I’ve written in my past
life about how bullish I am on the future for tech/internet/mobile/social
startups given all of the big investments made by the major players.
Silverlight, AIR, Google’s Android, Windows Mobile, the iPhone SDK,
Facebook, OpenSocial, Amazon Web Services, Twitter, Windows Live, etc.
all represent major new platforms that didn’t exist in all their
splendor just a few short years ago. Anyone with an imagination, some
business sense, and access to a developer or two can get something
started quickly and at low cost today.
Given all of these choices, what could the major players do to help
entrepreneurs make a bet on their technologies? I’m not talking about
access to SDKs and technical resources… I’m talking about resources
to help start a business. I used to give this thought when I
helped build some of the partner programs for Microsoft. Now that I’m
on the other side of the fence, I have some new ideas that have been
born out of my 3 weeks on the new job… starting a new Web company
from scratch. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect any tech player to
actually follow through on all of these. But I did want to capture my
thinking 3 weeks in to share ideas with colleagues at the major
players… to help them understand the thought process of the
early-stage entrepreneur. Anyway, here goes:
- access to reasonable health care —
this is probably the #1 concern of the early stage entrepreneur,
especially one over the age of 25. Most people who go early stage can
endure going without salary for a period of time, but very few people
can endure a major unforeseen medical problem. There are a lot of
options here — extend a health care plan to startups, partner with an
insurance company to provide a special deal for sponsored startups,
pool startups into a separate plan & take that to an insurance
company. Right now, it’s a pretty ugly situation for startups and it’s
a very common question amongst startup CEOs.
- legal support — attorneys are *really* expensive,
especially for a small business struggling to pay its own employees.
In fact, I’d argue that the last thing a startup CEO wants to do is pay
an attorney $300/hr when that amount of money could buy an entire team
on a contract basis. Legal needs for startups are pretty standard —
we all need NDAs, invention assignment agreements, work for hire
agreements for consulting arrangements, terms of use/license agreement,
etc. Make it easy!
- assistance with "scale" problems — today’s environment is
one of potentially rapid change. Big success stories happen almost
overnight. The major players need to have programs in place that make
it easier, not more difficult to do things like add server capacity,
make new employees productive quickly, and accelerate marketing
programs.
- business development leads — simply put, I need help
exposing my business and its products/services to potential customers.
I think it’s fairly safe to say that if I’m starting something, it is
complimentary and not competitive with the major players. We all know
that the major players communicate with potential customers all the
time… make it easy to help me find customers! We would all win.
- access to qualified talent — for many promising
businesses, it is difficult to find talented people willing to work on
terms you need to get your business started. I’d love to see a
Monster.com for people looking for startups… with information on
where someone lives, the skills they have, etc. It would also be
interesting to get help with outsourcing. I’d love to tap into a
network of certified outsourcing partners for example.
- access to internal deals — *All* the major players spend
millions of dollars getting their own work done by working with
third-party vendors. I’d like to see easier access to internal deals
as long as the project matches the type of business we do. If what I
experienced at Microsoft was any indication, folks just reached for the
nearest or most comfortable vendor to get something done. Often times,
we were disappointed with the result. There are a lot of hungry,
capable companies out there eager to please major players in the tech
business… all they need is the opportunity.
The tech giants make the mistake of assuming that the only way to help is by making the technology easy to approach. While that is a major part of the equation, help on the business issues would also go a long way. The company who figures out how to solve these problems will win
over the hoardes of entrepreneurs eager to find a good partner that
helps mitigate some of the risks of going early stage. There you’ll
find great leaps of innovation that will pay off with platform wins and
undying loyalty from the masses.
We have the same ideas. I agree companies with stakes in there stacks really need to get more involved to help ensure good companies make it past the initial hump of getting started. It’s a worth while investment. What’s the point if a startup is only using your stack for the 6 months it’s alive.
Hi Michael - thanks for reading…
No question that most startups don’t survive the long-term… but it’s also almost impossible to tell who will succeed and who won’t. And quite frankly, one success (if it is substantial enough) may be better than hundreds of failures if it solves the right problem.
I think that the recent Google & Nokia announcements are indicative that they have thought through the implications of supporting startups. The major players can’t support *everyone*… it doesn’t scale… so they use a VC model to help pick out the winners from the losers to improve the chances that the companies they deal with will be around for the long haul.
I am impressed that they see that innovation is a key to the success of their future business… and they are putting their money behind it. Many large tech companies have an aversion to working with startups because they assume startup=failure. These guys are saying that starups will do a great job innovating, maybe a better job than the companies themselves. Successful startup case studies are worth supporting because they are critical to proving the long term value of their respective platforms. I think that’s pretty cool.
Chris