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After the Gold Rush

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Re: After the Gold Rush

#71

Post by amelius »

ASinclair wrote: post #61
amelius wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with the medical and biological fields is: you generally need expensive equipment. Also, you will need expensive certification. This is something that wasn't the case for software, so I guess this is also why this goldrush was so much different than anything else we've seen before.

A similar problem is where the medical and software industries butt heads. The Software industry likes to take risks and move quickly. It embraces failure. Medicine avoids risk and moves methodically because of that pesky Hippocratic Oath. Failure is often a life and death situation. My father is a physician. So we've had lots of conversations about this problem. I also here all of his complaints about software. Espe…

I have a friend whose family doctor developed his own Electronic Medical Record system :)

Re: After the Gold Rush

#72

Post by dbcooper »

amelius wrote: post #11
stephenhuey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, but my medical friends' complaints tend to be about the software they have to use more than anything else. And on top of that there's a lack of software tools for a lot of things they do.

There is lots of good bioinformatics software. The problem is often that institutions don't want to pay for it, because open-source software is available with similar functionality (albeit with lacking user interfaces). In my experience, it is very difficult to make money with scientific software in general, so I'm certainly not expecting a "goldrush" here.

Check out Genomeweb - bioinformatics startups are being acquired all the time.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#74

Post by rdlecler1 »

Consumer may be entering a trough but the industrial internet is rising. Social and enterprise SaaS are highly saturated, but these become tools for the next generation of companies. The next wave of technology is characterized by technology that senses and interacts with its environment and this will drive tremendous innovation in the industrial internet (agtech, manufacturing, construction, etc). As these technologies mature, become less expensive and more ubiquitous, we'll see startups start diffusing back into the consumer space and the cycle will repeat again.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#75

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

manmal wrote: post #70
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #64

It's not startups that are losing their luster, it's tech-for-tech's-sake companies. Now that we pretty much have everything we need to be connected, we have to look beyond technology and to the strongest fulcrum of society: culture. Culture companies are the future. When you can get anything anywhere, the brand matters far more than the product. Anyone can make a burger or a pizza, so why are McDonalds and Pizza Hut…

I agree with you that brands will grow even more important. Though, all tech has not been made yet - I suspect tech is taking a short time-out right now before the next big disruptions are enabled by: * VR (cinema, anyone? could even make some 3d printing obsolete) * order-of-magnitude faster mobile internet * cheap(er) robotics * abundant energy supply thanks to fusion or ; also, perhaps break-through battery tech?…

Clarification: tech as in tech for this computational generation (i.e. Smartphones). Pretty much everything there has been done, and it won't be until new platforms that exist (like drones and VR like you mentioned) that interesting things will be made.

That being said, such shifts do not often treat incumbents well. Microsoft dominated the PC market in the 90s and early 00s, but their smartphone/tablet is barely a footnote in the market.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#76

Post by matheweis »

tdaltonc wrote: post #39
matheweis wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And, do remember, the people who made all the money in the gold rush weren't the miners, it was the people who sold shovels and alcohol. Ssssh, don't give away the secret. ;) Actually, startups designed to sell to other startups will fail too when the whole thing collapses like a stack of cards... Enter Mandrill, which recently found its conversion funnel so ineffective that they suddenly shut the entire system dow…

Is that what happened to Mandrill? I've read a coherent explanation of what's going on there and why, but I'd love to.

Well the official answer was "this change isn’t driven by profit–it’s about aligning our culture and core competencies with our core customers’ needs. There are many people who use Mandrill as a (free) utilitarian infrastructure service, who are not our core customers, and who deserve to use a company that’s better set up for that in the long run." https://blog.mailchimp.com/important-changes-to-mandrill/#co...

Re: After the Gold Rush

#77

Post by marincounty »

nostrademons wrote: post #53
crdoconnor wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Of course, if you look too disruptive they'll probably just buy you with their mountain of cash. Or just copy you. Even if they are 10-20% worse, they have a bigger, cheaper distribution channel than you which they can stuff their product into.

That's only if that distribution channel is your only access to the customer. If you have other alternatives, you can (and often will) still win. Google Videos vs YouTube. Orkut vs Facebook vs Google+. Facebook status messages vs Twitter. Google Offers vs Groupon. Google Flights vs Kayak or Hipmunk. iMessage vs Whatsapp. Google Local vs Yelp. There're plenty of examples where the big company came out with a competito…

Google makes good products, but doesn't market them properly.

They can screw up great products too. I miss my old YouTube. I currently have videos up that I can't access.

It seems like tech companies are prone to an--I don't know the correct word/term, so I'll just say it. They remind me of a hiker on a mountian. At first, the company seems great. We all join. We all use their products. Then it's downhill. I honestly don't know what Yahoo even does now. I am embarrassed to use my yahoo email--for what reasons, I just don't want to hear some yahoo say, "Ah--you still use Yahoo. That brings back memories."

I don't use Yelp anymore. Why? I just don't want to be one of those people; Those whiny, picky people. See, it was once a good site. Now I cringe when ever I see their commercials. In my mind, they are going down the hill.

If I owned a big company, I would just prepare for the eventual day if goes down that sine wave.

I still think there are big opportunities in tech. I would open up my garage to the right people. I would hire Hackers. Guys with nothing to lose. I would keep a close eye on the legalities of what these "convicts" do though. I've never felt guys who take big chances, without a backup, are given enough business opportunities.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#78

Post by petra »

willholloway wrote: post #51

There is truth here, but remember that the age of the intelligent networked machine is just beginning. Look at the YC classes. They are very different from 2005. You can't get rich making a site like reddit today. YC is going international, with X for Y country businesses. I was talking to a friend with a startup in Indonesia. In Asia its like 1998. I think we are just at the end of the easy social/mobile revolution…

>> And the same process that created cheap and easy tools for software, the same process that dropped the cost of starting a SaaS business 10x will happen for robotics/ai/IoT.

So OK, we've got tools for the IOT(mbed/arduino, etc). The key question is - how do you protect your product from being rapidly copied by big competitors(or worse, china),when they are using those same tools ?

In web development, we did it by getting tons of users really really fast and using that as a tool. But hardware markets are much slower.

That leaves us having unique, well protect IP(if you want a unicorn). And maybe this can be created by a startups, but a totally different type of startup: Maybe based on long university research. Maybe based of on a group of exceptional multi-disciplinary people with unique skills working together - and not a bunch of kids with an idea.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#79

Post by estreeper »

rubicon33 wrote: post #63
udkl wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "The big companies may be innovating on the edges, but their established products are all ripe for disruption." It looks like a cycle. Come up with new product with a small team, add more employees, add more managers, add more cruft, slow down. Then a startup comes along, moving faster, innovating faster, disrupting until it grows and starts to add more employees, add more managers, add more cruft, slow down. And T…

This cycle that you're depicting, is largely sustained by fear. Big companies buy 'disrupters' when they fear their market share is at risk. But most of the time their market share is not at risk, and they should just wait for X startup to crumble.

> Big companies buy 'disrupters' when they fear their market share is at risk.

Yep. I can see why they don't wait for them to crumble though. What if they don't? That's a big risk to take.

When a potentially disruptive product gets bought, it virtually always means death of the product. You get fed a line about how it's going to keep going, and then a few months down the line, it has all been integrated into some existing big company product.

What's sad to think about is that sure, a lot of these companies would have failed, but how many would have succeeded? We'll never know. I don't blame founders: it's pretty hard to say no to a mountain of cash when your future is so uncertain. But deep down, I still wish more would take the gamble.

Re: After the Gold Rush

#80

Post by eru »

willholloway wrote: post #51

There is truth here, but remember that the age of the intelligent networked machine is just beginning. Look at the YC classes. They are very different from 2005. You can't get rich making a site like reddit today. YC is going international, with X for Y country businesses. I was talking to a friend with a startup in Indonesia. In Asia its like 1998. I think we are just at the end of the easy social/mobile revolution…

> I was talking to a friend with a startup in Indonesia. In Asia its like 1998.

Seems very ironic, if you remember that time in Asia. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Asian_financial_crisis)

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