Trends, Ideas and Opportunities for a startup

In my last three posts I have deliberate focused on startup ideas because I think the world deserves to know about the ideas I have been thinking about. I believe that an idea has no value if is not being implemented or has not been implemented. As I write this post, I am going through a customer discovery phase of my new startup idea. I am trying as much as possible to contact at least five companies who share the pain I have discovered. The primary research will prove my assumptions right or wrong. I read about so many ideas and predictions of new trends and opportunities for startup by popular bloggers, and I am convinced beyond reasonable doubt that in as much as there are good ideas, the real value is in the implementation. If somebody believes in the ideas I blog about he or she can implement them and I will be happy to be a beta tester. In the mean time I am trying out few once from the large pool of startup ideas I have. I will keep you posted with ideas in every post. You are welcome to share your comments on the ideas I blog about. In the mean time check out Whats Next After Web 2.0 and Mobile Opportunities For Startups and listen to what Eric Schmidt has to say about where the opportunities are in the future

Startup Ideas from 2 Startup Industries

A lot of startups exist as a business with contributions from the public to gather content. Startups like Digg , Reddit , stumbleUpon and Wikipedia have been able to create something useful that attracted users who ended up providing content for these sites. Others have created platforms that allow innovation and creativity by leveraging on architecture of participation.

1. Open Innovation
The first idea revolves around Open Innovation. Products are listed under three categories. Platforms that allow peer to peer (p2p) product creation .There are sites that initiated by corporate organizations and last but not the least is public sector peer production for institutions and agencies. The list of ideas and products can be found here: Open Innovation Ideas and Online Crowd Powered Ideas and startups.

2. Enterprise 2.0
A lot of applications have been built around the web 2.0 buzz. Companies have always been concerned about how their data can be safe with a startup that has products on a remote server and sometimes the service is even still in beta stage, but these startups expect enterprises to sign on and pay for particular service. The greatest concern has always been security. But some companies have are doing great and new companies are springing up every day in the enterprise space. Kart has identified opportunities in four areas with great potential. Enterprise 2.0 Opportunities

Saas Startup Ideas

Software as a service is being talked about everyday by trend experts, Industry Bloggers, and trend predictors.I have been Thinking about how best to to take advantage of this wave.But it is not that easy to build a startup to serve the businesses.I have been thinking about ideas that can fly and subsequently emerge into a company that can scale like salesforce. Salesforce is the leader of the software as a service market. The 7 Secrets to SaaS Startup Success by Salesforce is great.I am attracted to this market, but I need a lot of insight to run a company like that. Ben Yoskovitz has great insight in the saas market. What Do SaaS Companies Have to Prepare for 2009? has a lot of advice. .
For all the trends and companies taken saas to the next level visit. .

A couple of ideas I have stumbled upon whilst surfing the web:

• Professional Virtual Office Easily manage your data (emails, contacts, meetings, documents, tasks,…) in your virtual office from any computer with a Web browser and an Internet connection. Share yourdata and access shared data efficiently in the context of work or leisure groups. Your data are safe andavailable anytime on the Web, on a PDA (online or offline) or on a WAP capable cell phone.

• Simplify your Online Life . develop tools that improve Internet user’s digital lifestyles. Tools make it easier to communicate online, whether that means one web-based inbox for email and social networks or some other method the community has yet to dream up.

• Contact Management Easily create, manage, and search an unlimited number of contacts, export to vcards, even share contacts with any email address. On the run? Seamlessly download and view your contacts on your phone, laptop, or iPod. Gone are the days of business cards piling up and sticky notes on your desk, Keepm makes everyone you know searchable, shareable, and always accessible.keepm.com (good concept)

• Segment: “Platform as a Service”. Product: a web-based development & hosting platform allowing small businesses to model , build and manage autonomously their own information system, for a small monthly fee.

• Web hosted Virus scanner for enterprises instead of relying on downloadable software. Enterprise subscribes to scan their computers automatically.

• As search engine that crawls and searches for reports on Africa and developing countries. Information aggregated are bundled as reports and sold to companies that needs market analysis and other info for business decisions.

10 Marketing 2.0 Commandments.

• By knowing the lifetime value of your users, you know exactly how much you can pay to acquire new users with an acceptable profit margin
• andrewchenblog
• dig into target customer’s need for the solution, real addressable market size and segments and any existing current demand for the category
•First Penny
•predictablyirrational
• focus on developing marketing skills that will always remain relevant. These include things like marketing psychology, diffusion of innovation, company building, customer research methods, persuasive website architecture, actionable marketing metrics…

marketing-plan-for-web-20-startups-presentation
• Success is based on a combination of access to financing, market need, exceptional product and marketing execution, tenacity, and let’s face it – luck.
• Effective customer development… By figuring out who needs your product/service, why they need it, what constitutes a gratifying experience with the product/service and getting more of the right type of people to this gratifying experience (highlighting the right benefits and reducing barriers) social media can become a powerful driver for your business too.

Startup Business Ideas

I have been looking into ideas that can possibly be turned into a company if the market analysis are done right.These are some of the ideas I have been thinking about.

•“There are plenty of customers and business partners that are willing, and even anxious, to tell a business exactly what they need, how to improve a product, or even become involved with the design and innovation process in order to contribute their experience and requirements. It is through empowering the people and letting their contributions be heard that the great advances are made.”

• Diskaunt
Online deals and discount provider which lists all available shopping discounts. Discounts on flight, hotel, bus booking, credit card, flowers, cakes, electronics, mobiles, laptops, computers books and cloths in a geographical area of customers’ preference.

• SocialShop
Social Commerce (online shopping). It helps shoppers interact and share before making decisions to purchase. Add feature that allow shoppers to create wish list with price quotations and receive sms when the price matches their wish list and in a geographic area of choice.
• Myrr
Borrow books online and add to your profile and read for a period within a period. Pay based on number of books borrowed.
You can also think around these:

• Ideas that could become new companies
• Ideas that could become new products for existing companies (mine or someone else’s)
• Ideas that could become great new features for existing products
• Ideas that could improve existing features of existing products

TechCrunch Network Search Engine

I have been using techcrunch a lot to find out about technology news and emerging startups on the internet.Recently I stumbled upon the TechCrunch Network Search Engine .Its a great tool that has helped me tremendously.I have been looking for a site with startup directory like what techcrunch provides.All the startups featured on both TechCrunch and Crunchbase are presented in a way that makes it possible to track what they do easily. What makes it very useful fro me is that I type particular industry and it returns all the startups that are featured under it in a perfect way.Its especially useful if you are conducting research under competitive analysis.

15 Startup Commandments

1. Your idea isn’t new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that execution matters more.

2. Stealth startups suck. You’re not working on the Manhattan Project, Einstein. Get something out as quickly as possible and promote the hell out of it.

3. If you don’t have scaling problems, you’re not growing fast enough.

4. If you’re successful, people will try to take advantage of you. Hope that you’re in that position, and hope that you’re smart enough to not fall for it.

5. People will tell you they know more than you do. If that’s really the case, you shouldn’t be doing your startup.

6. Your competition will inflate their numbers. Take any startup traffic number and slash it in half. At least.

7. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Leonardo could paint the Mona Lisa only once. You, Bob Ross, can push a bug release every 5 minutes because you were at least smart enough to do a web app.

8. The size of your startup is not a reflection of your manhood. More employees does not make you more of a man (or woman as the case may be).

9. You don’t need business development people. If you’re successful, companies will come to you. The deals will still be distractions and not worth doing, but at least you’re not spending any effort trying to get them.

10. You have to be wrong in the head to start a company. But we have all the fun.

11. Starting a company will teach you what it’s like to be a manic depressive. They, at least, can take medication.

12. Your startup isn’t succeeding? You have two options: go home with your tail between your legs or do something about it. What’s it going to be?

13. If you don’t pay attention to your competition, they will turn out to be geniuses and will crush you. If you do pay attention to them, they will turn out to be idiots and you will have wasted your time. Which would you prefer?

14. Startups are not a democracy. Want a democracy? Go run for class president, Bueller.

15. You’re doing a web app, right? This isn’t the 1980s. Your crummy, half-assed web app will still be more successful than your competitor’s most polished software application.

How Enterprises Are Exploring SaaS

Software as a service has come to be recognised as a substitute for tradittional software that needs to installed,maintained,supported and upgraded.The importance of softwrae as a service cannot be over emphasized. Companies like Salesforce are big players in the industry. Personally i believe there are a lot of potential and opportunity for sofware entrepreneurs who want to take advantage of SaaS.
Some Saas Startups in the industry:
Cotweet
huddle
prezi
quick.tv
4projects
continuans
saasplaza
xceliant

SaaS offers enterprises a great opportunity to use software without the trouble to install the software. SaaS is driving the world’s 60 fastest-growing software companies, study finds.But it takes a great deal of effort to sell SaaS products to enterprises.Enterprises demand ROI in products of such nature.Sales Executives must always be available to talk to them.Whatever European startups delivering SaaS to enterprises are doing,we must learn so much from them.Apparently Enterprises are empbrasing SaaS in Europe better than US. SaaS in Europe at the tipping point . Phil Wainewright’s post says it all in SaaS adoption swells in Europe . I believe there are still opportunities to explore if you can do it right. Two SaaS Companies that Solve Business Problems for Customers . B2B Opportunities for Web 2.0 Startups .

Web Development Resources

All the resources you will need as a web developer

Interesting Startups
24sevenoffice
30gigs
app2you
arenasia
attensa
babelgum
bango
iplayerbeta
betamarker
bitty
bizak
bizwiki
blinklist

builtwith
ceedo
chacha
cliproller
coghead
crunchboard
crunchnotes
dapper
deyey
doodlekit

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bloggersnap
bloglinkr
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Enterprise 2.0 Startups

Consumer applications are out there in their numbers. It takes a lot of effort for users to find them. The few once that make it to mainstream have been able to do so partly because they solve a real problem that users find useful. In the standard word-of-mouth model, you have to allow users to try the product, if users find the product useful, they evangelize it everyone they know, some of the users who are being evangelized to tries it as well. The cycle continues especially if the users keep talking about it. Some entrepreneurs believe that marketing should not be a problem if you build a remarkable product. Robert Stephens believes that “Marketing is a Tax You Pay for being Unremarkable”.
Bessemer’s Top 10 Laws for Being “SaaS-y” has a lot to say about Enterprise applications. I don’t know whether the same statement may apply to enterprise applications. In a business to business application, the message has to be made clear to the businesses the product is targeted at. Startups that depend on sales representatives should be able to work out the cost of acquiring customers effectively. Can an enterprise application depend solely on customer referrals because the product is remarkable? VC funded businesses must have very scalable customer acquisition opportunities to bring in the customers that can translate into revenues.Ben Yoskovitz has outlined lessons for founders who want to pursue enterprise software.Lessons Learned Running a SaaS Business .One of the biggest challenges with enterprise software is adoption — getting customers to actually use what you’ve sold them. A lot of companies don’t like to buy from startups who call themselves enterprise 2.0. There’s more risk involved. What happens if you go out of business,especially when a crucial part of the business process is being handled by the startup.Enterprise 2.0 Startups – Know Your Market is a good start for enterprise application development.