In this guest contribution to the 1871 blog, Fillo’s co-founder Daniel Caballero talks about overcoming challenges while getting his product on the shelf and in front of consumers. Now on shelves across Chicago and online, Caballero shares his insight into what it takes to get from idea to sales to scale.

Rather than trying to take on increasingly large and powerful companies, a better strategy is to make your firm essential by fusing with their infrastructure.

Jane Shersher, an 1871 mentor and founder of Ava Today -- which helps businesses and entrepreneurs stem burnout in the workplace, shares some simple tricks to handling stress.

 We've talked and worried for years about the potential harm to businesses that unforeseen results and unintended consequences can cause, especially when the companies involved are new and relatively immature. When you read the typical after-action analyses, which try to make sense of these seemingly "abrupt" changes or the "surprise" upsets, they are almost always directed toward studying how well or poorly the particular actor, entity, or business fared as a result of the inability to anticipate or mitigate the nasty changes brought about by its own deliberate actions. Of course, these kinds of problems don't simply effect newbies.

Christina Holloway is an 1871 mentor, and a leadership and development business coach. In this mentor insights blog, she talks about the value business coaches can bring to entrepreneurs and how to go about finding the right fit.

Formerly BP's global head of marketing, Anna Catalano has over 30 years of corporate experience and now sits on multiple boards. Here she shared her unique insights into the glass ceiling and the assumptions placed upon women in the workplace which often serve as barriers to advancement.

If there were a looking-glass that showed Chicago’s future, it would have been on stage August 16 at 1871. Digi.City Connect -- a multi-city series of discussions with lawmakers, government officials, technologists and corporations -- made a stop in Chicago to discuss the social and economic impact of smart city technologies with several local experts.

1871 held its latest quarterly Fintech Forum, in partnership with Capco, to showcase thought leaders in the fintech space and increase the interactions between startups and corporate partners in this critical and rapidly expanding area. Read on for a few key takeaways and some cybersecurity tips from our experts.

The quest for funding can be a daunting challenge. Whether you're an entrepreneur or an intrapreneur, one “NO” might be all it takes to kill the project. 1871 mentor Alan Mindlin of The Morey Corporation walks through common pitfalls and how to avoid them with the goal of getting to "Yes."

We need to recognize that a large segment of our workforce needs a skills upgrade. There's no single path or one-way approach that suits every situation, but there are a few important ground rules to get you started. And let's be clear that these aren't necessarily politically correct observations; they are, rather, today's facts of life.