How do you trade the comforts of a job you know well for the unknown of entrepreneurship? Just-retired race car driver Danica Patrick is finding out. June 27, 2018 16 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. This story appears in the July 2018 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »[1][2][3] In the weeks leading up to Danica Patrick’s final IndyCar race this past May, she spent her time the way most drivers do -- practicing on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and running through details with her team. But with about two weeks to go before she’d suit up professionally for the last time, she is summoned to do a little salesmanship. A group of teenage girls has been assembled at the speedway’s main building, and NASCAR has asked Patrick to give them a pep talk about the exciting possibilities of a career in professional auto racing. Related: How Successful People Stay Productive and In Control[4]Who better for the job? Almost nobody, really. Patrick is one of the few women to find success[5] in motorsports, a pursuit -- and a business -- long dominated by men. From her spectacular run in open-wheel racing, where she became the first, and still only, woman to win an IndyCar Series race, to her transition to stock-car racing, to her recurring pit stops to star in a run of head-turning Super Bowl ads for internet services powerhouse GoDaddy, Patrick has been one of the most recognizable figures in racing for the past 13 years.And yet, as she stands now at the front of a conference room, looking out at this gathering of hopeful adolescent faces, Patrick can’t help veering off script. “Find something you actually frickin’ like to do!” she advises the junior high schoolers, who giggle in response. Maybe that’s auto racing,…

'The ones who don't quit are the ones who ultimately survive and lead their businesses,' says Samasource founder Leila Janah. June 15, 2018 8 min read In this series, Open Every Door, Entrepreneur staff writer Nina Zipkin shares her conversations with leaders about understanding what you have to offer, navigating the obstacles that will block your path, identifying opportunity and creating it for yourself and for others.[1]Samasource[2] and LXMI [3]founder and CEO Leila Janah describes herself as a real optimist. “I believe that if something doesn't exist, and I believe that it should exist, that I can will it into existence,” she says.It’s that mindset that helped her stand her ground with the Samasource board chair when she wanted to invest more into creating initiatives that would tie back into her initial vision: moving people out of poverty via access to work opportunities and technological skills. Her argument to the board was simple. She would step down as the company’s leader if she would not be able to see her goals for the company through. Janah’s conviction won out in the end and since then, her company’s sales have quadrupled.“I woke up in this period and thought, wait a minute, I'm running a multimillion dollar business here with Google and Microsoft as clients, who I recruited. The idea is mine. I built a whole team,” Janah recalled to Entrepreneur." I absolutely deserve not just to have a seat at the table around strategy, but to set the strategy. That's my job."In 2008, Janah launched Samasource as a nonprofit business to help women in low-income and marginalized communities in East Africa, South Asia and the Americas find employment through the internet. A digital skills spinoff initiative called Samaschool launched in 2015.Janah is also the founder of organic skincare brand LXMI, which…

Reader Resource Tune in June 28 and learn how to unlock the power of customer data in our free webinar. Register Now »[1] The Virtual Data Room (VDR), a more secure version of conventional cloud storage, is becoming increasingly popular in 2017[2]. This digital system is commonly used to advance online data transactions and corporate exchanges. Its technology allows negotiating parties in a business deal to exchange crucial information more rapidly, regardless of the distance between them.Related: Why Your Business Absolutely Needs a Virtual Data Room[3]Moreover, due to VDR's paperless transactions, legal documents can be processed much faster, since there's no need to look through hard copies, which can be tedious. Manufacturers are further improving on these features by creating advanced access controls and verification protocols that guarantee better security, as well as data privacy.As of April 2016, it was estimated that market revenues for VDR companies were more than $800 million[4], with annual growth rates for individual companies increasing by double digits. Based on these positive statistics, it's safe to say that the popularity of virtual data rooms is not going to fade away any time soon.Potential for the futureVDR technology provides many unique advantages and benefits to business deal-makers[5]. For instance, the due diligence and detection requirements associated with corporate transactions make these online data rooms the most ideal solution for discussing corporate deals.Additionally, as IT deployment capabilities and infrastructures continue to grow, so will the number of advanced features that VDR provides to users. This will improve sales, marketing and support standards for companies, as various business processes will be completed much faster.How VDR can improve discoveryVirtual data room[6] technology allows users to share sensitive documents/files in hierarchically organized structures. Furthermore, it allows for the use of digital mechanisms such as semantic tags, instead of crosslink-specific line…