Startups provide a unique and exciting atmosphere for employees because they have a more hands-on approach to building a company and a brand. Instead of working for an established company, startup workers have the chance to be a part of a team that shapes the brand through every part of its development and launch. The team must possess a more entrepreneurial spirit as they are not always large in size or have big budgets to fall back on.

ANN ARBOR — The University of Michigan’s Institute for Research on Labor, Employment, and the Economy has released a new study, “Incubating Success: Incubation Best Practices that Lead to Successful New Ventures,” funded by the U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic Development Administration.

The study, led by UM’s IRLEE and research partners at the State University of New York at Albany, the National Business Incubation Association and Cybergroup Inc., is the first study of business incubators to focus on best practices. Lawrence Molnar, associate director of IRLEE, is the principal investigator.

When I began teaching a course called "Writing for the Web," three years ago, I pictured myself scrambling to keep up with my plugged-in, tech-savvy students. I was sure I was in over my head. So I was stunned to discover that most of the 20-year-olds I meet know very little about the Internet, and even less about how to communicate effectively online.

Like angel investors, venture capital firms invest in businesses that have high growth potential. They are also similar to angel investors as they provide equity financing and don't recoup their investment until the company is sold or there is some other sort of exit opportunity such as an IPO or a merger.

Venture capital firms tend to make larger investments and often come in after angel financing. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but it is a fairly common scenario.

Groupon raked in so much cash through its initial public offering last week that it could buy the entire class of life sciences companies that have gone public in 2011.

For those of you who aren’t following the Groupon melodrama, the Chicago-based online daily deals site raised $700 million last week in its IPO after overcoming serious questions about its accounting practices. Groupon shrugged that off and saw its stock (NASDAQ: GRPN) boom 31 percent on the first day of trading. TV news commentators cheered, just like when social networking site LinkedIn (NYSE: LKND) went public in May.

Business from the Kitchen Table founder Daniel J. Thorley today has released his five best internet marketing strategies for the entrepreneur and business owner.

From a kitchen table amidst the coffee cups and bagels, Thorley runs his online business helping aspiring entrepreneurs to grow their own businesses. And with multiple websites, a successful e-newsletter and online sales of his own information products Daniel has five top strategies to share with other would-be marketers from his success.

A paradox is a statement or proposition that, despite sound (or apparently sound) reasoning from acceptable premises, leads to a conclusion that seems senseless, logically unacceptable, or self-contradictory. If something is a paradox, then it’s a puzzle, a mystery, an enigma, an inconsistency. Which makes me think: What happens to us, and our businesses, when we try to live with a paradox? What happens when we contradict ourselves? When our actions are inconsistent with our plans? When what we say and what we choose to do just don’t line up?

Impossible Dreams

What you say you want vs. what you are actually willing to do

In “What’s Your Impossible Dream?,” John Mariotti encourages small business owners to “dream big. Think about what you’d really love to be doing and consider how you can get from where you are to where you want to be.”  He says to plan ahead so that you are prepared when the opportunity presents itself.

That’s all well and good, but what kind of mobile phone should you code for? Answering this question isn’t all that simple. Least of all because the answer depends so much on what your product is and who you’re aiming it at. This is an especially important consideration in emerging markets where, despite immense growth, smartphones and super phones are still in the minority.

According to Google software engineer Bruno Albuquerque, there are a few things you should remember about each category of phone before deciding which to develop for.

Canada risks lagging other countries if fails to create a national economic strategy to boost women’s entrepreneurship.

The United States and other countries are devising strategies to boost entrepreneurship among women to fuel new job creation and economic growth. The topic also figured prominently at the recent Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum, eliciting interest from countries as diverse as China, Japan, Chile, Thailand, Peru and Australia.

Over the weekend I finished reading the authorized biography of Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson. It's a hefty 650 pages and spans the entire life and career of Steve Jobs, the iconic Apple co-founder who sadly passed away a month ago. The biography is well worth reading, I gave the book 5/5 stars. I'll even say that it should be required reading for technology entrepreneurs and anybody who wants to be a leader in our industry. The biography is a sympathetic one, so don't expect to read a great deal of criticism about Steve Jobs. Despite that, it's a well-rounded portrayal of a man destined to be remembered as one of the great product visionaries of our time.

There's plenty to learn from the biography. Here are three of the main lessons that I took from the book. Each comes from an aspect of Steve Jobs' own personality, which he managed to instill into his company Apple. (Note: don't worry, there aren't any spoilers in this post!)

No, not that kind of bubble.  The bubble we’re living in is actually much more dangerous than the classic tech bubbles that inevitably come and go, because this particular bubble may well prevent American entrepreneurs from playing a leading role in shaping the future.

A classic tech bubble inflates expectations of what’s possible — and ultimately dashes the hopes of many investors and entrepreneurs. But it also leaves new technologies and a handful of great companies in its wake.  Hence the t-shirt that one of my investors pointed me to: “Please God Just One More Bubble.”  We are probably in one of these bubbles now.  But this isn’t the bubble I’m worried about.

It’s that time of year in the U.S. when clocks “fall back” from Daylight Saving Time to standard time. What does that mean? Well, you get back the hour of sleep you lost last spring and you can look forward to a week or so of feeling discombobulated.

The railroads were the first to set the time in the 19th century, coordinating distant clocks so that trains could run on theoretically precise timetables (this cut down on crashes.). You can also thank railroads for time zones—geographic swaths of the globe set to the same hour.

LANSING – Fifty-four small and midsize companies from around Michigan have been selected to receive business development support through the Pure Michigan Business Connect Economic Gardening Pilot Program being offered by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, MEDC CEO and President Michael A. Finney has announced.

“The goal of this program is to help these second-stage companies grow and in turn, generate new private investment and create new jobs for Michigan,” Finney said. “The program is part of our toolkit for economic gardening that’s built on Michigan’s broad asset base of strong corporate enterprises, innovative entrepreneurs and rich technology resources.”

FREMONT -- An economic development initiative pioneered in the late 1980s by the City of Littleton, Colo., has come to Northwest Ohio.

Economic development agencies in Sandusky and Ottawa counties have partnered to offer four mid-size businesses a chance to grow through the "economic gardening" strategy.

Ottawa County Improvement Corporation Director Jamie Beier Grant said two businesses in the county have been chosen to participate in a pilot program.

"The point is to find out what some key areas of opportunity are and identify the key issues going on within the company," Beier Grant said. "Then the team finds key information to answer questions for the company, or arms them with information to be more competitive or creative in the marketplace."

With the document launched today, the Strategic Implementation Plan, the Steering Group delivers its rationale, its vision and its suggestions for addressing the challenge of innovation for active and healthy ageing.

Brussels, 7 November 2011 - A Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) for the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Active and Healthy Ageing (AHA) was launched today by the European Commission together with the organizations involved in the high level Steering Committee group appointed last May 2011. With this Strategic Implementation Plan, the Steering Group delivers its rationale, its vision and its suggestions for addressing the challenge of innovation for active and healthy ageing. The Plan consists of two documents, a political Strategic Plan complemented by an Operational Plan.

MTDC Survey indicates there is a capital gap for first time entrepreneurs and for entrepreneurs raising between $50,000 and $3,000,000

BOSTON, MA, Nov. 3, 2011 - The Massachusetts Technology Development Corporation (MTDC), a quasi-public, leading-edge venture capital firm, today released the results of a survey that provides a broad perspective on the state of the funding market for early stage technology companies in Massachusetts. Results from more than 300 Massachusetts entrepreneurs, investors and other members of the innovation economy strongly confirmed that there is a capital gap and it primarily exists between $50,000 and $3,000,000. As important as the size of the financing that is difficult to get, 60% of respondents indicated it is very difficult for first-time entrepreneurs to raise capital.

So far a number of key milestones have already been achieved as listed below:

- Recognition of the importance of innovation and of the IU flagship initiative, with the European Council placing innovation at the top of its political agenda.

- Horizon 2020 – increasing investment in research, innovation and education under a single and simple framework. This month the Commission will present its proposal for the new Horizon 2020 programme which will bring existing financial instruments for supporting research and innovation within a common structure. The Commission is proposing a budget of €80 billion for the period 2014- 2020.

- Simplification - The Commission adopted measures to make participation in the current EU research framework programme (FP7) more attractive and more accessible to the best researchers and most innovative companies.

Climbers struggling the last few steps to the peak of Makalu in the Himalayas have long marveled at the sight of bar-headed geese flying high above to their winter refuge in India. The birds cruise at an altitude of 29,500 feet, nearly as high as commercial aircraft.

For years scientists believed that strong tailwinds and updrafts aided the geese on their journey. A team of researchers led by Charles Bishop of Bangor University in North Wales tested this theory by tracking more than a dozen bar-headed geese harnessed with small backpacks containing satellite transmitters that established their location, speed and altitude.

In May of this year, Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal and an early investor in Facebook, awarded 24 young, aspiring entrepreneurs $100,000 to "drop out of school and become world-changing visionaries."

Now that the publicity has settled down, I thought it would be a good time to offer the perspective of three entrepreneurs who dropped out of Belmont's entrepreneurship program.

None of them was part of Thiel's program, but each dropped out to chase his entrepreneurial dreams. However, all three eventually decided to return to school to finish their degrees.

Regardless of whether American policymakers can ever fix domestic policy to boost entrepreneurship—as in making a Startup Visa happen or removing other barriers that slow the birth of new high growth firms—the nation’s capital will be alive with startup fever next week (November 14 – 18) as Global Entrepreneurship Week takes center stage around the world.

Rock star entrepreneurs usually have little interest in spending valuable time on Capitol Hill. In fact, policymakers typically end up going to Silicon Valley, the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City or MIT to learn about entrepreneurs. Next week however, an array of activities—from the State Department to Capitol Hill, in the think tanks and associations, in high schools and universities—will bring some of the top thinkers, and doers, to town.

Hey entrepreneurs, you have more control over your own destiny than you think! You might have a long wait if you wait for Congress or D.C. to create programs to aid your growth. The answer might be in your back yard with the State Innovation Based Economic Development Organizations or Regional Innovation Intermediaries. Also ask a successful Entrepreneur or Small Business Person for the secrets to their success or some mentoring and I bet they will be gald to help you.