"Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart" -- Winnie the Pooh. I went to a conference once where a venture capitalist said that if entrepreneurs treated their startups more like their children and also saw their companies with the eyes of children, chances are we would get more interesting and noteworthy companies. I think entrepreneurs need to see their startups as children because an idea, no matter how small, has the potential to take up great deal ...

Founded by Joseph Gaol in 2008, VOX, which stands for Virtual Online Exchange, aims to help the rural population in Indonesia set up bank accounts. According to Gaol, Indonesia has over 220-million mobile subscribers but only has 50-million bank users. But, the majority of Indonesians just don’t trust the banks. As many of us have the perception that banks are all about physical branches, ATMs, and bureaucracy for issuing loans, Gaol argues that the traditional bank model doesn’t work well with ...

Greece's startup ecosystem is on the up with the launch of Zerofund: an inventive platform that is part social network and part funding/participation bridge to the United States’ acceleration program, MindTheBridge. Greek entrepreneurs were forced to find ways to survive the economic crisis of 2008 as a direct result of government budget cuts and company layoffs. One solution was to create and fund their own companies -- a tough task indeed. Fortunately they now have a helping hand with Zerofund. The platform ...

With its growing popularity, the Android mobile platform, much like Windows, is rising to number one on the cybercriminal hit list. At the end of 2012, Trend Micro reported 350 000 "malicious" and "high-risk" Android apps -- up from a mere 1 000 in 2011. The security firm notes that it took Windows 14 years to reach this threat level, while Android managed it in three. What types of carnage did mobile malware cause? While 605 new malicious families were detected ...

Nedbank seems to be on a bit of a mobile and digital banking innovation streak at the moment. Friday 8 February marked the launch of PocketPOS, Africa and the Middle East’s first live EMV--certified mobile point of sale (POS) solution, specifically targeting small to medium-sized businesses. PocketPOS™ uses ‘CHIP & PIN’ technology to process debit and credit card transactions via a smartphone connected to a secure card reader. According to Sydney Gericke, Managing Executive of Nedbank Card and Payments people including "plumbers, ...

From Singapore to China, the startup scene in Asia is becoming more crowded by the day. Here are a just a few of the up-and-coming businesses that are gaining ground in the region and beyond. 1. The Mobile Gamer | Singapore The Mobile Gamer (TMG) is a Singapore startup that builds mobile games on platforms like mig33, as well as, Kotagames, TMG’s very own platform. 2. Harpoen | Indonesia Indonesia’s Harpoen is a location-based messaging platform and wants users to leave digital ...

The world has changed in the last 10 years. The rate of technological development has rocketed -- in part due to the high number of working engineers, the boom of the internet and self-perpetuating human empowerment which has resulted. The outcome of this rapid change has caused a fracturing of the traditional business model and the rise of the niche mega-market solutions. Conventional business has been a strong proponent of the idea of managing through processes and control in order to ...

Insanely popular business accelerator 500 Startups is expanding its emerging market footprint to China reports The Next Web. Former associate at The Raine Group, venture capitalist Rui Ma, has joined the company to help to launch the Beijing outpost. 500 Startups was founded in 2010 by high profile Silicon Valley Angel investor, Dave McClure. The organisation describes itself as a seed accelerator with a tech bias. According to a TechCrunch report, Ma has worked in the region over the last few years, ...

Anyone on the tech startup scene will have at least heard mention of a Silicon Valley reality TV show. Well Brazil looked at that, called bullshit and produced a show about startups that looks like it'll be worth watching. The Silicon Valley show's executive producer was Randi Zuckerburg (sister of Mark) and by all accounts, it was about as entertaining as getting hit in the head with a wet trout. Brazil's Go For It by contrast follows a more documentary-style ...

So you have been lucky: your idea is the next Google and investors have decided put a pile of money into it. This is all good news -- after all, it is not easy to impress venture capitalists. Building a company from scratch is a very difficult business and you need to be prepared. Choosing the right VC is a tough decision. I was once told by a VC that the relationship between a startup and its VC is very much ...