“At the heart of what people, companies and everyone does is innovation. Innovation is our focus.” This was the opening line from Gary Shapiro, CEO of CES at last year's unbound innovation festival in London.

The next generation of aspiring startups are hoping their technology will change the world. But what about the technology that is changing startups? I’ve spent the last few years working with some of Europe’s biggest startup success stories, helping them put in place the right business platforms to support rapid growth.

Startups Magazine first clapped eyes on Le Pavé Parisien at CES 2019 within the French Pavilion in the Eureka Park and was instantly intrigued to see the world's only high-end speaker cast entirely in concrete.

As a startup, what would be your Golden Ticket to propel you towards success? Workspace expenses covered? Invaluable mentoring and guidance?

Having written your business plan, identified your existing and potential market and your target clients, and decided how best to market and sell your product, you should now of course actually be making sales. But how open has you mind been whilst undergoing this process, and how limited are your ambitions? Many smaller companies, whether startups or more mature, have a tendency to only look at selling to the home market of the UK rather than broadening their horizons and selling internationally. 

AO, the online electricals store, and L Marks, leading advisor in applied innovation and experienced investor in early-stage technologies, have partnered in a global search 'for the next digital disruptors who will make online shopping easier and faster for its customers'.

When one thinks of countries with a focus on innovation, the true global leaders - USA, the U.K., Canada and Israel – traditionally lead the way based on the strength of their startup ecosystems. Not surprisingly, the next country to gain a foothold is Australia followed by no fewer than a dozen of the top industrialised nations in Western Europe.

Last week’s article focussed on Business Plans; what should be in them and why you should write one. One of the key pieces of information required is of course sales figures, both actual numbers for historic sales and those forecast for the future. It is also very important to include the assumptions and how you market your goods in order to achieve those sales. It is those subjects that I am going to focus on this time.

Over the last five articles I have tried to set the scene in terms of outlining what help is available to early stage businesses, and certain aspects of finance, including a valuable but often overlooked tax refund. In this article and the next I wanted to focus on two fundamental issues that will determine how your business develops and how you grow sales.

The Internet of Things is an exciting and expanding market. It’s one that many large organisations are already actively involved in, with competition mounting rapidly as a result; but it’s also a market ripe for innovation, with countless unexplored opportunities – across all industries – almost too compelling for an ambitious entrepreneur to ignore.

Subcon is introducing the Launchpad & Launchpad Awards to this year’s event. The Launchpad aims to propel startups and entrepreneurs by giving them a platform to share their innovations with thousands of engineering and manufacturing professionals with the power to influence and guide them to future success.

South-By-Southwest is an annual assemblage of conferences and festivals that takes place in Austin, Texas in early March to celebrate the convergence of film, music, interactive and other industries. Created to foster both professional and personal growth across multiple levels, the ten-day event prides itself on truly being all things to all people.

The audience at the Dublin Tech Show 2019 fell silent and slipped into awe as it listened to the man who broke into Mir using a Swiss Army Knife, flew into Earth orbit three times, was Commander of the International Space Station (ISS), has spent 166 days in space and was the first Canadian astronaut to walk in space: NASA Colonel, Chris Hadfield.

Moderated by Graham Hussey, Co-Founder of The Startup Van, this panel at the Dublin Tech Show 2019 (DTS) made up of celebrity companies in the startup arena, Expon Capital, 500 startups, Valor Ventures and Techstars, broadly discussed the ways in which a startup can succeed. 

On the ScaleX stage at DTS 2019 (Dublin Tech Summit) Willie Morris got real in his talk about startup failure.

Behavioural economics is the combination of human psychology, decision science, and economics. It is an innovative and scientific approach to understanding how humans make decisions.

If you are an engineering startup and proud raise your hand! It is nearly a year since the first issue of Startups Magazine, and if it has opened my eyes up to one thing, it is that there are a lot of you startups out there – which is a great thing!

2018 was 'the year of engineering', and arguably a year that allowed more women to make even more of a breakthrough in the industry.

Successful tech entrepreneurs share the lessons learned from starting a new business.

In the first of this series of articles we looked at the fact that there was actually quite a lot of help available to you when you set up your own business, and specifically we started to look at entrepreneur accelerators and the roles that Mentors play within that overall service. This time I wanted to take that further and start to explore the actual role a Mentor plays, how best to choose one, and then how best to maximise that relationship.