Now, more than ever, startup organizations are popping up and even moving to the Heartland. But what is it about the Midwest that has these startups trading the opportunity to sit beachside for flatland and grass? In other words, how are cities like Minneapolis, Indianapolis, Kansas City, and Madison luring new businesses to their respective states?

The Midwest is outgrowing the “Flyover Country” nickname, and it isn’t by accident. The lower costs, abundance of talent, and business-friendly policies found in the Midwest region all favor startup organizations. In fact, Forbes recently ranked the Best States for Business in 2016, and seven of the top fifteen are Midwest states. You read that right: half of the top fifteen states for business are located in the Midwest.

Our friends at M25 Group recently dug into this with their assessment of the best startup cities in the Midwest.

Still don’t believe it? Here are a few more reasons:

You have an idea. You form a company. Now you want to raise money from investors (or even friends and family), maybe through the sale of ownership, borrowing money, or a loan that could convert into ownership in the future. Seems straightforward, right?

Well, all of those interests and rights that you are considering are almost certainly going to be classfied as “securities” under applicable law.  Selling securities, in fact, is a complex process that requires careful navigation and thoughtful representation to not only protect your position from an ownership and contractual standpoint, but to ensure you’re abiding by both federal and state laws, and regulations issued in connection with the same by enforcement arms such the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

When it comes to selling securities, you have essentially three options:

 I love baseball - the sport (the athleticism required, the explosiveness, the coordination), the game (the strategy, knowledge of the game and its intricacies), and of course the competition.  Baseball season is officially under way.  Pitchers and catchers have reported for MLB spring training, last Friday was opening day of college baseball and winter practices have started for youth baseball.   

For several years now, I've been coaching youth baseball and one of my favorite things about coaching is watching a young boy transform over a season of baseball - turning from that scared boy timidly stepping into that scary batter’s box, all alone to the confident plate pounding little man child ready to knock it out of the park. The thoughts running through his head

This week, we continue our analysis and recommendations on Indiana’s $1B investment in innovation through industry initiatives. To read through each part of our series to date, start here. The Indiana Economic Development Council’s 4^th area of focus states:

In April and June, we published blog posts about changes in overtime laws for the white collar exemptions set to take effect on December 1, 2016 (see Changes in Overtime Laws are Coming and Update: Changes in Overtime Laws are Coming). Yesterday, an Eastern District of Texas Judge issued a nationwide injunction barring the implementation of the new overtime rules.  This means that for now, the salary thresholds for the white collar exemptions remain unchanged and are not increasing.