Author: wildgreenquest@gmail.com

Published August 9, 2026 04:29AMAs wildfires prompt evacuations across the Pacific Northwest, and smoke blankets much of North America, some Americans are reportedly placing online bets  on how large the blazes will grow, when they’ll be contained, and how much damage they’ll leave behind.Lawmakers warn that gambling on wildfires creates a dangerous incentive for arson. On August 3, nine U.S. senators including Alex Padilla and Amy Klobuchar wrote a letter to Michael Selig, the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the regulatory body overseeing derivatives markets, pressing regulators to stop the growing online practice of gambling on wildfires. The senators argued that…

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways The springtime of your career encompasses those early years when you’re busy planting the seeds of new ideas and dreaming of the future. It’s all about potential. The summer of your career is when you start making investments, cultivating the seeds you planted years ago, then carefully pruning and protecting your business ideas so they can grow. Autumn is harvesting season — you’re reaping what you’ve sown. And winter is a time for taking stock of what you have and preparing for the future. We don’t get to be young…

Published August 8, 2026 03:59AMI have dreamed of rafting the Colorado River through the length of the Grand Canyon for as long as I can remember. My parents met on a river trip on the Rio Grande and raised my brother and me on a healthy diet of skiing, backpacking, and weekends paddling or kayaking alpine lakes and streams of the Colorado Rockies. Ending up on a whitewater trip through the Grand Canyon always seemed inevitable.This past May, I finally got my chance. By the time I pushed my raft off from Lee’s Ferry, the official starting point for most…

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways Expansion doesn’t create scale — it exposes whether you built one. If your first location only runs because you’re personally present every day, you don’t have a scalable company; you have a demanding job with a good revenue stream. Founders who scale successfully approach expansion with a franchise mindset: documented processes, operational culture, developed leaders and consistently profitable original locations that can absorb the complexity a second site introduces. When entrepreneurs talk about expansion, most conversations focus on revenue, opportunity and growth. Very few people talk about the operational pressure…

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways Failure only becomes final when you stop learning from it — the founders who recover well conduct an honest post-mortem, separate emotion from evidence and extract one clear lesson that changes how they operate. Your reputation during difficult moments is one of the most valuable assets you have, because the people you work with on a failed venture often become the investors, partners and hires who back your next one. A few years ago, I helped start a company called Kitchen Data Systems. At the time, ghost kitchens were exploding.…

Key Takeaways Michael Browning Jr. is the founder and CEO of Unleashed Brands, the $1 billion youth enrichment platform company that includes Urban Air, The Little Gym and Sylvan Learning. Unleashed Brands has more than 1,600 locations nationwide and serves more than 25 million people. In 2025, Unleashed Brands opened 133 new franchise locations with more than 200 franchises in development. When Michael Browning Jr. tried to launch a trampoline park in 2011, every bank and investor rejected him. His age was a factor — he was 26 years old at the time. Investors said he was too young and that…

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways A media mention is one of the cheapest, most durable trust assets you will ever own — but it only converts when you place it exactly where a buyer hesitates. The prestige of the outlet matters far less than the position of the logo: a modest write-up beside a checkout button will out-convert a national name buried in your footer. The first time I helped a client land a feature in a publication they cared about, they did what almost everyone does. They grabbed the logo, dropped a tidy row…

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways The 15-minute, no-code setup that turns one Google Sheet and one set of instructions into your own AI chief of staff. The daily system that reads your sales, traffic and leads, chooses the highest-value move and keeps you focused until it is done. How your agent catches distraction, fatigue or falling sales, then rearranges your calendar and dispatches specialist help Most million-dollar goals do not fail because the founder lacks ambition. They fail at 10:17 on an ordinary Tuesday, when the founder opens a laptop to work on revenue and…

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Key Takeaways Buyers do most of their homework before they ever contact you — which makes your search results the first sales conversation, whether you show up for it or not. You don’t have to be famous to win the first page of your own name — you have to be deliberate, with a current profile, recent evidence of earned expertise and enough consistent signal that a skeptical buyer decides you are credible today. A prospect once booked a call with me and opened by quoting something I had written in an…

Raising capital in 2026 is more competitive than ever, but there are also more ways for entrepreneurs to fund their businesses — if they understand how to validate demand, prove traction, and choose the right funding strategy. On September 15th at 2:00 PM ET, join Andrew Albert, Programs Director at The Idea Village, for a free live virtual event on how to raise capital and fund your business in today’s market. Andrew is a seasoned leader in entrepreneurship and investment strategy, with deep experience helping founders refine their business models, understand investor expectations, and secure the right kind of funding…