innovation DAILY

The thought of launching a Startup is incredibly intimidating with most failing to survive their first few years, it can often result in an emotionally draining, frustrating and demoralizing experience for everyone involved. Of course with high risk comes high reward, which is why entrepreneurs still ‘take the leap of faith’ despite the odds being stacked against them.

There has never really been a better time to launch a Startup, especially if it resides in the Tech industry. The rapid advancement of the Internet continuously creates gaps in the market, and provides the perfect platform for launching a web based company.

The Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore and the Maryland Department of Business of Economic Development announced Monday that they created a new program to help companies that have moved beyond the start-up phase to continue to grow.

Advance Maryland is designed to assist these companies with developing markets, fine-tuning their business models and boosting growth with the help of a research specialist. Similar models have been adopted in other states, the groups said.

If innovation and inventiveness are the qualities which drive America to become the largest economy in the world, perhaps the same qualities will put the U.S. out of its multiyear decline, one in which both housing and real income have slipped substantially. That is the case Ben Bernanke, chief of the Fed, made recently.

Bernanke’s argument could be that the education of young Americans, particularly in math and the sciences, is not adequate to keep the U.S. in the innovation race. The superior educational attainment of children in Asia and parts of Europe will chip away at the American lead in creating the products which will drive the global economy in the decades ahead.

Intel is a $53-billion-a-year company that enjoys a near monopoly on the computer chips that go into PCs. But when it comes to the data underlying big companies like Facebook and Google, it says it wants to “return power to the people.”

Intel Labs, the company’s R&D arm, is launching an initiative around what it calls the “data economy”—how consumers might capture more of the value of their personal information, like digital records of their their location or work history. To make this possible, Intel is funding hackathons to urge developers to explore novel uses of personal data. It has also paid for a rebellious-sounding website called We the Data, featuring raised fists and stories comparing Facebook to Exxon Mobil.

Honduras has a lot of potential. There is a large bilingual population (there are about 728 bilingual schools in the country), a relatively well-built ICT infrastructure (aimed to attract outsourcing from less than 1,000 miles-away Miami) and an increasingly stable government. The Index of Economic Freedom describes the country’s business regulations as relatively benign, except perhaps in the area of labor relations. Efforts are also underway to map an emerging entrepreneurship ecosystem. For example, a national Honduras Emprende 2012 business plan contest recently involved actors from various sectors, including academia, and then set out to map the national institutional entrepreneurship ecosystem.

All this makes it even more tragic that Honduras must struggle so much with drug trafficking, violent crime and youth gangs who deter entrepreneurs—particularly in its capital city. In fact, a CID Gallup survey ranked Tegucigalpa as the most dangerous city in Central America. Not surprisingly, high-growth businesses are still only associated with traditional family names in the business world, rather than the “risk-taking startup culture” of nascent entrepreneurs now so prevalent elsewhere on the continent. Last November’s Chamber of Commerce survey outlining the scale of forced closures from gang violence tells policymakers interested in promoting new firm formation that their task is less about tax or regulatory burdens, but rather major institutional reforms to strengthen the legal system. In short, it is back to the basics for Honduras if it hopes to spur more dynamic economic growth across the country.

However, the government need not be alone in tackling these challenges. Deeper public-private dialogue has been taking place, with ecosystem players such as Junior Achievement, the Global Entrepreneurship Week movement (the Ministry of Education has been engaging with GEW since 2009) and the Tegucigalpa Chamber of Commerce all helping government to leverage entrepreneurship for these purposes. Once more, it is where top-down reforms meet bottom-up innovators that you will find positive action and impact—even when the challenge is a nation’s very own system of law.

Tags:  Chris Haughey, Tegu, Ibero-American Summit of Young Entrepreneurs,

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Silicon Valley has long been at the forefront of the tech startup scene, but due to the growth of emerging companies in other areas of the U.S. and worldwide, it's hardly the only hub sparking innovation. And in recent years, there's been a greater spotlight on New York City.

In fact, according to a report by financial research analyst firm PrivyCo., more than 100 acquisitions of tech startups occurred in New York City last year, amounting to $8.3 billion. The city is now only second behind Silicon Valley in terms of startup acquisitions.

The emergence of social networking and the Internet has caused a new focus and value on “openness,” which leads to a new element of leadership, called “Open Leadership.” The mantra of open leadership is “Be Open, Be Transparent, and Be Authentic.” This is counter to the traditional business premise of “control,” so many companies are still pushing back.

Charlene Li, in her book “Open Leadership,” shows leaders how to tap into the power of the social technology revolution and use social media to be “open” while still maintaining control. I support her ten elements of the basic framework and vocabulary of open information sharing and open decision making:

Some entrepreneurs and investors subscribe to the creed “failure is not an option.” I’m not one of them.

I strongly believe that there are times you should call it quits on a business. Not everything works. And — even after trying incredibly hard, and for a long period of time — failure is sometimes the best option. An entrepreneur shouldn’t view their entrepreneur arc as being linked to a single company, and having a lifetime perspective around entrepreneurship helps put the notion of failure into perspective. Rather than prognosticate, let me give you an example.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology said Thursday it has named 14 teams to its Global Founders' Skills Accelerator, which aims to help student entrepreneurs with succeeding at their startups. The program will run from June to September and will be hosted at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship. Eight of the teams come from MIT, with the rest from universities outside the U.S. — Canada, China, Germany, Russia, Scotland and Turkey. Among the teams is 3dim, a startup developing software which recognizes three-dimensional gestures on mobile devices, which on Wednesday took the grand prize in the 2013 MIT $100K competition.

Venture capitalist Brad Feld, who co-founded TechStars, says there isn’t a startup accelerator bubble—and that every U.S. city with at least 100,000 people should have an accelerator program, according to Lora Kolodny. (Wall Street Journal)

Serial entrepreneur Brian Shuster, whose current project is an online game called Utherverse, relocated from the U.S. to Vancouver, Jose Pagliery reports. Canadians have a better work ethic, and the government supports his business, Shuster says. (CNN Money)

Ah, getting older. It's not always fun, but at least it's one of those inevitable things we can count on in life. Fortunately, another thing we can count on is the investing prowess of the PE industry, which has had its eye on the aging population for some time. Since the beginning of 2003, in fact, PE investors have backed 138 senior-related companies based in the U.S. or Canada, according to the PitchBook Platform. Predictably, many of those companies operate in the healthcare industry, but not all. South Shore Venture Enterprises (detailed below) specializes in direct marketing campaigns aimed at senior citizens. Also making the list was Life After 50, an online magazine and website community developed exclusively for seasoned citizens.

Most successful entrepreneurs will tell you that the fastest way to kill a startup is to hire the wrong people. It’s true. As someone who has helped build multiple startups, I cannot overstate the importance of assembling a stellar core team. They are the ones who will transform your ideas into reality, and help you achieve your vision.

So, how difficult can it be to assemble a strong team? Most startups tend to focus on hiring the smartest, most qualified people around. But the truth is that sometimes, companies with the best talent and IQ flounder and fizzle out because their employees couldn’t work well together, or because they were undisciplined or unreliable, or because they just weren’t driven enough. So, as important as it is to hire people with talent and expertise, it is equally important to look out for certain other traits as well.

Michigan’s venture capital industry grew again in 2012 as both the amount of capital under management and what’s available for new investments posted strong gains.

The results contrast the general national trend for venture capital and indicate “that Michigan is a destination where entrepreneurs and those that back them are thriving,” states an annual research report issued today by the Michigan Venture Capital Association.

A single short putt is necessary to win the tournament, but suddenly the golfer's hands cramp up, and the putt goes wide. According to several studies, as many as 48 percent of serious golfers have experienced such motor skill failures, known as the yips. It is most often used to describe golf-related errors, although the yips can strike athletes in any sport.

There is no clear explanation as to why pro athletes, who frequently encounter high-stakes moments, still choke under pressure. One suggested explanation is a neurological condition called focal dystonia that results in involuntary muscle contractions when performing a motor task and tends to affect a muscle group that is used frequently and repeatedly. The cause is unclear, but the contractions may involve abnormalities in neural communication.

Responding to an April mandate from a federal district court that would make the emergency contraception drug Plan B available without a prescription to all women regardless of age, the Obama administration reduced current age restrictions on the pill from 17 to 15.

That political compromise, despite being the U.S.’s most progressive legislation on emergency contraception to date, continues a historical pattern of ignoring the very studies U.S. administrations have ordered to evaluate the safety of the drug and the societal effects of increased access to emergency contraception.

From an economic perspective, the most positive outcome of the treaty negotiations (ratified in 1922) was that the Irish Free State acquired full fiscal autonomy from the UK thereafter. But our new study of Irish economic history since independence has revealed that the economy performed very poorly in the inter war years relative to the British and European economies, despite vigorous attempts to encourage growth, initially through improving agricultural exports in the 1920s and subsequently through import substitution and protectionism.

It’s one of the anomalies in global statistics: South America is home to the world’s highest proportion of entrepreneurs, yet their presence doesn’t often translate into global innovation or broad-based wealth creation.

Chile has been eager to change that reality. And, it seems, its efforts are starting to bear fruit. Several Chilean-bred tech companies have recently been acquired by venture capital funds, and three Chilean-focused VCs vowed to invest some $67m in Chilean companies this year. Is Chile really becoming “Chilecon Valley”?

Americans understand that one of our great national strengths is innovation. Great innovators -- Benjamin Franklin, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and others -- are household names.

The social and economic impact of innovative American researchers, companies, and workers over the course of U.S. history have been enormous. Innovation has dramatically improved the quality of life in this country since the time of Benjamin Franklin, by many accounts America's most illustrious innovator. More recently, statistics show that innovation is responsible for nearly three-quarters of U.S. post-World War II economic growth. Knowledge-based companies exported more than $1 trillion -- approximately 74 percent of total U.S. exports -- in 2011.

Growth opportunities are emerging in new more efficient and innovative business models as the Affordable Care Act produces a dramatic shift in the healthcare delivery and payment, according to financial executives participating in a recent panel.

The investment experts also said they anticipate merger and acquisition activity (M&A) to pick up later this year. The briefing was sponsored by the Nashville Health Care Council, which made the event available via phone to reporters.

One of the hardest but most exciting things about being a young entrepreneur, first-time business owner or even a startup manager is the hiring process. But there are a few things you have to think about before green-lighting a new startup employee, especially in the earliest stages of starting up.

Here are 3 questions to guide you:

1. Do you really NEED another employee?

When you’re first starting out, you’re hiring someone for one of two reasons: (1) because you have pushed your own limits of how much you can work in a day (aka you’re going insane by working so much), or (2), the person you’re hiring has a skill that you simply don’t have and the time spent learning that skill would not be worth it for your business.

When you run a company--especially a start-up--it can be a 24-hour job. But no matter how busy you are, there's one crucial part of your operation you should never ignore: sales. Not every entrepreneur instinctively understands this part of the business, but if you keep these four things in mind as you lead, you’ll have happier, more productive sales reps and plenty of loyal customers.

A business card creates a physical connection and bond between you or your business and your customers.

Just like in a website, business cards can become great interactive elements, but with the added ability to have real textures, different materials and shapes.

The University of Virginia announced this week the creation of a university “crowdfunding” portal designed to enable alumni and other donors to support research projects.

The university is one of the first to start such a fund-raising effort through a partnership with a crowdfunding start-up company. UVa is teaming up with Useed, a company focused on promoting fund raising in higher education by soliciting donations for university research projects or student-proposed entrepreneurial projects.

In the weeks leading up to BlackBerry's splashy unveil of a new line of smartphones this year, the company fought hard to keep a major part of its launch a heavily guarded secret.

Many details about BlackBerry's new mobiles had already been leaked to the public, so few of its employees were made aware of how the company's presentation would ultimately unfold. A carefully rehearsed ending, in particular, was largely a ruse.

"We actually did a run-through for our management team with an alternative ending," says Heidi Davidson, a spokeswoman for BlackBerry.

If you could hop onboard a time machine and visit the earth as it was 500 million years ago, during the Paleozoic era, you'd be forgiven for thinking you had traveled not to another time period but to another planet altogether. In essence, you would have. The continents mostly sat in the Southern Hemisphere, the oceans had vastly different configurations and currents, the Alps and the Sahara had yet to form. Land plants had not even evolved. Perhaps the most dramatic difference, however, would lie in the animals that inhabited this primeval earth. Back then, most of the world's multicellular creatures lived in the sea. Clamlike creatures called brachiopods and trilobites—those extinct cousins of today's lobsters and insects, with their hard exoskeletons, long antennae and compound eyes—reigned supreme.

ROCKVILLE AND BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, May 20, 2013 – BioHealth Innovation, Inc. (BHI), a regional private-public partnership focusing on commercializing market-relevant biohealth innovations and increasing access to early-stage funding in Central Maryland, today announced its selection of Ram Aiyar, Ph.D., M.B.A., as the first Entrepreneur-in-Residence (EIR) for BHI at the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI). Dr. Aiyar will help advance fundamental research discoveries to new therapeutics, diagnostics and devices that can be used clinically and commercially.

“We’re pleased to add Dr. Aiyar to our roster of Entrepreneurs-in-Residence,” said Rich Bendis, BHI President and CEO. “He is now our third EIR – joining Todd Chappell, who is EIR at NIH, and Ken Malone, our EIR working with the University of Maryland Ventures. The growth of this program will be a benefit to BHI and our partner organizations for years to come, and will result in transitioning more early-stage biomedical technologies to commercial potential. ”

Here you can learn about our unique program, the services we provide to Russian start-up companies and university projects, as well as take advantage of free online resources for entrepreneurs and university faculty working in the fields of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Being a risk taker in business is not the same as being reckless. Nevertheless, the word “risk” has a negative connotation to most of us, implying danger and possible loss. For true entrepreneurs, risk is viewed as a positive, with its implied challenge to overcome the unknown and hitting the big return.

In fact, risk is an integral part of life, as well as every business, yet so few people learn to manage it properly, or even want to think about it. One way to learn is to understand better how successful entrepreneurs approach risk, and look at actual strategies they use for success.

I’m fully convinced that both inspiration and perspiration are always required in a startup. Yet many people seem to be stuck on one end or other of this equation – all perspiration with no dream, or all inspiration with no reality. Success is the right balance of both for fun and profit.

Aspiring entrepreneurs ask me why their great idea hasn’t sold; they talk about it endlessly, and they expect others to do the development, finance, and marketing work for them. Those at the other extreme don’t look up from the grindstone long enough to notice whether all their work is producing sweat equity or just sweat.

For those of us living and breathing angel investing day in and day out, it can be hard to remember just how much angel investing has evolved in the past few decades. At the recent ACA Summit, I recounted some of the key shifts in the environment and described the impact this has had on all of us:

30 Years Ago…was when we really started seeing innovation migrate from large corporate R&D labs (largely due to cost cutting) towards early stage ventures that were more nimble at innovating on their own.

On Wednesday night, 3dim earned the grand prize at this year’s MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition after successfully pitching its business plan to merge two of today’s most popular, and profitable, technological phenomena: gesture-recognition and smart devices.

Members of 3dim celebrate after winning the grand prize at the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. Photo: L. Barry Hetherington The startup was one of eight finalists that pitched business plans to a capacity crowd in Kresge Auditorium. While only one team walked away with the $100,000 top prize, finalists received startup funds totaling $257,000.

Don’t miss the thoughtful post by Steve Denning on Forbes.com, the one in which he speaks of “Leadership In The Three-Speed Economy”. It’s one of the best snapshots of “where we are” (in a global sense) in terms of business, society and the world economy. Denning notes that, when people talk about the economy “recovering”, they need to ask, first, which economy. He identifies three: The Traditional Economy of the 20th Century (General Electric, Walmart and the like)

IN an effort to bolster enterprise development and job creation, the South African Revenue Service has taken a leaf out of the UK’s book and created a new asset class for investors to consider: venture capital trusts.

Venture capital companies can now trade as trusts and give tax breaks to those who are prepared to throw some money behind small business. The potential risk-reward matrix could be very tempting.

Social entrepreneurship is in the air – especially this week. In case you’ve missed out on our coverage of the Social Impact Award 2013, you might want to catch up on it here. With a number of outstanding projects already in the making, there is a new initiative coming out of HUB Vienna Incubation that is looking to select its first batch of startups to hold incubation stipends. The deadline for applications is 30 May.

There are two completely different ways of looking at crowdfunding. It is either a) the best thing to happen to start-ups since Red Bull; or b) while sometimes useful, it’s no serious substitute for other sources of money, including family & friends. Even bootstrapping.

 This may not endear me to some of my friends, but increasingly, I lean towards the latter.

As I am about to do an open innovation session for a B2B company, I got to think about this question once again and since it works well for a good discussion, let me start out with a couple of remarks:

• B2B companies are actually just as good as consumer goods companies on open innovation, but the latter are just more visible when it comes to open innovation initiatives. A reason for this could be that the products and brands of consumer goods companies are better known and thus we hear more about these companies.

We provide technology, support, resources and community to Big Data, Predictive or Real-time Analytics startups to jumpstart development and accelerate market traction. We currently serve a network of over 250 startups across the globe.

Is your startup a Big Data, Predictive or Real-time Analytics solution that’s beyond ideation and privately held? Want the chance to get in front of 15,000 enterprise customers? Want face time with Dr. Vishal Sikka, Member of the Executive Board SAP AG, Technology & Innovation?

Beware of random collisions with unusual suspects.

Unless, that is, you want to learn something new. In that case, seek out innovators from across every imaginable silo and listen, really listen, to their stories. New ideas, perspectives, and opportunities await in the gray areas between the unusual suspects.

It seems so obvious and yet we spend most of our time with the usual suspects in our respective silos. One of the most important silos we need to break down is the one between generations.

It's a common practice for job applicants to use social media to stand out to employers. We've seen the Vine resume, the Kickstarter one and enough infographics to make you cry. But how often do you see a company get creative when making an offer?

Tech marketing firm ePrize posted a picture to Instagram this week asking its former marketing intern Samantha Bankey, who graduated from Ferris State University in Michigan last weekend, to join the company.

In our "Young Innovators" series, we've been featuring young people trying to change the world. This time, we spotlight Jack Andraka, who started googling ways to prevent cancer after losing a friend to the disease. And look where it took him.

Jack Andraka's science project doesn't sound like a high school sophomore's crowning achievement. It sounds more like a Nobel Prize winner's.