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Sometimes growth is almost impossible without a significant chunk of money and other resources to fuel that growth.

If you're hoping to raise venture capital next year, check out the following advice from Ashish Rangnekar, the co-founder of BenchPrep, creators of test prep and subject-based interactive courses for computers, mobile phones, and tablets. BenchPrep raised over $2 million in 2010 and an additional $6 million earlier this year.

Here are Rangnekar's tips, in his own words:

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When entrepreneur and Inc. 30 Under 30 alum Nikhil Arora received an email from the White House last Thursday to attend a small business meeting, he didn’t know exactly what to expect or even who from the Obama administration would be present.

Nicholas Kamm | AFP | Getty Images President Barack Obama speaks on the economy. bama made his first post-election intervention in a brewing year-end budget and spending crisis, laying out his position in a televised statement ahead of intense bargaining with Republicans.

He said it was only “one or two days” before the now highly publicized meeting took place Tuesday that he found out President Obama himself would lead a conversation on how to avoid the impending fiscal cliff with a group of 15 entrepreneurs.

“I didn’t expect that level of engagement from the administration,” said the co-founder of Back to the Roots, a company that makes mushroom growing kits from recycled coffee grounds. “This was not a presentation, it was an active back-and-forth discussion.”

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For years the day after Thanksgiving has been dedicated to the shopping madness known as Black Friday. But this year, as the New York Times, reported, opening hours creep meant more and more retailers were letting in shoppers ever earlier--even on turkey day itself.

Stores were motivated by the hope that longer hours would lead to higher sales. "The lesson of 2011 was clear: earlier shopping hours were good for the top line," reports the Times.

If you're a small business in the retail space you might look at this trend and conclude that you too need to keep up with this opening hours arms race and open on holidays. But that would be a mistake, argued Zeynep Ton, a professor of operations at MIT's Sloan School of Management, on the HBR Blog Network recently.

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For e-commerce startups, Cyber Monday may soon take on a second moniker: “Mobile Monday.”

Nearly 13 percent of total web-based purchases on Cyber Monday occurred on mobile devices, almost double the amount of mobile sales last year, according to the IBM

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“Rather than experiment with mobile commerce like we saw last holiday season, companies are now embracing it,” said Marshall Cohen, chief industry analyst at The NPD Group.

(Read more: Feeling Hopeful, More Americans Embrace Entrepreneurship: Report)

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In a sign that more Americans are feeling upbeat about their economic prospects, more people were running or starting new businesses in 2011 — the highest level since 2005, according to a study released Thursday.

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More than 29 million Americans were engaged in entrepreneurship last year — a 60 percent gain from 2010, according to a report issued by Babson College and Baruch College. And nearly 40 percent of these entrepreneurs are expected to create more than five new jobs during the next five years.

“There is renewed interest in entrepreneurship,” said Donna J. Kelley, associate professor of Entrepreneurship at Babson College.

(Read more: A Pitch Fest for Entrepreneurs)

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Many small businesses have a reason to be jolly this holiday season. Despite lingering economic concerns, Small Business Saturday sales data is slightly better than expected.

Thos Robinson | WireImage | Getty Image Chloe Sevigny, at Other Music, shops locally for Small Business Saturday founded by American Express on November 26, 2011.

U.S. Consumers spent $5.5 billion at small businesses on Saturday Nov. 24, according to the Small Business Saturday Consumer Insights Survey, released yesterday by the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and American Express

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Pre-holiday surveys estimated that shoppers would spend $5.3 billion. Since this is the first year NFIB and Amex have tracked consumer spending on Small Business Saturday, here is no comparable sales data for previous years.

(Read more: Guess What? Small Business Saturday Worked)

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Source: Twitter

Deena Varshavskaya had a hotter-than-hot idea for a start-up business, but she didn't have the dough to do much about it.

So, she posted her idea on AngelList, a website that connects entrepreneurs with deep-pocketed angel investors willing to financially back folks like her. These investors — who like to seed startups — typically have more than $1 million in the bank or make more than $200,000 a year. (Read more: A Pitch Fest for Entrepreneurs)

Her idea: a Pinterest-like social-media outlet where users create collections of products they like from online stores. Within two weeks, her first potential investor offered a hefty $500,000. But she turned it down because she was receiving even better offers from others around the world.

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I've come to accept that very little business, aside from retail, gets done between Thanksgiving and January 3rd. After a few years of chasing people who were party bouncing or traveling, I decided to simply disconnect in December. In 2009, a month in London helped me flesh out a new book concept. Last year, a month spent in Vietnam was an eye opening cultural learning experience. (I was fairly eye opening for my new Vietnamese in-laws as well.)

Joshua Hodge Photography | E+ | Getty Images

Whether you are going to cruise the party scene, manage the buying rush or simply disconnect, there is no reason you have to let the holidays be less than productive for your business and career. I have personally found a combination of engagement and distance works best for me. Here are the five Rs I will follow this year to maximize the potential of my holiday activities.

(Read more: What Big Companies Get From Helping Small Companies)

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