Category: Uncategorized

BUILDING SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES IN POOR COUNTRIES, is a worthy task, here undertaken by an MIT group. Not all brain power needs to be applied to tough first world issues. There are enough really challenging business problems that need solving in the developing world. Please keep us posted! http://lnkd.in/X_hzcj View in LinkedIn

PICTOGRAPHIC OF SURVEY OF 3.000 EARLY STAGE COMPANIES and reasons why they fail. Quite a useful read to see data on failure. Worth studying carefully, with the provision that it's hard to mix tech companies and non-tech companies. http://lnkd.in/XGdZWa View in LinkedIn

TEXAN CANCER AGENCY FUNDING FREEZE THAWS, one more small cumulative signal of an economic recovery in the US. I was in San Francisco last week, and the bay area is showing no signs of the Crisis (except the underclass, whose woes have deepened), with 25% increases in house prices in Marin, restaurants with lines outside, and shopping Malls at capacity parking. Little by little, it is starting. http://lnkd.in/JziZCi View in LinkedIn

IT IS TIME FOR EARLY STAGE BIOPHARMA TO THINK GLOBALLY, since there is an appetite in developing countries to use this economic jumpstart to stimulate their job growth and wealth creation. View in LinkedIn

THE ONLY REASON ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS DON'T EXIST IN THE US is because those with vested interest don't want transparency and accountability, and keep throwing up the specter of immense difficulty when challenged on it. I live in a small Spanish village. For decades they have had no paper in their medical clinic. They are 100% electronic. This US debate is sheer nonsense, and the sooner the public sees through the smokescreen, the better. Lack of transparency protects differential billing, duplication of services, and every inefficiency that gives the US off-the-charts medical costs. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1567935605/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/191-2330943-1101115 View in LinkedIn

IN M&A NEGOTIATIONS, VALUATION IS USUALLY A HOT TOPIC. You may elect to avoid the topic entirely by structuring your deal as an EARN-OUT. This structure is silent on valuation, except implicitly in the percentage allocations, but a small percent of a large future sum is often more palatable than a tiny valuation at the start. View in LinkedIn

IN A FUTURE OF PRIVATIZED WATER SUPPLIES, this is a useful start for rural communities in developing countries. The privatization of water has already insidiously crept upon us with bottled water, unlabeled regarding its ingredients and impurities, and driven by a distrust of public water supplies. The concept of an aquifer output being privatized is at best troubling. This is one great challenge of this next 50 years. http://lnkd.in/6ivutr View in LinkedIn

GRAVEYARDS CAN SPOOK INVESTORS. Where an industry segment has had a history of several well-known failures, most investors will run a mile, regardless of whether the failures were different from your invention. Graveyards spoil fresh markets and are very difficult to enter. It is your job to know these histories, and it is prudent to avoid them. You do not need controversy to plague your funding. This is a shame because most graveyards have untapped markets and significant opportunities. View in LinkedIn

GENOMIC MEDICINE IS EMERGING AS A REALITY. Read this excellent interview with the head of the Scripps Institute. Idiopathic diseases will be a thing of the past. Mutational diagnostics will be be normative in medicine. This is the fruit of the Human Genome Project, and the inevitable emergence of a distinct and dramatic change in medicine: preventative medicine. http://lnkd.in/xyQQGZ View in LinkedIn

PUBLISHING ON DEMAND (POD) used to be called derisively the 'Vanity Press'. While the giant publishing houses either slept, entered a state of denial, or were paralyzed in the headlights, this ultimately logical solution to the lazy dominance of the publishing houses emerged. No editor gatekeepers, no giant warehousing issues, no tiny royalties for the authors. Just let the market decide. It is only a matter of time before this +- 30 Bn USD industry is turned in its head and David beats Goliath. Another industry democratized. http://www.theindependentpublishingmagazine.com/2013/03/is-hybrid-new-buzz-word-for-literary.html?m=1 View in LinkedIn