The biggest challenge for every entrepreneur and every startup today is to get noticed and remembered in today’s information overload. The number of entrepreneurs worldwide is huge, starting an estimated 50 million new businesses per year, or 137,000 per day. Every one of these probably has a unique story, but in my years as a startup advisor I only remember hearing a few who capitalized on their story.
While there are commonalities among their criteria, startup investors don’t take a cookie cutter approach. The key to unlocking investment is understanding the stage of your startup. “In the race of life, always back self-interest; at least you know it’s trying,” the late former premier of NSW, Jack Lang, once said.
Self-interest is defined as “regard for one’s own interest or advantage, especially with disregard for others… personal interest or advantage”.
Meanwhile, to invest is to “put (money) into financial schemes, shares, property, or a commercial venture with the expectation of achieving a profit”.
Venture capital is a popular source of capital for early-stage startups, but it’s definitely not the only one. Debt is an increasingly popular alternative, as is non-dilutive, revenue-based financing.
So, we invited Accel Partner Arun Mathew, Clearco co-founder and president Michele Romanow, and Pipe co-founder and co-CEO Harry Hurst to TechCrunch Disrupt 2021 last week to discuss the various ways companies can raise capital and which might be the best avenue for startups. (Hurst unfortunately had a power outage so was not available for the entirety of the panel).
For anyone who doubted, the data is in. The Great Resignation is real and it’s happening. The U.S. Department of Labor reports that during the months of April, May, and June 2021 a total of 11.5 million workers quit their jobs. And it’s not over. According to Gallup research, 48 percent of employees are actively looking to make a change, and according to Personio research, nearly 1:4 will do so in the next six months. Those looking for new opportunities will find ripe opportunities; in June the U.S. hit an all-time high of 10.1 million job openings.
Some of America’s largest university endowments unveiled eye-popping annual gains in the past week. Duke University reported a 56% return for the fiscal year ended June 30. Washington University in St. Louis generated a 65% gain.
These top-performing endowments can thank alternative assets—in particular, venture capital—for the banner year, which is said to be the best since 1986. But that short-term success could prove to be a double-edged sword.
One of the most important skills for every entrepreneur is timely and effective decision making. In a startup, any decision is better than no decision. One of the primary roles of every founder is to solve problems, make a decision, and manage the decision to results. The best entrepreneurs relish this role, while others struggle mightily and ultimately lose their health and their company.
Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com
TOPLINE Most vaccine hesitant people changed their minds about getting a Covid-19 shot over time, according to new research published in JAMA Network Open Friday, offering hope as officials struggle to boost flagging immunization rates amid soaring cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
If you’re an entrepreneur enjoying success with your first business, you’ve probably thought about launching a second business.
About 30 percent of entrepreneurs are serial entrepreneurs–and tend to wear the title as a badge of honor in bios and social media profiles. But does it do more than fluff our egos? Is serial entrepreneurship the ultimate type of entrepreneurship and social proof denoting success?
GAITHERSBURG, MD, September 30, 2021 – Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, Inc. (APT), a clinical-stage biotechnology company dedicated to providing therapies to treat infectious diseases, today announced that the Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded the company an additional $8 million for the continued development of bacteriophage therapies (PhageBankTM) for the treatment of infectious diseases. The new funding brings the total contract awarded to APT to $31.2 million.
“We are thrilled to have the ongoing support of the DoD in the advanced development of our PhageBank™ platform to treat drug-resistant infections across multiple indications,” said Greg Merril, CEO and co-founder of Adaptive Phage Therapeutics. “We are thankful for the opportunity to collaborate with the U.S. military to create potentially lifesaving therapies for our nation’s service members.”
Montréal-based healthtech and artificial intelligence (AI) startup Aifred Health today won second place at the final round of the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE competition and will take home a $1 million USD prize for its digital health software.
Aifred Health offers clinical solutions for mental health treatments using AI. The startup’s second-place win comes five years after it entered the XPRIZE competition along with 150 other applicants. Aifred Health was the only Canadian startup to make it to the finals of this global competition.
Image: https://betakit.com
