A sort of We Are The World moment for young entrepreneurs happens this week--the second annual Global Entrepreneurship Week. Founded by busy U.S. business-stimulators the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation and U.K.-based Make Your Mark, the week aims to bring together young would-be business owners from around the globe to learn and get inspired to make their business dreams a reality.

In 90 countries around the world, events will be held to mentor, teach and stimulate the next generation of entrepreneurs. More than 3 million people are expected to participate in over 5,000 events. read more...

Most of us believe there's no way to prepare for Murphy's Law but wouldn't it be nice if you could? Enter The Worst-Case Scenario Business Survival Guide, a guide for surviving the most dangerous business situations.

This isn't some thick theory heavy business text. Instead, the authors David Borgenicht and Mark Joyner have teamed up to provide a step-by-step guide for dealing with five core business emergencies: finance, HR, productivity, sales and marketing and executive. read more...

One of the great things about being an entrepreneur in the 21st century is there's no age barrier. The days when you were pretty much required to slog away in middle management in corporate America for decades before banks considered you mature enough to take out a loan and strike out on your own are so gone. Now, the Internet has made starting up on a shoestring easy, and businesses routinely sprout in college dorm rooms--think Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.

Just in the past few weeks, I've read about Boston University student Alex Hodara, founder of real-estate brokerage Hodara Real Estate, and about business-plan competition winner Omar Soliman of the University of Miami/Coral Gables and his partner Nick Friedman of Pomona College, whose company College Hunks Hauling Junk (don't you love that business name?) has becoming a growing franchise. There's Matt Rhodes in Thousand Oaks, Calif., who founded T.O. Student Tutoring while still in high school.

Now, young entrepreneurs who dream about starting their own businesses before they can legally drink are getting a boost. read more...

After six weeks of watching ABC's "Shark Tank"--a reality series featuring real negotiations between entrepreneurs seeking capital and five investors--there are certainly lessons to be learned. Not the least of which: know when to take the deal.

And it's hard when almost every deal includes one or more of the sharks taking over your company. However, when you're an inventor with no distribution contacts and the investors are offering to take your product to market and pay you a lifetime of royalties, maybe taking the deal would be a smart move.

Let's look at Jeff and Josh Cohen, father and son team who created and patented a hinge for a functional folding guitar. It seemed apparent to everyone but Papa Cohen that his most profitable bet was to license his hinge to a manufacturer and collect a percentage of the sales. Not only was his valuation off $500k for a 5 percent stake outrageous, he also turned down a deal that would have made his the most money with the least amount of work. read more...

The judges on the venture capital-inspired reality TV show "Shark Tank" had their say on the Daily Dose. Now what about the entrepreneurs?

Kwame Kuadey is CEO and founder of GiftCardRescue.com, an online marketplace where people can buy and trade unused gift cards. We asked him how he escaped the tank in episode four with a cool $200,000 from Kevin O'Leary and Robert Herjavec, in exchange for a combined 50 percent stake in his company. His original request: $150,000 for a 30 percent stake. read more...

Most people know the unemployment department (or department of employment security in some states) as a place out-of-work people go to try to find another job. But in our current recession, some unemployment offices are offering something else: training on how to start your own business.

The Self-Employment Assistance Program was spawned with the 1993 passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, but has gained more steam in recent years. The idea was to help "dislocated" workers whose industries were in decline, where they were unlikely to get another job in their field. Sound familiar? read more...

Kevin Harrington, CEO of TVGoods.com, LLC, is in his natural element on ABC's show "Shark Tank," listening to entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas and deciding whether to put his money behind them. In the 1980s, he founded a direct TV marketing company and produced the first infomercial, and then pioneered a global effort that now distributes in more than 100 countries.

Harrington knows how to spot the gems among the junk, and has financed more than 500 product launches totaling more than $4 billion sales worldwide (making millionaires out of many entrepreneurs along the way).

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"Shark Tank," ABC's reality TV show featuring capital-hungry entrepreneurs and five investors holding the pursestrings, is well underway as we near the end of the judges' line-up. The spotlight today is on Daymond John, founder of FUBU The Collection, a multimillion-dollar fashion empire that sprang from fairly humble origins.

In 1992, after some success selling hand-sewn, tie-top hats at concerts and festivals, John recruited some friends, took out a $100,000 mortgage on his mother's house, and launched a branding campaign for an urban clothing line that, roughly five years on, reached a staggering $350 million in revenue.

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With banks turned stingy about handing out small business loans, more and more small business startups are turning to credit cards as the primary vehicle for their business spending needs. We always knew that was risky, but a new study on businesses' credit-card use released by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is enough to chill an entrepreneur's blood. read more...

One of the developments that caught the biggest buzz out of this year's SXSW (that's South by Southwest for newbs) music/film/interactive conclave in Austin is the recent unveiling of the Small Business Web. It's a collaboration among several technology startups focused on small-business apps, including BatchBlue, Freshbooks, MailChimp, Outright and Shoeboxed.

Rather than try to market their offerings separately, they've banded together to promote them through the Small Business Web. From their site: "The Small Business Web is a movement to bring together like-minded, customer-obsessed software companies to integrate our respective products and make life easier for small businesses." What. A. Concept. read more...