Last week, I had the opportunity to attend the 4th annual Big Omaha conference in Omaha, NE, organized by the awesome folks at Silicon Prairie News. If you’re not familiar with Big Omaha, you can read why I love this entrepreneurship conference so much here and here (this was my third time attending).

In addition to an amazing group of entrepreneurs attending the conference, this year’s festivities included a fantastic group of speakers. Below are the 7 big lessons I took away from this year’s Big Omaha conference.

We’re excited to announce that early bird tickets are now on sale for our June Chicago event entitled “Make Your Passion Your Next Startup“.  Join us the evening of June 19 at the Chopin Theatre in Chicago to hear 3 amazing entrepreneurs share stories about how they turned their passions into real businesses.

Click here to buy your early bird tickets now and save 33% off the door price!

Join us for an intimate evening of networking, quality Q+A, and real stories from real experiences.  You’ll learn actionable lessons and get great advice from:

• Jake Nickell - Co-Founder of Threadless
• Desiree Vargas Wrigley - Co-Founder of GiveForward
• Joshua Hernandez - Founder of Tap.me!

Click here to buy your early bird tickets now and save 33% off the door price!

This is a guest post from Abbie Steinbacher, who is CEO and founder of the kids wellness company, My First Yoga. My First Yoga provides kids yoga outreach to schools and has a growing line of kids yoga products. Abbie and MyFirstYoga have been recognized in outlets such as The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Parenting Magazine, Parents Magazine, Yoga Journal and The Boston Globe. Abbie has a degree in Psychology from Harvard, and is a certified adult and children’s yoga instructor.

The opposing forces of the economy tanking and technological advances soaring have created a prime environment for first-time entrepreneurs. That said, “entrepreneur” has become a buzz word associated with the few startup founders we’ve watched become millionaires, and even billionaires, overnight. As the media catapults these successful entrepreneurs to celebrity status, the separation between “us” aspiring entrepreneurs and “them” — the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world — grows. This growing separation can cloud your entrepreneurial pathway with unnecessary mystery.

A few weeks ago, I watched a TED talk that won’t escape my mind. It was about embracing vulnerability, something seemingly simple, but actually extraordinarily difficult. See people have a hard time dealing with emotion and expectations. They are much more likely to put something they can’t deal with in an emotional jar rather than confronting it. For example, people thrive on connection. Yet they are afraid to make connections (like go out and join a club) because they are afraid of rejection. If they can overcome the fear of rejection, they can embrace opportunities to meet new people and have new experiences (also known as factors of happiness).

I’m always on the prowl for a new spot to plug in, get my caffeine, and work. Luckily, three new Chicago spots have recently opened that offer an alternative to Starbucks.

Being an entrepreneur is similar to being a newlywed: everyone has a piece of advice to “gift” you with. Some are helpful—hire people who have a proven track record; some aren’t—don’t be an entrepreneur, you’ll never have a life! Some advice will be just plain weird—spray your business cards with perfume to make yourself more memorable (huh?). Among the mixed bag of advice you’ll hear throughout your career, here are three best pieces of advice I ever received and will always treasure.

This is a guest post from Thursday Bram. She’s the editor of 21times.org, a daily newsletter on how to turn a side project into a startup.

You’ve got that perfect idea for a startup — the one that you know is going to revolutionize the way everyone spends the time they currently spend on FarmVille. It’s nothing like anything that’s come before, and that’s something of a problem. Unless you are one of the best programmers the world has ever seen, a revolutionary startup may come with some serious technical challenges. And if you aren’t even a programmer, handling the technology at your startup can be a serious challenge.

So how do you get from an amazing idea to a world-changing startup?

I get a kick out of telling people I am currently a developer. While going through Code Academy, I have gotten a rare glimpse into what every non-technical entrepreneur both reveres and is mystified by: the mind of the developer. There are consistently two paradigms I think every entrepreneur, technical or non, should adopt.

It’s hard to believe that a month of Code Academy has flown by. On one hand, I feel completely exposed to an amazing new world and language I can relate to. On the other, I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface and there is an ocean of knowledge I will never be able to acquire. The more you know, the more you realize you truly don’t know.