Some of the top venture capitalists, including Sequoia and Benchmark, are warning of looming problems for start-ups. In fact, we are already seeing layoffs at some VC-backed companies, such as Zillow and AdBrite.

The new mantra is: cut costs and get to profitability -- and fast.

I think it's good advice, whether your company is seeking venture capital or not.

It should also be no surprise that there has been a downtrend in VC fundings lately. A report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association shows that there was $7.1 billion in VC investment in Q3, a 7% drop from Q2.

It's a good bet that the decline will continue. Basically, the IPO market is dead and M&A activity is fairly slow, making it difficult for VCs to get returns.

So does this mean you should forget about VC funding? Not necessarily. No doubt, the market is still large and VCs continue to find opportunities, especially at lower valuations.

However, it's critical that a company meet the tough criteria that VCs look for:

Talk to anyone about what little technology company has a chance at being the Next Big Thing in social media, and chances are you'll hear the name "Twitter." Everyone's twittering about Twitter, even my mom knows all about it. News of the platform's $15 million funding round has been making the rumor rounds for over a month,

Today the rumors were confirmed with news of the funding on the Twitter blog, and a new nugget: Jeffrey Bezos of Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) is one of the funders, through his personal investment company, Bezos Expeditions. The company didn't confirm the size of the round (or so much of a whisper of the company's valuation), but said they would spend the money on the always-aching infrastructure and reliability.

As my favorite media analysis guy Marshall Kirkpatrick says, "As founders are concerned, Bezos could be called Mr. Scalability - making this an awesome partnership to tackle Twitter's biggest obstacle." It may not prove great things for Twitter's one-day IPO; Bezos certainly hasn't proven to be a brilliant generator of shareholder value -- but for today, it's proof that the great idea has a lot of legs.

In light of the mega deals from Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL), IBM (NYSE: IBM), and SAP (NYSE: SAP), the buzz is that business software is dead. How can small- and mid-sized players compete?

Well, I think there's still life in the sector. Take a look at the on-demand operators, such as Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) and NetSuite. They are disrupting existing markets – and growing at break-neck speeds.

We are also seeing some new-fangled Web 2.0 players enter the market. Take Huddle.net, which announced a venture capital round of $4 million (the investor is Eden Ventures).

Basically, the company realizes that the MySpace/Facebook generations want a different approach to software. As a result, Huddle.net has a cool system that allows for online workspaces, which even allow for social networking.

True, I know many think that this is a fad. Ironically enough, that's probably good news for Huddle.net. It allows the company to build out its offerings and learn form customer interactions.

In fact, for the past six months, Huddle.net has seen 25% growth in new users per month.

If you want to check out other cool venture capital deals, visit DealProfiles.com.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

If you take a look at the stories of great entrepreneurs – such as Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT)'s Sam Walton, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT)'s Bill Gates, and Howard Schultz of Starbucks (NASDAQ: SBUX) – you will see that they had the help of mentors and advisors.

After all, being an entrepreneur can be lonely, stressful and challenging. And it's often difficult to get solid advice.

"I can't overstate the importance of mentors in my life," said Ben Casnocha. Ben started his first business at 14 years old, and even wrote a book on his experiences, My Start-Up Life: What a (Very) Young CEO Learned on His Journey Through Silicon Valley.

So where do you find mentors? Ben recommends lots of networking. In fact, he considers the Small Business Administration's SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) a great resource (and it's free).

But be wary. Make sure you do lots of background research on the people you like. You might realize that they really aren't a good fit.

When VMIX got started several years ago, the company realized that online video would be big. So why not be the mega brand in the category?

But thankfully, the company changed its strategy. "While YouTube was still young," said Greg Kostello, the CEO of VMIX, "we realized that they were getting lots of traction and may become the category killer."

As a sign of its success, VMIX raised $16.5 million last week. The investors include JK&B Capital, ATA Ventures, Mission Ventures and Enterprise Partners.

VMIX has built a rich media platform, which allows for not only videos, but also blogs, slide shows, and even social networking. "We focus on technology," said Kostello, "And our customers focus on what they are good at. That is, creating great content."

More than 190 websites use VMIX's technology – handling more than 60 million monthly unique visitors. Customers include Tribune Interactive (NYSE: TRB), Media General (NYSE: MEG), and Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE).

Also visit DealProfiles for more recent venture capital activity.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.

AOL Money & Finance recently provided us with an insightful article regarding the current and future condition of our nation's government-administered retirement system. That article, written by Richard Wolf for USA Today, was as good an explanation of the current state of the Social Security funding horror that I've ever read. What Mr. Wolf failed to hammer home was the fact that this situation isn't really news. I officially entered the manufacturing work force in 1979, and I'll tell you what folks, I knew at that time that the Social Security system would most likely be nothing to me but a tax on my income. I didn't expect I'd ever get a dime from SS then, and I still don't.

Honestly now, why not just stop howling about it and accept the reality of the whole mess? Those clowns in DC have tangled our courts, hamstrung our unions, disemboweled our public schools, castrated our military, flattened our industrial base and they're doing a fine job of bankrupting our retirement system. Did you really expect any different? Did you think that a government riddled with millionaire businessmen and back-room lawyers would vote themselves a wage freeze until they got things straightened out for the rest of us? HA! I'm just glad that I'm able to work two jobs so I can afford to pay my full state and federal tax burdens and still have the $2,000 it will cost me to heat my tiny home this winter. Life is good.

Until and unless there are some drastic changes in our nation's capital, in the form of an independent president with stones, nothing is going to change. We'll hear the same old tired rhetoric from the same old twisted mouths with the same pantie-waisted results and all the while they'll take a couple percent more from your hand each year. We're a once-great nation that's been diluted with government lies in pursuit of global socialism and they're not going to stop the carnage until we're a cashless society with every virtual dollar passing thorough government hands between the time you earn it and the time you spend it in a government-accredited manner. Yeah, it's an ugly picture, but it's the picture they're painting in the chambers of our government right now.

Where are Ross Perot and Jimmy Hoffa when you need them?

When Sequoia Capital does a venture deal, people listen. The firm has backed such companies as Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO), Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and YouTube.

Well, Sequoia is making another play in the video space; that is, it has arranged a $4 million investment in TokBox.

With TokBox, you can make video calls – for free. Also, the platform is completely web-based. You don't even have to register for the service. There is also a cool feature that allows you to embed TokBox on a blog or social network.

I had a chance to interview Chase Norlin on the matter (he is the CEO and founder of Pixsy, which is a video search engine). According to him:

"Tokbox is in a very interesting space that has yet to produce a clear winner. The pioneer and current leader of the space is Paltalk, the main difference being that they're a downloadable app. The recent funding of TokBok brings back a lot of memories of eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY)'s Skype in the early days: Find a breakthrough technology, get mass distribution, then figure out how to monetize it later. Hopefully these guys will figure out that last part quicker than Skype has."

If you want to check out other venture fundings, click here.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements.