The Best Time Ever to Start-Up?
A good year in between posts is a little too long I admit, but better late than never, right? I am committing myself to post more regularly today, so hold me to it!
It’s been a busy past year; I worked at ShopRunner, the GSI Commerce sub competing with Amazon Prime, for most of 2010 helping to get retailer partners on board. The program launched in October to a lot of press, while also exceeding initial expectations. I am no longer there but still believe in the team, which is super-solid. I know they will build that business into a “must-have” for high-volume online shoppers. They continue to up the ante, recently launching Lord & Taylor as the first department store on board and redesigning the site for members. If you haven’t check it out definitely do – click here.
Over the past couple months, I have had the pleasure and excitement of chatting with numerous entrepreneurs and early stage businesses in markets ranging from the daily deal space, online ad optimization, SMS and Web based reminders, mobile payments, and online music services.
Through my conversations and meetings I was able to visit a couple of the community working spaces in New York City. An amazing vibe is bubbling up in these places. Dog Patch Labs in Manahattan is a space sponsored by Polaris Ventures. Polaris is making a super-smart move taking in bright and talented risk-takers with free desk and rent for six months at a time, even if they don’t wind-up investing. General Assembly, another Manhattan common community, was started by a couple young entrepreneurs with past successes and failures. They also understood the value of bringing talented and motivated entrepreneurs into a common space. Now they have some of the hottest start-ups in their offices and even offer classes from more experienced entrepreneurs ranging from programming to how to negotiate your first investment. Yipit, the daily deal aggregator and SeatGeek, the after-market ticket search engine (and the company my cousin, Ben Kessler, is currently working for) are just two of the fast growing start-ups they have housed there. These places are great for entrepreneurs to quickly vet their initial ideas and pivot if need be.
Now more than ever in my lifetime, I think the ground is fertile for growth of the next great new companies that you have not heard of yet. It feels like the “perfect storm” for start-ups. There’s a lot of brain power and motivated talent available right now, as there are fewer jobs out there. Recent graduates and more experienced workers losing jobs are often opting to start-up. We’re on the upswing of an economic trough and investors are looking for different vehicles for their money. Starting-up is cheaper than ever, allowing entrepreneurs to bootstrap or find alternatives to the traditional VC investment. That in turn is leading to a wide variety of early stage investors, admittedly with a varying degree of experience and understanding. I think it was Josh Kopelman I saw talk at a couple years back at Dreamit about the economic troughs and how many of the best companies out there and established today were built in this type of climate well before – he had a cool chart of this trend that I wish I could find online. It seems all the other factors just add to the momentum and the potential and serve as a catalyst for this budding market. The trick will be to figure out which start-ups today will be next big thing tomorrow.
I plan to review some of the start-ups that I come across here from time-to-time. I’ll primary focus on businesses that have something to do with interactive technology, media and technology, but I’ll also likely jump into thoughts on “bricks and mortar” businesses as well.
Until next time….
