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How Sweet Spot, a hair removal salon, used Blue Calypso's word-of-mouth solution to generate sales and repeat clients, something LivingSocial had failed to do. The Company: The Sweet Spot, a Dallas hair removal salon that specializes in sugaring, an alternative to waxing The Goal: Attract customers to the newly opened salon The Execution: The Sweet Spot's founder, Erin Cox, noticed links to products and services on her friends' Facebook Walls that looked a lot like promotions. She followed the links and realized they all originated from Blue Calypso, a mobile marketing platform through which businesses reward people for sharing ads via Twitter, Facebook, or text message.

Main Street Hub, a start-up that wants to help you manage your reputation on social media, received $2.6 million in funding.

It's been a rocky road to going public for Groupon, which has faced scrutiny from investors, analysts, and the SEC leading up to its October 24 IPO road show. Scott Sweet , the senior managing partner of IPO Boutique, a Tampa-based firm that advises companies on the road to going public, says that in his 39 years of analyzing initial public offerings, he's never seen anything like this.

Pawngo lets entrepreneurs pawn Rolexes, gold coins, and cameras in exchange for quick business loans. And it's blowing up.

Online storage start-up Dropbox raised $250 million for its expansion, one of the largest fundraising rounds in Silicon Valley this year. Online storage start-up Dropbox announced it has raised $250 million for its expansion, one of the largest fundraising rounds in Silicon Valley this year. The investment values the company at $4 billion.

When does a performer's “endorsement” of Occupy Wall Street cross over into exploitation? Music and protest have long gone hand in blistered hand

The New York City company describes itself as "people-powered antivirus for bills." Personal finance security start-up BillGuard, which describes itself as "people-powered antivirus for bills," has closed $10 million in second-round financing. The New York City-based company scans credit card bills for unauthorized, wrong, or deceptive charges using a combination of algorithms, complaints posted on the Internet about scams, and feedback from users (the last bit being the "people-powered" part of the equation).

Time is running out to register for Innovation Uncensored in San Francisco. We're only three weeks away and we're excited! Can you blame us? The CEOs of eBay, Ticketmaster, SolarCity, craigslist, Virgin America, Startup America Partnership, Erly, Livestrong, and Path are coming.

One of the best ways to make sure the wealthy's money benefits society is to make sure they don't waste it--so that they can give it away. That might be a bitter pill for #OccupyWallStreeters to swallow.

In a Q&A with Inc.com, OfficeMax founder argues that consensus-building is over-rated. Sometimes a leader just has to decide. Michael Feuer started OfficeMax from scratch in 1988, and built the office-supply chain into a 1,000-store behemoth before selling it to Boise Cascade Corp

In a Q&A with Inc.com, OfficeMax founder argues that consensus-building is over-rated. Sometimes a leader just has to decide

They're protesting big banks and corporations, so which start-ups are Occupy Wall Street looking to for collecting donations and financing a new media endeavor? The Occupy Wall Street protesters who have been camping out in Lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park since September 17 may be rallying against big-bank policies, but they've simultaneously needed an efficient method to fund their own efforts.

They're protesting big banks and corporations, so which start-ups are Occupy Wall Street looking to for collecting donations and financing a new media endeavor? The Occupy Wall Street protesters who have been camping out in Lower Manhattan's Zuccotti Park since September 17 may be rallying against big-bank policies, but they've simultaneously needed an efficient method to fund their own efforts. To that end, they've turned away from large companies, instead working with start-ups in the online-payment and crowdfunding space

The next time you hear a story touting a new miracle biofuel ingredient, know that a new report just found that the nature-based oil won't be making an impact for decades. Every day, it seems, we hear about a new item that can be turned into a biofuel. If everything can be a biofuel, though, shouldn't we be using them already?

Productivity is a hot topic because so many people (especially entrepreneurs) are productivity-challenged.