Two years ago I was afforded the opportunity to work at a mid-size company as a full-time marketing manager.  After ten years of as my own boss, the prospect of working with a group of intelligent marketers with actual resources, a steady salary, and a 401K was too much to turn down.

It was here, in the corporate environment, where I learned the true meaning of an intrapreneur, defined by the American Heritage Dictionary as “a person within a large corporation who takes direct responsibility for turning an idea into a profitable finished product through assertive risk taking and innovation.”

The business landscape is changing and the recent downturn in the economy has forced companies to do more with less people. That means that employers are hiring innovative thinkers to solve age-old business problems in new ways.  I asked my department head, to elaborate:  “An entrepreneur can bring a tremendous amount of value to a larger organization.  Entrepreneurs, almost by definition, gain a variety of skills and learn to think on their feet and operate with limited resources.  An entrepreneur is also someone who has developed a ritual of self reliance and accountability, and understands that to get

TechStars announced it has raised a new $24 million fund that will allow it to up the amount of money it provides each startup to $100,000. The new funding is being raised by Foundry Group, IA Ventures, Avalon Ventures, DFJ Mercury, SoftBank Capital, SVB Financial Group, RRE Ventures, Right Side Capital Management and TechStars Alumni.

The new money will be applied to all of TechStars classes in 2012 including Boston, Boulder, New York City and Seattle. TechStars supports about 60 startups a year and previously raised money from 75 venture funds and angel investors. It used to provide up to $18,000 a year for startups who were selected into its program. The program, which launched in 2007, has been on the pioneers in the start-up accelerator space and has spread its model around the world.

BNET colleague Suzanne Lucas recently wrote about why failure is the secret of success. I don’t disagree, since learning how to overcome obstacles and setbacks is incredibly important… but at the same time failure can also be incredibly painful, both financially and emotionally.

Lessons learned aside, whether you own a business or work for someone else, failure sucks.

That’s why no one sets out to fail — unless, of course, they do one of these seven things:

Assume easy entry equals great opportunities. Some businesses are easy to start. For example, anyone with a little time on their hands can build an e-commerce website and sell products others fulfill. E-commerce is easy to do, hard to make money doing. Same with apps; a guy makes $300,000 off a game he developed in a week so thousands of people try to create their own apps. Easy to do, hard to make money doing. Businesses that are easy to enter typically only pay off well in the early stages of a new industry. Excess profits breed ruinous competition — and so does easy entry. Taking the hard way is generally the best way, if only because a lot fewer people will be walking the hard path with you.

Garrett Melby acknowledges that many believe "social entrepreneurship" is a good way to lose money slowly.

He is not one of them.

Melby is the CEO of GoodCompany Ventures, which has run a summer incubator program for the last three years for start-ups that address significant social issues.

Last Wednesday was graduation day, and the 10 pitches that I heard were as polished as any made by capitalists focused on just profit as opposed to the "triple bottom line" of people, planet, and profit prized by the sustainable-business movement.

That gets at the heart of what Melby and his team have been striving to do: help those seeking social

I see more and more entrepreneurs who seem to have everything going for them – vision, motivation, passion, even a good business plan, product, and money, and yet they can’t close customers. Maybe it’s time to look harder at the mantra of a new breed of gurus and successful entrepreneurs, including Steve Blank and Eric Ries, called “nail it then scale it” (NISI).

You can review all the specifics of this approach in a new book by Nathan Furr and Paul Ahlstrom, appropriately titled “Nail It then Scale It: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating and Managing Breakthrough Innovation,” but I will net it out here. I found their five phases of the process to be compelling, based on my own years of experience mentoring startups:

Nail the pain. Great businesses begin with a customer problem that has a big and monetizable pain point. Avoid the three big mistakes, of guessing but not testing the pain (on real customers), selecting a low customer pain (solution is only nice to have), or selecting a narrow customer pain (small number of customers willing or able to pay)

In 2009, Gallup conducted a study of 1,010 Americans over the age of fifteen and found that 55% of them are interested in working for themselves, while a much smaller percentage of 36% said they would prefer to work for someone else. The allure of self-employment appears to be that it affords flexibility and freedom that working for someone else does not. However, the study revealed that even though they do want to pursue a life of freelance work, many Americans are hesitant to actualize that desire – only 41% of the 55% said they thought it could be feasible to work for themselves within the next five years. In a previous post, we discussed a 2011 Aflac study revealing that 77% of their sample population wanted to leave their current jobs to pursue a life of entrepreneurship.

Additionally, a recent study released by MBO partners noted that 28 million Americans are currently considering making a career shift towards independent contract work. In this survey, respondents also agreed that the flexibility and freedom afforded to freelance work inspires them to join the 16 million Americans who already work as independent contractors. Since entrepreneurs undoubtedly create meaningful businesses that spur job creation and economic growth, the question is, why have governmental policies failed to address the best interests of these individuals?

The majority of Americans would rather work for themselves than for other people. A 2009 survey by the Gallup Organization of 1,010 randomly selected Americans over the age of 15 showed that 55 percent of Americans would prefer self-employment, versus 36 percent who would rather work for others.

The big draw of self-employment appears to be personal freedom. The majority (51 percent) of Americans who would prefer self-employment say that they would favor it because working for oneself offers “personal independence, interesting tasks and self-fulfillment.”

Making money is not a major reason why Americans favor self employment. While many Europeans reported that they would prefer self-employment because of the greater potential earnings it offers, only seven percent of Americans who preferred self-employment gave that as the reason.

Over the years, some outstanding innovations have failed. Many wonder why. It’s really simple. Innovation is holistic. You can’t innovate in one corner of your enterprise, and let the rest of it wallow in old-fashioned mediocrity.

Successful innovations encompass three aligned propositions:

• A new value proposition to customers;
• A new profit (or business model) proposition for the business; and
• A new people (or engagement model) proposition to drive adoption and execution.

Since founding Apple in 1976, Steve Jobs has made every effort to shake up the world of consumer electronics.

In doing so, he and his employees have been granted a number of patents over the years. Let's take a look at the ones bearing Steve's name.

Some small business owners want lawmakers to approve a controversial — and possibly illegal — plan to have state taxpayers guarantee loans they get from venture capitalists.

The proposal made Monday to key lawmakers is designed to generate needed expansion cash for companies who have found that traditional lines of credit, including banks and private investors, have dried up. John Adam Kowalski, former chairman of the Arizona Small Business Association, said that cash is absolutely necessary if companies are to grow here.

What they want is a system that consists of several layers of investors and funds.

While the mechanism is somewhat complex, the bottom line is that the plan, if approved, is designed to make private venture capital investors more interested in putting money into these firms. That would occur because the state would step in as the ultimate backer for that loan or investment, providing tax credits to compensate if the company could not pay back all or part of the money.

A movement led by visionary climate activist Bill McKibben, 350.org, has spearheaded the Moving Planet initiative to show how we go beyond fossil fuels while moving towards a low-carbon economy. The day (September 24th) is not exclusively fixated on mobility but has a significant focus on low-carbon transit solutions.

In light of Moving Planet, I thought it made sense to consider the top five emerging low-carbon transit technologies and some of the companies playing a key role in moving towards them. Some of the technologies are "bleeding-edge," others are also more low-tech, but when applied globally they all have the potential to make a huge dent in our global carbon emissions.

In a recent study of one million people around the world, researchers found that most viewed self-control as their biggest weakness and character failure.

"In the last 15 years we've discovered that (willpower) really is a form of energy in the brain. It's like a muscle that can be strengthened with use, but it also gets fatigued with use," says New York Times author John Tierney. "You only have a finite amount (of willpower) as you go through the day, so you should be careful to conserve it and try to save it for the emergencies."

Although companies spend billions each year to try to make their brands resonate with consumers, few ever end up with truly fanatic customers.

But the perks are huge for those who do. Loyal customers consistently come back to buy more, they're more willing to stay despite increases in price and they become strong advocates for the brand in their own social circles and online.

When AstraZeneca bought MedImmune for $15.6 billion four years ago, some expected more than a few employees of the Gaithersburg biotech to branch out on their own.

But that hasn’t happened, William C. Bertrand Jr., executive vice president and general counsel for MedImmune, said during this week’s panel discussion on the state’s tech industry coordinated by Bisnow Media at the University of Maryland, College Park.

“We’re happy people are staying with MedImmune,” Bertrand said. “But there was some talk four years ago that many employees might leave to start their own ventures.”

Join the #SciFund Challenge!

Where does the money come from for doing science? If you are a scientist, you know the fundraising landscape is getting worse and worse. All of the traditional sources of cash for science – government agencies and private foundations – are getting harder and harder to access. So what is a scientist to do?

I’m going to sound like the most conceited jerk in the world for a few sentences here….but bear with me.

Over the past few years I’ve probably sold more swimming pools than any single person in the country. My company, which happens to be one of the country’s top fiberglass pool installers, has done quite well during this time period and I’ve been the driving force at the kitchen table, helping hundreds of families choose our services over many competitors in the process. To put it simply, I’m really, really good at the skill called selling…

And I’m also incredibly replaceable.

Almost every university that is awake is finding a way to establish an entrepreneurship program. One that goes beyond traditional classroom instruction and goes on to give student teams incubation space, mentors, and if really on the ball access to private investors. A little more than two years and three summers of operation later, the Syracuse University Student Sandbox has shown impressive growth. Enough growth to harness $500K worth of support from the EDA to support future cycles of the program.

Grant application co-writer Linda Hartsock says, “The funding will enable us to greatly expand the Sandbox program to more schools, and it ensures its sustainability for five years. It also positions the Sandbox program as the only EDA University Center in New York State. This is great news for student venture development across upstate.” UNYstartups agrees with all this and hopes the model becomes a source of influence for how to structure a university/community driven incubator that welcomes entrepreneurs far beyond those enrolled in one particular institution.

Has the recent political and economic environment inspired your company to become more politically active?

I’ve seen my share of drearily predictable presentations—one person delivering a series of static slides to a captive (but rarely captivated) audience. You know, the type of presentations overcome by bullet lists and slides that bore you into a mental slumber.

And equally tiresome, having to share presentations via bulky attachments and countless versions, which makes presentations awkward to assemble and distribute. Then there’s the lack of interactivity. Today’s world is social and hands-on, but traditional presentations are typically a one-way monolog.

Sometimes tech trends end up disrupting huge industries, like when the idea of Skype and free web calls, collided with the phone companies. However, sometimes tech ideas have all the makings of these kind of disruptions — complete with collective billions of dollars of venture capital funding, dozens of startup competitors, and enthusiastic analyst predictions — but ultimately end up flaming out because of things like timing, macroeconomic conditions, or fatal business model flaws.

Thin film solar trend

Greentech’s got the makings of one of those occasions when the herd veered left and the market went right. The thin film solar startups that were born in the mid-2000′s, and which used the materials copper, indium, gallium and selenium (CIGS) to convert sunlight into electricity, are now facing a tough market. Solyndra, which went bankrupt this month and took down an over $500 million government loan, is only the most high-profile of these companies, and others include HelioVolt, Nanosolar, MiaSole, SoloPower, and Stion.