SALT LAKE CITY — The University of Utah launched its Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute in fall of 2016, opening up a world of resources including dorms, funding, and office space for students seeking to start their own businesses.

As of 2019, the incubator has helped facilitate the launch of many startups with more incoming. Here are some of the most exciting small businesses emerging from the University of Utah this year.

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It’s no big secret that many people want to start their own business so they can live out their entrepreneurial dreams. Surveys have found that 63 percent of those in their 20s want to start their own business, and it is estimated that in the United States, over 550,000 people enter into an entrepreneurial venture each month.

Between most successful software entrepreneurs, if you have a unique idea and the mantle to pursue your drive, there are very few obstacles that can force you into conceding your goals. But few as they may be, these obstacles must not be taken lightly. Many of these challenges appear in form technical, legal, financial and administrative constraints that most startups fail to recognize during their infancy stage. With 2019’s software hype picking up steam, a majority of entrepreneurs, business owners, and SMEs are taking on more researched and fail-safe strategies towards their software startups.

The fast-expanding and evolving physical and, safe to say today, the digital world has left one little time to contemplate. Ideas are brainstormed upon overnight and plans are put into place in a matter of only a few minutes. In such a dynamic and fast-paced setting, the entrepreneurial world today also demands leaders who can think on their feet, act wisely and more importantly, deliver results while trying to play a dozen balls in their court at the same time. With an ever-evolving market, where the expected number of mobile Internet users in 2020 is 740mn, there is a lot of scope for growth for various players offering a plethora of services.

A board observer is somebody who attends your board meeting but doesn’t have a voting right. There are also certain points in a board meeting where you can ask the board observers to step out of the room unless they’ve negotiated specific rights that preclude this.

Why do board observers exist? There are actually several type and I’m going to make the case that if you can avoid board observers you generally should and when you do have them you should be thoughtful about how you manage them.

When Tom Shicowich’s toe started feeling numb in 2010, he brushed it off as a temporary ache. At the time, he didn’t have health insurance, so he put off going to the doctor. The toe became infected, and he got so sick that he stayed in bed for two days with what he assumed was the flu. When he finally saw a doctor, the physician immediately sent Shicowich to the emergency room. Several days later, surgeons amputated his toe, and he ended up spending a month in the hospital to recover.

Enterprise-level companies are caught in a bind. They must innovate in order to build their brand and stay ahead of the competition, but their size alone inhibits that innovation.

In a survey of 270 corporate leaders on the subject of corporate innovation, a range of internal obstacles became apparent: Fifty-five percent cited politics, turf wars or internal misalignments. Forty-five percent called out cultural issues, while 42% noted an inability to prepare for the future, and double-digit percentages pointed to insufficient budgets or strategy.

Every mature company I know is looking for more innovation from within. They are painfully aware that tenure on the list of S&P companies is shrinking – from thirty-three years back in 1964, down to twenty-four in 2016, and predicted to be just twelve by 2027. They need inside intrapreneurs who think and act like the outside entrepreneurs who are disrupting their business.

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Many venture capitalists often proudly proclaim that they invest in founders and entrepreneurs, not ideas.

As Taizo Son of Mistletoe (and brother of Softbank’s Masayoshi Son) puts it: “My criteria to invest are the founders. So I won't check any business plans, any economic projections, spreadsheets; but (instead) I focus on the founder's mindset (and) passion."

Like a marriage, a business partnership often begins with enthusiasm and high expectations -- only to end in acrimony and legal proceedings. It's important to know as much as possible about a potential partner, including how their finances and family life may affect the business, before signing on the dotted line.

Success traditionally has been defined in terms of money and power. It’s reaching the top, commanding the room, buying that Rolex and moving into a big mansion on the hill. But Harvard professor Todd Rose is on a mission to get as many people as he can to stop searching for success and start looking for fulfillment. In his new book, Dark Horse: Achieving Success Through the Pursuit of Fulfillment, Rose explains how happiness is found in the road less traveled. He also makes the case that true fulfillment leads to greater innovation. Rose, who is director of the Laboratory for the Science of Individuality at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, spoke on the Knowledge@Wharton radio show on Sirius XM about finding that fulfillment.

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The age old question for every startup is whom to involve in the board meeting. The reality is that there are some board meetings in which having a broad set of management present is a great idea and there are some meetings where in can be a hindrance.

In today’s age and the world, every millennial aspires to become an entrepreneur. Driven by the need and desire to be successful and to be ‘one’s own boss’, the business market is witnessing a stark increase in the number of startups in India. Entrepreneurship and running your own business is a task at hand and also a sustained effort on the entrepreneur’s part. As an entrepreneur, you must take on multiple roles at times to fill in shoes as and when required which means taking risks.

I've been working in my technology startup for five years now, but it feels like it's been much longer. It's been said that dogs age at a different rate compared to humans and that a dog year is equivalent to seven human years. When reflecting over this common comparison, this question came to mind: How would a year in the life of an average individual compare to one in the life of a tech entrepreneur?

Some corporate venture funds back biotechs for a strategic position, and others to feed the innovation ecosystem. Either way, the money flow from these big pharma divisions has followed that of investment in general over the past few years – namely, into oncology research.

That said, the corporate VCs have taken their feet off the oncology accelerator, an analysis by Vantage shows. Making a surprising surge since 2015 is corporate VC interest in companies working on central nervous system projects, perhaps reflecting the risky nature of drug development in this area and the need for patient investment.

The global rise of innovation districts continues. In the United States alone, roughly 20 districts have reached a level of critical mass to warrant the name, concentrating a mix of research institutions, mature companies, start-ups and scale-ups, co-working spaces, and supportive intermediaries in close geographic proximity.

The Bay Area or New York— many Israeli startups looking to enter the American market have grappled with the question of where to set up shop. New York has made considerable strides building a robust ecosystem to support startups and tech talent. These include the creation of the Global Cyber Center initiative that plans to make New York the global center for cybersecurity and the Cornell-Technion campus on Roosevelt Island. Additionally, New York is an environment generally receptive to Israeli business. Still, it is just one of many available landing pads outside Silicon Valley.

As Oklahomans, we live with pumps. We draw most of our water from out of the ground; we’re used to seeing pumpjacks bobbing their grasshopper-shaped heads all over the state. So, when somebody says “prime the pump” we understand the metaphor in a very real-world way.

“Prime the pump” is what i2E’s Technology Business Finance Program (TBFP) is all about.

One of the things that founders have the most angst about is whom they should have on their board and at what stage of the business. This is smart because amazing board members can be transformative with important advice and access and can also help attract other great board members (and team members). Bad board members can make business very unpleasant.

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act created new Opportunity Zones designed to funnel much-needed investment to distressed communities. Investors and community advocates alike cheered the new approach, hoping that it would help long-distressed communities attract capital and jumpstart development.

But amid the optimism are skeptics, who warn that Opportunity Zones are poorly designed to generate new investment and will amount to little more than a giveaway to wealthy investors looking to avoid taxes.