Mark Cuban likes to call Tower Paddle Boards, a San Diego-based company that sells stand-up paddleboards, one of his best “Shark Tank” investments ever.

The company’s growth explains why. When Cuban invested $150,000 for 30% of the company in 2011, Tower Paddle Boards just had $260,000 in revenue. This year it expects to hit nearly $10 million in revenue.

But there’s another reason that makes the 11-person startup special: Tower Paddle Boards is super efficient, having achieved that growth by working only five hours a day.

The cut-throat nature of today’s commercial ecosphere only sees an upward surge. Entrepreneurship is now perceived to be every other person’s dream or way out of the situation they find themselves in. If you genuinely feel positive about your idea, innovation or business plan, then it is imperative that you undergo a measure of introspection before taking that giant leap of faith.

The research arm of China's tech giant Tencent issued the 2016 White Paper on Innovation and Entrepreneurship during the company's global partner conference on Thursday in Fuzhou, capital of Fujian province.

Tencent Research Institute built the innovation and entrepreneurship pioneer index to measure the level of urban development and entrepreneurship potential of cities.

Assessed by indicators of talents, market, environment and capital, the white Paper listed the top 50 entrepreneurial cities in China

Here are the top 10 pioneer cities in innovation and entrepreneurship in China.

Image: Tourists enjoy cherry blossoms at the Moshan scenic spot in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei province, March 12, 2015. As weather warms up, cherry blossoms here are in full bloom. (Photo/Xinhua)

You spoke a lot about incremental and systemic innovation today. What is the difference?

Incremental innovation fits into existing business models and economy. It’s a better way to do something. It may be a totally new and disruptive product, but it fits the existing system.

It can be done without government intervention…

It can, but small companies may need help. They may need money, or access to facilities to test an idea. The point is it assumes the main economic system and market continue.

Image: http://www.euractiv.com

September 27, 2016 The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded five new grants to teach entrepreneurship and to support research and innovation at regional hubs across the United States under its Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) program.

The innovation hubs, known as I-Corps nodes, provide the research infrastructure and training to help researchers transition fundamental science and engineering discoveries to the marketplace. They also support a number of I-Corps sites across the country and deliver a seven-week I-Corps curriculum to the I-Corps teams.

Image: http://www.nsf.gov

Switzerland – a tiny country with few natural advantages – has become incredibly successful in the world of banking, pharmaceuticals, machinery, and more. James Breiding, author of the bestselling book, Swiss Made, explores the enabling factors for innovation in Switzerland. He makes the point that when an entrepreneur comes up with a new and innovative method or product, there will be resistance from those who have accepted the status quo. Entrepreneurs as well as intrapreneurs need to have thick skin if they wish to disrupt the market.

Image: http://www.innovationmanagement.se

In early September 85 smart people gathered for two days at the Pfizer conference center in New York City to talk about their practical experience in identifying, engaging, driving value from and (at times) failing with the most innovative employees in their respective businesses. The 2016 Corporate Intrapreneur Summit was 100% on point in targeting key areas of interest around how intrapreneurs in a corporate setting.

Throughout the program, speakers from CISCO, USAA, Whirlpool, Vodafone, Farmers Insurance, BASF, Sony Music, Northwestern Mutual, etc. gave valuable insight into a range of cutting edge thinking and actions, with a mix of strategic and tactical insights. Some consistent themes came through these official (and informal) discussions, which have been collated below. Take a look and let me know your thoughts:

For 226 years, men led the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the agency that fosters American innovation and entrepreneurship. Enter Michelle Lee, the agency’s first female leader.

A Silicon Valley native who built a radio with her father in the family living room, Lee grew up with female classmates who thrived in math and science.

Image: Scientists Miss Nellie A. Brown (standing), Miss Lucia McCollock, Miss Mary K. Bryan and Miss Florence Hedges (seated L-R) work at a laboratory between 1910 and 1920. Photo by National Photo Company Collection/Library of Congress

In my last missive, I challenged you to think big, to set high goals and expectations for the future of your company. But it’s not enough to write down a lofty vision and expansive targets, pat yourselves on the back for your courage, and wait for great results to appear.

Too often organizations create a wonderful vision and set high targets without much thought about how to ensure they hit the targets and turn the vision into reality. They do a poor job breaking a long and often changing path down into the rocks that must be put in place to build it, rock by rock. Each rock attached to one and only one person accountable for its execution with a strict due date and specific and easily measurable metrics of completion.

I was moved to write this column by the story of Jack Chen, a rather amazing lawyer at Google. If you want to understand where I’m coming from—or if you just want to be inspired—check it out before proceeding further.

I told you it would be worth your time.

That video stirred plenty of thoughts for me, as I imagine it does for everyone. My own reaction unfolded in three parts. First, I felt a great admiration for Jack. Second, I felt a keen appreciation for the very surmountable nature of the logistical and physical “challenges” that I sometimes lament in my own life. (Put another way, by comparison to Jack I felt incredibly lazy, and unproductive.) And third, I began to reflect on larger lessons that Jack’s experience can teach us.

There has been much discussion about the lack of technological innovation in the federal IT market. Steve Kelman, former administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, has been blogging on FCW's "The Lectern" about this very issue, with his focus seeming to be that industry, rather than government, is the problem.

With that in mind, I'd like to offer the notion that a major part of the IT industry seems to be missing from the conversation.

When Avi Freedman was getting ready to graduate Temple University in 1992, there was no way to buy internet service in Philadelphia. Literally. If you wanted to send someone money to get a dial-up account, there was nobody to send it to. But Freedman had already been running public access Unix machines and letting people he knew log into them. So he decided to turn his personal frustration into a company that would offer dial-up Internet access to everyone in the area.

Over two and half years ago I took a leap into an exciting new initiative at Penn: the launch and implementation of the Penn Center for Innovation (PCI).

PCI’s launch was the result of a two-year planning effort among university leaders to determine the best strategies for expanding Penn’s commercialization potential and the right infrastructure to support these activities. University technology commercialization, also sometimes known as technology transfer, involves the creation of business relationships between the university and the commercial sector for the purpose of creating products, goods and services based on the active development of discoveries created at the university.

Image: (Courtesy photo) - http://technical.ly

The driving forces of the country’s growth—including urbanization, a rising middle class, and increasing consumer spending—are ripe for companies to seize upon.

The continent of India stands to become one of the largest growth engines in the world, according to research in a new McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) report, India’s ascent: Five opportunities for growth and transformation. In this episode of the McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey senior partners Noskir Kaka and Alok Kshirsagar and MGI partner Anu Madgavkar talk with McKinsey’s Cecilia Ma Zecha about the way forward in a growth- and productivity-powered India.

QUT Creative Enterprise Australia (CEA), Australia’s only organisation dedicated to driving the creative-tech ecosystem, recently called for recognition of the economic growth potential of the creative industries, including the appointment of a Federal Minister for the Creative Industries.

In Australia, creative industries currently contribute $90 billion annually to the economy – with CEA arguing that Federal Government support could drive that contribution much higher as it has in the UK and other international economies.

Image: http://anthillonline.com

You may not like planning things, but your brain does. There's evidence, for example, that the experience of planning your vacation helps you to enjoy it more when it actually happens. And as I wrote recently for Fast Company, even writing to-do lists that go uncompleted can give you a productivity boost.

Around the world, entrepreneurs are dealing with the same problem. In cities like Chicago, Barcelona, Nairobi, Tel Aviv, Mumbai, Singapore and Sydney, they’re trying to harness the power of the innovation economy by building ecosystems of technologists, investors, industry insiders and more. But for many of these entrepreneurs, building an innovation ecosystem is a difficult, lengthy and costly process, because they lack a clear understanding of how such ecosystems work.

Trace the roots of most modern Japanese tech companies back far enough and there’s a good chance you’ll stumble across a little-known venture capital firm called Jafco Co. Since its inception in 1973, Japan’s oldest and largest VC has quietly backed almost 4,000 companies, including giants like SoftBank Group Corp., Muji stores operator Ryohin Keikaku Co. and Street Fighter games producer Capcom Co. Almost a thousand of its investments have gone public and today command a market value of about $530 billion. Jafco is Japan’s version of Sequoia Capital, the legendary Silicon Valley firm that was also founded in the early 1970s and helped launch Apple Inc., Oracle Corp. and Google Inc.

Image: Shinichi Fuki, president and chief executive officer of Jafco. Photographer: Akio Kon/Bloomberg

The venture-capital profession is less than a century old, but it controls a lot of investment capital—peaking at a record $63.3 billion in 2015, though that number is predicted to shrink this year due to a volatile stock market and fears of a tech bubble.

It is widely known that women aren’t well represented in founding or partner roles in the startup investment space: According to Tech Crunch, only 7 percent of investing partners at the top 100 venture firms are women. Most of the funds that come from these VC firms go to companies founded by men, and when women do get funded, they get less: A Bloomberg examination of 890 startups that received at least $20 million in VC funding found that women founders got an average of $77 million, compared to $100 for male founders.

Large, traditional business networking events are a time-honored institution. They have been a staple of aspiring and successful professionals for so long that most networking advice focuses not on whether you should attend, but on how to make the most of these events when you do attend. In theory, they’re one of the best ways to grow your business.

Here’s the problem: you’re probably not getting the consistent results you’re looking for. Regardless of how you define networking, your success will be directly tied to your ability to interact with people looking to achieve many of the same things you are.