Posts by Mark Darwin
AI in the Workplace Stalls When Leaders Stay on the Sidelines
If you bought your team AI tools and then watched almost nobody touch them, Microsoft’s 2026 Work Trend Index research suggests the problem is probably not the software. Adoption tracks manager behavior far more closely than it tracks features, and the gap between the two is measurable. That is oddly reassuring news for a small…
Read MoreWomen Entrepreneurs Get a Shot at the Entreprenista 100
Applications for the Entreprenista 100 Awards opened this morning, announced September 8 by Entreprenista Media in New York. The program names the top 100 women business owners of 2026 and judges them on innovation, leadership, revenue growth and community impact. I used to tell founders that awards were a distraction from building. I was wrong…
Read MoreBusiness Signage Sways 84% of Shoppers, New Survey Finds
Your sign is doing more selling than you think, according to a national survey Signarama released September 8. Eighty-four percent of Americans said business signage influences whether they buy from a company, and 39% said they have walked in purely because of what was hanging outside. That is a conversion channel most founders never optimize.…
Read MoreTips for Entrepreneurs to Protect Their Business and Assets
Building any kind of business is risky, but having the right systems in place can protect your money and ideas before a dispute arises. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Below are some of the easiest ways to reduce your exposure to risk. 1. Keep business and personal finances separate Maintaining boundaries between your business…
Read MoreSmall Business Hiring Slows While Pay Keeps Climbing
Small business hiring cooled again last month, according to the Gusto Small Business Jobs Report published September 3. Small employers added roughly 29,500 net new jobs in August on a seasonally adjusted basis, extending a streak that has now run seven straight months. If you have been staring at a job posting wondering whether to…
Read MoreLTL Freight: 5 Ways Merchants Cut Heavy Shipping Costs
ShipStation has pulled less-than-truckload shipping into its main platform, so small and mid-sized sellers can quote, book and track LTL freight in the same place they already handle boxes. If you sell anything heavy, that single change removes a tab you have been switching to for years. I used to tell founders that heavy products…
Read MoreWhy Startups Fail: Record Funding, Record Shutdowns
SimpleClosure, a firm that handles company wind downs, has published its shutdown data for the first half of 2026, and the picture is more useful than the headline suggests. Anyone asking why startups fail will find the answer sitting in a bank balance rather than in a market thesis. The data covers US companies the…
Read MoreMerchant of Record Push Opens Emerging Markets Faster
Payments company dLocal has launched dMoRe, a merchant of record service aimed at companies that want to sell into fast-growing consumer markets without opening an office there. The announcement landed on August 26, 2026, and it targets a bottleneck founders know intimately. Here is the growth angle. Most teams do not stall in a new…
Read MoreBuild vs Buy Flips as AI Lets Companies Ship In House
Roughly a third of organizations have turned down at least one software purchase and written the thing themselves with agentic coding tools, according to McKinsey’s latest global survey of business leaders. The build vs buy question, settled for most of the past decade in favor of buying, is open again. That matters to anyone selling…
Read MoreFraud Prevention Draws $156M as Socure Buys Fravity
A quiet corner of financial infrastructure just repriced, because Socure raised $156 million at a $5.2 billion valuation and acquired an AI startup on the same day. Summit Partners led the round, with Goldman Sachs Alternatives, Wells Fargo and Docusign participating. Numbers this large can feel remote from a ten-person company. The mechanics underneath are…
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