Here we highlight selected innovation related articles from around the world on a daily basis. These articles related to innovation and funding for innovative companies, and best practices for innovation based economic development.
If you run a business, you’re probably used to the people you meet at parties saying that you must be a big risk taker or confessing that they could never do what you do because they need a steady paycheck or health insurance…perhaps making you wonder if they think you have a miraculous ability to subsist on air alone.
Image: Punch Clock (Photo credit: Steve Snodgrass)
Y Combinator (YC) co-founder Paul Graham announced that the seed capital firm has placed investment restrictions on its partners. From now on, they will not be allowed to contribute to the first $500,000 raised by a company until three weeks after demo day has commenced, according to VentureBeat.
Crowdfunding is a genuine phenomenon. If you include—as many people do—the newly created market for “private issuers publicly raising” or PIPRs using the new SEC rules allowing general solicitation of accredited investors allowed under the 2012 JOBS Act signed by President Obama, 2014 could see over $10 billion of crowdfunded transactions. Crowdfunding is going mainstream.
Image: English: , founder of venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, widely recognized creator of “viral marketing” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Where do great products come from? Are they driven by a breathtaking technology advance, that suddenly allows you to solve a range of problems in radical news ways, or do them come from listening closely to customers, figuring out exactly what they really want, and designing something exquisitely fit for purpose?
Image: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net
The analogy between business and football can go on and on: The fresh-faced talent procured from the college ranks may mirror your promising sales reps. The fierce fight among the NFL’s 32 franchises to reach the Super Bowl may remind you of your own race for success against your industry’s most aggressive competitors.
Image: http://labs.openviewpartners.com
As I am sure you have heard by now, Google acquired Nest Labs, the market leader in smart thermostats and smoke detectors, earlier this month for $3.2 Billion. This resulted in a huge payday for the Nest executive team and their investors.
Most startup executive teams can only dream of such an outcome for their startup. Nevertheless, the Nest story is a great case study on how to best position your company for an exit.
Image: http://blog.openviewpartners.com
Startup support organizations—especially incubators—are notoriously fragile. Of the 122 incubators and accelerators that Xconomy profiles in the 2012 Guide to Venture Incubators, almost three-fourths of them were founded after 2006, and more than 95 percent since 2000. Only two of the Xconomy Venture incubators have had sustained operations for more than 15 years. The longest established of these—the Austin Technology Incubator (ATI)—turned 25 this week. So it may be worth examining ATI for lessons on incubator sustainability.
Image: http://www.xconomy.com
You’ve seen the video on YouTube: Steve Mahan, a visually impaired, conservatively dressed, white-haired gentleman with a walking cane and Ben Hogan-style hat on his head, climbs behind the wheel of one of Google’s nautical blue-colored self-driving Toyota Prius. He makes a “Run for the Border.” Then Mahan, who has lost 95% of his eyesight, picks up his dry cleaning, takes a joy ride around his middle class looking community while munching on tacos. Then he returns to his driveway, exits the car (tacos in hand), and heads off camera toward the house, safe and sound, never having touched a steering wheel, brake or accelerator.
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joybot/5888347764/
When personal genomics and biotech firm 23andMe was founded in Mountain View, Calif., in 2006, the hype over the genetic tests it offered directly to consumers was immediate and irresistible to many. The company promised that for a nominal fee, it could scan your saliva sample and tell you — based on your genetics — everything from who your ancestors were to what diseases you may be at risk of developing many years down the road. 23andMe raised more than $100 million in capital from such big-name investors as Google and Genentech. Today, the company’s website boasts having close to 500,000 “genotyped consumers.”
Image Courtesy of cooldesign / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
When it comes to 3D printing, there are two types of people.
There are those who say, “How convenient! I can 3D print new paper clips whenever I run out. And it only takes two minutes to print each one!”
And there are those who say, “I can order 1,000 paper clips on Amazon Prime and have them arrive tomorrow—no expensive machine required.”
But devotees and skeptics alike get one thing right: 3D printing continues to sit at the juncture between novelty and practicality. It makes sense for some uses, but hasn’t yet proven itself to be a technology we can’t live without.
Image: http://readwrite.com
Every organization is designed to get the results it gets. Poor performance comes from a poorly designed organization. Superior results emerge when strategies, business models, structure, processes, technologies, tools, and reward systems fire on all cylinders in symphonic unison.
Image Courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Once there was a boy so meek and modest, he was awarded a Most Humble badge. The next day, it was taken away because he wore it. Here endeth the lesson.
How do you practice humility from the most exalted throne on earth? Rarely has a new player on the world stage captured so much attention so quickly—young and old, faithful and cynical—as has Pope Francis. In his nine months in office, he has placed himself at the very center of the central conversations of our time: about wealth and poverty, fairness and justice, transparency, modernity, globalization, the role of women, the nature of marriage, the temptations of power.
Image: http://poy.time.com
TRENTON, N.J. – In support of the Christie Administration's commitment to nurturing the growth of emerging technology and biotechnology businesses, the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (EDA) announced that 65 companies have been approved to share the $60 million allocation available through the State’s Technology Business Tax Certificate Transfer Program in Fiscal Year 2013.
Image Courtesy of sheelamohan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
PHILADELPHIA, PA (www.sep.benfranklin.org) – Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania (BFTP/SEP) recently approved $2,075,000 in funding for eleven early-stage companies.
Companies approved for funding:
Biomeme, Inc. – Philadelphia – Approved Investment: $400,000
Biomeme's technology platform transforms a user’s smartphone into a mobile lab for advanced DNA diagnostics and real-time disease surveillance. The system includes a docking station for real-time qPCR, a mobile app to control the system and analyze results, and targeted test kits for preparing samples and identifying pathogens or diseases by their specific DNA or RNA signatures.
As we’ve plunged into 2014, it’s clear that large and small companies alike are feeling the optimism that comes with rising asset prices. Private equity spending power has topped $1 trillion, a buyout bubble is possibly on the horizon, and competition is driving valuations and demand. In the entrepreneurial ecosystem, business owners looking for an exit strategy are likely to find 2014 an optimal year for selling.
There are three reasons in particular entrepreneurs might consider this move in 2014: rising stock prices, low interest rates and solid performance the last few years.
Image Courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Ask people what they want in a job, and meaningfulness looms large. For decades, Americans have ranked purpose as their top priority—above promotions, income, job security, and hours. Work is a search “for daily meaning as well as daily bread,” wrote Studs Turkel after interviewing hundreds of people in a striking array of jobs. Yet all too often, we feel that our work doesn’t matter. “Most of us have jobs that are too small for our spirit. Jobs are not big enough for people.”
Image: http://www.linkedin.com
To advance in your career, you must make notable accomplishments at work. To earn your place in the upper levels, you must do more than just putting in the hours. Results matter most.
You must deserve it.
You have to figure out what you can accomplish, do it, keep track, and perhaps most importantly… be able to tell your success story!
Image: http://www.youtern.com
It’s the story that motivates hardworking people to ditch their career and chase the entrepreneurship dream: the tech startup that turns its founder into a very, very rich person.
On Forbes' latest list of the richest people in the world, 167 of the top 500 billionaires were in the U.S. Of those 167, 15 of them made their big bucks in tech startups.
