Day: May 11, 2020

Company Builders Are the New Accelerator Programs

wayne May 11, 2020

With this market uncertainty, entrepreneurs are better off planning for long-term growth than the quick-scaling approach.


4 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.


For startup entrepreneurs, participating in an accelerator program provides financial resources, an invaluable network and prestige, but the current public-health crisis has interrupted operations for many of them. For instance, Y Combinator’s next batch will be mentored remotely, and instead of investing in the entire batch, they will evaluate each startup individually to determine who receives funding. Meanwhile, 500 Startups is eliminating cohorts entirely and allowing rolling admissions, with two demo days and only one investment round per year. Other accelerators around the world are making adjustments to how they distribute funding in response to global economic uncertainty. 

Entrepreneurs looking for guidance and funding for their ideas right now should consider other opportunities, and company builders provide an alternative for entrepreneurs in this uncertain time. 

Related: Makers of Tomorrow: CareerBuilder CEO Irina Novoselsky

What is a company builder?  

Company builders, also known as “venture builders,” provide comprehensive, long-term support for growing a company. Rather than accepting applications, company builders focus on cultivating potential ideas and leaders as part

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Here’s what you need to know

wayne May 11, 2020

A visual representation of the digital cryptocurrency bitcoin.

Yu Chun Christopher Wong | S3studio | Getty Images

Bitcoin faces a key technical event Monday known as the “halving.” Due to take place later in the day, industry insiders are debating what effect it might have on the cryptocurrency market.

So what is the halving? You can think of it as an update to the underlying network that logs all bitcoin transactions. There are so-called “miners” on this network with specialized computing rigs competing to solve complex math problems to validate bitcoin transactions. Whoever wins that race gets rewarded in bitcoin.

On Monday, the amount of bitcoins rewarded to those miners is set to get cut in half. This is something that takes place roughly every four years to keep a lid on inflation. The current reward stands at 12.5 bitcoins, or BTC, so that will now be reduced to 6.25 BTC.

Unlike fiat currencies like the dollar, there is no central bank that manages the supply of bitcoin or its inflation rate. Instead, this is maintained thanks to a rule written into bitcoin’s code by pseudonymous inventor Satoshi Nakamoto.

The total number of bitcoins that will ever be mined is

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A new bankruptcy law could prove a big help for small businesses. Here’s everything you need to know

wayne May 11, 2020

As the coronavirus shutdowns continue to strain companies across the U.S., many small businesses are now facing a tough decision: whether or not to file for bankruptcy.

While programs like the Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Disaster Injury Loans (via the Small Business Administration) have attempted to save employees and keep businesses alive, new data suggests that over 40% of the 30 million small businesses in the U.S. could shutter permanently in the next six months, according to a poll by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It’s what Amanda Ballantyne, executive director of Main Street Alliance, an advocacy group for small business, said was “a crisis that will impact our economy for generations. We’re going to lose so much of the small-business sector.”

Yet bankruptcy could help many of these companies survive the pandemic—especially as a new law makes it easier for small businesses to access it. In previous years, reorganizing via bankruptcy was less tenable for small businesses. Chapter 11, which is basically a reorganization of the business, has long been what attorneys like Lance Martin, a bankruptcy lawyer at Warden and Smith, classify as an “onerous and expensive and lengthy process.” The original Chapter 11 is more “intended …

The pandemic widens rifts; businesses need to help heal them

wayne May 11, 2020

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Good morning.

The Business Roundtable’s statement last August redefining the purpose of a corporation (background here) was rightly seen as a seminal moment for “stakeholder capitalism.” But after talking with numerous CEOs on this topic, I remained unsure whether they saw it as significant change, or simply a description of the status quo.

Our new survey of Fortune 500 CEOs provides the answer. We asked the CEOs which of the following comes closest to their view of the Business Roundtable statement:

1. I agree with the statement and believe most good companies always have operated that way. Nothing changed.

2. I agree with the statement, and believe it represents a significant change in corporate thinking from a decade or two ago.

3. I don’t agree with the statement.

Only 4% of the CEOs chose the last answer–giving final burial to Milton Friedman’s notion that the social responsibility of business was to make a profit. But 63% chose the first one, suggesting the Roundtable statement reflected the status quo. Only 25% saw it as a significant change.

Count me with …