The Unexotic Underclass | The MIT Entrepreneurship Review May 19, 2013 The startup scene today, and by ‘scene’ I’m sweeping a fairly catholic brush over a large swath of people – observers, critics, investors, entrepreneurs, ‘want’repreneurs, academics, techies, and the like – seems to be riven into two camps. On one side stand those who believe that entrepreneurs have stopped chasing and solving Big Problems – capital B, capital P: clean energy, poverty, famine, climate change, you name it. On the other side stand those who believe that entrepreneurs have stopped chasing and solving Big Problems – capital B, capital P – that there are too many folks resolving anti-problems… BUT just to be on the safe side, the venture capitalists should keep pumping tons of money into those anti-problem entrepreneurs because you never know when some corporate leviathan – Google, Facebook, Yahoo! On the other other side, a side that receives scant attention, scanter investment, is where big problems – little b, little p – reside. Let’s keep walking. We need:
Thomas Backlund | The entrepreneurial adventures of a homeless coder living in a tent in the forest How to Write a Summary Business Plan When writing a business plan, it's easy to get lost in the details. You want to demonstrate how you've studied the ins and outs of the marketplace and have crunched every conceivable number. But, really, writing a 100+ page business plan is not the best use of your energy. 'I vividly remember years of lengthy business planning cycles that literally produced books - encased in three-ring binders,' says Denise Barnwell, president of Transformation Marketing in West Orange, New Jersey. Fleshing out your business in such detail can be a worthwhile exercise for an entrepreneur, but the truth is that it's not likely anyone else will ever spend the time to read it – whether you're competing in a business plan competition or trying to raise money from investors. The shorter you can make your summary business plan, the better. Dig Deeper: How to Write a Great Business Plan How to Write a Summary Business Plan: A Few Don'ts Dig Deeper: 10 Mistakes to Avoid When Writing a Business Plan 1. 2. 3. 4.
A Surge in Learning the Language of the Internet Richard Perry/The New York Times Zach Sims, left, and Ryan Bubinski started a business called Codecademy to teach people computer code. The market for night classes and online instruction in programming and Web construction, as well as for apps that teach, is booming. Those jumping on board say they are preparing for a future in which the Internet is the foundation for entertainment, education and nearly everything else. Some in this crowd foster secret hopes of becoming the next Mark Zuckerberg. “Inasmuch as you need to know how to read English, you need to have some understanding of the code that builds the Web,” said Sarah Henry, 39, an investment manager who lives in Wayne, Pa. “I’m not going to sit here and say that I can crank out a site today, but I can look at basic code and understand it,” Ms. The sites and services catering to the learn-to-program market number in the dozens and have names like Code Racer, Women Who Code, Rails for Zombies and CoderDojo.