In every success story, the longest chapter is the one about determination.

While success demands many things from us, willpower and determination always come up at the top of the list. Many people believe that we are born with determination and those that succeed are simply the fortunate ones who are born with an abundant supply. But if you ask any successful person they will tell you they were not born with more determination; they always found a way to harness and use what they have more effectively.

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Having a dream job means different things to different people.

It could be the job you’ve been working towards throughout your career--something you'll hopefully reach in the future. It could be a fantasy of a life that's completely different from your current job, doing something extraordinary. Or it could be turning something you love to do into a job and making a living out of it.

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Maybe starting a new business isn’t your passion, but in these days of rapid change, where everyone is dealing with uncertainty, I believe that thinking and acting like entrepreneurs will help you get ahead in any profession. In simple terms this means taking control of your life, going after something you love to do, and taking action. Stop letting life decisions happen to you.

Raj Sidhu had one of the most coveted design jobs in New York City — and then he left it all to play board games.

The 23-year-old's first project, Code Monkey Island, teaches kids the logic of computer programming through the playful dynamic of monkeys competing over bananas. The game teaches you all of the logic of basic programming under the guise of the game: Instead of dice, it's governed by cards that work in tandem to impact how many spaces (if any) you may move per turn.

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First, you should determine whether you have the right personality to be an entrepreneur. At My Enterprise Finland, you can complete an entrepreneur test, which may help you to make the decision. (Requires logging in with online banking credentials.)

The starting point for entrepreneurship can be, for example, professional expertise, the desire to make independent decisions, or the appearance of a good opportunity.

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Eight startup companies are among 67 recipients of Maryland Innovation Initiative awards in fiscal 2014. The Maryland Innovation Initiative gave a total of $6.4 million to research projects and startups with ties to universities in the state. The innovation initiative is designed to spur commercialization of university research.

Image: Sebastian Seiguer Emocha Mobile Health Inc. CEO Sebastian Seiguer. Emocha was among the startup companies to receive funding from the Maryland Innovation Initiative in fiscal 2014. 

He's pointing out a challenge for entrepreneurs, not griping. He's lived in California, Boston and New York, and he chose this area for a reason — "Maryland-D.C. is the mecca of security."

So far, the bet's paid off. ZeroFOX, which focuses on cybersecurity threats from social media, has raised $13 million from both local and out-of-state investors. Among them is Sourcefire's former chief financial officer. That's allowed the company to expand from its original two people to nearly 50.

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There has been much discussion in the past few years of the changing structure of the venture capital industry.

On the surface the narratives have been

• The rise of “micro VCs” or seed-stage funds 
• The rise of alternative sources of capital (crowd funding and the like) 
• The poor performance of the asset class (this analysis has largely been wrong as I pointed out here –> most analyses were clumsy rear-view mirror looks at the data) 
• We are in a bubble (with so many private $1bn+ valuations)

For the vast majority of entrepreneurs, the friends-and-family round of venture financing is critically important, as it’s the only round they’ll ever raise.

There is a lot to unpack in that introductory sentence. First, a friends-and-family round is truly considered venture financing in that the investors are seeking a return on the capital they’ve invested, they believe that their early-stage investment is going into a high-potential venture and they’ve made the investment in order to help the company grow.

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Vanderbilt's Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization closed 101 transactions during fiscal year 2014, according to a news release, a new milestone for the program. The 2014 deal total eclipses the previous record, set in 2013, by nearly 20 transactions, the release says.

Image: ProVectors 

If you decide you’d like to try working from home, you know the usual advice: schedule a meeting with your supervisor, and ask to try it one day a week.

But which day?

For most people, the default answer is “Friday,” which makes sense. Your manager knows that Friday is less productive than, say, Tuesday. People schedule fewer meetings. Therefore, it’s less of a risk.

You may not even notice it, but it’s likely your inbox is flooded with suggestions to “reach out,” "touch base," and “lean in.”

Perhaps you’re being asked to “think outside the box,” to come up with a “cutting edge” idea. Maybe you reply you need more time to “get your ducks in a row,” or you have to run an idea “up the flagpole,” or get “buy in.”

Negotiating can be uncomfortable: standing up for yourself, asking for what you want, and trying to get a better price, terms, and condition often feels confrontational--and most of us avoid confrontation.

“You have to go out and learn to negotiate--it’s not a natural skill,” says Eldonna Lewis-Fernandez, author of Think Like a Negotiator. “It’s like playing baseball; you have to do it to get good at it.”

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Nine tech startups have been selected to participate in the next cohort of DreamIt Health Philadelphia, health tech accelerator program.

They are: BioBots, Drop Diagnostics, FlexiSched, NarrativDx, RegDesk, Ristcall, Tissue Analytics, TowerView Health and TrueClaim.

The start-up teams, recruited from around the country, will participate in a 16-week boot camp from July 21 through Nov. 7 to rapidly achieve key business milestones in building high-growth potential companies.

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Yesterday’s article talked about creating strategic impact through breaking a business and recreating it as something new and better. I’ve been reworking various Brainzooming strategic thinking questions to make them better suited for identifying and exploring concepts for breaking a business.

9 Strategic Thinking Questions for Breaking a Business

Here’s a working list of the first nine refashioned strategic thinking questions.

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Hey Under30CEO,

This is our list of all time top reads and business books for entrepreneurs and small business owners.  It includes some new releases and best-sellers you should be reading now.

Here’s our list of must reads!

We are big fans of anything that gives us the edge in our personal and professional development or business.  We’ve authored over 4,000 articles here on Under30CEO and interviewed countless best selling authors including Seth Godin, Donald Trump, Barbara Corcoran, Daymond John, Peter Shankman, Eric Ries, and Sharon Lechter.

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Most people in the United States can't get a decent Internet connection. That seems like a simple enough problem, but there is no easy solution. To make matters more confusing, most information floating around about broadband availability is confusing and contradictory. A lot needs to be sorted out before we get decent connections at an affordable price. Take the National Broadband Map. Many of us in the industry define true broadband as a symmetric connection with at least 100 megabits per second (Mbps). If you believe the National Broadband map, 97% of North Carolina (where I live) has access to 100 Mbps. Yet, almost no one that I know either in North Carolina or across the United States can download at at that speed.

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Cisco and Pioneers Partner to Support European Startup Innovation with the Cisco Entrepreneurs in Applications Open in Europe to Harness the ideas, talent and passion of the European startup Residence Program ecosystem and accelerate Internet of Everything (IoE) innovation. Cisco and Pioneers, the global community for entrepreneurship, science and technology, announced today the opening of application entries to the Cisco Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIR) Program for the first time in Europe.

Business school career centers have long prepared students for job interviews, but now they have a new platform to contend with. Enough companies now interview for jobs and internships over Skype that career offices have started to train business students in the art of conversing on video chat.

Campaign supporters fork over millions of dollars on rewards-based crowdfunding sites in exchange for goodwill, a trivial reward like a T-shirt or, some say, nothing more than an empty promise. The crowdfunding sector grew to $2.7 billion in 2012—financing more than 1 million campaigns globally, according to an annual report on crowdfunding from Massolution. That figure is expected to rise 81 percent to $5.1 billion in 2013.

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