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A lot of people have been dreaming of starting their own start-ups. According to some entrepreneurs, it is the most inspiring job to start your own business. However, one of the four major challenges for start-ups is to get funding. Especially if your business plan requires a lot of capital and your aiming for rapid growth and huge expansion. In this case, start-ups are depending on venture capitalists (Patel, 2018). Venture capital is a form of private equity and a type of financing that investors provide to startups in which the investor sees growth opportunities (Chen & Scott, 2020). Obtaining this venture capital as a start-up can be a very challenging task. The process of obtaining venture capital starts by submitting a business plan. Once there is interest, due diligence must take place and this includes an investigation of both the firm’s business model, the products, management, and many more things. If the start-up will pass this phase, it will receive venture capital in exchange for equity of the start-up (Chen & Scott, 2019).

A recent trend is the rise of Initial Coin Offerings also known as ICOs. An ICO is when you as a company decide to offer a blockchain-based currency and in return you receive money. The money you receive is from individual investors that have read the whitepaper that you have published, and they see potential in your technology. Their hope is that your technology will become widely used creating more demand for ‘’your” coin making the price rise (Sherry, n.d.). ICO’s are on the top of the hype cycle. An example of a successful ICO is Telegram that has obtained a $1.7 billion-dollar funding in 2018 (Olsson, 2018)

My prediction is that ICOs are becoming more and more frequently used. Their main advantage is that the process to obtain capital is a lot quicker than with venture capital. In addition, compared to venture capital with an ICO you also don’t lose ownership. However, there remain a few drawbacks to the use of ICOs. First of all, in order to be able to launch an ICO, your start-up must be tech orientated. Also, with an ICO the investors can only send money and not provide the start-up with managerial and technological advice. This is different in the case of venture capital. Nevertheless, with the advantages of an ICO and the fact that the blockchain technology is showing a lot of potentials, I do expect a rise in ICOs compared to venture capital.

 

References

Chen, J. & Scott, G. (2019). Venture Capital Definition. [online] Available at: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/v/venturecapital.asp.

Lars Olsson (2018). ICO Funding has overtaken Angel & Seed Venture Capital. [online] Medium. Available at: https://medium.com/cashlink-crypto/ico-funding-has-overtaken-angel-seed-venture-capital-c44affbb6dd3.

Patel, V. (2018). 4 Startup Funding Challenges and How to Overcome Them. [online] Bplans Blog. Available at: https://articles.bplans.com/4-startup-funding-challenges-overcome/

Sherry, B. (n.d.). What Is an ICO? [online] Investopedia. Available at: https://www.investopedia.com/news/what-ico/

 

 

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Most of you have likely never heard about the term Obeya. However, Obeya rooms once invented for the project management of the first-generation Toyota Prius are becoming a more and more popular tool for making lean and agile management decisions based on large amounts of data (Aasland & Blankenberg, 2012).

What are Obeya rooms?
Obeya is a concept originating from Japan and the translation means “big room”. The idea is pretty simple: you have a space that contains large charts, tables, and other forms fo data visualization (IndustryWeek, 2018). In this room, all the data will be displayed on dashboards people from different disciplines will come together to make decisions or get informed about the current state of the project. Obeya rooms can be used for several reasons such as a board room.  

How to set-up an Obeya board room
Once an Obeya room is used as a board room, it will be strictly for information purposes. The idea is that the board members can walk inside an Obeya room and get real-time insights on the state of the entire project with the problems and delays visible. Therefore, the walls of the room will be structured by showing different departments. The content of the various walls will contain performances such as global metrics, KPI’s, and project timing (Aasland & Blankenberg, 2012).  

Why Obeya rooms replace the traditional board rooms
I think there is a lot of potentials for Obeya rooms to replace the standard board rooms for a few reasons. First of all, I think with companies becoming more digital and the fact that data is often automatically recorded 24/7. Obeya rooms will become more digital and contribute massively to senior management to make data-driven decisions. Secondly, with agile product development methodologies getting more frequently used, Obeya rooms will give real-life data making it possible for leaders to make faster decisions and therefore stimulate the creation of making more agile solutions.

 

References:

Aasland, K. & Blankenburg, D. (2012). An analysis of the uses and properties of the Obeya. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Knut_Aasland/publication/261021074_An_analysis_of_the_uses_and_properties_of_the_Obeya/links/58fdea944585159c2b2bb396/An-analysis-of-the-uses-and-properties-of-the-Obeya.pdf

Jusko, J. (2016). Obeya: The Brian of the Lean. Enterprise. Retrieved from: https://www.industryweek.com/operations/continuous-improvement/article/21987518/obeya-the-brain-of-the-lean-enterprise