The third and most interesting technology trend, potentially the biggest game changer is Blockchain or distributed ledger, the next big thing after the internet which will touch everyone’s lives in the decades to come. Being a peer-to-peer system, with distributed storage and decentralized applications there is no single point of failure which makes it hard to control, tamper or manipulate. While the world wide web gave us the internet of information, Blockchain is designed to give us the internet of value, securing our investments and ownership from financial transactions and medical records all the way to cover physical and digital assets. The growing popularity of crypto securities and utility tokens has even led to a new type of enterprise startups providing custody solutions to protect digital assets, which is an indicator of the things to come. Wrapping all of these technologies is the critical layer of deep tech innovation around a network and cybersecurity, a domain that requires a lot of investments from deep pockets of large enterprises and government agencies working together to outsmart the menace of the dark web.

Scaling Startups:

Startup founders need to carefully look at the problem they are trying to solve and accordingly plan their scaling strategy. Enterprise startups, mostly business to business (B2B) models ideally need early adoption by corporate majors willing to allow them to do their proof of concept (PoC) trials, particularly in highly regulated environments like fintechs and medtechs which require support to overcome the regulatory hurdles for successful commercialization. On the other hand, consumer startups, typically business to consumers (B2C) models whose success depends on the speed of customer acquisition and retention, needs to constantly innovate to stay ahead of the curve in order to generate traction and stickiness using various models to hook the consumer like offering “freemium” models and gamification. We see such examples in entertainment platforms, e-commerce sites, marketplaces where the next wave of dominance will happen through the emergence of “superapps” like Wechat which offer everything a consumer needs including payments, transport, food, shopping and so on. However B2B and B2C models are not mutually exclusive always and we see the convergence of these two models into B2B2C where enterprise startups are building solutions for institutions but for use by the end consumers. Fusing their plus points may uplift new opportunities for new innovations to solve big problems or create true delight.

Suggestions for Aspiring Entrepreneurs

There are two types of entrepreneurs we usually come across, the young excited first time entrepreneur unbound and unshackled, with a high risk appetite, most of whom are fresh out of their grad schools where the seeds of disruption are born in the innovation hubs and research labs which are now integral parts of all academic institutions, while the other type of entrepreneur is the brushed up experienced ones who is more likely to be the one with a some past entrepreneurial stints or deep domain experience The former types may have brilliant ideas but they require a lot of mentoring and typically incubators and accelerator programs fill this void. If they are lucky, they secure some initial funding from friends, family and may even tap into grants from their academic institutions or government, to help them execute a minimum viable product with a clear path to monetization. The successful founders who pass this stage then go on to tap institutional capital from Venture Capital funds to scale their business. The breed of experienced founders, need to assess their own strengths and plug their weak areas by teaming up with co-founders who can complement their roles. Such founders are more likely to drive enterprise startups due to their domain experiences and knowledge of business processes and would be have the resources to bootstrap their business till they create enough traction to tap institutional funding and strategic support from corporate VCs.