Yesterday, Ben Rooney at The Wall Street Journal wrote about subtle sexism in tech. In his article, he quoted Tara Hunt, CEO and cofounder of Buyosphere.

"How many VC meetings have I been in where the VC turns to me and says, 'Yeah. I just don’t get it. Maybe I’ll show it to my wife.' BURN! Really? Would he say that to a man pitching him the same concept?"

It's tough for males to fully understand women-based products; even Fred Wilson admits venture capitalists are predominantly white, arrogant men.

"If the tech industry is going to be dominated by men, then we're going to get services that target that crowd," says Wilson.

With bank finance seemingly still hard to come by, many entrepreneurs are turning instead to business angels.

Louise Barker and Bruce Scott from Bamboo Cash plea: Louise Barker and Bruce Scott from Bamboo SMALL BUSINESS GUIDES Maze• Starting up • Business finance • Marketing • Franchising • Guides in full

For aspiring entrepreneurs Louise Barker and Bruce Scott, presenting to experienced business angels in their search for fresh capital is something they have got used to since setting up their financial educational business, Bamboo Innovations, just over two years ago.

But last Tuesday's presentation in offices near Piccadilly Circus in west London was a first.

Rather than facing an audience of business angels attempting to emulate the gruffness of Dragons' Den serial entrepreneurs Peter Jones and Duncan Bannantyne, the pair found themselves before an allfemale panel as they argued their case for £150,000 of seed capital to develop their interactive money game Bamzonia, which is aimed at schools.

Everyone knows that that startups are risky, but they also expect that the job will be exciting and potentially very lucrative (think early employees at Microsoft and Google). Yet we have all heard stories about the high turnover, unstructured work environment, lower base pay, and unpredictable expectations from the top.

Assuming you are lucky enough to get hired, what can you do to survive, and even stand out above the rest in this environment? Here are some tips from a recent book by Harvey Mackay, titled “Use Your Head to Get Your Foot in the Door,” which work even better in a startup than they do in a bigger company:

Make yourself indispensible. The truly indispensible person in a startup is a problem solver, because every startup has plenty of problems. Very few people are willing and able to take on any challenge, and make it work. You can’t outsource that one.

Snell & Wilmer sponsors September 14 - 24 trip to China designed to help Arizona businesses understand the opportunities; Early bird prices end June 16

PHOENIX, Ariz., June 6, 2011 — Providing a unique opportunity to Arizona businesses, the Arizona Technology Council (http://www.aztechcouncil.org) and the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry (http://www.azchamber.com/) today announced that attendees of their September 14 – September 24, 2011 trade delegation to China are invited to apply for a complimentary U.S. Commercial Service Gold Key Matching service. Normally provided for a fee, the service will be awarded free of charge to selected companies at the discretion of the U.S. Commercial Service.

“Council and Chamber members are well-advised to take advantage of U.S. Commercial Service Gold Key Matching programs on the upcoming mission to China,” said Eric Nielsen, director, Arizona U.S. Export Assistance Center. “This is an extremely effective way to set the stage for building sustained sales channels.  The Gold Key provides direct access to potential agents, distributors, representatives and end-users of made-in-America products and services.”

Sponsored by Snell & Wilmer, the China trade delegation will travel to Shanghai, Chengdu, Hong Kong, Shenzhen and Macau. This trip will include meetings with governmental and business leaders in China as well as an in-depth exploration of Chinese culture.

Economic historians looking back at this period will be hard pressed to avoid commenting on the influence of at least one data point: from 1980–2005, firms less than five years old accounted for all net job growth in the United States. The notion that what policymakers should focus on is “young” firms not just “small” firms has awakened Democrats and Republicans alike and provided a new strategy for all Americans seeking to create jobs and restore what many Americans perceive as lost U.S. economic competitiveness.

While most early interest from this Administration in the vital role of young firms in the economy was more talk than action, the Obama Administration acknowledged new firm formation with actionable commitment at the White House launch of Startup America last January. In turn, within weeks, Speaker Boehner led his own “job creation” events welcoming in Kauffman Foundation president Carl Schramm once more to carry the message to Americans that it is the risk-takers and entrepreneurs that will make more American jobs and restore our economic strength.

It’s beyond complicated – The Heath Care Reform law that passed last year is 2,000 pages long. How many entrepreneurs do you know who have read it? And that’s just one law! There are thousands of others—and they vary state by state. Bad things happen to good small business owners because it is nearly impossible to keep up with the changes, and the penalties for mistakes are expensive. Get help.

It is absolutely critical to do it right – Most entrepreneurs wouldn’t think about starting a company without a lawyer or an accountant. You’ll be 10 steps ahead of the game if you think that strategically on the HR front as well. Build a solid foundation of systems and processes around hiring, compensation and benefits so that your employees will always consider your company a great place to work.

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of those factors that were most important in the emergence Israel’s innovation economy from 1990-2000. It contains a thorough survey of the leading academic ideas regarding preconditions for innovation (generally) and the preconditions for Israeli innovation over a 30 year period (specifically), including: public R&D grants, human capital acquisition, intellectual property rights, financial reforms, venture capital policy and cultural factors. In addition, this paper lends fresh empirical support to the notion that R&D grants and venture capital policies played an important role in Israel’s narrative, and distinguishes those factors which can be emulated by other governments and organizations (ie. deliberate policy-making or responses to market indicators) from those which resulted from historical chance (ie. luck). Finally, this paper draws from Israel’s experience to spell out some key public policy lessons and limitations of innovation policy.

WELLESLEY, Mass., June 6, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Mayor Thomas M. Menino and Babson College announced that the college, ranked #1 in the world for entrepreneurship, had signed a lease in Boston's Innovation District. The facility will be equipped with new classroom and conference room space and will begin hosting MBA courses in September 2011. Babson also plans to use the new location for lectures and events and to make it a hub of innovation activity in Boston. The 3,500 square-foot facility at 253 Summer Street will give Babson a foothold as it looks to build its Boston presence, close to downtown businesses, start-ups and research based companies on the waterfront, and Logan International Airport.

"This announcement signals our commitment to Boston and the executives, the entrepreneurs, and the students that live, work, and travel there," said Leonard A. Schlesinger, President of Babson College. "We put a toe in the water with our Hatchery at One Marina Park, we are now landing on Summer Street, and we look forward to a growing role in Boston's Innovation District."

"An outstanding program for entrepreneurship is coming to an outstanding cluster for innovative businesses," said Mayor Menino. "Babson and Boston are a great match. Colleges and universities are engines for talent and new businesses, and we know Babson will help fuel Boston's growth."

Fifty-five percent of entrepreneurs started their first company by the age of 29.

That's one finding from an Ernst & Young survey of hundreds of entrepreneurs.

But it doesn't mean you should give up if you were born before 1982. Other findings suggested that entrepreneurs benefited from age and experience.

Nearly 60% of entrepreneurs have worked in a corporate environment, and 33% said this was key to their success.

Whether it's Mark Zuckerberg talking about killing pigs or a Hollywood blockbuster under its belt, Facebook has plenty of attention in our lives. Twitter falls into the same camp. From Justin Bieber's noisy 10 million followers to hordes of social media gurus tweeting the benefits of 140 characters or less, it's easy to discover how and what makes Twitter work. However, there is one social network that lacks drama but makes up for it with a devoted business community and plenty of compelling features.

Here are five LinkedIn tips you should try today.

1. Use "Signal" to discover relevant news and information

When you're logged in to LinkedIn, take a tour of a new-ish feature called Signal. This tool lets you easily monitor updates within your network, but more importantly you can filter information so you can also see what people in your extended circle (2nd and 3rd connections) are posting. You can also do the same filtering by industry or location, so you can weed through the noise.

For the third year in a row we have put together a list of the 100 Most Creative People in Business. And once again we take a look at the Twitter numbers. While the first list only had about 20 Twitter users, the second had over 30. And this year? The most yet, with 36--further proof that Twitter has become an essential part of our online lives. So, without further ado, the Top Ten tweeters of 2011's MCP.

1. Ryan Seacrest, @RyanSeacrest: More than a TV personality, Seacrest links to items from his production company, as well as random Internet findings posted to his personal site: I don't know if this is the best proposal ever, but it's pretty damn good http://bit.ly/iJW0i5

I understand that you can get rich off iPhone applications. Projected revenue for Apple’s App Store in 2011 is $2.91 billion, and 70% goes to app developers.

I know we’re overwhelmed by stories of big money in tech startups (see Facebook’s $50 billion valuation and the box office success of The Social Network).

That said, I’d like to deliver a message to Millennials – you can innovate with a different purpose. There are new and exciting platforms for social impact.

More than 5 billion people now own mobile phones.

50% of people on the African continent use mobile devices, and they will soon be ubiquitous.

The Governor of Michigan Rick Snyder recently announced a $3 billion initiative collaborating with the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, state agencies and other Michigan based enterprises. The initiative is considered a combination of public & private due to the broad collaboration, and goes by the name Pure Michigan Business Connect.

The project will focus on early stage and second phase new businesses and follow an overall philosophy of growing innovation from several angles. Raising a climate conducive to small business and startup growth centers on bringing together thoughtful entrepreneurs, tech resources, established businesses and capital.

Sharing is big on the Web. We all know that. But exactly how big? ShareThis has some answers in a study it put together with Starcom MediaVest Group and Rubinson Partners. Looking across the sharing and clicking habits of the more than 300 million people a month who pass links with a ShareThis button on over a million websites (producing 7 billion pageviews a month), a few things stood out.

Overall, sharing now produces an estimated 10 percent of all Internet traffic and 31 percent of referral traffic to sites from search and social. Search is still about twice as big.

When it comes to sharing on the Web, Facebook rules. Facebook accounts for 38 percent of all sharing referral traffic. Email and Twitter tied for second with 17 percent each. Those are the percentages that actually clicked through. The raw sharing numbers are higher. Facebook makes up 56 percent of all shared content (up from 45 percent in August, 2010), followed by email at 15 percent (down from 34 percent) and Twitter at 8 percent (down from 12 percent). The difference between these two sets of numbers is that some content is shared that is never clicked on, thus the raw numbers are higher.

ock options are complicated; the paperwork that accompanies them can sometimes be a full inch thick of financial legalese. Most employees are just glad to get some ownership in the company — and maybe a lottery ticket if the startup does really well. But most employees don’t recognize what their options really are, nor do they understand that there are some catastrophic choices they can make with those options that could leave them bankrupt or worse.

For the executive summary: If you can afford it, forward-exercise 100 percent of your options the week you join a startup and file an 83(b) election immediately.

A good entrepreneur is not necessarily born a good salesman. In fact, they are often the opposite, more focused on building things rather than selling them. Yet, in today’s world of information overload, marketing and selling skills are critical to the success of every startup.

The alternative “If we build it, they will come” approach has long been relegated to the field of dreams, after Kevin Costner’s movie by the same name. In my own effort to keep up with the times, I just finished a new book by Julie Steelman, “The Effortless Yes: Demystifying the Selling Process.” Julie is known as the entrepreneur’s selling mentor, for both men and women.

One of the many sources of intellectual reward from running a venture fund is the wide variety of people I have the privilege of meeting and the spectrum of ideas they present. Despite the variety in the backgrounds, personalities, and ideas represented by the entrepreneurs I meet, they almost always fail to get two basic questions right in the pitch during our first meeting.

QUESTION 1: What are your expectations on valuation?

VCs ask this question for at least two reasons. First, we see more deals than we can process, so having a “Pass or Fail” question like this helps make quick work of the diligence. When I hear the CEO of an otherwise interesting company say “We expect $40MM pre-money”, and the business is a year or two away from revenue, I realize my work on that company is done. We log it in the database as something we’ve looked at and move on to the next prospect in the queue.

(Reuters) - California-based SVB Financial (SIVB.O), the parent of Silicon Valley Bank, is eyeing banking licenses in China and India, Asia's No.1 and No.3 economies, as part of its international expansion, its chief executive told Reuters.

The bank, which focuses on lending to the technology, life sciences, venture capital and premium wine industries, has moved into Israel, China, India and Britain as it looks to take its venture capital business model overseas.

The bank, valued at close to $2.5 billion, has a joint venture, which is subject to regulatory approval, in China with Shanghai Pudong Development Bank Co Ltd (600000.SS) and has invested in Chinese companies such as Zhejiang Uni-power Guaranty and Zero2IPO Group, and venture capital funds.

"In China, we've announced a joint venture, and our goal is to get a banking license there, and the same in India," Greg Becker said in a telephone interview.

When you are seeking angel capital, you're going to need a solid plan of action if you are to improve the chances of getting the investment that you need. Raising angel capital follows a similar action plan to that which you would use if you are raising venture capital. However, there are a few steps that are absolutely essential if you are to acquire the investment that you're seeking, and you should ensure that you follow these carefully to increase your chances of success:

1. Send a Teaser Email When you first want to make contact with an angel investor, there are different ways that you can go about this. The most effective way, however, is to send a teaser email to the angel investor to introduce yourself and provide a brief description of your company. This should contain only basic information about your company, rather than going into long and unnecessary detail, because if the investor is not interested then they will not want to read your whole business plan.

On the morning of December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright eyed another chance at getting their flying machine off the ground. The brothers and five other men lugged their 600-pound machine over a quarter mile uphill and placed it on a 60-foot monorail. They had done the same thing three days earlier but crashed, breaking several parts in their flying prototype.

This day was different. Undeterred by their failure a mere 72 hours ago, the flying machine made its way down the monorail and picked up speed. Wilbur ran along the side of the plane, steadying the wing. As the machine left the ground, a camera shutter opened, capturing one the most inspiring moments in human history. Twelve seconds and 120 feet later, what was previously impossible was now a reality.

That day, the Wright brothers finally arrived at an ultimate success, but the path was filled with disappointing detours and a daunting string of failures. Innovation and failure go hand in hand.