What’s a Startup?
I’m seriously sick of getting into arguments, all over the world, really, about what the hell a startup is.
A startup is ANY newly-created company or, if you want to get more technical, one with a relatively limited operational history. Yeah, actually, that’s the definition of startup.
People almost never use the term “tech startup” anymore, which is a shame, because the massive number of startups in this space has resulted in tech startups taking ownership over the entire nomenclature. But, and this is entire reason I’m writing this piece, it’s ESSENTIAL to understand that while tech startups are absolutely startups, so are newly-created businesses that aren’t in the tech space. Seems like a no-brainer to me but I’m often standing in the wilderness on this.
See, here’s the thing. I love tech and I love educational technology (“EdTech”) and all of the other forms of tech. But we’ve somehow lost the thread. We’ve become yobongoed.
Hah? “yobongoed?”
So, yesterday I saw a commercial for a tech startup called yobongo, currently in development or perhaps dead (a little difficult to ascertain at the moment). Here’s the video, in case you’re so inclined:
yobongo (click on it, silly)
I’m sorry but this video pushed me right over the edge and it does so for three key reasons:
1. Stop. Just stop using your big, fertile brains to create another messaging service when you could be creating socially useful shit. For the love of God, stop. How many messaging services are enough? I don’t want to know exactly where everyone I know is at all times and I as sure don’t need to be tracked more than I’m sure I already am. Plus, um, hasn’t this been done before. What the hell is Glympse? Yammer does pieces of it. Even INSTAGRAM does if you use it in that way. Seriously.
2. The video itself is just abysmal. Seriously, this is the worst piece of shit I’ve seen in ages, partly because of the next point.
3. Enough hipsters already. Come ON. First, the video was clearly shot in insanely hipstery Dolores Park and the even mas hipsterific Summit SF cafe. The level of inventiveness in this is a flat zero. My brain hurts with the entire concept. I can just smell the soy latte and ironic monotone whining.
Oddly, this wasn’t a tangent. This is the shit people see in their minds when they think “startup.” It’s seared into our consciousness with the hot, red branding iron of mediocrity.
Look, I work in and with a bunch of startups. I love to advise them and the entrepreneurs who fuel their progress. And while tech is a part of most startups today, where tech is in and of itself the beginning and end, my concentration is strained. Throw in terms like “social” and “messaging” and the ubiquitous “the next Facebook” and I’m measuring the potential bodily damaging from flinging myself over whatever is closest.
What I want to see for 2012 is a much broader realization that anyone looking to open a great new business is opening a startup. I want to see incubators for non-tech startups. I want to see more EDUpreneurs use tech as a tool rather than as the entire engine. I want more talent following what I try to do, which is to identify amazing people with great drive and energy and leadership and for us to use our time and talents to support them. I want to see people passionate about making truly exceptional, world-changing shit rather than getting all bouncy over how to monetize something they haven’t a clue how to build out. I really just want to see ALL good startups have a chance to succeed and I want us to call out stupid ideas and copycat shit and put a bullet in the base of the skull of a lot more rip-off, intellectually complacent, fluffy ideas.
And I want world peace, of course.
And onion rings.