The Ultimate Startup for Startups
4 Comments Published by Louis Adekoya September 1st, 2007 in All Business Ideas, Blog, General PostsI see two fundamental problems with companies that I call startups for startups (SFSs), i.e. startups like Cambrian House, Cofoundr, Spigit, Startup Addicts etc that exist apparently to help other startups or people with ideas for startups. Typically, these companies (usually websites) enable their members to post business ideas online and have other members comment on and rate those ideas. Others want to help you find investors or partners etc. The problems I see with them are:
- Lack of Intellectual Property Protection: As much as people say that” ideas are cheap”, “it’s all about execution” and ”don’t keep your ideas to yourself”, people still do keep their really good ideas secret or reveal them only on a need to know basis. There is a big difference between revealing your business idea to one or two people who can help make it real and posting it to an online community with thousands of members, knowing that some of them have the skills to take your idea and run with it. The effect of this problem is that you seldom find really good ideas posted on these websites.
- No End Product: Most people who join an SFS do so because they lack the time, technical skills, business experience or funds to turn their ideas into real businesses. What they really want is for someone to say – “hey this is a really cool idea, I’ll implement or fund it for you”. Unrealistic as this expectation may seem, it is not difficult to imagine a system that would encourage and facilitate this sort of collaboration. Cambrian House comes close to doing this with its “Turn your idea into a business” feature but I don’t think it goes far enough.
So how might an SFS go about solving these problems? Well, here’s one idea: Continue to offer a free and public ideas forum but in addition offer a premium service that invites really good ideas under non-disclosure agreements and for a fee, has them assessed by an expert panel; conducts patent searches; provides feedback and submits the really good ideas to partner angel/VC investors. A group of ”venture technologists” could also be formed from the member base to help implement good ideas that do not qualify for funding. Basically, a service similar to BoggleIt in the U.K but with a social network wrapped around it.
By the way, other SFSs include PartnerUp, GoBigNetwork and Advisor Garage.
4 Responses to “The Ultimate Startup for Startups”
- 1 Trackback on Sep 11th, 2007 at 07:57
Thanks for mentioning PartnerUp in your post.
I think that you’re correct with the two problems that you bring up being the biggest issues for sites like PartnerUp. However, we spent a signifcant amount of time working with entrepreneurs, startups, and people who were interested in getting involved in these companies and we integrated all of their feedback into PartnerUp, which I believe successfully addresses both of these issues.
1) Throughout the site, we encourage users to only give a general overview of their business that is specific enough to help people decide if they’re interested in it, but generic enough so that there’s not enough information there to copy the idea. For example, if someone has an idea for a new online financial management suite, they could just say that. There’s no need for them to go into a lot of details about the exact specifications and such. This seems to be working very well and I’ve seen hundreds of ideas posted on PartnerUp that look really interesting and viable. Once they find someone who they’re interested in working with, they can get to know that person, have them sign and NDA, and then give them all of the details about the company.
2) We’ve put a tremendous amount of effort into making sure that PartnerUp is ideally designed for members to be able to specify exactly what they can bring to the table, and what skills, experience, or resources they need from others. We’ve found that by designing the interface to help entrepreneurs and startups find exactly the people that they need to help get they’re business off the ground, we’ve facilitated them building relationships that will work for them and their company.
I agree with the validity of your points, but I just wanted to point out that we’ve done a lot to combat these issues.
BTW… I’ve been reading through IdeaTagging for a few hours this morning and I’m quite impressed. I’ve added this site to my blog faves.
Mike
Mike, thanks for dropping by and for the kind words.
I have to admit that my knowledge of PartnerUp is all second hand because I live in the U.K and it appears that only U.S residents can join. That said, what I have read has all been very positive and from your comments, I can see why. Congratulations on your success.
By the way I wrote to your customer services team some months back to try to confirm that I couldn’t join and to find out if there were plans to extend beyond the U.S, but I never got a response.
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