Let’s Build Something of Value
We all know its getting cheaper to build a startup. Events such as 3 Day Startup, Startup Weekend and the Startup Bus, which spun out startups on its way from the Valley to Austin for SXSWi, have shown that startups can be built in very little time. One even got acquired this week. However, as Om Malik argues it takes time to build something of value. I had lunch with a luminary this week and he said he spends 5 years researching a market before he goes after it. Two of his successes, Bookstop (acquired by Barnes & Noble) and Hoover’s (IPO’d then acquired by Dun & Bradstreet) live on to this day.
Like Gary Hoover, I want to build something of value, and I want your help. I have the luxury of getting a window into where venture dollars are going and have compiled a non-exhaustive list of trends I find interesting. Please help me vet them and perhaps we can find some opportunities that we determine are big enough for us to tackle. I encourage you to reply to this post and share your thoughts. These are just a few to chew on…
- What we do on our hardware will be processed and stored somewhere else.This is already happening in a big way, but its just the tip of the iceberg. There are many opportunities in the “cloud”, with virtualization, data storage and scalability.
- Bringing off-line excess capacity and inventory online. Startups are nipping at eBay’s heels in almost every vertical, such as: uship (transportation), sparefoot (storage), kayak (travel), and gilt (luxury clothing). There are many more opportunities here. We have been looking at something in the jewelry space for almost a year.
- Making sense of the long tail. When I first heard Chris Anderson speak about this in Austin a few years ago, I recall thinking “that makes sense”. It did and it still does. There are huge opportunities in helping us find apps, music, movies, books, and blogs for us to consume. This is moving past recommendations and towards automated curation. Think about waking up and finding a personalized newspaper on your doorstep (in your inbox), organized by relevance, time and every other relevant ascertainable factor. As my friend, Mark Schmulen said at the Bizspark Accelerator Finals, “its about right time, not just real time.”
- Leveraging the wisdom of crowds. Aardvark, Gurustorms and others understand that people can be the product. How can we profit from the democratization of knowledge and communication? What are the implications of Chatroulette? Think about opportunities offshore.
- Healthcare and the Aging U.S. Population. We will probably have a new healthcare policy made into legislation today. Without knowing much about it, I do know there will be a lot of money to be made exploiting it.
