Raising money is like painting
Every first-time entrepreneur is excited and intimidated by the concept of fundraising. It’s a world that they don’t know, and it lures them while scaring them: What is my company worth? Will I still have control? How will I find...
Teaching those Turks
A week of teaching entrepreneurship in Turkey made me realize, once again, how the world needs entrepreneurship. Students, professors, technology transfer professionals all want to know HOW to do entrepreneurship because they...
An entrepreneur’s journey
Letter to Bobby Zappala, Ken Hendrata (of Thrill Mill) and Babs Carryer (teaching at Thrill Mill) I just wanted to send you a brief update about my progress in the Thrill Mill program. Last fall I remember feeling frustrated that...
Finding the entrepreneur
I make entrepreneurs honest. Yesterday I wished that, instead of offering slots in the Thrill Mill accelerator as a result of pitches by a team for a particular idea, we could just pick by interviewing the people to discover if...
Entrepreneurship@ThrillMill
Recently, I started teaching an intensive entrepreneurship class to the new cohort of 13 startups that were invited to participate in the Thrill Mill year-long program. Thrill Mill is an incubator/accelerator. Lots of people use...
Innovation @ U Pitt
The University of Pittsburgh has a lot of exciting things starting around innovation and entrepreneurship. 2014 promises to be a ramp-up year for new entrepreneurial initiatives, starting with the campus-wide Innovation...
The seedy side of entrepreneurship
Everybody loves entrepreneurship: the geek in the garage making stuff that will change the world, the excitement, the freedom, the lure. Entrepreneurship is sexy as a career choice. Entrepreneurs surmount the odds and create...
Thoughts on Turkey and entrepreneurship
Turkey has realized that, as a country, they need to integrate innovation and entrepreneurship into the fabric of their economy. This is not a uniquely Turkish initiative – this is occurring all over the world as I have seen in...
Exposing humanity through photography
Carnegie Mellon University produces some of the world’s finest visual artists. In addition, we house some of the best of the best among our faculty. One such person is renowned photographer, Charlee Brodsky, faculty in...
Innovation in speech recognition
“James and Janet Baker, now in their 60s, are computer speech revolutionaries,” wrote The New York Times in an article last July (2012) article about the tragic consequences of the sale of the company, Dragon Systems, Inc.,...