Is it easier for a woman to create her own business after she has kids? No. Like all entrepreneurs, mompreneurs also face numerous challenges when they begin their new ventures. But it can be a rewarding experience if you plan it well.

Every individual embarking on a new business needs to pay attention to various aspects. The same applies to moms who want to create new businesses. However, a mom also has to balance family with their new venture.

Image: Flickr - Mom and daughters’s tea time

I’ve operated a bunch of different businesses in the last 10 years and I’ve always burned the candles on both ends (Definitely, not the best decision).  I used to see this as a strong work ethic and most people agreed, but it’s not something that you can continue doing forever.  I spent the last month sick with some insane concoction of bronchitis, 101 degree fever and in the words of my physician a “tinge of pneumonia.”

Image: Flickr - Sick

For a program that currently serves just 17 students, the Missouri Innovation Campus in Lee’s Summit received a good deal of attention last week. At a visit to the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, President Barack Obama called it “exactly the kind of innovation we need when it comes to college costs.”

The program achieves several important goals. By enabling high school students to earn an associate’s degree from a community college, it helps them graduate from college earlier and with less debt than more traditional education routes. By combining classwork with internships in information technology and engineering firms, it helps students become job-ready and enables employers to groom future workers.

Accelerators are all about discovering and mentoring talented entrepreneurs with good ideas for improving healthcare and other sectors. They make the right introductions to advisers, industry stakeholders and investors with the goal of improving the chances of their success. But when demo day ends, the team members are faced with the crucial question of how to sustain themselves as they advance the development of their companies. They need to figure out where their next sources of funding will come from.

Independence Blue Cross (IBC), Penn Medicine, and DreamIt Ventures today host “Demo Day” for 10 health care startup companies selected to participate in DreamIt Health, the first-ever Philadelphia-based health care accelerator. The event will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at World Café Live! at 3025 Walnut Street in Philadelphia. The participants will each have seven minutes to present their business plans to potential investors and customers, mentors, and health care executives. Demo Day events are ideal opportunities for startups to begin raising money to launch their businesses and gauge interest among key audiences.

“As health care undergoes dramatic change, I believe that the health care companies that thrive will be those with a clear vision that move rapidly and innovate. The caliber of this group of entrepreneurs and the diverse health care companies they represent is very promising and we’re pleased to have played a part in helping them plan, develop, and now present their ideas,” said Daniel J. Hilferty, president and CEO of IBC. “We are committed to transforming our region into a magnet for health care innovation, investment and employment, and supporting bright, new ideas like those we nurtured through DreamItHealth will help us get there faster.”

Three more biotechnology companies went public Thursday as startups continued to capitalize on strong demand for these offerings, a trend that’s giving life-sciences venture capitalists a much-needed lift.

John Guillemin/Bloomberg News Cellular Dynamics International Inc., Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Onconova Therapeutics Inc. debuted on Nasdaq Thursday. Their initial public offerings followed recent IPOs from venture-backed biotechs such as Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc., bluebird bio Inc., Esperion Therapeutics Inc., OncoMed Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Prosensa Holding BV.

As you may have already heard, the SEC voted 4 to 1 on Wednesday July 10, 2013 in favor of implementing section 201(a) of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act. The act lifts the ban on solicitation, as well as on certain restrictions regarding the advertising of private offerings that have been in place for around eight decades.

In the past, in order to openly raise money, a company would have to go public, a difficult milestone for many early stage life science firms to attain – especially if the company does not have a product on the market.

This past Wednesday, July 24, 2013, Independence Blue Cross (IBC), Penn Medicine, and DreamIt Ventures hosted Demo Day for the 10 health care startup companies selected to participate in the inaugural DreamIt Health program; the first-ever Philadelphia-based health care accelerator.  The event was held at World Cafe Live! and saw over 300 community members, including: potential investors and customers, mentors, and health care executives.

The presenting companies each had 7 minutes to present their business plans to the community members in attendance. Overall the event was a great success and we could not be more proud of the companies. Read below to learn about the companies, view their presentations, read the headlines, and celebrate this collaborative program with us! 

Three more biotechnology companies went public Thursday as startups continued to capitalize on strong demand for these offerings, a trend that’s giving life-sciences venture capitalists a much-needed lift.

John Guillemin/Bloomberg News Cellular Dynamics International Inc., Conatus Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Onconova Therapeutics Inc. debuted on Nasdaq Thursday. Their initial public offerings followed recent IPOs from venture-backed biotechs such as Agios Pharmaceuticals Inc., bluebird bio Inc., Esperion Therapeutics Inc., OncoMed Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Prosensa Holding BV.

Image: John Guillemin/Bloomberg News

New federal rules designed to make it easier for startups to attract investors have sparked complaints from investor groups that say the rules could end up making fundraising more difficult.

Organizations that represent angel investors, wealthy individuals who provide essential capital to startups in exchange for an ownership stake in the business, are upset about Securities and Exchange Commission rules that emerged earlier this month. The rules, which permit startups to openly solicit funding from investors, also include new financial disclosure requirements that have upset the angel community.

"We at Philips need to be more serious about our activity in Israel," said Philips Healthcare Senior VP business development, strategy and M&A Arnaud Bernaert. "There were ideas, which when we first encountered them seemed too advanced for acquisition, and which were ultimately sold to competitors." During his last visit to Israel, Bernaert met about 30 medical start-ups, and he expects to continue relations with at least 4-5 of them. "This is only the tip of the iceberg of what exists in Israel," he said.

In its most recent Mind the Gap Report,  innovosource,  identified crowdfunding as an emerging investment vehicle that may be better positioned to support the capital requirements of translational research, proof of concept projects, and early-stage start-ups than more traditional capital sources, like venture capital and angel investment. This funding approach taps into the masses for smaller, more manageable investments versus larger investments from a few. Crowdfunding, if properly executed, could provide new avenues for funding of promising university technologies and start-ups; however, many questions (and curiously) still remain surrounding its adoption and useful implementation.

Equity crowdfunding, hoped by many to be a promising new vehicle for capital formation for startups and other early stage companies, has yet to become operational under the JOBS Act – waiting on the SEC to promulgate proposed and final implementing regulations.   With the interest and hype generated by the JOBS Act crowdfunding provisions, one thing is certain – the viability and utility of equity crowdfunding has both its supporters and detractors – with strong opinions on both sides of the debate.

In 1980 there were 12 business incubators in the U.S., according to the National Business Incubation Association. As of last October, there were more than 1,250. Those programs come in assorted flavors, but most concentrate on providing office space and services to early-stage companies. Ninety-three percent of U.S. incubators are nonprofits focused on economic development, according to the NBIA. That differentiates them from startup accelerators, which typically seek to profit by investing in participating companies.

Photo: Photograph by Jens Goerlich/Gallery Stock

A healthy tech startup ecosystem requires a continuous stream of quality new deals, together with visible examples of exits that generated outsized returns for investors. The reality is that we have few of either in South Africa at the moment.

Image: Flickr my little pot of gold (i wish)

The moon could be to blame for a bad night's sleep, researchers now say.

These findings are the first reliable evidence that lunar rhythms can influence sleep in humans, scientists added.

The moon often gets blamed for madness on Earth. In fact, the Latin name for the moon, Luna, is the root of the word "lunatic."

During our childhood years, measuring success was as simple as counting gold stars and smiley face stickers. In high school and college, we relied on report cards. But how do we determine success now, as entrepreneurs?

In Southern California’s bustling startup scene, known as “Silicon Beach,” many professionals leave the comfort of a steady paycheck to pursue the American dream of starting something they can call their own. And after numerous conversations with like-minded entrepreneurs, we found that many of these entrepreneurs measured their venture’s success not in dollars, but by their own satisfaction or happiness.

At some point in their life, hopefully everyone strives to be the best in their chosen profession. Most people think that being the best requires more intelligence, more training, and more experience. In reality, in business or even in sports, the evidence is conclusive that it is as much about how you think, as what you do.

I saw this illustrated a while back in a sports excellence book called “Training Camp: What the Best Do Better Than Everyone Else”, by Jon Gordon. His evidence and real life stories conclude that top performers in all professions have the same key traits listed below. I agree they certainly apply to the great entrepreneurs I have known. You need to think about how they apply to you.

The state of Maryland normally goes unnoticed in regards to the medtech and bioscience sectors when compared to California, Massachusetts and Minnesota. However, the state has the research facilities, governmental institutions and programs, corporate partnerships, funding and ambition to advance its biosciences marketplace into an international hub for medtech innovation.

At the heart of Maryland’s medical device and broader biotech industries is the state’s network of institutes and universities, which includes the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Standards & Technology, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland. Each one of these entities boasts an array of specialized laboratories for the study of bioimaging, biomolecular modeling, drug delivery, biomaterials, MEMS, microfluidics and more.

We talk a lot about venture capital around here, but the truth is that most companies will never take VC money. Data from the Small Business Administration suggests that 99 percent of new businesses started each year will not get venture capital at startup.

Thanks to lower costs associated with starting a web-based company, many health IT companies have gotten off the ground – and some even to profitability - without taking any outside investment money.

Image: Flickr