Home - ENT 225K - Technical Entrepreneurship - LibGuides at University of Rochester

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We’ve done our best to select the most pertinent materials for these Course Resources pages, but if these are not helping with your topic/project, we encourage you to use the Schedule an Appointment link in the Profile box on this page.

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Here are a few tips to for researching:

Google often isn't helpful. The best business information is not free. However, the library does subscribe to numerous resources.
When using these databases, adjust your search terms if you're not getting the results you hoped for--try synonyms and scour article titles, abstracts, and subject headings in your search results for likely search terms to use. Sometimes a thesaurus or encyclopedia come in handy when brainstorming search terms.
Use double quotes to search multiple words as a phrase (e.g. "new age" finds these terms in exact order).
Use an asterisk to substitute for letters at the end of a word (e.g. crit* finds critic, criticism, critique etc.).
If you can't find what you're looking for, schedule an appointment!

First, you might want to figure out if there are any companies already doing what you're thinking of, or something close to it. The following databases are listed in order of company *size* that they cover: from smallest to largest.

CB Insights This link opens in a new window
Private company and investor database: deals, financing, M&As. Search by funding round or amount, location, name, industry, etc.
Each user must create a login using a UR email address.
PrivCo This link opens in a new window
Private company profiles and financial data (revenue, income statement, balance sheet, etc.), venture capital funding deals and investors, M&A, more.
Each user must create a login using a UR email address.
Yes – you CAN get financial data for private companies! Also very useful for creating lists of companies by geography, industry – with more granular detail than by NAICS or SIC, although those are available as well – rate of growth in revenue or employees, and whether or not the companies are PE/VC backed or not. Useful for career searches or entrepreneurial searches (who else makes this product? How many [x] are located within 50 miles of [place]? Etc.)
Reference Solutions via Data Axle This link opens in a new window
Comprehensive company/residential directory; build lists using 30 variables or Map Based Search. Includes consumer demographics and historical business data.
Reference Solutions is a series of databases from Data Axle, the largest business and residential data compiler in the US. Data is updated on a monthly basis and telephone verified for accuracy, and geocoded. Users can build lists of companies using more than 30 selections such as geography, industry, and employee size. Users can pinpoint their geographical parameters using Reference Solutions' Map Based Search feature which allows radii and polygons to be formed, allowing for the study of very specific areas. Data breakdowns can also be viewed in exportable graphs, charts and heat maps. Plus, the U.S. Historical Businesses database provides 10 years of historical data. Reference Solutions also maintains a database for US Consumers to allow the study of consumer demographics compiled at the individual level. The new US Jobs database is updated hourly with content on current job and internship postings.
OneSource This link opens in a new window
20M+ companies, US/int’l; financials, SWOT analysis, analyst reports, news articles. Search by region, sector, business size, more

Next, you might want to find out more about the "space" in which your idea/business fits - i.e., do some industry research:

Frost & Sullivan This link opens in a new window
Includes both technical reports and market analysis on emerging, high-tech and industrial markets in 50 countries.
Gartner This link opens in a new window
Contains reports on the IT industry and the impact of IT on businesses. Search by market, topic, or industry.
IBISWorld This link opens in a new window
Industry research reports; US & Global. Search by keyword or NAICS code. Market size, competitors, forecasts, valuation, & more. Includes Industry Wizard. The U.S. Spotlight Industry Report collection offers titles focused on ultra-niche industry categories that feature insights in condensed format focused on providing more charts, tables, and graphs
MarketLine GlobalData Intelligence Centers This link opens in a new window
This database provides access to Industry (reports by country), Company, and Country reports, plus Company News, Financial Deals, and Case Studies, Market size, segmentation, competition, and forecasts. MarketLine Explorer capitalizes on actionable intelligence spanning 22 global industries. Combining macroeconomic data and information on thousands of companies, Explorer offers detailed coverage of the global trends that are shaping industries, impacting companies, and driving innovation.
At the login screen, click on IP Access.
Additional modules within MarketLine:
Financial Deals Tracker: Track market activity with MarketLine's database of global mergers and acquisitions (M&A), private equity deals, venture finance deals, private placements, IPOs, and partnerships.
Company Prospector: Screen companies and build lists of potential business partners, clients, and investment targets in industries and countries of interest.
Investment & Advisory Prospector: Identify advisory & investment firms operating in specific industries, and gain insight into the investment and inorganic strategy of companies.
Company Report Generator: Generate fresh custom company reports featuring analytical text and charts which draw on MarketLine's company datasets. Example sections include company overview, history, SWOT analysis, M&A, partnerships and agreements, news and product information.

All Industry & Market Research Databases
Use this link to get to a complete list of all the databases available for industry and market research.

Tweezing market or industry research information out of articles

If you can't find a report specifically on your company/product/industry in our market and industry research databases, you may have to comb the article databases for articles about your company/product/industry, and scan them for data: a statistic here, a percentage there. Yeah, I know, it's a lot more work! Here are your 4 best bets for business articles, in the order in which I would try them:

ABI/INFORM Complete This link opens in a new window
Articles from academic business journals and business trade publications; plus industry reports, some market data, and company profiles from the Experian Commercial Risk database.
For alumni access, see link to Proquest Alumni Edition on the Alumni Library Gateway.
Business Source Premier This link opens in a new window
Contains articles, company and industry reports, marketing reports, and country reports. Includes Harvard Business Review.
Factiva This link opens in a new window
Contains articles on business, news, and companies worldwide, current and historical financial quotes, and company profiles.

Factiva Search Tips
Improve your search experience in Factiva with these useful tips. Really. You NEED to look at this, trust me!

ACM Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Full text from articles and conference papers in computer science and related disciplines.
Compendex This link opens in a new window
Identifies journal articles and other literature on engineering, with some links to full text. Includes the Engineering Village backfile with access back to 1884.
Users should update their passwords.
IEEE Xplore This link opens in a new window
Full text of IEEE and IET journals, magazines, transactions and conference proceedings as well as active IEEE standards. Also includes access to the IEEE eLearning Library.
PubMed This link opens in a new window
Identifies articles in clinical and basic biomedical research as well as in psychology, many with links to full text.
PubMed® comprises more than 30 million citations for biomedical literature from MEDLINE, life science journals, and online books. Citations may include links to full-text content from PubMed Central and publisher web sites. Includes access to molecular and bioinformatic databases from the NCBI system (previous Entrez). Automatically expands (explodes) subject headings. Truncation turns off this automatic expansion of the hierarchical subject headings.
Optics InfoBase (OSA Publishing) This link opens in a new window
Browse or search for fulltext articles from volume 1 to the present in all Optical Society of America journals.
InfoBase also contains recent proceedings from selected OSA conferences.
ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
Journals from Elsevier Science and other publishers. Browse or search tables of contents, abstracts and full text of articles in all disciplines.
Includes the sciences, engineering, humanities, social sciences, and clinical medicine. Full text from 1995 on, except as indicated.
SPIE Digital Library This link opens in a new window
Access to technical papers and monographs in optics, photonics and imaging from SPIE journals, books and conference proceedings.
Google Scholar This link opens in a new window
For off-campus access to full text: Click Scholar Preferences and add Rochester as your Library Link. Be sure to Save Preferences.

Google Patents This link opens in a new window
Patents and patent applications from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Has a thumbnail viewer for drawings.
Sporadically updated. More about Google Patent Search .
FreePatentsOnline This link opens in a new window
Full text and images of U.S. patents from 1974+, U.S. patent applications from 2001+, and European patents 2000+.
View patent images as pdf or other formats.
USPTO Patent Database This link opens in a new window
Full text and images of U.S. patents.
To view the full text patents, a plug-in is required. Go to the USPTO help page for more information. Full text for patents from 1976 - current. Pre-1976 patents are searchable only by patent number and current classification code.
Espacenet This link opens in a new window
Identifies patents from many countries, some with page images.
Japan Platform for Patent Information This link opens in a new window
English machine translations of Japanese patents. Search using links under "Patent & Utility Model".

Business Plans Handbook This link opens in a new window
Includes templates for business plans for start-up companies in a wide range of U.S. industries
Entrepreneurship This link opens in a new window
Contains market reports, articles, business plans, business cases, and sample templates and forms needed by entrepreneurs.
Click the Browse option to access these specific topics: Business Cases; Business Plan Samples; Business Start-Up; Company Profiles; Funding Sources; Guides, Templates and Tools; Legal Issues; Management and Leadership; Marketing and Sales; Operations Management; Profit and Financial Management; Product Development and Management; Special Topics; and Tips and Advice video clips.

Business Plan Books
This link takes you to a list of books on business plans - many of them are electronic; no trip to the library necessary.

Commercialization of Innovative Technologies: bringing good ideas to the marketplace by C. Joseph Touhill; Gregory J. Touhill; Thomas A. O'Riordan
ISBN: 9780470230077
Publication Date: 2008-04-07

Also of interest...

If your project is dealing with sci-tech terms or concepts that aren't very familiar to you, try these sources for more information. (Always helps to understand what you're working on...)

AccessScience This link opens in a new window
Science encyclopedia articles, definitions, biographies, study guides and graphics.
includes McGraw-Hill's Encyclopedia of Science and Technology,9th ed.,McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms, 6th edition,McGraw-Hill Yearbooks of Science and Technology and more. updated daily.
Encyclopedia of Optical and Photonic Engineering, 2nd edition This link opens in a new window
Full text encyclopedia articles in all areas of optical engineering.

Crowd Funding Info Site
Learn about all the crowd funding options out there, and figure out which is right for your project.

Foundation Directory This link opens in a new window
Information on private grant-making foundations, community foundations, operating foundations, and corporate grant makers.
To use off campus, use VPN.
Records include entries from the following Foundation Center print publications: The Foundation Directory, The Foundation Directory, part 2, New York State Foundations, Guide to U.S. Foundations, and National Directory of Corporate Giving. Principal sources of information are voluntary reports by many grant makers directly to the Foundation Center and information obtained from public information returns (990's)filed each year with the Internal Revenue Service by private foundations. Updated monthly, the directory contains information about the largest public and private foundations in the U.S. and links to foundation web sites.

Financing New Ventures : an entrepreneur's guide to business angel investment by Geoffrey Gregson
ISBN: 9781606494738
Publication Date: 2014-01-31

Just a few of our many resources for statistical data, in order from "most local and focused" to "most wide-ranging and possibly odd."

American FactFinder - from the US Census
Easy-to-use, great source for demographic data for the national down to the neighborhood block level.

ProQuest Statistical Insight This link opens in a new window
US and international statistics. Includes full text statistical tables and abstracts of additional statistical sources.
Covers material in American Statistics Index (ASI), Index to International Statistics (IIS) and Statistical Reference Index (SRI). Googling for material not in full text in the database works quite well.
Statista This link opens in a new window
A data aggregation platform with statistics, facts, and market data in a wide range of topic areas.
Downloadable in JPG, XLS, and PPTP.

More Sources for Business Statistics
For more resources, including sources of international and trade data, visit this page.

Entrepreneurship This link opens in a new window
Contains market reports, articles, business plans, business cases, and sample templates and forms needed by entrepreneurs.
Click the Browse option to access these specific topics: Business Cases; Business Plan Samples; Business Start-Up; Company Profiles; Funding Sources; Guides, Templates and Tools; Legal Issues; Management and Leadership; Marketing and Sales; Operations Management; Profit and Financial Management; Product Development and Management; Special Topics; and Tips and Advice video clips.
Entrepreneurship Essential Topics This link opens in a new window
Readings, reports, & predefined search macros for the most important topics in entrepreneurship: start-up, funding, legal etc.
List of topics: Business Cases; Business Plan Samples; Business Start-Up; Company Profiles; Funding Sources; Guides, Templates and Tools; Legal Issues; Management and Leadership; Marketing and Sales; Operations Management; Profit and Financial Management; Product Development and Management; Special Topics; and Tips and Advice video clips. (whew)

Guide to Entrepreneurship Resources
An even more exhaustive (if possible) page of links to databases and websites related to E-ship.
UR Center for Entrepreneurshp Resources Lists
Community, Business, Funding, International Business, and Teaching/Research Resources.

Business Librarian

Kathy Wu

Email Me

Contact:

585-273-5322
I am available for one-on-one virtual consultation through Zoom.

I also hold office hour on Mondays from 2 PM to 3 PM in the Gleason Hall Room 330. Walk-ins are welcome.

Zoom meeting only by appointment at https://rochester.zoom.us/my/kathywu

ENT 225K - Technical Entrepreneurship: Home

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