Starting up with just the next big idea is just that: an idea. In reality, new businesses need money, usually more than that amount initially calculated alongside that very first draft of the business plan. And sometimes, those funds can come from family.

However, borrowing capital from family members is risky business. Sure, you can always cut bonds with an external investor when a deal goes sour, but you can’t exactly burn bridges with relatives, especially just before seeing them at family gatherings. Even more so, these well-meaning lenders don’t always know what they’re getting into — and what they may not be getting out it in the end.

According to Harvard Lecturer Robert Pozen, most people get productivity all wrong. We put too much emphasis on hours worked and not enough on quality. In his new book, "Extreme Productivity," Pozen gives some excellent tips on how to maximize productivity every day. For example, using the 80/20 rule with email (only open 20 percent, and respond immediately), and devoting most of your time to high-priority tasks.

The economic crisis of 2008 left millions of Americans out of work. Even though the job market has been slowly improving lately, employment levels remain considerably below where they were before the crisis. And the effects of the crisis have fallen unevenly on different kinds of workers and different kinds of places.

I took a close look at this in a recent study, "The Creative Class and the Crisis" published recently in the Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society (an ungated working paper version is here), with my colleagues Charlotta Mellander of the Martin Prosperity Institute and Todd Gabe, an economics professor at the University of Maine. Our research examined how workers in three broad types of jobs — knowledge-based creative class jobs (in science and technology; business and the professions; and arts, design media, land entertainment) lower-skill routine service jobs (in food preparation and retail sales for example), and routine working-class jobs (in manufacturing, transportation and construction) — have fared since the apex of the economic crisis. The study covered the period 2006 through 2011, using data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau's Current Population Survey for both individuals and metro regions.

Being a woman has it’s advantages and it’s disadvantages, but when it comes to female entrepreneurship, I think women are moving into their own. The statistics are promising as there are 8.3 million women-owned businesses in the US currently, and in the next five years, over half of all small business jobs will be created from women-owned businesses. The world is turning to women to be the new thought leaders – and we are definitely up for the challenge. As female entrepreneurs, we have significant advantages simply because we’re built differently.

Like any juicy breakup from our adolescence, entrepreneurs also crawl their way through similar stages of grief when faced with startup failure. It’s been four months since we discontinued work on Bidzuku and until now, I was unable to string together my thoughts into a coherent and helpful message despite my best efforts. Time has since passed and grief has turned into that burning desire to do something worthwhile again. So, in an attempt to thwart other very eager entrepreneurs from making the same mistakes I did, here are 7 things I learned from my most recent of tragic startup failures.

Q: Coworking spaces, incubators, accelerators: How should entrepreneurs determine if one of them is right for their business?

Charlie Gilkey, principal of Productive Flourishing in Portland, Oregon:

Two questions can help you make this determination: 1) Do we have enough of a product developed or service history to start talking about it? and 2) how distractible are we?

While these environments can be great for helping you figure out how to communicate the problem you’re solving and what your business does, you’ll benefit more if you have enough of a product or history within your business to talk substantively about. What you might build rarely pays the bills, so it’s better to talk about what you have built.

It’s a well-accepted axiom in the investor community that entrepreneurs learn more from their failures than their successes. Thus a well-explained startup failure often can actually improve your odds of funding in the next go-round. Yet, there is no doubt that the best strategy is to learn from someone else’s mistakes, so you can enjoy the millions that someone else lost in learning.

Certainly there are innumerable possible mistakes to be made, but there is a thread of common ones that I see across the range of all startups. Ryan Blair, a serial entrepreneur who admits to his share of million dollar mistakes, as well as some multi-million dollar successes, sums these up nicely in his book “Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain:”

You might think that VC firms in Silicon Valley had all the leads on the next big thing they needed. You’d be wrong, which explains why new crowdfunding outfit Funders Club just raised $6 million from a gang of expert early-stage investors, including First Round Capital, Felicis Ventures, Spark Capital, Digital Garage, Intel Capital, and Y Combinator-affiliated funds (Andreessen Horowitz, Start Fund, SV Angel, and General Catalyst Partners), along with a handful of angel investors.

To set itself apart from all the other crowdfunding sites starting to crowd the market in anticipation of the JOBS Act kicking in, Funders Club is going for simplicity. “Our philosophy is that it should be as easy to invest in private companies as it is to invest on E-Trade for public companies,” says co-founder Alex Mittal, who started the crowdfunding platform five months ago.

The availability of early-stage capital is crucial for many emerging technology companies to be able to develop new, innovative products. Earlier this month, Chesapeake Crescent Initiative (CCI) conducted a webinar featuring a discussion on early stage financing opportunities in the Chesapeake region’s technology-based economic development organizations.

Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) is state-chartered, non-profit organization that  works to make a connection between emerging technology companies and private and federal funding sources. Although Virginia has a lot of local economic development offices, Virginia has centralized much of its investment dollars through CIT. Sean Mallon, a representative from CIT, spoke on behalf of the types of financing opportunities available for Virginia-based companies.

You’ve got the networking and terminology down—now you’re ready to start growing your business. The problem? You need the space to launch your startup off the ground, and maybe a little funding. Lucky for you, the city’s full of accelerator programs and coworking spaces offering up a bit of both…and a lot of free caffeine. Here’s a look at 13 places where innovation is a constant and work ethic a must.

MassChallenge — Operating under the tag line, “We help early-stage entrepreneurs win,” MassChallenge is the largest accelerator program and startup competition in the world. The program spans four months and is open to any and every industry. No equity is taken, but mentorship, free office space and legal support are given. As part of the competition, judges are able to award up to $1 million of MassChallenge grants in amounts of either $50,000 or $100,000 each. Twenty-six teams are currently competing for funding now, with the Awards Ceremony set to kick off on Tuesday, October 23rd.

Working to create change inside a company--or being a "systempreneur" working to change an entire system--can be just as valuable to society and the economy as charting your own course.

OK, we admit it: we adore mutants--the right sort, anyway. They move easily between different worlds, helping bridge current and future realities. The Breakthrough Capitalism Forum we hosted in May was pulsating with them. Most of those that attended our Forum are pursuing the holy grail of breakthrough--that is, they are pursuing systemic solutions to environmental, social, and governance challenges. But their business cards identify them as many things: CEOs, CFOs, chief sustainability officers, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs or, in rare cases, as intrapreneurs.

1. What's your equity split of this business and why?  Are we comfortable with the thinking behind that? 
2. What is the scope of our business?  What is outside the scope of what we want it to do? 
3. Are we allowed to do anything outside of the business? 
4. What is the expected time commitment? 
5. What are my roles going to be and how might that change over time in 3 months, 6 months?  Am I likely to be part of this company 3 years from now and in what capacity?

The third and last presidential debate had few healthcare moments, but one issue that was raised did have some relevance, particularly for any healthcare and life science companies that have benefited from government funding. Should government back companies or should government stick to research grants?

The clearest example of healthcare companies that have benefited from federal dollars is the HITECH Act’s EHR Incentive Program. It provides incentive payments to eligible professionals and hospitals to implement certified electronic health records technology that conforms to Meaningful Use requirements.

Hopefully you already know the golden rule of communication: everyone loves to talk about themselves. However, I deviate from this in the sense that I use my selfishness – desire to talk about myself – in a selfless way. I never talk about myself without purpose. The simple act of talking about oneself seems to be the grim reaper of time management; anyone can go on and on about themselves. Before you know it, you could be talking about yourself for a good twenty minutes in conversation without taking a breath. Alas, I won’t do that. However, I must subject myself as I write, for if I don’t, you may not believe what I am about to tell you.

Any student in a formal education system has all the time they need to work on building their business. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to skip (or even finish) going to college to create a startup, you can do them at the same time. In fact, what better environment to be in while working on a start-up than an educational institution full of proven research, prime examples, and a number of potential mentors? The only question to ask yourself is: do you believe a startup can be done while attending college? For most, they may answer “yes”, but their actions and behaviors prove differently.

Kevin Langdon is writing several books and designing an inside-out clock. Karyn Huntting Peters is organizing a global problem-solving network. Alfred Simpson juggles multiple Web-programming projects in his free time. These three people might not have much in common—except for their unusually high IQs.

All three belong to exclusive high-IQ societies. Mensa International, whose members' test scores must land above the 98th percentile (or one in 50), may be the most popular, but it is just one option for the discerning test taker. The Triple Nine Society demands an IQ in the 99.9th percentile, whereas the Mega Society cuts off at the 99.9999th percentile (one in one million). The memberless Grail Society claims to accept one in 100 billion people—no one has applied so far.

Our brains are wired to seek certainty and avoid uncertainty. Using functional brain imaging, researchers have found that ambiguity in choices activates the amygdale, the region in our brain that also gets triggered by fear or threat, while at the same time it leads to decreased activity in the striatal system, which responds to potential rewards. In other words, we not only shy away from uncertainty but also crave certainty. And yet, to be an entrepreneur requires going all the way against that. So how do entrepreneurs cope with uncertainty?

An audience can't listen to your presentation and read detailed, text-heavy slides at the same time (not without missing key parts of your message, anyway). So make sure your slides pass what I call the glance test: People should be able to comprehend each one in about three seconds.

Think of your slides as billboards. When people drive, they only briefly take their eyes off their main focus — the road — to process billboard information. Similarly, your audience should focus intently on what you're saying, looking only briefly at your slides when you display them.

"Apple has a different business model than the Dell business model," David Johnson says. "The reason we didn't come up with (the iPad) is because there wasn't an OS provider that could work with a tablet."

Over a fruit plate and diet Coke at Locanda Verde, a TriBeCa restaurant, I had just asked Johnson, Dell's SVP of corporate strategy, why Apple (and not Dell) was able to create the iPad. It was part of a larger conversation about Dell's approach to innovation.

A fossilized forest that flourished more than 2.5 million years ago could return to life thanks to a warming planet, scientists say.

The paleo-scene won't sprout up overnight, of course, said Alexandre Guertin-Pasquier of the University of Montreal, who will present his research at the Canadian Paleontology Conference in Toronto this week.

Rather, he said, climate forecasts suggest that, by 2100, the now-uninhabited Bylot Island where the fossilized forest was discovered will support temperatures similar to those prevalent when the forest thrived.

How much time do you spend each day responding to email, checking Facebook, sending and reading Tweets, aimlessly surfing your favorite websites and buying things you don't need? How much time, in other words, do you spend doing stuff online that doesn't add much value in your life, or in anyone else's?

Too much, I'm going to guess.

I let it happen to me when I woke up Sunday morning, got on my laptop and started reading the New York Times. Ninety minutes later, I was still surfing from one bookmarked website to the next, vaguely aware that there were other things I wanted to do and that none of what I was taking in was very nourishing. And yet I remained narcotically glued to that screen — a baby bird with its mouth open, forever eager to be fed.