In the early days, famous founders like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak worked for the individuals who would become their future mentors: They hunted the mentors down, pushed their way in and worked beside them while taking meticulous notes on how to build something better. And, sometimes, the would-be mentor would take notice and provide…
“Work-life balance” is a buzz phrase we’ve heard for years, but how many of us actually achieve it? Ishan Daya, co-founder of Crafty, says that the next generation of office dwellers want something else: work-life integration. The smartest employers emphasize “the fluidity between life and work,” he says. “They want to create an…
As MicroVentures brings fee-free investing to the equity crowdfunding community, other platforms will either evolve or become dinosaurs. Once other crowdfunding platforms follow suit, it will make the small-business investment community a more welcoming place. MicroVentures, an online venture capital platform, has lit a fire under the equity crowdfunding community — and it might…
Katy Lynch, the co-founder and CMO of Codeverse, has a straightforward but audacious mission: teach one billion kids to code. “No big deal. And once we get to a billion, maybe two billion,” she laughs. Just two years on from its launch, Codeverse is well on its way. If anyone can do it,…
For companies to innovate and scale as quickly as the current tech ecosystem demands, a stellar team is priority number one. If you’re a CEO and you want to hire the best talent in the world –– and I do mean the world –– then you need to understand the political climate, the bureaucratic…
Chicago-based startup Aegis AI is using technology to create a workaround that allows people to protect themselves regardless of what the government or anyone else does about gun control. Essentially, the company’s AI software hooks into a building’s existing security camera infrastructure and automatically detects a firearm the moment it’s visible on screen.…
Without getting into the cryptocurrency stuff, my natural instincts tell me that blockchain technology is about identity. We work, spend, invest, and socialize digitally, but when it comes to some of the most important stuff of life –– birth certificates, passports, driver’s licenses, titles, deeds, college transcripts –– we revert to analog. The ways…
Chicago-based ActiveCampaign is absolutely crushing it in the CRM, sales, and automated marketing space. But it didn’t come out of nowhere –– the company is a 13-year “overnight” success story. When he started back in 2003, Jason VandeBoom was just trying to pay for college. For more than a decade, he and his small…
“As travelers, we focus on the journey,” says Jeff Katz of his new travel startup, Journera. “None of us are just focused on the flight or the hotel. It’s about the entire journey, whether it’s for work or for play.” Jeff’s own journey has spanned nearly 40 years in travel and tech. An…
“There were a million babies born to Millennials last year, and that number’s growing,” says Elizabeth Harz, CEO of Sittercity. (I happen to know this firsthand). “Digital natives are used to running everything from their phones and expect a data-centric, efficient, beautiful user experience to manage their whole lives. “There’s also a sense of…