Sometimes great technology companies are about creating things that people never even imagined that they needed or wanted -- look at Apple and Facebook. But sometimes, great technology companies are about taking a very simple product and making it affordable and available to people who wouldn't normally have access to...

I made the mistake of attending the Tech Crunch Disrupt NYC conference on my birthday last week.

One of the morning presentations was by uber-angel investor Ron Conway and David Lee who runs SV Angel, giving the results of their survey of 500 of their portfolio companies....

According a recent cover story in the New York Times Magazine, President Obama -- as he was preparing his State of the Union Address -- "was looking for bold ways to bring down unemployment."

NYT Magazine reported:

The ideas presented to him, though, seemed familiar and uninspired. "You...

There are a lot of people trying to figure this out right now. There was an interesting conference called the We Own It Summit in New York. The Summit was put on by Astia, a venture accelerator targeting "exceptional startups" with women on their founding teams...

The Internet has made it easy for people to go online to find everything from a date to a used car. Social networking has taken things one step further with people creating communities around shared interests.

Now the web is making it easier to borrow money from a community...

Hot yoga is hot. Bikram Yoga, the original "hot yoga," was developed by Indian yogi Bikram Choudhury. Today, there are over 4,000 of these yoga centers worldwide. But, guess what--according to Bikram, he hasn't gotten a cent from them!

Why? He never knew that he needed to trademark his name...

I just got the bill to renew our corporate insurance policy. Normally, I pay it without a problem. I had always felt assured to know that, as a small business, we have the security of a giant, established company behind us. Yes, you guessed it. AIG is our insurance company.

I'm tired of being depressed about the economy. So, I was particularly excited to hear that there are some businesses prospering in spite of (or actually because of) the economy. The American Dream is alive and well for some.

Maisha Bayan is one of them. She is co owner,...

I'm a small business owner. It's a women-owned, education technology business. I've heard that the stimulus package has a lot of money going towards education, a lot of money to promote new uses of technology and a lot of money to support small business. Well, here I am!! But,...

It's every business-owners nightmare -- one of your employees is stealing money from you. You never think it's going to happen to you -- especially in a small company, where you think that you're treating your employees like your family. But, it happens more than you think. Employee theft and...

I just returned from my friends' wedding in Vietnam. It was a multi-cultural extravaganza. The bride is Bulgarian, the groom American and they both live and work in Moscow. That's where I met them in the mid-90's when I was involved in helping to start up VimpelCom, one of the...

I've been a "serial entrepreneur" since before the Internet boom made it fashionable (and even during the bust when many went running back to their corporate jobs!). I've been involved in the early stages of over 15 businesses, mostly in technology, telecom and digital media. I've started businesses in Japan,...