Times of Entrepreneurship Stories

Rising Mexican Food Brands

Nina Roberts reports on the entrepreneurs who are taking on the ossified supermarket brands as the Mexican-American consumer market matures. “Consumer packaged goods on supermarket shelves have been lagging so far behind. “Mexican”-style products like Old El Paso taco kits, owned by General Mills, are still sold at supermarkets across the country, a throwback circa 1985. B&G Foods brings Ortega sauces, like taco ranch, to the market, when there are thousands of better salsa options available across the country, and PepsiCo is still producing Rice-A-Roni’s Mexican style rice.”

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VC Spotlight: Realist Ventures in Connecticut

Ellen Chang highlights a woman-led fund focusing on healthcare and biotech. The VC also launched Realist Lab, a tech accelerator for underrepresented founders in Connecticut, to support entrepreneurs seeking help with funding, technology and practical tools to scale their businesses and startups.

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What You May Have Missed


The Dark Web’s Criminal Minds See Internet of Things As Next Big Hacking Prize

There are now 17 billion lightly protected IoT devices – but there are new solutions, including regulations and a new movement to incorporate security more deeply into software development.

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The Big Risks In Aging Email Programs

Big tech companies have been slow to move to change default settings in ways that would increase security for small businesses. Some are asking whether regulation is part of the answer.

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How To Recruit A Superstar Tech Cofounder

An immigrant entrepreneur working on a new kind of board game found a creative way to appeal to a hard-tech “superstar” and creator of Xbox.

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A Founding B Corp Shares A Financial Secret To Success

A B Corp in central California finds an investment structure that makes investors happy but keeps the pressure off founders.

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News With A Future Spin

The Dandelion Economy: The U.S. economy seems like that patch of dandelions that just won’t stop growing, even after your dad hits it multiple times with the weed killer.
• Nearly 1.7 million applications for businesses likely to hire employees were filed in 2022—a 27.8 percent increase over the pre-pandemic baseline—and the second largest total on record. Including businesses that are not likely to employ others, the number of new business applications filed by Americans totaled 5.1 million. Read it here from the EIG.
• The U.S. economy added far more jobs than expected in January, with the biggest increase in leisure and hospitality employment. Read it here.

Worst States for Startups. The hiring platform Lensa released a well-research list of the best and worst states for startups, based partly on where businesses are more likely to fail. Here’s their list of the worst five. The research is here.
• North Dakota
• W. Virginia
• Rhode Island
• Wyoming

• Hawaii

Diversity and inclusion employees are among the first to be cut at the Big Tech firms, probably too soon to see if they might have made a difference. Read the story here. And, the term LatinX is controversial, among Democrats, too. Read about it here.

Censorship: Remember when we were complacent about Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to chose, while abortion opponents were mobilizing at state and grassroots levels to change the federal law? Public schools are under attack, including with tools of censorship. Read more here about a play banned in a Florida public school.

Phrase of the Week: Thucydides Trap
From a Time magazine article about predictions of war with China: “American political scientist Graham T. Allison in 2012 venture(d) a theory known as the “Thucydides Trap,” noting that of 16 historical occasions when a presumptive power challenged an established one, no less than 12 resulted in war.”
Read more here.

Living the dream

Buzzworthy: An Expose of the Finance Rules that Exclude Black People
New York Times journalist Emily Flitter “exposes hiring and layoff policies designed to keep Black employees from advancing to high levels; racial profiling of customers in internal emails between bank tellers; major insurers refusing to pay Black policyholders’ claims; and the systematic denial of funding to Black entrepreneurs.” Here’s the book.
Best Practices: How to Write and Think Clearly

From George Orwell’s Politics and the English Language: “If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. ”

i. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
ii. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
iii. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
iv. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
v. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.

vi. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

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Support Climate Innovation
One of the hottest startups on WeFunder working on climate is CrowdSolve. They’ve raised $150k+ – and they are now taking on more investments. CrowdSolve’s software platform helps entrepreneurs around the world get support for their ideas. Read more here.

Rathskellar

Work/Life Hack: Keep giving your time to younger people and those who need a leg up. The favors come back. Meanwhile, let go of the idea that your time is so valuable that you can’t share it. Humility is a work/life hack, too.
One Place To Go: Find a rage room near you. Small businesses are at the forefront of the next big thing: real life. There’s a lot to make you mad in today’s world, including sitting in front of a computer all day. A smash glass session will help you get the anger out.

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1. GET Champions: Tech Leadership in Miami

Forward-thinking Miami tech industry leaders are invited to apply for GET Champions Miami. The program will accept 20 participants in 2023 for its program of virtual training and curriculum, executive coaching and events over six months. Designed by GET Cities and powered by Radical Partners (a Miami-based social impact accelerator), the GET Champions Miami program aims to grow the pool of diverse talent in each tech leader’s company, as well as empower tech leaders to create real world change by positively impacting the technology industry, which disproportionately excludes marginalized communities. GET Champions accelerates the representation and leadership of women in tech through the development of inclusive tech hubs across the U.S. Launched in 2020, GET Cities is led by SecondMuse and Break Through Tech, in partnership with Pivotal Ventures, the investment and incubation company created by Melinda French Gates. GET Cities launched in Miami in January 2022 and has other locations in Chicago and the DC area.

Link to apply: here
Location: Miami
Deadline: Feb. 20, 2023

2. Startup302 Pitch Competition for Underrepresented Founders

Delaware Prosperity Partnership is opening applications for the Startup302 Pitch Competition for Tech-Enabled Ventures with Underrepresented Founders. Startups must be technology-enabled with at least one founder from an underrepresented group: women; people of color, including African Americans, Latin Americans and Native Americans; and members of the LGBTQ+ community. Startups can be based anywhere in the world. Winners will share more than $215,000 in cash grants and receive mentoring and networking connections such as introductions to potential investors.

Location: Virtual
Deadline: Feb. 24, 2023
Link to apply: startup302.org

3. Robotics Factory Launches

Pittsburgh-based Innovation Works is launching the Robotics Factory to create, accelerate and scale startups and manufacturers. The Robotics Factory’s program lasts seven-months and is designed for pre- and early- stage startups. Companies will locate in the Pittsburgh facility and will receive an investment of $100,000, mentorship and resources. Entrepreneurs developing robotic and related technologies are encouraged to apply when the application cycle opens Feb 1, 2023.

Location: Pittsburgh
Deadline to apply: May 20, 2023

 

4. A Course To Reach the Next Generation of Entrepreneurs

In this free course developed by entrepreneurship professor John Lynn, professors and other entrepreneurship educators get a curriculum and supporting materials based on the influential book, The New Builders.

Date: N/A
Location: N/A
Link: https://bit.ly/3dE6rZh
5. BK-XL
A new accelerator launched by Clara Wu Tsai invests as much as $500,000 in founders of color. Entrepreneurs from around the world are eligible and asked to move to Brooklyn for mentoring.
Applications opened: https://bk-xl.com/

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This story and others on New Builders Dispatch are made possible by a sponsorship from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a private, nonpartisan foundation that provides access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity – regardless of race, gender, or geography. The Kansas City, Mo.-based foundation uses its grantmaking, research, programs, and initiatives to support the start and growth of new businesses, a more prepared workforce, and stronger communities. For more information, visit www.kauffman.org and connect with www.twitter.com/kauffmanfdn and www.facebook.com/kauffmanfdn.