Demo Day showcases the next entrepreneurial wave in Pittsburgh
Adapted from my new PopCity blog today… As Y Combinator is to Silicon Valley early-stage entrepreneurs, so is AlphaLab to Pittsburgh. We have a thriving early-stage entrepreneurial community, due in no small part to startup...
More Thoughts on Portugal, Raymond Vennare, entrepreneur
I have always believed, if not intuitively understood, that entrepreneurship is fundamentally personal; that it takes human vision, intention and work to discover, innovate and turn an idea into a business. This is not a novel...
Entrepreneurial current events
A few articles have grabbed my attention recently. One relates to the fact that recessions or economic downtimes are sometimes the best time to start new businesses. Time reported this week on the Kauffman Index of...
Thoughts on Portugal and entrepreneurship: trying to find their way out of the mess through new venture creation
Most people don’t put the words “Portugal” and “entrepreneurship” in the same sentence. And most folks from the US don’t know much about Portugal; most haven’t visited. Quick facts about Portugal Total area: 35,645 sq mi...
Thoughts on CEOs (of early-stage companies
This is the second post in the “Thoughts on…” series addressing practical topics for early-stage entrepreneurs. There are two types of early-stage CEOs. I call them CEOa and CEOb. CEOa is the domain expert with...
Thoughts on boards (directors and advisors for early-stage companies)
This is part of a series I am doing called “Thoughts on… (particular subjects of interest to early-stage entrepreneurs). For an early stage company, a small Board of Directors (BoD) is better. An odd number is...
Interactive Map: The United States of Venture Capital
Very interesting article with an interactive map showing financings around the country in the first half of 2011. Done by Venture Capital Dispatch, an inside look from VentureWire at high-tech start-ups and their investors, Wall...
Are millennials cut out for this job market?
Thoughtful article on CNN.com about whether the millennial generation is cut out for the highly competitive global job market. Author is Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a CNN.com contributor and a nationally syndicated columnist. The...
Women entrepreneurs: Who says we can’t
Why are so few women in technology? Why is it that for every 10 men that I interview for my blog, I struggle to find one technology-oriented entrepreneur who is female? “Maybe women are more risk adverse,” says Deanna Bennett, a...
Spurring innovation by fixing the US patent system
The key to US competitiveness on a global scale is innovation, right? That message is being said over and over again, so it must be right! Then why does the US patent system impede progress? The patent system has long been called...