Startup & Entrepreneurship

Kei is the Founder and CEO of Infinita Inc, a multinational mobile research, consulting and development firm located in the heart of Tokyo. His company is one of the very few companies in Japan that covers the three business areas all under one roof, consists of a multinational team and possesses in-depth working knowledge of the world's most advanced mobile market. Their goal is to help clients across the globe create world-class services on connected devices.

Crowd-funding, while nothing new globally, is still in its infancy in Oz. Provided it can remain on the good side of Australia’s consumer protection laws, it has the potential to go gangbusters in traditionally underfunded segments, like the arts.

A couple messages emerge from this video, a talk by "The Book of Awesome" author Neil Pasricha at the TEDx Conference in Toronto, Canada. One is about the phenomenon is blogs-to-books. The other is about simple art of enjoying life.

Every year, we receive a handful of requests from disappointed business owners seeking a reason why their innovation didn't make it into the SMART 100. This year, we've decided to take the most efficient and least painful approach and attempt to answer this question by way of blog, by providing four of the most common reasons.

A founding member of both The Human League and Heaven 17, Martyn is one of the world's leading figures in electronic music. As record producer and artist, he has featured on recordings totaling over 50 million sales worldwide during a 27 year career to date, working with Tina Turner, Terence Trent D’Arby, Chaka Khan, Erasure, Marc Almond, Mavis Staples and many more.

As one of the pioneers of branded entertainment in China, Mr Zho has helmed several groundbreaking, high-profile projects including Wo Xing Wo Show, China’s first Pop Idol reality show produced in partnership with Universal Music Group and Shanghai Media Group, attracting more than 100,000 applicants countrywide and 100 million viewers each season. The show broke Dragon TV’s rating record and set a new standard for TV programming in China.

Seen from a distance, this video is just three inhumanly rich guys sitting in comfy chairs and chatting for an hour about philanthropy, luck and comfort zones. But then you move in and focus on the players. And ... wow. Warren Buffet. Jay-Z. Interviewer Steve Forbes. Watch and learn.

Orvar writes for numerous newspapers and magazines, lectures on popular culture and games, and has led a seminar on game culture in Swedish parliament. He is also the producer of video game music concerts, currently holding the world attendance record for a game concert (17,000 at Joystick in 2006). Säfström has a background in film, having twice been voted "Best Swedish film critic of all time" by the readers of leading national newspaper Aftonbladet. From 2003 to 2006, he co-hosted Filmkrönikan on the Swedish television network SVT.

When any organisation or industry grows rapidly, as many of the group buying companies have already done (Spreets acquired over 500,000 email addresses from a nation of 20 million in less than 10 months), it's hard not to wonder whether the growth is sustainable. Naturally, every market has a ceiling. Doesn't it? Perhaps not.

Australia's most innovative mothers will be getting a break from their demanding workplace and household duties when they are honoured at the 2011 AusMumpreneur Awards, which will be presented at a gala event at Mercure Sydney on Saturday 27 August. Award nominations are being accepted until Friday 17 June.

Carolyn Creswell, the CEO of Carmen's Muesli recently opened a 7:30 am breakfast meeting by saying, “When the alarm went off this morning, I thought this breakfast seminar better be good. And then I thought: Shit I better be good!” The audience laughed and connected with her straight away. Carolyn had her audience at hello.

Good parody is hilariously true. This send-up of online entrepreneurship, courtesy of CollegeHumor.com, hits all the right notes about the worst aspects of Internet-based start-ups. So, carve out a couple minutes of your hectic day, watch this video and marvel at how many times you've heard something like this in real life.

During a recent visit to the off-leash park my dog was being jostled either side by a couple of rouge, running hounds. Instead of carrying on, enduring the torment of being corralled by the hecklers, my dog stopped, stood tall, and let them go past. Then she changed course and reasserted herself. This has been the strategy of Intel, Hollywood and independent schools.

There are few fully paid up members of the ‘We Heart Gillard’ fan club among Australia’s small-to-medium enterprises, according to the April MYOB Business Monitor special report, which has found that a mere 23% would vote for the Prime Minister and her peeps if an election was held in the near future.

In this podcast, Leon and Garry talk to Scott Kilmartin, founder of haul, a Melbourne company that makes and distributes bags, carry cases and sleeves designed for laptops, notebooks and tablets -- all manufactured from recycled material such as used advertising billboards and number plates. Because the source material always varies, each and every haul design is unique. Here, Kilmartin discusses haul's strategy to capitalise on the "upcycling" trend.

Are you a really, really small business operating out of New South Wales? Specifically: small enough to fit everyone on your payroll inside of your Subaru Liberty, and still leave the front seats unoccupied? If you answered 'yes', then you are one of some 570,000 micro-businesses in NSW, and MicroBiz Week 2011 is your week.

Ok Brisvegas, you are up! Pitch Club is back in town on May the 19th. So, if you have a great business idea or just want to see what the next step might be, grab your ticket now and get ready to tell us all about it!

Initiative is the ability we all have to create, initiate projects and develop new ideas. Some people have great initiative and others have little.

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of a day off from emails and deadlines and spent my time instead at the Anthill Capital Raising, Acquisitions & Exit Masterclass run by Domenic Caruso. Time outs have been rare in recent times but this one was well worth it.

According to “The Global Information Technology Report 2010-2011” compiled by the World Economic Forum and INSEAD The Business School of the World , New Zealand and Australia are the two most fastest places in the world to start a new business.