What goes on behind the scenes that the general public or entrepreneurs don’t see?
Whatever you want to call “the sharing economy” or “marketplace startups,” peer-to-peer marketplaces continue to gain popularity, with a flurry of startups growing rapidly to keep up with all of this “on-demand” demand.
Continue reading… “What sharing-economy startups know that you don’t”
Dropcam’s computer algorithm lets a camera know who people are in the field of view.
There’s a gold rush underway to connect our devices to the web. For many, the devices are the keys to the kingdom — either riches in the form of selling data or from creating a widely used platform for services or applications. Yet what is becoming increasingly clear is that these models reflect a divide between cultures when it comes to the internet of things.
Continue reading… “Culture clash looms over the Internet of Things”
AI is no longer just for technology companies.
Intelligent machines have arrived, only they don’t look at all like we expected. They aren’t HAL from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and they certainly aren’t Scarlett Johansson’s disembodied voice in “Her.” Intelligent machines are more akin to what happens when insects, or even fungi, do when they “think.”
Continue reading… “We should start taking artificial intelligence seriously”
The Sense sleep tracking device has been backed by angel investors and crowdfunding campaigns.
Wall Street Journal’s Evelyn Rusli reports that startups are tapping new sources of early-stage funding, including ad hoc networks of wealthy tech executives doing some investing on the side, and that should give some big venture capital firms pause. Twenty-three year old entrepreneur James Proud is the latest example. He has raised $10.5 million from a circle of well-connected angel investors and an additional $2.4 million in a Kickstarter campaign for his sleep-tracker device Hello.
Continue reading… “Pre-VC rounds are shaking up early-stage funding”
Dozens of reading rooms have been reincarnated as de facto coworking spaces.
By Anita Hamilton: Jonathan Marino has just arrived at his tech startup in D.C.’s Chinatown neighborhood at 9:45 on a Monday morning. Marino is a 30-year-old director of content for Map Story which aims to be the Wikipedia of interactive maps. He greets his two interns with a huge smile, joins them at an open table tucked inside a glass-walled pod, and fires up his laptop. Hunched over their computers, the group looks like any other early-stage startup, with one key distinction–their “office” is merely a meeting area inside Washington, D.C.’s main public library.
“Can Google ever be beat?” That question was really less about Google and more about the potential of startups to disrupt the largest companies in our economy. Do we have the talent and capital needed for these companies to grow and compete against mature companies?
Continue reading… “The decline of startups and America’s aging economy: Study”
Majority of the people in the U.S. could be “banking” with startups in the next three to five years.
For investors and entrepreneurs, when looking for opportunity in the financial industry where technology can have the greatest impact, the best place to start has been with one of our oldest institutions: banks. However, while critical to our economy, banks are generally inefficient, have high fixed costs and don’t exactly elicit happy thoughts from the average consumer. It’s for these reasons, among others, that the biggest opportunities in the financial world revolve around the disintermediation of these banks and core financial services.
Continue reading… “Banking with startups a growing trend”
Futurist Thomas Frey: In 2002, Roger Ver was honing his entrepreneurial skills by selling products on eBay. It was in the aftermath of the Twin Towers disaster when one of his products called “Pest Control Report 2000” hit the radar of Homeland Security and he was charged and convicted of selling 14 pounds of explosives without a license.
We are set to disrupt the way startup investments are made.
Billions of dollars are flowing through Venture Capital Companies into startups. And that is an incredibly important development to bring more innovation, disruptive thinking and many more businesses to life. However, the Kauffman Foundation, a pretty influential force in the VC world, has expressed their frustration in a recent report:
Continue reading… “It’s time to disrupt the venture capital world”
The results of corporate acquisitions of startups are often disappointing.
Large companies have gone shopping in Silicon Valley for startups for decades. The pressure of continuous disruption has forced them to step up the pace lately.
Continue reading… “Why corporate acquisitions of startups usually fail”
Many organizations are unprepared for the mobile future.
There are hundreds of entrepreneurs every year whose business plans include the “mobile” buzzword. Many of them are app companies that target consumers or ad networks and platforms that help reach them. But there are even bigger opportunities for startups that leverage mobile technology to solve the most pressing problems for enterprises.
Continue reading… “3 trends that will transform how employees use their phones”
There’s been an unprecedented move to in education to standardize the curriculum in schools. Because of that there has been a flurry of business activity among startups and tech companies to cash in on the education reform.
Continue reading… “Education reform has led to an education gold rush”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
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