The Global Step: Recent Episodes
Barry O Leary
IN this episode of the Global Step I speak to Markus Raunig, the managing director of Austria Startups. I wanted to find out more about the successful entrepreneurship culture Austria possesses and Markus was a great guest to talk me through it. We talked about, the well-connected investor network in Austria and how Austria has a very promising startup future, particularly in the Life Sciences sector.
We also discuss Entrepreneurship Avenue and The Startup Live Series – Austrian initiatives that are key to the success of Austrian startups . Markus shares how previous successful international exits like Runtastic (from the health and wellness industry ) and MySugar (a diabetes care company) have paved the way for future Austrian successes.
In this week's episode , I talked to the Director of Startup Ireland, the fantastic Andrew Parish, about all things Ireland. Being Irish myself, I was proud to learn of how Ireland has progressed in the past few decades to become a global leader in the startup world.
Andrew and I had a great conversation on industries and companies that are hot in Ireland right now as well as the role Startups played in growing Ireland's GDP in the past decade.
Organisations such as TechIreland, Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, and ConnectIreland have contributed to Ireland being a model nation for promoting innovation and entrepreneurship.
Thanks for joining me Andrew. Looking forward to keeping in touch.
In todays episode I cover the startup ecosystem in Iceland. Iceland is a remarkably beautiful country in the north Atlantic which consistently punches above its weight. I wanted to check out its bustling startup scene and who better to give me a detailed view than Bala Kamallakharan. Bala is the founder of Startup Iceland and has heaps of experience in the mentoring and international growth of startups founded in Iceland. He has received rewards from the First Lady of Iceland because of his pioneering work with startups and entrepreneurship in the country. I talk to Bala about Icelands unique and favorable geographic location, the industries it excels at and some of the companies that are earmarked for success in the future. As well as founding startup Iceland , Bala also just unveiled Iceland Venture Studio, a $5 million investment fund and mentoring program for the benefit of growing startups in Iceland. Iceland Venture Studios will work with startups providing services around decentralization of private data, algorithms, privacy, process, and data security. Bala was a informative, knowledgeable guest and I hope you all enjoy the chat as much as I did
Frank and I chat about the minefield of international expansion for startups. We discuss risks, strategies and lessons learned from Franks years in working with startups looking to expand globally.