Khan Academy (Raising Capital)

The Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.com) is a great resource for entrepreneurs looking to understand the process of raising capital- from family and friends on up to venture capital. I have listed a few of the video’s in the Venture Capital section, but you really should explore the site.  Khan started teaching his niece, who was living in a different state, calculus by creating mini youtube videos. He made the videos public and soon realized others found the videos helpful. He decided to leave his job at a hedge fund (so you can bet his financial videos are thorough) and started Khan Academy to devote all of his resources toward creating educational videos. By far the best part about this is Khan himself- he has a very witty sense of humor and I get a kick out of listening to the various inflections in his voice.  If only you could see his face during the videos, I bet he’s cracking himself up. Why not right?

Education Made Easy

I continue to think companies who can combine gaming and education in innovative ways will be big winners moving forward. One company I have had tremendous fun and success learning with is Memrise.com

Although there is room for improvement the site has been extremely helpful with my foray into learning Italian, and also helpful with refreshing my knowledge of painters and other artists. They use the analogy of growing plants to frame the process involved in creating a long term memory- you need to water it daily to make the plant (“memory”) grow and eventually stick.  I think if they added some gaming components the site would be an even bigger success. Try it out and let me know what you think, its free for now so enjoy.