The thousands of startups today that are pitching...
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Re: The thousands of startups today that are pitching...
#2Well, most small businesses fail in the first few years. But that doesn't stop millions of them from becoming viable. We tend to think that the ecosystem only has room for a handful of Internet or technology companies, but that's far the case. Sure, the Web itself is something of a black hole for profitability, where more often than not the startup itself is essentially the product. But this is not representative of the wider phenomenon of small business formation. It's becoming much cheaper to create and run a small business, and as a result the rate at which new businesses are launched has grown.
Re: The thousands of startups today that are pitching...
#3Ever heard of the story of how much would you charge to wash all windows on Seattle?
Cool response nowadays: Nothing! We will get investment, do it for free and figure out later how to make money :)
http://fseek.me/2010/12/how-much-should-you-charge-to-wash-a...
Re: The thousands of startups today that are pitching...
#4"Somehow the act of creating a startup has become the goal instead of the building of a business…"
This is so true. I believe building a startup is just like launching a rocket. Just because you had a successful launch doesn't mean you'll have a successful mission.
People forget nowadays that in order to be successful you need to have a destination. The launching of the startup is just one of the first small steps.
Re: The thousands of startups today that are pitching...
#5"Is the word “Startup” meaningless? If so, why and does its loss of meaning really matter? If not, what does it mean now?"
I don’t think its meaningless, but I do think its meaning has somewhat been cheapened. The issue is that people are quick to lump early stage companies all into the same boat. There are many different segments within it. We just don’t have words that properly describe those segments.
For example, a startup that is ramen profitable is not on the same level as 3 guys setting out to build an minimum viable product. That sounds pretty obvious, but I would bet that a lot of people would say they are both startups.
IMHO, it’s not a startup until you have product/market fit. Until then, it’s an interesting project you’re working on with the intention of turning it into something real.
That’s the approach we’ve taken. In the past month or so, we’ve achieved product/market fit and have officially upgraded ourselves from an interesting project we’re all passionate about to a startup we’re all passionate about.
Admittedly, this was more of an internal perspective, but perhaps this is the type of approach that should be taken.
Re: The thousands of startups today that are pitching...
#6Ever heard of the story of how much would you charge to wash all windows on Seattle? Cool response nowadays: Nothing! We will get investment, do it for free and figure out later how to make money :) http://fseek.me/2010/12/how-much-should-you-charge-to-wash-a...
You could even make it ad-supported. The glass facades of office buildings would be prime billboard real estate.
(ETA: I came up with that before reading the linked article, I swear!)
Re: The thousands of startups today that are pitching...
#7There have always been startups whose first products seemed like quick hacks (including some that went on to be extremely successful). There have always been startups that seemed more derivative than inspired. (And a few of these turned out to be revolutionary, because even if 98% of the idea was a ripoff, the last 2% was based on a deep understanding of the product being 'copied' that nobody, especially pundits, understood the significance of)
The only difference the author can point to is that more people are doing startups, more startups are getting funded, and there is more of a supporting infrastructure to help startups (incubators, hackathons, blogs, etc). Certainly starting a startup has become more socially acceptable. While this may make the act of entrepreneurship less "rebellious", this is not necessarily the kind of rebellion that makes for disruptive startups. Whether I get nods of approval or worried looks when I tell my non-startup friends I quit my big company job to start a startup has little bearing on how disruptive my idea is.
The article sounds more like a hipster's complaint than anything else ("I was into startups before they were cool!")
Re: The thousands of startups today that are pitching...
#8whether the startup is the goal or the means to a greater end doesn't really matter in the long run as far as I'm concerned.
that daring to come up with some idea, any idea, and build a beta site is enough
whether they think this is enough or not is irrelevant as startups which think this way will generally fail in the long run, regardless. People may be getting lazy, but there is still always the final test of consumer reaction. If youre not providing something people need and youre not doing it as well as possible, youre not competitive and youre not going to last.
Re: The thousands of startups today that are pitching...
#9Ha ha ha... isn't this the guy that deleted his AngelList account? Maybe the reason he's getting swamped with pre-revenue startups is because he's locked himself off from funding ones with actual revenues. You know... by people who think their high-growth businesses should be valued at more than 10x revenues.
What Bryce doesn't seem to understand is that viable businesses no longer need his money. He wants entrepreneurs to carry all the risk of getting profitable and THEN value their businesses cheaply while offering him over 100% return-on-investment per year. Uhh... no? And he should really quit blogging since there's probably no more surefire way to drive away good pitches than broadcast this sort of hostility to entrepreneurs.
Re: The thousands of startups today that are pitching...
#10As a student interested in entrepreneurship, I get this feeling all the time. Teachers and profs will tell you if you have a good idea to pitch it at the University's Big Ideas/PowerPitch/NextBigThing program and see if you can get the approval of a board of investors mixed with business professors. Not a single teacher has ever straight up told me to go and start a business directly.
I think something you will see in a few years is kids coming out of college prepped for giving great pitches but having no idea what to actually do with the money. Entrepreneurship got lumped in with the business school at my college. All the student entrepreneurs do is learn about how to attract investors and give good pitches about untested ideas. The gist of entrepreneurship is projected as just presentation without any mention of creation.