While certainly not every business needs to raise venture financing, it is the path for many high-growth technology startups. Therefore, going down the fundraising path is something many technology entrepreneurs will need to do and is a critical step in the development of their business. This can be an intimidating experience so I've put together a list of five tips for raising a venture round. This is by no means an exhaustive list so I'd love to hear other suggestions from you in the comments of this post.

If you haven't read my colleague Scott Fulton's post on "The Steve Jobs Formula and Why It Works" go read it right now! It's a very insightful piece written by an expert who literally watched Apple grow up, and there are plenty of lessons for all entrepreneurs in the Steve Jobs formula he spells out. However, to be "fair and balanced" here at ReadWriteWeb I think it's also important to point out some things that as an entrepreneur you'd be well served to disregard. What follows are four factors of the Apple formula to ignore. I'd love to hear what you agree and disagree with in the comments below as well as other factors that should have been included.

I had lunch with one of my favorite Internet entrepreneurs today, Mark Sawyier, the CEO of Off Campus Media. The company provides college students with apartment listings near their schools, and what started out as an idea five years ago is now a multi-million dollar business. Sawyier came to this business without any formal training in computer science, business, management, or other technology training, yet he is a natural when it comes to running a modern-day Internet business. In the short time we spent today, he came up with a few bon mots and wise thoughts that I want to share with those of you that are thinking about starting your own businesses.

Our society puts a lot of emphasis on the college degree as a key step towards job readiness. In doing so, we tend to overlook the other ways in which knowledge and expertise can be shared. These can include internships and mentorships, both of which place student-learners in situations where they can hands-on experience and advice from actual practitioners in their field. And these may be particularly important for those wanting to become tech entrepreneurs as, arguably, a college degree might not be the best preparation.

Earlier this year, the Startup Genome Project launched a survey aiming to to investigate "the science of startups." Much like the Human Genome Project's attempts to crack the human genetic code, the Startup Genome Project hoped to be able to uncover the "innovation code" that drives the success of Silicon Valley technology startups.

"Despite the supreme economic importance of scalable startups, we still don't understand the patterns of successful creation," say the project organizers. "More than 90% of startups fail, due predominantly to self-destruction rather than competition. For the less than 10% of startups that do succeed, most encounter a handful of near death experiences along the way."

There have been a number of narratives in circulation over the last year or so: the "we're in a tech bubble" (or "we're not in a tech bubble") narrative, the "venture capital is in decline" narrative (or "venture capital is broken"). So here's a new one to add to the mix: we're in a "venture capital revival."

That's the argument being made by Clearstone Venture Partner's Managing Director William Quigley. His 50-page report, released today, chronicles the changes to venture capital over the past decade and ends, not with an assessment about the end of VC but rather the possibilities for a stronger future.

A number of new startup accelerator and incubator programs have popped up lately, a response no doubt to the success of the Y Combinator and TechStars programs and the success of the programs' participants. At some level, many of these programs offer similar features: networking, mentoring, office space, and funding.

Many of these new programs are modelled on YC or TechStars, but that doesn't really guarantee their success. So in order to help entrepreneurs have a better understanding of which programs were really worth the time and effort, Aziz Gilani from DFJ Mercury, working in conjunction with Tech Cocktail and the Kellogg School of Management, undertook a research project to actually rank the accelerator programs in the U.S.

Crowdfunding has become a popular way to fund a variety of projects, from small-scale endeavors to large-scale, literally earth-shaping efforts.

It's still not the accepted or the obvious choice for funding your startup, however. But news that the Austin, Texas-based MicroVentures has successfully raised its first $150,000 for three startups via its crowdfunding platform suggests that these alternatives might be viable after all.

MicroVentures is an online investment service that uses peer-to-peer fundraising. The service is meant to help investors from all over the country - both accredited investors and what the company calls "sophisticated investors" - gain access to deal that they wouldn't ordinarily see. It also allows them to invest smaller amounts.

Businesses, startups especially, always have a hard time sourcing quality candidates for new jobs, even if they have big budgets for a Human Resources team or outside recruiters who can scrape around and find leads.

But for startups and small businesses looking to hire for new positions in order to operate at optimal speed, hiring new team members that work out in the long-run can be one of the more difficult challenges.

There'’s nothing more inefficient than hiring a new person, on-boarding them (“showing them the ropes”), reviewing their input a month later, then realizing it’s not working out. You lose time and money, both of which are on short-supply for all startups. So, here are a few tips that startups should keep in mind to ensure they'’re hiring the right candidates for their jobs the first time around.

Entrepreneurs always seem to have great insights to share derived from their very real experiences. Unlike most people, many entrepreneurs are an open book, willing to share everything they know and have done with anyone willing to listen. They're thankful for all those other entrepreneurs they looked up to when they were just starting out, who were sharing all of their great, unfiltered wisdom.

In no particular order, here is a list of top marketing blogs written by entrepreneurs who, rather than just being analysts and observers of how great marketing works, have implemented successful marketing campaigns for their businesses.