Seed funding is running out and angel investment is still quite low. In the broader context of a venture capital funding crunch, how will Ireland weather the storm, asks John Kennedy.

Talk to any start-up in Ireland today and they’ll quite honestly tell you that, despite their grumbling, Ireland has one of the most supportive environments for a start-up anywhere in the western world. Yes, there’s a lot of doors to be knocked on, red tape, exacting requirements by Enterprise Ireland and more, but it is better than most. It’s probably better than it has ever been.

You’ve finally made a decision. Time to cross it off your list and move on. Or not? Do you find yourself revisiting every decision you make, agonizing over whether it really was the right one?

What the Experts Say Everyone has moments of doubt. But “constant second-guessing can really affect your leadership — and the perception of your leadership among other people,” says Sydney Finkelstein, faculty director of Dartmouth’s Tuck Center for Leadership and the author of the forthcoming book, Superbosses.

Strategic planning is typically serious stuff. That doesn’t mean, however, that doing strategic planning is best served by conducting things in a boring way. Frustrations with boring strategy sessions are probably why so many people visit our website looking for creative ideas on fun strategic planning exercises.

We’ve previously published some fun strategic planning exercises. Suppose however, you are in a strategy session where things are dragging. You probably can’t stop, research different strategic thinking exercises, and incorporate them into your strategy session.

Image: http://brainzooming.com

MIT today announced the launch of an “Innovation Node” in Hong Kong, a collaborative space that aims to connect the MIT community with unique resources — including advanced manufacturing capabilities — and other opportunities in Hong Kong and the neighboring Pearl River Delta (PRD). Set to launch next summer, the MIT Hong Kong Innovation Node will convene MIT students, faculty, and researchers to work on various entrepreneurial and research projects alongside Hong Kong-based students and faculty, MIT alumni, entrepreneurs, and businesses. By combining resources and talent, the Innovation Node aims to help students learn how to move ideas more rapidly from lab to market. 

To be a successful entrepreneur, you need to be able to juggle several hats at the same time. Identifying a problem and developing a scalable solution is the easy bit. Your initial days as a founder may be spent coding and refining the technical architecture, but then comes a concerted effort on streamlining operations, drumming up sales, and executing a marketing strategy.

There are six key elements of an entrepreneurial university, according to Professor Deresh Ramjugernath, pro vice-chancellor of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa – good leadership and governance, capacity incentives, entrepreneurship in teaching and learning, a culture of entrepreneurship, stakeholder partnerships, and internationalisation.

Innovation and entrepreneurship for development and for nation-building was what universities really had to do, said the pro vice-chancellor for innovation, commercialisation and entrepreneurship.

The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's mission is to explore and develop emerging technologies for the Pentagon. Many of DARPA's achievements -- including the Internet -- however, have affected more than just the Defense Department. Now, the agency is asking its scientists to predict what technologies will shape the world in the next 30 years. 

Former astronaut Pam Melroy, who currently works as the deputy director of DARPA’s Tactical Technologies Office, sees a future rife with communication and collaboration between humans and machines to complete previously unachievable tasks.

Sam Altman, leader of startup school and venture-capital fund Y-Combinator, doesn't think we are in a tech bubble.

He believes we are in a "tech bust," where technology companies are undervalued. He thinks private technology companies as a general group are destined to rise, and that people obsessing over individual valuations on individual companies are missing the big picture.

But not everything is perfect in startup land, says Altman.

Many new entrepreneurs are so excited by their latest idea that they can’t resist contacting every investor they know, assuming the investor will be equally excited and want to contribute immediately. Others will work hard on a business plan, and then mail it indiscriminately to every potential investor they can find on the Internet. Both of these approaches are a waste of your time and theirs.

Cash flow management is the discipline of ensuring that more money is coming into to your business than you need to pay out each month. Cash flow will be tight in the early months and years of your startup’s life, so you must monitor it closely at all times.

Here are a few tips about how you can optimise your cash flow.

Riding whales is a big trend in the seal community in 2015.

Shortly after photos of a seal riding a humpback whale in Australia went viral in September, a new video of a seal riding a gray whale in Mexico has recently surfaced.

The video, uploaded to Youtube on the "WhaleOfATime" channel, shows a seal surfing a gray whale while a boat of onlookers cheer it on.

Sea level rise during the next several centuries may inundate the world's largest cities, cultural treasures from New York to London to Shanghai. The eventual course of sea level rise will greatly depend on decisions made now, including at the upcoming Paris Climate Summit in early December, when world leaders will attempt to adopt a new climate treaty to go into effect in the year 2020.

Because the giant ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica respond to climate change relatively slowly, a business-as-usual path of global warming pollution could doom future generations to centuries of ever-increasing sea levels, to the point where many cities will become uninhabitable.

Here in New England, it’s getting chilly. The leaves are changing, the Patagonia vests have come out. Everyone’s mind has shifted towards the impending winter. And on the other side of the country, people are preparing for a different kind of winter — the unicorn winter.

While everyone is having a great time picking on unicorns, we need to stop pointing fingers and start focusing our energy on helping these companies not only survive, but thrive in the face of down rounds and a weak exit landscape. Afterall, the livelihoods of real people are at stake. At last count, PitchBook estimates that 91 unicorns employ around 57,000 people in the U.S.

The quintessential tech entrepreneur? Names like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Sergey Brin come to mind. Each created a company, weathered some early bumps and turned their businesses – and themselves – into iconic brands.

But most entrepreneurs do not. According to Harvard Business Review author Noam Wasserman, four out of five entrepreneurs are forced to step down from the CEO role. Wasserman explains: “Most (founders) are shocked when investors insist that they relinquish control … and the manner in which they tackle their first leadership transition often makes or breaks young enterprises.”

 

• 15% of U.S. tech leaders see biotech/digital health/healthcare IT as the most disruptive consumer-driven technology in the next three years.
• 13% of U.S. tech leaders predict data and analytics will be the most disruptive enterprise technology in three years.
• Global tech leaders predict cloud computing (11%), mobile platforms and apps (9%), Internet of Things (IoT)/machine-to-machine (M2M) (9%) and data and analytics (9%) will be the most disruptive technologies over the next three years.

These and many other insights are from the fourth annual 2015 Global Technology Innovation Survey released via webcast by KPMG last month. KPMG surveyed 832 technology industry business leaders globally, with the majority of being C-level executives (87%). Respondents were selected from a broad spectrum of businesses including tech industry startups, mid- and large-scale enterprises, angel investors and venture capital firms.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2015/11/08/5-insights-predictions-on-disruptive-tech-from-kpmgs-2015-global-innovation-survey/

It's now easier than ever to launch a company. But while 400,000 businesses flood the market in the United States every year, the vast majority of these will never get off the ground, much less be around in five years. By some estimates 80% percent of all startups will crash and burn.

So what are the secrets of companies that are able to stand the test of time? What does it take to create a business that matters to the world?

The historical relationship between France and the UK is long and complex. From the Norman Conquest in 1066 the two countries have alternated between entrenched allies and bitter rivals. The melancholic milestones of both Hastings and Waterloo sum up Anglo-French relations perfectly, often squabbling but neither really getting the upper hand.

In contemporary times, the rivalry has softened (unless of course you mention the Tour de France) and the UK’s adoration of all things Gallic has taken on the lines of a semi-religious cult, with French fashion, cuisine, style and culture all playing an important role in both business and popular culture. Long gone are the days of aristocratic acrimony and trying to shoot each other with pointy arrows.

Consulting firms sell expertise, and their currency is trust. Large consultancies like Boston Consulting Group, Bain, McKinsey, Deloitte, Accenture and others make their money from being a trusted advisor to companies around the world. Why do companies trust them?

One reason is that companies always value an external perspective, and there is a large army of alumni from these firms in organizations around the world guiding their leadership to choose their former employer as that external perspective or that extra pair of hands needed in tackling a large strategic challenge.

The quintessential tech entrepreneur? Names like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Sergey Brin come to mind. Each created a company, weathered some early bumps and turned their businesses – and themselves – into iconic brands.

But most entrepreneurs do not. According to Harvard Business Review author Noam Wasserman, four out of five entrepreneurs are forced to step down from the CEO role. Wasserman explains: “Most (founders) are shocked when investors insist that they relinquish control … and the manner in which they tackle their first leadership transition often makes or breaks young enterprises.”

 

The initial stage for an entrepreneur is rough and full of challenges. Facing the adverse times and not giving up at that crucial stage are essential for the ultimate success of any startup. Let us all go through some quotes which will help us to hold our ground when everything seems to be falling apart: