Does the potential for a 40 per cent plus returns over three-and-a-half years or so offer sufficient incentive for a 40 per cent failure rate? Those are the numbers that jump out of the report published today by Seedrs, one of the UK’s big three equity crowdfunding platforms, into the performance of companies that have raised money with it.

It’s no secret that entrepreneurship is full of uncertainty. It requires taking risks. Furthermore, when you own a business, you are solely responsible for its success and failure.

The upside is that your income is more proportionate to the effort you put into your business—which might not be the case if you work for someone else.

The downside is that future business profits are difficult to predict—which means your income is less stable. Unstable income is the single biggest reason why most people never take the entrepreneurial plunge.

There’s something special about sharing a meal with someone. We all know this applies in business as well as with friends and family. But did you ever really think about the benefits of breaking bread with a business prospect? Sitting across the desk from someone for an hour, or even facing each other on a comfortable couch discussing business does not develop the same relationship as spending the same hour having the discussion over lunch.

Same topic, same amount of time, same discussion. Different result. There’s just something about combining speaking and sharing ideas and stories with dining that leads to a better understanding of each other.

Oregon RAIN, a nonprofit program to help turn homegrown innovation into companies and jobs, is hiring a candidate to work with entrepreneurs on the coast, between Florence and Lincoln City.

RAIN, which stands for Regional Accelerator and Innovation Network, is a consortium of government, higher education and business communities in Lane, Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties.

The consortium recently posted an opening for a “Coastal Venture Catalyst,” which is a one-year contracted position, made possible through a $50,000 grant from the Ford Family Foundation and financial support from the city of Florence and Lincoln County.

Sometimes you need a quick bout of inspiration before you get to work or during your lunch break. That's why we asked 14 members from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) what startup newsletters they would recommend subscribing to. Here's what they had to say:

1. Traffic Generation Cafe

Ana Hoffman's blog at TrafficGenerationCafe.com is much like my favorite cocktails: it cuts to the chase. It's all about SEO and traffic generation and getting click-throughs in the simplest and most informative ways. I love seeing what tips she has in store every time I get an email from her. Plus, it's personalized. It doesn't feel like a robot is talking to me, but a human. – Rob Fulton, Exponential Black

ETTRICK — If Virginia's Gateway Region were receiving a performance review, its rating for the past five years would have to be “exceeds expectations.” And if that track record is any indication, Central Virginia can look forward to thousands of new jobs and close to $1 billion in investments in the next five years.

The state's oldest regional economic development organization rolled out its new five-year plan on Monday in a presentation at Virginia State University to local business and community leaders. The plan, called “Driving Economic Growth and Embracing a Global Future 3.0,” or Global 3.0 for short, sets specific and aggressive goals for the next five years:

Image: http://www.progress-index.com

Apple is facing accusations that it copied Chinese innovations in the iPhone 7. Indeed, China’s smartphone manufacturers released dual-camera systems and handsets without headphone jacks long before Apple did. And the stickers and animations that Apple is adding to iMessage look like a direct knockoff from China’s WeChat. This is quite a twist from the days when Apple accused the Chinese of copying its inventions. The reality is that America’s most innovative company is no longer the world’s most innovative company. Entrepreneurs all over the world are producing innovations that rival what you see in Silicon Valley.

You may have heard that if you average together all colors on the web, you get orange. That may be true. But when you pull away the photographs of sunsets and the peachy skinned? You’re left with the visual framework of CSS, the text and menus and other graphic design elements of the web.

And that? That’s not orange. That’s blue.

Image: Jens Kreuter via Unsplash

Your company's culture is what defines it. Small startup or large corporation, it's the set of values and attitudes that bind your employees together. So what happens to that identity when another company buys you out? Mergers and acquisitions can cause fear and confusion, usually leaving questions about the impact on corporate culture low down on the list of priorities.

Under a deadline to push a deal through, business leaders don't usually sit down to discuss how to head off a culture clash. That's a task that takes time, planning, and effort few seem willing or able to spend time on, but it's a process that can make the integration that follows either much more seamless or difficult to execute as a result.

The who’s who of the billionaire founders club, especially in tech, reads like a ranking of college drop outs — à la Mark Zuckerberg, who fled Harvard University to launch the world’s biggest social media network.

Yet the management nous and network gained at business school is increasingly valuable for start-up founders.

Image: http://www.businessbecause.com

Not only Ireland’s capital, Dublin is Ireland’s ‘venture capital’, attracting the lion’s share of investment in the country. It’s time to ensure a more level playing field for the nation’s start-ups, says John Kennedy.

Ireland has a venture funding problem. No, not a problem with getting venture capital because funding levels and investments are actually on the rise if various reports are anything to go by. The problem is that the funding appears to be mostly going to one place: Dublin.

A surprising point of agreement between presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump should be a rallying cry for tech startups, says a top lobbyist for the venture capital industry.

Both the Democrat and the Republican have targeted an obscure element of tax law known as "carried interest," attacking it as a loophole for fat cats. Here's the in-the-weeds explanation, but basically getting rid of carried interest would raise tax rates on investment returns by private equity groups that incubate and grow technology companies.

A new venture capital fund created to accelerate the growth of trucking and logistic company startups successfully raised $18 million in investments — 50 percent more than its original target and one of the biggest capital raises ever for a VC fund in Chattanooga.

The "Dynamo" fund was formed this year by the principals in the former Access America trucking company to help support other growing logistics businesses, including the 10 startups going through the Dynamo accelerator this summer. The new funds will be one the richest endowed funds ever in Chattanooga and will make investments in early-stage startup businesses looking to bring new technologies to freight movements and storage.

$248 million in cash from Sanofi, and the same amount in a capital contribution by Verily (not in cash) have breathed life to a new company — Onduo — where the two equal partners will wage battle with a formidable enemy: diabetes.

That part — Google’s life science business and a well-known diabetes drug maker is collaborating to create a startup targeting type 2 diabetes patients initially — is clear.

However, what exactly the platform is and what products will emerge from this new company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is far from crystal clear.

Image: http://medcitynews.com

The Government must back job-creating migrant entrepreneurs to help make a success of Brexit, a report being launched today, Monday September 12 2016, in Parliament will suggest.

The study, conducted by the Institute of Directors and mi-HUB, found that there were particular challenges for entrepreneurs from overseas, including their qualifications not being recognised, not being able to transfer their credit history to the UK, difficulty in accessing finance and lack of support networks.

Image: http://pressreleases.responsesource.com

The U.S. is still the only wealthy country that doesn’t guarantee paid parental leave for employees, so rights for working parents are largely won at the state level.

Some states are fighting harder than others.

The National Partnership for Women and Families recently released a U.S. “report card” assigning all 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, an A-F grade based on the breadth of policies they’ve aimed at working families. There were no perfect scores — the partnership assigned just three A grades (and 12 Fs), but there were no A+ states — but the spots that topped the rankings offered some mix of mandated parental leave, paid sick days, and accommodations for pregnant women and nursing mothers.

“They may not be head turners,” says Matisse Rhodes, a New Yorker who lived in the Ohio city from 2010 until 2015, “but Clevelanders are among some of the warmest, most genuine people in the country.”

Rhodes isn’t alone in her assessment. In this year’s America’s Favorite Places survey, T+L readers scored cities across a wide range of categories, including how attractive locals are: and Clevelanders ranked near the bottom for their looks.

A crowdfunding campaign has been held to restore the Great Wall of China to prevent its further damage. This campaign is run by the China Foundation for Cultural Heritage Conservation, an organization that is semi-supported by the government. To be able to restore the Great Wall, the campaign needs $1.6 million (11 million yuan).

When pushing ideas forward into the unknown make sure you know where you are playing.

The rise of the “lean start-up” in the late 2000s revolutionised the way entrepreneurs developed their businesses. By highlighting the importance of experimentation and customer feedback it identified a means of effectively and efficiently creating and capturing value in the search process.