David Cummings on Startups

When Every Entrepreneur is a Tech Entrepreneur

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David Cummings

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Recently I was at an event with a number of successful entrepreneurs that had profitable, operating businesses. It’s always fun to catch up and hear what’s going on, learn about new initiatives, challenges, etc. One of the interesting things that I hadn’t experienced before is that no less than four different non-tech entrepreneurs I know came up and mentioned that they were working on or about to start working on a new company idea around a web/mobile product for their business that they want to sell to other businesses.

As web/mobile continues to take over more and more aspects of business, the number of tech entrepreneurs per capita is going to increase. Here are a few implications regarding the proliferation of tech entrepreneurs:

  • Demand for software engineering talent is going to increase (it’s estimated that there are four open software engineering positions for every one engineer looking for a new job)
  • Apps and devices are going to become evan more pervasive (we’re only scratching the surface of how technology is going to change our lives)
  • Technological rate of change is only going to increase
  • Lean Startup, the Business Model Canvas, and other ideas will continue to gain in importance

Entrepreneurs are already incorporating more technology into their business, and soon they’ll be a tech entrepreneur.

What else? What are some other implications when every entrepreneur is a tech entrepreneur?

Comments

3 responses to “When Every Entrepreneur is a Tech Entrepreneur”

  1. Johan Avatar
    Johan

    Agree David – it’s like referring to “social media”, frankly all media is social now.

    For those new to the business model canvas capture and develop your ideas using my free app Business Model Fiddle http://bmfiddle.com with templates for various canvases including personal and lean.

    Reply
  2. swagner2 (@swagner2) Avatar
    swagner2 (@swagner2)

    From my observation of the startups I mentor and the other startup companies I come in contact with, these are some other observations.

    1. Over emphasis on raising money (Taking 12 months to raise money without building traction = DEAD)
    2. Naive approach to customer development (who, what, where when, 5 P’s of marketing, etc.)
    3. Impatience with SaaS sales cycles (longer then expected)
    4. The need to “hack” your sales process until you have traction (what worked for someone else might not work for your company.
    5. Are you building a high growth tech company or managing a small business?

    When everyone is doing it, there must not be anything to it? Right?

    Reply
  3. Mary Jane Krug Avatar
    Mary Jane Krug

    I think one of the biggest implications is that a lot of people in the mainstream seem to have forgotten about business outside the tech world. I’ve seen conversations like these http://bit.ly/RAUt2Z where people seem to be questioning if non-tech entrepreneurship is dead. I say no! If we forget about the non-tech world we are going to find ourselves in a bubble that is only going to pop with time. I think we need to take the tech and lessons from the tech startup world and use them to make the barriers to entry low for EVERY kind of startup.

    Reply

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