Ever wonder how (and if) it’s possible for a founder to stay sane through the grueling process of raising funding?

There’s no shortage of success stories and post-mortem articles addressing the technical aspects of venture financing--like how many investors you should speak with, your valuation, how to pick a partner at the VC firm and timing your raise. Yet few address the personal side of the process, your emotional state that also affects the outcome of securing capital and helps maintain your company’s positive momentum.

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Economist Tyler Cowen wrote in Time Magazine last year that Texas, more than any other state, “looks like the future” of America because of its population and jobs boom, cheap land, limited government regulation, and low taxes. But it’s not just on the jobs and migration front that Texas has eclipsed every other state. The Lone Star State has also created the most net business establishments — nearly a quarter of the net national total — since the end of the recession.

I was a bit of an outlier when I earned my MBA at Wharton in 1999. I was an entrepreneur in a class of almost all aspiring consultants and bankers. What made the situation even more unique was that I did not just aspire to start my own business—I was founding and running businesses while I was still in school. Today on campus, where 70 first-year MBAs launched or participated in startups before arriving, it is the norm. But back then, my entrepreneurship was a bit odd.

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When you have the opportunity to network, do you handle it well, or is it a big, fat fail?

While online networking has dominated in many ways over the past 10-plus years, in-person networking -- conferences, conventions, workshops, trade shows, etc. -- is still a great way to meet and mingle with peers, potential partners and mentors. If you’re new to the networking scene and want to stay at the top of your game, avoid these five mistakes that will make others cringe.

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When Vancouver-based Jordan Menashy and Ian Crosby launched tech startup Bench, it was to revolutionize bookkeeping for small businesses by offering cloud-based accounting services accompanied by live bookkeepers.

Their vision was to break into the market in North America and then internationally. But as they started looking for investors, the pair soon hit a wall in the Canadian venture capital market.

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You can still find articles talking about the death of venture capital, but it is becoming harder to write them without sounding silly. During the last 10 years, while venture capital was supposedly dying, the venture-backed companies that went public or got acquired in that decade achieved a combined valuation of $1.25 trillion as of Dec. 31, 2013. Even in the context of the overall U.S. economy, this is real money.

3-D printing, or additive manufacturing,1 has come a long way from its roots in the production of simple plastic prototypes. Today, 3-D printers can not only handle materials ranging from titanium to human cartilage but also produce fully functional components, including complex mechanisms, batteries, transistors, and LEDs.

The capabilities of 3-D printing hardware are evolving rapidly, too. They can build larger components and achieve greater precision and finer resolution at higher speeds and lower costs. Together, these advances have brought the technology to a tipping point—it appears ready to emerge from its niche status and become a viable alternative to conventional manufacturing processes in an increasing number of applications.

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What is The Harbor Accelerator?

The Harbor Accelerator is a business accelerator program designed for entrepreneurs. Co-founders John Osborne and Patrick Bryant launched the non-profit initiative in September 2013. Its mission is to provide promising entrepreneurs the resources and support needed to grow quickly, test the market quickly, and become viable.

With the vision of building scale-able businesses for the Charleston region, The Harbor Accelerator has selected a cohort of 8 start-up companies, out of 160 applicants, to participate in its intense 14-week mentorship program. The start-ups began the program January 2nd and are continuing through April 10th.

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Kansas University students with startup ideas will soon get help launching them from a new university-run business accelerator.

The KU Catalyst, a joint project between the School of Business and the Bioscience and Technology Business Center, or BTBC, will connect students with the workspace, mentoring and capital needed to create new companies.

Beginning in February, the KU Catalyst will be housed in the BTBC offices. Wally Meyer, director of KU's entrepreneurship programs, said the space would have moveable walls, plenty of white boards for writing, and would come equipped with media technology, all so that students could easily collaborate.

The annual SMART Economic Development Conference is Iowa's largest annual conference devoted to economic development. The conference, now in its 29th year, is co-sponsored by the investor-owned electric and natural gas companies of the Iowa Utility Association (IUA) and by the Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA). The conference annually attracts approximately 500 economic development professionals, business leaders, chamber of commerce executives, community leaders, elected officials and other board members who influence economic development and public policy issues statewide and within their own communities.

What do you think of when you hear the word “innovation”? Sadly, you might associate it with something that crops up in political speeches now and again as the one thing we need in order to save the economy.

Well guess what? It kind of is the one thing we need in order to save the economy – and we would be remiss to dismiss its importance just because the word gets thrown around a bit too much.

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MINNEAPOLIS, Minn., Jan. 30, 2014 -- Startup venture Galt.io (http://galt.io), led by radio show host Jason Lewis (co-founder), raised $100,000 in the first 90 minutes of the campaign and reached $200,000 in less than 24 hours.

Alex Huff (co-founder) played out the Chicken and the Egg Theory: "We believed Jason's community needed a platform of their own. Rather than seeking traditional investment or using an existing crowdfunding platform, we setup our own site and reached out to the community it would serve," said Alex Huff (co-founder).

Want to raise money for your new product, company, or creative project?

A hot new option, crowdfunding, has all kinds of people — entrepreneurs, small-business owners, inventors, investors, artists, speculators and crooks — excited.

For many years, entrepreneurs and aspiring small-business owners had only two options when seeking investors.

image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net 

(Source: The Windsor Star) Bringing an idea from concept to execution is only one of the challenges facing new entrepreneurs.

By far the trickiest part is accessing funding to turn a dream into reality, according to Rob Whent, director of the entrepreneur-in-residence program at the WEtech Alliance, an incubator and support agency for entrepreneurs with high-tech ideas.

Image: Lou Tortola shows off his latest invention: speakers that attach to a bike helmet. (TYLER BROWNBRIDGE / The Windsor Star) 

Independence, Mo. - The University of Missouri says its Mizzou Center in Blue Springs will leave by the end of September, ending a partnership announced six years ago to get the Missouri Innovation Park off the ground.

The university’s involvement had been seen as critical to getting development going at the Innovation Park, where the city would like to see high-skill, high-paying jobs in such areas as life sciences. Specifically, officials have hoped that the first building on the 63-acre park’s first phase would have about 60,000 square feet, half used by the university and half by a private company.

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“Creativity” may not be the first word that comes to mind when you hear the word “conglomerate.” But Christian Stadil, CEO and co-owner of Denmark-based Thornico, a sprawling enterprise with holdings in food, technology, shipping, and others, will likely change your mind about that.

Stadil is so enthusiastic about the concept of creativity that he has co-authored a new book with psychology professor Lenne Tanggaard, who teaches at the University of Aalborg in Denmark. In the Shower with Picasso, out in May, looks at creativity in business, the arts, and other areas and explores how we can all become more creative. In doing so, Stadil says the duo discovered that some of the very fundamental beliefs we have about creativity are wrong. Here, he shares four common misconceptions.

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Change is the only constant in life. To travel is to change. And traveling never fails to add a new perspective to life, especially to an inexperienced young professional learning the ropes and exploring the possibilities of his or her vocation. New perspectives are not reserved only for the  young and inexperienced however, as in a similar fashion, change induced by travelling is experienced by entrepreneurs looking to become better businessmen. They know that to change means to grow, and growth is always positive.

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Otis College of Art and Design will present an in-depth analysis of how the creative sectors contribute to the state of Californias economy in a presentation and networking event to be held Thursday, February 6, 2014 at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, CA, from 3-6PM.

Groningen is one of six cities shortlisted for the first European Capital of Innovation, or iCapital, awards. 

The city will compete with Barcelona, Espoo, Grenoble, Malaga and Paris for the title and a grand prize of €500,000. The award will go to the city that best demonstrates an “innovation ecosystem,” connecting citizens, public organizations, academia, and business.

Image: Groningen. Source: Wikimedia Commons/Bert Kaufmann 

Open innovation can be a powerful force. When hundreds of people collaborate openly things can evolve in all kinds of creative ways. That kind of energy is fantastic to see and I am always excited to follow real-time open innovation events implemented through our application WE THINQ. Ideas spread like wild fire and comments come in by the minute as lately seen in an exciting project with the Deutsche Welle.

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