By Guest Author Soren Petersen High-impact Design Driven Startups are investors’ darlings and the INDEX: Award is taking advantage of this by applying their unique design award evaluation process to vetting candidates for venture capital funding. The organization’s newly launched Danish Ventures – Investing in Design to Improve Life foundation is the next step in
By Guest Author Soren Petersen Investing in new entrepreneurial ventures operating within The Creative Economy may be the best option for creating future progress. Startups have the advantage of beginning with a blank slate and their key strategic advantage lies in creating breakthrough innovative offerings while mitigating exposure to the disproportionately large risk.
By Guest Author Soren Petersen A startup is about daring market and technology positioning followed by exquisite execution. Since even a bat can position itself, the part of the game one can control becomes all about the execution. Founders agree that design is the key to successful execution, and they proclaim that design contributed more
By Guest Author Soren Petersen All promising startups have revenue projections with a classic hockey stick shape. However, when these projections are multiplied by market, technology and execution risk, this expected revenue curve often collapses and resembles that of a perpetual money drain.
By Guest Author Soren Petersen With the current wave of design thinking in business, top tier designers are now in short supply. Corporations scout elite universities in their hunt for top performers who possesses the right mix of human skills and social networks. So, how different are the top tier designers from their peers and
By Guest Author Soren Petersen Design awards are the design profession’s “stamp of approval” for a wide range of new and classic design related offerings. There are hundreds of design awards, each with its own distinct focus and selection criteria such as business, impact, and culture. The most sought-after awards are the IDEA, Red Dot,
By Guest Author Soren Petersen In the United States, for the first time since 1933, you do not have to earn more then $200k annually or be a millionaire to invest in startups. As long as the startup raises less than fifty million dollars annually, anyone can now get into the game at the ground
By Guest Author Soren Petersen Entrepreneurs are the people who reinvent and revigorate our society in large and small ways and we know them by their actions. However, how do entrepreneurs with a business or a design background differ from one another and what are their personal traits?