Decoding the Startup Genome

What makes startups successful? The Startup Genome project is attempting to gather useful data to hopefully find some good rules of thumb. They looked at over 650 startups and some of the findings include:

Investors who provide hands-on help have little or no effect on the company’s operational performance.  But the right mentors significantly influence a company’s performance and ability to raise money. (However, this does not mean that investors don’t have a significant effect on valuations and M&A)

Solo founders take 3.6x longer to reach scale stage  compared to a founding team of 2 and they are 2.3x less likely to pivot.

Balanced teams with one technical founder and one business founder raise 30% more money, have 2.9x more user growth and are 19% less likely to scale prematurely than technical or business-heavy founding teams.

Most successful founders are driven by impact rather than experience or money.

Startups need 2-3 times longer to validate their market than most founders expect.  This  underestimation  creates  the  pressure  to  scale prematurely.

Premature scaling is the most common reason for startups to perform worse. They tend to lose the battle early on by getting ahead of themselves.

B2C vs. B2B is not a meaningful segmentation of Internet startups anymore because the Internet has changed the rules of business.

Note: I have not delved into their methodology, you may want to look at that yourself if you are interested.

Get the full report here for yourself:
Download the Startup Genome Report – Startup Genome.

Working on CrowdPlace

Well, I have not been posting a lot to Tomorrow’s Trends lately, I have to admit. I also have slowed down posting on my personal blog. One reason is that a chunk of my “free” time has been spent working with a small founding team on a site called CrowdPlace. We are working on the exact way to explain what we do – so far I have:  “CrowdPlace helps you save, sort, synthesize, share and search your everyday data and information.”

Basically, we are engineering a new and better way to save your information and communicate as well. Pretty interesting stuff. I recommend going to CrowdPlace.com and signing up for the beta launch/ newsletter. Most people who read this blog are early adopters and will be be really interested in getting in early on what we are doing. Can’t say much more right now – except that we are almost ready to launch our basic product. Once launched in the next few weeks, we will be making improvements based on your feedback. But, even at its most basic, it is pretty useful.

Have your say!

I am working on a really interesting Web startup. Basically, it allows you to save and organize your information in a new, original way. This will allow for you to find information about things you care about and also share (if you want to) information with others in new ways.

We are getting a lot done on the design and development of our site. We expect to launch our beta within the next couple months. The site is looking really great. We think that our site will be really useful for everyone immediately after release.

Have your say! If you don’t mind, click on the link below to complete our quick survey. You can help shape this emerging product as we move towards publicly releasing it soon.

Click here to take a quick survey

Want to know more?
You can also follow us on Twitter for future updates.
You can sign up for our email newsletter at our site: CrowdPlace

Bill Gates' Energy Future TED Talk Online

Earlier this month at this year’s TED conference, Bill Gates gave an informative talk on his vision of eliminating CO2 emissions.  You can watch it online now at TED.

[TED]

Google Chrome OS

Those of you that have some extra time on your hands and are interested in learning about Google Chrome OS.  You can watch the official announcement of Google Chrome OS.  The video is over an hour long, but will give you a complete understanding on why Google is creating this operating system.

Robotic Warehouse

Here is a video about Kiva’s automated warehouse robots. I love this concept.

Heathrow Driverless Taxi

Heathrow Airport’s is going to have 18 personal rapid transport (PRT) vehicles.  The driver-less taxis will move passengers around Heathrow Airport.

“The four-passenger personal rapid transport (PRT) vehicles, unveiled this week at the Science Museum in London, take airport-goers on a special narrow road from Heathrow’s Terminal 5 to various parking lots. Passengers use a touch screen to type in their destination, press a start button, and the battery-powered vehicle zips along at 25 mph to their destination. There’s a reason the pods look so futuristic–they were designed by Mark Lowson, who worked on the Saturn Rocket that launched Apollo missions.”

[Fast Company]

First Wireless Connected Pacemaker

Carol Kasyjanski is certainly connected.  She is the first person in the United States to be implanted with a wireless pacemaker.  The wireless pacemaker sends information to a wireless home monitoring system that transmits information to her doctor.

According to Dr. Steven Greenberg – director of St. Francis Arrhythmia and Pacemaker Center:

“If there is anything abnormal, and we have a very intricate system set up, it will literally call the physician responsible at two in the morning if need be. It is a tremendous convenience for the patient from even interacting with a telephone to call the doctor. On a larger scale it enhances our ability to pick up and evaluate any problems with their pacemaker and certain other rhythm disorders that could be potentially dangerous or life threatening in ways we really could not do before.”

St. Jude Medical Inc., received FDA approval in July 2009.

[St. Jude Medical Inc.] [PCMAG]

Toyota's Humanoid Robot

Toyota’s recent prototype humanoid robot is able to run an average speed of 7 km/h.  The robot is able to remain balanced if pushed when in motion.

Check out the video below to see the robot in action.

First Tata Nano Delivered

Earlier this year we followed the development of Tata Motors’ Nano.  If you remember this is the world’s cheapest car with a price tag of around $2,500.  The first Nano was sold to a Mumbai resident Ashok Vichare on July 17, 2009.  Tata says it has a waiting list of around a year. [Tata Motors]