10.  Take a look at Farfan ball:

Your brilliant programmer friend is looking for a high tech job. You consult a Web site and find the perfect fit. He gets hired. The Web site pays you between $10,000 and $20,000.

This sounds too good to be true, but San Francisco startup Top Prospect is doing it right now for Silicon Valley tech jobs.

The site opened to the public this week after a couple months of private beta testing, and right now there are more than 140 jobs with 47 companies available through the site, with total available recommendation fees of $1.5 million.

We’re just two weeks into 2011 and you may already be feeling a little social media frustrated. It’s okay, you can admit it. You can admit that, despite all your best efforts, your social media accounts are failing to connect with the right people. In fact, sometimes you’re left to wonder if they’re connecting with anyone. You’re not seeing any replies, no retweets and your follower count has been stuck at 200 for three months. What’s going on?

It’s a question I get a lot from small-, medium- and even large-business owners when it comes to the status of their social media accounts. When things aren’t going quite the way you’d hope, sometimes it can be tough to figure out why. However, below are some common reasons I see for why businesses find themselves social media ignored.