Let's begin with our conclusion: Venture capital is not broken. It is thriving -- albeit in a smaller, more concentrated ecosystem of fund managers who are largely closed off to new investors.

In May, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation - the world's largest foundation devoted to entrepreneurship - published a report entitled We Have Met the Enemy ... and He Is Us. It stated that the Foundation had a less than a positive experience investing in the asset class over the past twenty years. The report's damning review of the asset class caused quite a stir in the venture community by suggesting that investing in venture capital may not be a great idea.

I agree with several points made in the report. But over the past twelve of years of investing in the venture capital asset class, our experience at Greenspring Associates was profoundly different, suggesting that many of the Foundation's damning, broad-brushstroke proclamations were the result of an analysis of their own experiences. In that vacuum, they lead us not toward a more responsible industry, a more robust entrepreneurial ecosystem, or a more innovative economy.

Proposed changes to a $2 billion federal program designed to bolster research and development at U.S. small businesses could land a significant portion of the funding in the hands of large and foreign-owned companies. Connecticut small businesses are worried about the U.S. Small Business Administration's interpretation of a congressional bill passed in December reauthorizing the Small Business Innovation Research program. In writing the regulations following SBIR reauthorization, SBA created a new type of entity eligible for the program called a domestic business concern. This new entity must be organized in the U.S. and operate in this country, but doesn't have to be owned by American citizens. The proposed SBA rules also leave the door open for large domestic businesses to seize SBIR grants, as long as the grants go to affiliates or small businesses only partially owned by large companies.

Dear Readers: 

Thank you for your continued interest in our Policy Dialogue on Entrepreneurship. For nearly the past 10 years, PDE has offered insights into the public policies that help entrepreneurs start companies, create jobs and strengthen the economy. As we take our own version of the "August Recess" over the next several weeks, we would like to hear from you about the focus of the PDE digest and what information you find most useful. 

PDE reaches readers in 172 countries. By completing our brief, 7-question survey you are helping hone the news and updates we provide to you and those around the world who follow the entrepreneurial economy. 

I hope you enjoy the rest of your summer. 

Sincerely,

Seniors looking for the best city to grow older in may be better off flocking to the Midwest than sunny Florida, according to a recent report.

While recreation and community engagement are a plus, the best cities for aging offer quality health care, educational and employment opportunities, and transportation and an economy that work for seniors, according to a national index released today by the Milken Institute, a non-profit think tank based in Santa Monica, Calif. The institute found the best large cities for successful aging helped keep seniors over 65 working, learning and healthy.

As an entrepreneur, it’s never too early to start selling yourself and your idea. I hear lots of excuses from startup founders, like “I’m too busy,” concern over IP security, can’t afford an agency, and it’s too early. The result is they get no feedback, no credibility, no visibility, and no investors until months later than they expect.

I’m definitely not lobbying here for promising things you can’t deliver, or hiring a publicist before your first programmer. I’m talking about doing some real networking to test your elevator pitch, and get to know some potential investors before you ask them for money. How about talking to some real customers to see if they are as excited about your idea as you are?

Startup accelerators are on the rise, as would-be entrepreneurs are jumping at the chance to land one of the coveted positions within these cohort-based incubators. The numbers illustrate a growing demand, as applications to the 200-plus accelerators worldwide have nearly doubled in the past two years, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Startup Weekend CEO Marc Nager says that an accelerator can be a great fit for those new to the startup world or entrepreneurship, but the environment and terms may not be the perfect solution for everyone, especially since each accelerator has something different to offer.

Transformational innovation for many businesses is inherently complex and, in many cases, high risk. It can be a big distraction, expensive in terms of cost and resource bleed from other key activities, must be managed carefully and will frequently not be successful. This article explores some key factors to work with when looking for transformational innovation.

This is very cool. It’s a representation of the internet that maps each site according to its relative size, with the distances between them determined by the strength or frequency of the link created when people move from one site to another. The map’s makers claim that it encompasses over 350 thousand websites from 196 countries and all domain zones. “Information about more than two-million links between the websites has joined some of them together into topical clusters,” they say.

opportunityI was contacted by a potential client a few weeks back and when we had our initial meeting I asked the question, “Why did you contact me?” The answer I received is what everyone in digital wants to hear: “Every time I googled, your name kept appearing in the search results”. I never asked for specifics because at that point I realised that the model I adopted was working for me.

Without going into the nitty gritty details of the model, I have listed its key ingredients. I cannot guarantee this will work for everyone, but it appears to be working for me.

1. Look at the leaders

Spend a lot of time gathering information and learning from the specialists. Focus on people or organisations that deliver similar services, products and solutions to you. Look for the companies that “walk the talk” and do not profess to be specialists but provide hard evidence in the form of personal recommendations, testimonials and case studies.

It’s paradoxical.

While everyone from politicians to the media extol the value of small business to job creation, its share of U.S. employment has been on a long-term decline.

The majority of the private sector labor force now works in big companies, with that fraction at 51 percent in 2009, up from 43 percent in 1946. The share in medium-sized businesses is down slightly from 34 to 31 percent, while the fraction in the smallest businesses – those with less than 20 employees – has declined from 23 percent to 18 percent.

Designer Heather Dunne has come up with a brilliant concept that attempts to revolutionize food delivery on commercial airliners. It's a new food cart dubbed the Orbit. At just eight inches wide, it's designed to be able to allow passengers to walk by it, despite the tiny width of airplane aisles, according to PSFK. In fact, it's easy to load and unload, and can actually hold more stuff (60 meals) than the ubiquitous carts you see in all airplanes nowadays.

The National Science Foundation recently awarded nearly $6 million for eight emerging-technology projects that may result in technologies poised for commercialization.

The grants, issued as part of NSF's Accelerating Innovation Research program, will go to projects that aim to create innovative products, processes and systems. Each project will seek to solve problems for various industries, ranging from energy and weather to healthcare and information technology.

"The collaborations fostered by AIR will accelerate the translation from innovative research to market reality and strengthen the national innovation ecosystem," said Grace Wang, director of NSF's Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships, which funds the awards. "Partnerships and third-party investment are essential for successful technology translation."

In this issue we have a few important items for you, one of which affects everyone contracting with the federal government.

Once again many of you made a difference by signing on to the SBTC's letters to the President, and to Congress concerning several controversial SBIR proposed rule changes made by the SBA. There was a lot of action generated by response and I suspect that a good deal of your message got through but we won't know the full story for a while.

In this issue:

• SBA Pre-Release of SBIR and STTR Policy Directives 
• Important Update: CCR is out SAM is In 
• Senate Small Business Committee Shows Concern about 3% Agency Admin Money 
• Closing Thoughts

High temperatures and extremely dry conditions in much of the United States continue to hurt crops and cause corn prices to soar. In large parts of the Midwest, the drought has reached the worst classification possible, a D4 drought that could bring "exceptional and widespread crop and pasture losses" and "water emergencies" due to shortages in reservoirs, streams, and wells, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, an organization run by a collection of government and academic groups. The National Weather Service says scattered thunderstorms will bring little relief, and suggests that the drought will worsen.

Many climate models suggest that heat waves and droughts will increase as greenhouse-gas levels increase in the atmosphere (see "Planning for a Climate-Changed World" and "How Coders Can Help Fight Climate Change" ). But are the current conditions—and other extreme weather like the drought in Texas last year—related to climate change?

America may be going out of business when it comes to starting new businesses, according to a recent report.

The study—from the non-profit New America Foundation—argues the U.S. is seriously in danger of losing its entrepreneurial spirit because the number of small business created has been declining since the 1970s.

"Most numbers collected on entrepreneurship haven't reflected the increase in population," says Lina Khan, co-author of the report and a policy analyst for the New America Foundation.

Two pieces of legislation proposed earlier this summer –  the America Innovates Act  (bill proposed April, 2012) and the Startup 2.0 Act   (revised in May, 22, 2012) share a common goal:  to improve the flow of university research to society and thereby, increase industry innovation and create startups that create jobs.  After that, their similarity ends.

These two bills reflect the Great Debate:  are university commercialization efforts just underfunded, or are they underperforming?

Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Mitch Ditkoff. I am the Co-Founder of Idea Champions, an innovation consulting and training company headquartered in Woodstock, NY. We've been in business since 1986 and, since that time, have responded to more than 1,200 RFPs.

Along the way, we've noticed a curious trend.

Time and again, we've seen RFP-requesting companies get stuck with a vendor or contract that did not fulfill their needs because their RFP process got in the way -- a process that could have been a lot more effective if only it had been more open, honest, and complete.

Subjects in this post include:

1.)   Drive Growth and Innovation in the Supply Chain

2.)   Sidestep the Obstacles that Impede Scaling Up—Investor Attitudes to Risk & Failure

3.)   Controversy of Clonentrepreneurship: Cloning the Idea or Hatching a Start-Up?

4.)   The Spread of Clonentrepreneurship

Last time in Part II, Cultures of Risk—Financing the Startup of Start-up Communities, I discussed:

1.)   The Cultural Divide:  What Investors ‘Buy’

2.)   What Investors Fear

3.)   The Culture of Venture Capital:  Friend or Foe?

Primitive humans were hunter-gatherers. Later, they learned to supplement that rich but unreliable source of food with the long-range stability provided by locally produced crops. That principle, applied to business, is at the root of a movement called “economic gardening” (EG).

Although community business planners are not about to give up their pursuit of outside companies to drag back home to feed the local economy, an increasing number are supplementing their pursuit of that quarry with EG. This approach shows home-grown enterprises low-cost ways to increase their yield in terms of both revenue and employee base. 

Every organism on Earth has an expiration date. For humans, it's around 78 years, but some people make it to 100 or beyond. Scientific American editor Katherine Harmon explains how these outliers outlive the rest of us.