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September 2010

 

The 7 Tech Megatrends according to Ron Conway

Megatrends
Silicon Valley's most famous early stage startup investor Ron Conway and his firm SV Angel put together a report for investors listing 7 tech "megatrends" for startups. TechCrunch first reported it.

According to SV Angel, the megatrends are:

  • Social
  • Real-Time
  • Location Based Services
  • The Urban Entrepreneur
  • Mobile
  • Flash Sales
  • Behavior & Transactions

The list isn't terribly surprising. However it's a great overview for any would be entrepreneur of what's hot right now in tech.

Below is the full list of megatrends via the Business Insider. Check out SV Angel's explanation of these trends and the companies that are most relevant to each:

Social

  • The web is now truly social via the explosive growth and wide adoption of FaceBook, Twitter, and other social media.
  • Openness and willingness to share: users are sharing more with each passing quarter.
  • Consumer behavior is becoming more "forgiving" when it comes to privacy and disclosure.
  • ...this is in no small part due to mobile devices and smartphone devices being ideal for social web and instant sharing.

Relevant companies: Twitter, Blippy, DailyBooth, Zynga, Facebook

Real-time

  • A corpus of time-relevant data is being created and used in new ways.
  • Twitter led the charge, and now numerous companies are integrating time-relevancy into products.
  • Collective wisdom and crowd-sourcing: with the real-time trend, people are continuing to provide services that are made more interesting/valuable by piecing together bits of unstructured information that can then be used for a new services mashed up on top of these layers.

Relevant companies: Twitter, Foursquare, all the LBS players, and other services where the analog status of users, and analog movement of individuals in various places are being turned into digital, real-time streams.

Location-based Services

  • "Check-ins" are the new 'status message."  The "Check-in" will be a very important piece of structured data.  It is a precise update, which allows for trending locations, awareness of friends' location, and ultra-relevant location-based ads.
  • Local discovery includes alerts for traffic jams, turn-by-turn directions, finding the nearest ATM or coffee shop, and ordering tacos from the best  Mexican restaurant in town.

Relevant companies: Foursquare is leading the charge, and Gowalla, Yelp, Loopt, Brightkite, Google Latitude, Rumble and other social networks to follow.

The Urban Entrepreneur

  • A new field of entrepreneurs is developing where key insights are coming from founders in large cities.
  • "Behavioral entrepreneurs": low cost to computing and open source tools of technology have led entrepreneurs to find innovation in behavior rather than technology, at least within social media.
  • Winners will be companies that utilize these important trends/technologies to provide services where users get massive value (output) from simple input.

Relevant companies: Jack Dorsey, San Francisco - Twitter; Dennis Crowley, New York - Foursquare; Jon Wheatley, London - Daily Booth; Bump Team, Chicago

Mobile

  • Mobile is deeply intertwined with real-time data.  Mobile's pervasiveness amplifies sharing and increases the potential of collective wisdom.
  • The power is shifting from hardware to those who can master: content, monetization, access, and the cloud.
  • Mobile is especially important for consumer-facing social products, as mobile is quickly becoming the initial or most common interface for many new products & services.

Relevant companies: Apple and Google will continue to be the leading app platforms.  HTML5 will lead the app-like mobile websites in the future.

Flash Sales

  • Online shopping experiences ranging from high-end "invite-only" clubs to mass adoption deal sites have gained rapid momentum and revenues.
  • Daily deal sites, like Groupon, have finally unlocked the potential of local, connecting the online world (via mailing lists) with local businesses.
  • Targeted Groupon clones will continue to crop up as the economics of the business are so attractive.  Sites like Yipit will help users navigate such long-tail players.

Relevant companies: Gilt Groupe, Rue La LA, Groupon, Ideeli, One Kings Lane, HauteLook, Totsy, Editors' Closet, Beyond the Rack, and many more.

Behavior & Transactions

  • In 2010-2015 we will see analog transactions and behaviors rapidly convert into real-time feeds of data and services.
  • Search algorithms are no longer the lifeblood of IP.UI and UX are becoming increasingly important in social communities and products-- that is the "new IP" driver-- "Social Engineering" is replacing "Algorithmic Engineering."
  • Initial product cycles are about finding key insights in shifting behavior trends and patterns.

Relevant companies: Posterous, Hipmunk, Foursquare, WePay, TweetDeck.

What do you think of these trends? Agree or disagree with any? Any other trends you're seeing?



 

Filed under  //  investing   startups   trends   venture capital  
Posted
 

Why Your Best Ideas Come In The Shower

Paul Graham had this to say about the top idea in your mind: 
I think most people have one top idea in their mind at any given time. That's the idea their thoughts will drift toward when they're allowed to drift freely. And this idea will thus tend to get all the benefit of that type of thinking, while others are starved of it. Which means it's a disaster to let the wrong idea become the top one in your mind.

I suspect a lot of people aren't sure what's the top idea in their mind at any given time. I'm often mistaken about it. I tend to think it's the idea I'd want to be the top one, rather than the one that is. But it's easy to figure this out: just take a shower. What topic do your thoughts keep returning to? If it's not what you want to be thinking about, you may want to change something.

Sachin Argarwal then expanded on how his best ideas come to him in the shower:

I have found that my best ideas come when I'm taking a shower, when my mind is left to wander. My thoughts will drift to the idea that is at the top of my mind and I will have a moment of clarity.

These days people seem to be addicted to information. We can't stop reading, watching TV, looking at photos, connecting with friends. But it's still important to have times when you just clear your mind and let it drift.

Here's what I've found helps to have these moments of clarity:

  1. Great ideas come in the shower. Make sure you bathe often :)
  2. Get plenty of sleep. Great ideas might not come while you're sleeping, but you will wake up refreshed with a clear mind
  3. Walk a lot. I find the slow pace of walking is great for thinking
  4. Go to the gym. Particularly when I'm on the treadmill or elliptical machine for 30 minutes, my mind gets bored and wanders. Great ideas surface when this happens
via sachin.posterous.com

Paul Graham and Sachin are both dead on here. I too have found that my best ideas come to me when I'm in the shower. The real question is why?

The reason is pretty simple -- it is when my mind is most relaxed.

I would even expand this to say that my best ideas come to me when I'm in the shower after a long run. The main reason I love running for long distances is that it helps clear the mind. After the first couple of miles, the mind kind of shuts down and the body takes over. Hop into the shower after that run and you will find a totally clear mind ready for problem solving.

I would also a 5th item to Sachin's list here:

5. Go on a vacation.

If you, like Paul Graham mentions, consistently do not like the top idea in your mind, get away. Get out of town for a while. There is nothing like a vacation (ideally filled with lots of running, showering, eating and sleeping) to evaluate and prioritize what that top idea in your mind should be.

Filed under  //  ideas   startups  
Posted