“The key question to keep asking is, Are you spending your time on the right things? Because time is all you have.” –Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture
Alley Insider, one of my favorite tech blogs, published an interesting post yesterday, titled “If We Hear About Any More Startups Like These, We’ll Scream“, listing some of the latest startup trends in idea buckets. Their frustration is coming from the sheer number of startups doing the same thing in the US, but for all of us living out of the US, the question should be: Is it currently being done right your country?
So, for all of you saying I want to start a startup but [insert your own reason here] (i.e. “don’t have a good idea”, “everything has been done”, “can’t think of something that would stick” etc), I hope these 20 startup trends give you some inspiration. See the full list after the jump.
20 Startup Bucket Ideas for your inspiration
- Photo Sharing –
- US companies in the space: Instagram, Piictu, Pinterest,Sincerely, Pictour.us
- Israeli rep: JPEGmini (sort of)
- Social Commerce –
- US reps: Storenvy, Goodsie, Magento.go, as well as larger companies like Yahoo eCommerce
- Israeli rep: Giftsproject
- Micro hiring (minions, personal assistants):
- TaskRabbit, Zaarly, and of course Craigslist
- Israeli rep: Fiverr
- Mobile payments
- Square, Intuit, Google Wallet, Starbucks Mobile Card, Giftly
- Education, Teaching, Blackboard killers
- US reps: Coursekit, Coursehorse, Skillshare, TutorSpree, Hoot.me
- Israeli rep: Time to Know
- Music Sharing:
- Spotify, Turntable.fm, MOG, Rdio
- Israeli rep: Vibedeck (based in LA, founded by Lior Shamir)
- Last minute bookings –
- Lifebooker, Hotel Tonight,ZocDoc, Savored
- Monthly deliveries
- Birchbox, GuyHaus, ManPacks, ShoeDazzle, FreshDirect
- Video job interviews
- Ovia, Take The Interview, Skype and Google Hangouts
- Making technical things easy for non-techies
- Goodsie, Onswipe, Flotype, Onepager
- Israeli rep: Ineze (sort of)
- Social eReading experiences
- BenchPrep, AppAddictive, Copia, BookTracks
- Renting everything (flats, sofas, dresses, etc)
- GetAround, Airbnb, LooseCubes, Liquid Space
- Mobile gaming
- US : Zynga, Rovio, Lima Sky
- Daily deals and Group commerce
- US reps: Groupon, LivingSocial, Group Commerce, SignPost, Yipit
- European reps: too many to mention!
- Online dating:
- Match, JDate, eHarmony, OkCupid, Clique, HowAboutWe, Ignighter, Moonit, Luv@FirstTweet
- In Europe: Zin.gl, Badoo
- Social travel and events
- US Reps: Nextstop (acquired by Facebook), Sonar, SpotOn
- Social news recommendation
- US Reps: Twitter, Shelby, Meebo, OnSwipe
- Flash Sales
- US Reps: Gilt Groupe, Ideeli, Lot18, HauteLook (acquired by Nordstrom), Artspace, Village Vines
- In Europe: BuyVip (acquired by Amazon), Privalia (Spain)
- Social Networks for groups
- US reps: Kohort, Path, Fridge, Beluga (acquired by Facebook), Facebook page, Google
- Check-ins
- US reps: Foursquare, Gowalla, SCVNGR, Turf, MyTown, Matchbook
Some Advice
Deciding to launch a startup is a big decision and there’s plenty of books talking about that. Personal circumstances aside, you’ll have to test the market and industry in a macro level (secondary research, industry reports, etc) and in a micro level (interviews with potential customers, people in the field, etc). And then you have to build the team that can deliver the promise. Not an easy feat.
That said, just because there’s someone else doing it, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. If it already exists in your market, think if you could make the product better, cheaper, faster or more viral. Think of a better mouse trap, an unfair competitive advantage (for example, your deep connections with _____) or the perfect niche customer that is currently being unfulfilled. Unlike the orignal post on Alley Insider, the aim of this post was to inspire you – I hope it did!
I'm a former general partner at google ventures, head of Google for Entrepreneurs in Europe and founding head of Campus London, Google's first physical hub for startups.
I'm also the founder of Techbikers, a non-profit bringing together the startup ecosystem on cycling challenges in support of Room to Read. Since inception in 2012 we've built 11 schools and 50 libraries in the developing world.
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