Jody Sherman founded several companies. Some got bought out for modest success and others failed. Ecomom was his last startup. Management and staff tried hard but Ecomom didn’t work and it burned.

When Sherman saw no hope for Ecomom, he saw no hope for himself so heended his own life.

But there is more to the story, as told in a riveting Business Insider article entitled The Story Of A Failed Startup And A Founder Driven To Suicide. It’s lengthy but you won’t stop once you’ve started reading, particularly if you’re an entrepreneur. The author does a great job of covering the story from a variety of angles, but there is one element here upon which I would like to give pause.

What happened to Generation X? They are generally defined as anyone born between 1965 and 1980, sandwiched between 80 million Baby Boomers and 78 million Gen-Y (Millennials). Gen-X has just 46 million members, but they continue to lead the way and set the standards in the startup world.

Gen-X is the group that will bridge the two larger generations of Boomers and Gen-Y. I guess the bridge isn’t as exciting as what has happened on one side or what might happen on the other, so they are often referred to as the “forgotten” generation, or the lost child demographic.

The most successful entrepreneurs and executives I have seen are savvy business people first, and experts in their field second. This may seem counter-intuitive to technologists, especially in an era when technology seems to be driving the world. Yet the sad truth is that a technology not focused on a real problem is not a business, and will probably fail in the marketplace.

Examples that come to mind include satellite phones, the Segway PT vehicle, hydrogen fueled auto engines, and many more. The issue in these cases was usually not the technology per se, but the bigger business picture of marketable prices, ease of use, and support infrastructures.

There are few people whose impact on entrepreneurs and business in general you hear about as frequently as Clayton Christensen. Clay’s body of work includes co-founding a publicly traded company, being a Rhodes Scholar, writing one of the most influential business books of our generation, fighting cancer and a stroke that forced him to relearn to speak, teaching thousands at the Harvard Business School, and raising five children. He has accomplished gigantic things, not to mention he stands 6 ’8″ and today is also his birthday so please wish him well.

Working on a tech-oriented startup project, it’s easy to bury yourself in the data models and logistics. But spending so much time on  the specifics of your project can quickly distract you from other considerations that might make or break your first attempt to gain funding.

When you begin looking for venture or angel investment, you are putting the entirety of your life under the microscope. Whether its your past work experience or your decisions in your personal life, every facet of your character is going to be evaluated.

When you look good, you feel good; when you feel good you live better. This week our focus is on increasing your Self-Worth. There are many ways to increase your self-esteem but how do you get rid of the negative so you can increase your self-worth and get paid for it?

As entrepreneurs, we dream big and take action through our businesses. Most of us have always been entrepreneurs, but it just took some searching to find our special talent.

When you dive into entrepreneurship, you learn a LOT. Best of all, most of us learn how great it is to be an entrepreneur! Using that motivation and passion, we work hard to achieve our goals.

However, becoming an entrepreneur also enables us to fall into bad habits and traps. These traps are usually small things that can have a negative impact on our success.

You just spent months, maybe years, shaping your idea into a startup. You've generated momentum and are confident in what you've produced. Then you hit the road or hop in a plane to meet potential investors only to find out it isn't the right fit.

Rachael Qualls, founder and CEO of Kansas City, Mo.-based Angel Capital Group, has been on both sides. Six years in her current role has given her perspective on the hurdles between entrepreneurs and investors, leading to the creation of a web application that manages deals from start to finish.

As organists at stadiums across the country are again playing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" on Opening Days, another game is quietly being played in box office backrooms. Last year, 17 out of the 30 Major League teams were using some form of dynamic pricing — the concept of raising and lowering prices in accordance with demand — to price ballpark tickets. This year, the practice seems likely to grow.

You may think you already know how others view you — as a skilled communicator, or an incisive numbers guy, or a manager who always brings out the best in her team. But then again, you might be surprised. One modest, self-deprecating executive was shocked to learn, after engaging an executive coach who examined his professional relationships, that his habit of interrupting people led his colleagues to perceive him as arrogant and haughty — almost the exactly opposite of the truth.

There’s an interesting trend I’ve noticed with at least one healthcare accelerator I have been tracking. The members of the startups for the most part have increasingly more industry experience and seem more adept at finding pain points and delivering a workable solution to members of the healthcare ecosystem. And if the successes of Blueprint Health’s latest graduating class are anything to go by, healthcare companies are getting increasingly receptive to working with startups that can help them address some of the demands of the Affordable Care Act and some of its impacts with more innovative solutions.

If you’re waiting to see when wireless power will hit the mass market, then you’re not alone.

Delivering power wirelessly is perhaps one of the most hyped, long anticipated changes to the way we design and use products and machinery since the invention of electricity itself. But if you’ve been watching this space, you’ll know these solutions have been slow in coming to market and are anything but commonplace.

Bump. Rent the Runway. Angie’s List. GrubHub. OKCupid. Trulia. Birchbox. BabbaCo. Warby Parker. Yelp. Zynga.

What do all of these successful companies have in common? They were all started by MBAs from top business schools.

About a year ago, my first startup was acquired. I knew I was going to be starting another company soon, but I was also considering getting an MBA. I looked around at the majority of successful entrepreneurs and investors that I admired and one thing held equal: most of them had an MBA.

Thumbtack.com, in partnership with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, has released the results from the second annual Thumbtack.com Small Business Survey. The study, drawing upon data from over 7,000 small business owners, provides new insights into state and local business environments across the nation.

"Small businesses are top-of-mind for lawmakers nationwide, but too often their needs are more a matter of conjecture rather than actual evidence," says Sander Daniels, co-founder of Thumbtack.com. "Some 7,000 businesses owners across the country have told us that they care about a lot more than just taxes – for most businesses, simple licensing regulations and helpful training programs are even more important to their success."

Last week I wrote about my experiences moving to the US, initially just doing three month trips with the visa-waiver program, and then finally getting a visa: Coming to America: The Startup Visa. This week I wanted to be more practical and share my advice on visa options and how to apply for one.

It’s timely because on April 1st applications open up for the annual allowance of 65,000 H1B visas, the standard professional visa. This year, with the economy picking up, USCIS are expecting to receive more than the 65,000 cap within the first 5 days of April which means, like 2007 and 2008, a lottery will be conducted.

With millions of dollars of research funding and teams of experts at their disposal, more universities are seeking ways to turn research breakthroughs into business opportunities.

The answer for dozens of colleges comes down to a natural solution: an entrepreneur-in-residence program.

Mentors that help accelerate the commercialization of business ideas, entrepreneurs-in-residence can come from a variety of backgrounds and specialty areas. Their job is to help guide the flow of innovation happening across departments in a university -- from connecting different researchers on campus with each other, to seeking out legal assistance for drawing up business plans to guiding an idea from prototype to reality.

How did you find your startup idea?

For those of us evolving in the start-up ecosystem, it is not uncommon to spend sleepless nights trying to find the right product idea that will find or create it’s own market in the so-called product-market fit.

There are tons of literature and excellent books on that topic, such as Eric Ries’ Lean Startup or The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki. All offers valuable advices on starting and managing a startup from idea to the first million dollars revenue.

You have a startup. Chances are you will raise some decent cash because your idea is that good. You know it’s only a matter of time before you’re ready to sell it off to the highest bidder.

That’s great. We are here to prepare you for that moment. Just because your company is great and the technology is amazing doesn’t mean the big guns will come calling. Sometimes no matter how great the startup, it escapes the notice of the buyers. More often than not, you have to go find the buyers.

Most entrepreneurs, and members of any small team, naively assume that the key to their success is hard work, dedication, and long hours at the business. In reality, their effectiveness is usually more related to how well they develop their work relationships with peers and business leaders. First they need to decipher correctly every relationship as a workship, friendship, or foe.

Workships, according to workplace expert Dr. Jan Yager, refers to those workplace relationships that haven’t yet developed into full-blown friendships, but are closer than mere acquaintances. In her book on this subject, “Who’s That Sitting at My Desk?” she explains the importance of mastering work relationships, and provides specific guidance on building the right ones.