Joan Siefert

I’m just back from the Angel Capital Association (ACA) Summit in San Diego, where much of the talk among the 600-plus attendees was about how crowdfunding is changing the relationship between entrepreneurs and traditional equity investors. The general consensus is that crowdfunding options will continue to expand at a rapid rate, especially as changing federal regulations open up the playing field to new investors.    Whether this is a good thing depends on whom you ask—many see crowdfunding as an essential way to democratize participation of funding early-stage companies and accelerate the pace of startups; others worry that new investors are unsophisticated...

I’m always surprised at the parallel universes occupied by entrepreneurs in the tech and life science sectors here in the Triangle. They’re both full of smart people who want to change the world, yet there are few points of intersection between the two networks.    At CED, the nation’s largest and longest-running entrepreneurial support network, we firmly have a foot in both camps, and think there are many good reasons to bring the two communities together. With the CED Life Science Conference scheduled for March 3-4 at the Raleigh Convention Center, I propose five reasons why tech entrepreneurs should check...

I’m always surprised at the parallel universes occupied by entrepreneurs in the tech and life science sectors here in the Triangle. They’re both full of smart people who want to change the world, yet there are few points of intersection between the two networks.    At CED, the nation’s largest and longest-running entrepreneurial support network, we firmly have a foot in both camps, and think there are many good reasons to bring the two communities together. With the CED Life Science Conference scheduled for March 3-4 at the Raleigh Convention Center, I propose five reasons why tech entrepreneurs should check...

Where will the big opportunities be for entrepreneurs in 2015? Here are three predictions courtesy of CED’s Fortune Teller-in-Residence, and scroll down for an infographic depicting all the top trends we’re watching this year:   1. Even if the Sony Pictures cyberhack hadn’t highlighted the issue, the message is clear: Security is the New Black. We’ve spent the past few years transferring data to the cloud, but there aren’t enough enterprise-class software companies focused on security right now. Raleigh is positioning itself as the major hub for data science in the US, with its strong computer science program at...