52 Bicycles

I scan the internet and software VC commentariat from time to time to listen to what moneymen (and -women) think about the issues I care about. By and large a smart bunch, and Dave Hornik’s Ventureblog is must-read for me.

So while reading his recent post, Unique Technology Still Matters to Start-ups I was intrigued by a report by a PR agency that says - surprise - technology is an important element of a technology startup.

Before I go on, kudos to the PR agency for knowing how to drum up some free media and influencer attention. This was inexpensive and clever, and they’re getting high-quality buzz.

But the study, rather than asking about the relative importance of “unique technology” as compared with other drivers of success, merely asks in a vacuum, then delves into a brief treatment of “why”.

I would be much more interested in knowing what other factors are important in startup success. What attributes of technological advancement - speed, reliability, expense, ease-of-use, ease-of-implentation, among others - are most important, and in which circumstances.

There are a couple of hints to these latter questions in the comments section of the report, which I have quoted below in the hope that we might all share some more anecdotes, and this firm or others will take a stab at asking the comparative question in a quantitative fashion sometime soon:

Relatively speaking unique technology is less important now than 5 years ago. Today,
companies appear to be valued on their market success (as evidenced by customers and
revenue) rather than purely on “game changing” technology. (venture capitalist)

[Is technology important?] It depends. Most often it is. However, there are situations
where that is not the case. For example, start-ups looking to capitalize from webadvertising,
which today has been proven to be very effective, need to drive traffic, in
which case content, viral marketing, and other such qualities are what matters and
unique technology does not.

Unique technology is critical but also market size, people quality, competitive threats are
all equal and must haves. (CEO, serial entrepreneur, former venture capitalist)

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 5th, 2006 at 12:21 am and is filed under Technology Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. Reddit This