As one of the world’s most successful venture capital firms, hosting and having hosted some of the most successful unicorns and decacorns in its portfolio, a16z has harboured no fears in venturing into the rough waters of Web3 investing, AKA the Crypto/Blockchain market.
A16Z Crypto made strong showing through July 2021 to June 2022, investing across a diverse range of subsectors in the cryptoverse. Within this duration, Bitcoin, the major cryptocurrency, tanked heavily in June, made it’s all time high (ATH) above $68,000 in September and has stayed bearish as of this writing. As you may already know, the Bitcoin crash set off a domino effect across all altcoins and tokens bringing the entire market to the much talked about crypto winter.
Pink horizontal line showing BTC ATH and red vertical lines showing BTC performance from July 2021 to June 2022.
A16Z Crypto is the Web3 fund of the global venture capital giant, Andreessen Horowitz (a16z). While Web3 has become an all encompassing word, habouring a long lineup of sectors, this fund is aimed at startups launching or that have launched their services or products on the blockchain. The blockchain being the underlying technology, or for simpler understanding, the manufacturing plant for cryptocurrencies. The fund is also focused on core crypto related projects such as exchanges.
A16z Crypto’s Investment Strategy The fund is structured like a hedge fund and not a traditional VC fund, with a goal to hold crypto investments beyond the normal 10 year venture capital cycle, according to Yahoo Finance. It shoots to maintain aggressive investing in both bull and bear markets, consolidating on its long term view of the market. Also, it will look towards investing at all stages. Think: Preseed to late stage, and you will be on track.
A16Z Crypto Stats and Analytics A16Z began investing in crypto in 2013 with a first investment in cryptocurrency exchange platform, Coinbase. A16Z has raised a total of $7.6 billion under its crypto fund, a16z Crypto from 2018 to 2022.
A16Z has invested in a total of 113 companies since inception, with 75 of these being crypto/blockchain startups according to data from blockdata. There has been 4 major fails off these investments including Diem, OpenBazaar, Basis and B17 Clout.
Pie chart highlighting the number of successful and failed crypto investments
Investments from July 2021 to June 2022 During this period, a16z has made investments in 56 startups in the following subsectors: blockchain, gaming, custodial/wallets, staking and trading exchanges, analytics, tokenised carbon credits, NFT, metaverse assets, IOT and hardware.
Of these investments, blockchain startups have swooped up the majority of the cash, trailed by gaming. With each having an equal investment total of 10. Investments in both segments exceeded the $1 billion mark, as blockchain shoots past gaming by over a $100 million.
Comparison between number of investments per sector with cash allocation to each segment
Investments by Country
A16Z invested in crypto startups across 4 major continents. Investment count includes 44 in the US, 2 each in Canada, Vietnam, United Kingdom and Switzerland. It made single investments in India, Phillipines, Australia, France and Singapore.
Relevance of a Venture fund’s strategy As a Web3 startup founder or a prospective one, it is important to know how crypto focused VC firms invest their funds to be strategically stand a chance to be captured into their nets.
As a venture capital firm, understanding and tracking investment trends of the big players could be the the thin line between a sub par outing and a stellar performance.
Visualisations created with Tableau, Data Wrapper, Excel
If there is anything we all crave more than being wealthy is being healthy.
Health is the most lucrative state any human being can attain and we all desire it.
In the instance of any form of disease, we all fight to get it back by taking medications, engaging health programs and products etc.
Of course, the people creating these products know that as long as their products perfect your ill health, you will patronise them again.
So they have to make sure every product or service is as perfect as it gets but how can they know this?
By conducting real life trials on people of course, but the more people they can conduct these trials on, the more accurate their results can become when sampling the various reactions from each of these patient data.
And Evidation helps get more and more people to get these product outcomes to the best possible level for use in the real world.
What is Evidation Health?
Evidation Health enables healthcare companies quantify outcomes in the digital era by connecting patients to healthcare products to ascertain its efficacy. By enrolling patients for research trials faster than conventional methods, Evidation Health can provide a digital health enabled future for all.
Evidation Health is a tech startup idea with the ability to keep the world’s data safe, including yours.
Evidation Health is a digital healthcare platform using real life data from connected patients to quantify healthcare product outcomes.
Industry
Health tech, Software, Data Analytics
Strategy
Evidation Health hosts a technology platform that connects healthcare companies with patients.
The startup has heavy hitting backers in General Electric Ventures and Stanford Healthcare that believe in the future of healthcare and patient collaborations to improve patient outcomes.
It developed a real life study solution and enrolls participants ten times faster than conventional methods, conducting research through trials.
It congregates real life patient data from hundreds of applications and devices to evaluate multiple angles to a singular technique to rate or prove efficacy.
The startup works with healthcare system, pharmaceutical companies, digital health solution vendors and payers to measure patient behavior driven outcomes to enable these clients understand and increase their product’s impact.
Evidation Health provides software to analyse large datasets on behalf of clients.
Revenue Model
Evidation revenue is generated from the following;
· Healthcare companies pay to understand patient behavior on outcomes and cost of care.
· Healthcare companies pay for the development evidence base for their solutions.
Growth and Market prospects
Evidation Health is experiencing growth through patronage from pharmaceutical companies and digital healthcare providers.
Funding
Evidation Health is largely funded by investors;
Venture: Undisclosed – August 2012
Seed: Undisclosed – June 2013
Series A: $6 million – December 2014
Series B: $11.6 – June 2016 Series B: $3.4 million – October 2016
Venture: $10 million – April 2017
Total Funding: $31 million
Investors
Evidation Health has successfully raised investment funding from some of the best niche health focused venture capital institutions. Some of these investors include;
Sanofi Ventures
GE Ventures
Rock Health
AMV Holding
Future Strategy
The future strategy of Evidation Health is to enhance the development of its large scale behavioural analytics, health outcome measurements and digital biomarkers capabilities.
Industry Insights
Clinical trials are the gold standard for drug approvals. Does it work or does it not work? What are the side effects and can they be managed? Can this drug be used on a certain group of people and not on others? All these questions are asked to determine safety of drug performance with different age groups. And these questions can only be understood when real people participate in these trials to validate the products outcome. Hence, this data is critical in improving the quality and delivery of healthcare and the best ways to integrate new therapies and technologies into real world clinical practice.
Disrupts
Evidation Health disrupts traditional clinical trial setting by using virtualised pragmatic trials at scale to accelerate outcomes.
Opportunity for Idea Creators
This is an opportunity for idea creators, albeit a very enormous task. From the initiation to the development of a system like Cockroachdb, it takes much more than just guts to pull this one off.
On the look out to create more value within this industry sector way should be;
Developers
Healthcare practitioners
Data Analysts
Medical Professionals
Healthcare institutions
And any other crazy head who thinks and can, can make things happen
Evidation Health is providing accelerated measures to guarantee the safety of healthcare products and services in the real world.
What can you make of this idea?
And before you go, please do all or one of these three things;
Please leave us a comment. I will like to share in your thoughts and have a good conversation with you on this startup idea.
Click on the icons and share on social media. Somebody somewhere may need this information to move to the next level in life and that person may just be you, receiving a shared content.
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Disclosure: This review, article or report was first posted on http://www.babeonideas.com blog in 2017. The http://www.babeonideas.com blog no longer exists. Some information may be outdated or a startup may no longer exist in the form or all of its form when it was first reviewed.
Every right thinking investor knows that their biggest fear is not investing money in the right company or product and not realising anticipated returns on their investments.
Is this fear normal to you? Most likely it is.
However, it does not stop investors from worrying over what can become of their capital in the event of non-performance.
Does this sound familiar?
Interesting tech startups have popped up all over the place.
All touting big time promise of applications that will change the way we are used to doing things, swooping up venture capital, angel and institutional funding at every turn.
But can all of these tech startup promises come true?
Definitely not!
So how can you as an investor, make the most informed decisions before staking with a brand new tech startup?
Betting on Oddup’s monitoring and mapping model could enable you make the best investment decisions.
Oddup
Tech startup, Oddup says it can spot startups with the most potential to make you the most money off your investments by showing you which to invest in and which to shun.
Is Oddup the Big Brother of Investors?
Having the ability to see what others cannot is Big Brother-ish in nature and Oddup as a rating tool believes it has what it takes to show investors which startups are most likely to succeed by providing trusted and transparent information on early stage startups.
Oddup is doing this, all in a bid to give you the best odd guess on startups to invest in.
Startup: Oddup
Founded: March 2014
Founders
James Giancotti, Jackie Lam
Founding team are former investment professionals having experience in investment banking and capital markets.
Founders’ inspiration
Oddup founders spotted the gap in trusted data on early stage startups needed for investors to make informed decisions before investments.
Oddup is empowering smart investment decisions with rating scores, valuations, analyst commentary on startups.
Industry
Investments, Data Analysis, Technology
Strategy
Using its analytics software, Oddup uses criteria such as product, location, competitors, team, growth potential etc., to generate an Oddup score from 0 to 100, which shows startup viability.
It offers guides to investors by attaching buy, sell or hold rating matched with commentaries inclusive of prospective valuation on what each startup could be worth.
Oddup runs an analyst network strategy of first class professionals with research experience from some of the world’s biggest financial data institutions spread across Taiwan, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing, Singapore, Sydney and Melbourne.
Oddup is in partnership with Thomas Reuters through data sharing, utilising its information on publicly listed companies which are probable competitors to start-ups. This strategic move granted it integration to the Eikon platform which realises over 150,000 users across the globe.
Another key strategy of Oddup is to provide optimum validation and exposure to start-ups needing future funding from investors.
Growth and Market prospects
Since inception, Oddup has grown to host about 15,000 startups in its database, rating 2000 investment worthy startups.
Oddup boasts fortune 500 companies including Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan as part of its clientele base among over 1000 paying clients and recurring revenue of $2.9 million annually.
Revenue model
Oddup business model is simple;
All users access free basic information on startups on sign up
Users pay subscription fee to access startup analysis and commentaries
Users access reports on a single startup on Oddup for $99 or full reports for $499 monthly
Funding
Oddup as a tech startup idea has been funded from seed stage by VCs;
Seed: $1,225 million – 2015 – 2016
Series A: $6 million – April 2017 Total Funding: $7,225 million
Investors
Oddup has received nods from seed to early stage investors such as;
Click Ventures
Kima Ventures
Big Colors
500 Startups
Future Strategy
Not stated
Industry Insights
Oddup is joining forces with likes of Thomson Reuters through the use of the Eikon platform to provide timely analysis on start-ups. This is innovative for the industry as Thomson Reuters data served institutionalised and quoted companies.
Opportunity for Idea Creators
Oddup is positioning itself as the go to source on real time information on startups before investors can bet on them with their capital.
This loophole spotted in the startup world by Oddup founders is real and has a massive market and serves up still viable opportunities for innovators to add value to this existing model.
On the look out to create more value within this industry sector in a technology driven way should be;
Investment analysts
Strategists
Researchers
Financial analysts
Data analysts
Business management firms
And any other crazy head who thinks and can, can make things happen
Can you make a better startup big brother platform than Oddup?
The world awaits!
And before you go, please do all or one of these three things;
Please leave us a comment. I will like to share in your thoughts and have a good conversation with you on this startup idea.
Click on the icons and share on social media. Somebody somewhere may need this information to move to the next level in life and that person may just be you, receiving a shared content.
Leave your email above. I will take you through my free starter course so you learn how to strategise for start-ups and get paid.
What’s all the rave about tech startups? At every turn, and almost every where you look, you see a new launch, a new venture backed tech startup, and a whole lot of hoopla about startup founders. You’ve thought about how tech startups come to be, and are probably wondering how to start one. Starting one is definitely a great idea and this article will take you through how to achieve this, even if you know next to nothing about tech.
In this article, you will learn what it takes to start or launch a tech startup. The following subtopics are included:
Tech is all around you
Anyone can have a tech startup
Anyone can have an idea
Tech can influence your idea
Tech as a business
How to start a tech startup without being techie
Do we start?
If you are very quizzical because you know next to nothing about tech (which I very much doubt – I’ll get back to this later) you may be asking how. Why start a tech startup to make more money? Why not start any other business? Well, starting any other business is awesome; it is great and would definitely bring your senses to life as you try to activate the goals of the business. But when it comes to tech, there are many, many reasons why you should be opting for it, or even feel inspired to start one.
Now, you may be going, “But I know absolutely nothing about tech, how on earth am I going to start a tech startup?” The truth is that you do not know absolutely nothing about tech, you know quite a handful about tech for the following reason;
Tech is all around you
Look all around you, and you will see tech. From gadgets like your home appliances, media hardware, computers, phones, the apps that control them, tech is all around you. And you know what? You use these valuables every single day. They are part and parcel of your life and for some people; they are second nature as they can hardly do without one form of tech or the other running the daily activities of their waking moments. From going, “How does this app work anyways?” most people move to, “I can show you how that works.” While a few outliers will swear off tech, outside influences beyond their control ensure they remain part of the tech ecosystem and growing knowledge whether they like it or not – like think of the ‘big brothers’ of the world trying to keep you safe, that you can literally do nothing about and you will catch my drift.
Having established that indeed you are not all dumb on tech, let us progress on how you can start a tech startup with the following points;
Anyone can have a tech startup
Anyone can have a tech startup and I mean absolutely anyone, and now that is even without being techie. It is usual for us to look at being techie with the world’s definition of a nerd – that person who stays indoors, is married to his or her computer, talks little to every other person, has one or two friends and collectively, they spend their time writing code. Trust me, that is a very poor definition about being techie. Yes, it is quite normal for a techie person to love computers but there is more, oh, so much more to this. Having a tech startup is about having an idea you can integrate into all the functionalities of tech, it is that simple. Instead of having an idea and treating it just like any other idea, it is as simple as treating it like a tech idea, fitting it into the perspective of a tech based business model and seeing how it evolves from there.
Anyone can have an idea
Have you ever had an idea before? Well, having ideas is a very common thing. We all have them and they are the seeds to products we buy off mall shelves, programmes we watch on TV, items and gadgets we love, the games we play etc. I mean, ideas are everywhere and they fall on everyone. I want you to have a vivid picture in your mind of a large number of people walking under the rain? So imagine them for a few seconds. This is a recurrent sight so it should be very easy. Now, imagine this same scenario but with the rain drops falling like idea bulbs. The truth is we are all living under a massive cloud of ideas as our God-given right and men, do they fall on the head of every human. It is what we do with the ideas that fall on us that count. So as long as we have ideas, are receptive to them and are able to determine its integration into the functionalities of tech, we can start a tech startup. In fact, anyone can and here’s why.
Tech can influence your idea
Tech can influence an idea that seems like a plain Jane and turn it to something extraordinary. We have seen this happen with some of the largest tech startups in the world – a simple idea like connecting friends turning into a $500 billion dollar business, a la carte, Facebook. Or a simple chat idea being transformed into something even technology terms simple to recreate, Whatsapp. In the words of Mark Zuckerberg himself to the Whatsapp founder Jan Koum, “Whatsapp has a simple use case”, meaning, you use it without giving it a darn thought, you just use it as a seamless form of communication to your buddy wherever, whenever. Now, because these ideas have become gigantic corporations, we tend to fool ourselves that they are outstanding. No, they are not outstanding as ideas but have become madly outstanding with the tech behind the idea, propelling them to something really, really enormous. In reality, there are not many ideas you can liken to a tech idea but there are many ideas done in a tech driven way.
Here are some examples of the simplest ideas that have turned into tech startups. I want you to intuitively think about them and then, imagine what is possible with what you may presently consider as not even an average idea.
Willing
I remember the very first time I heard of the startup idea, willing.com, it had just won a chance to be on the famous accelerator programme, Y Combinator, achieving this with such a straight forward idea you would most likely toss in the bin if you thought about it – protect your family and property with a legally valid will. Common, can’t you get that from any solicitor on the street? What is so techie about that? In just three years, Willing.com has been funded to the tune of $7.12 million dollars by investors.
Huh? Yeah, huh! For a crazily simple idea as this, you never know what this world is going to give until you look very well at what’s really out there and maybe, take them to heart. For God’s sakes even amongst solicitors and lawyers, this is just a sub sect of what lawyers have to deal with, and could be easily brushed aside as one which cannot turn out to be the proverbial ‘cash cow’. But with his torturous experience trying to get his brain tumour ridden Aunt’s affair in order, a thought flashed into the head of Eliam Medina, “Can’t the process of making a Will be less complicated, less expensive and less time consuming?” This singular thought was the birth of a simple idea from someone with no legal or tech background whatsoever – Wills in 15 minutes and for absolutely free.
Eventbrite
What was the thought behind this idea? ‘If people could find when events would happen, they could get tickets cheaper than what they are getting them for’. This was the birth of Eventbrite by husband and wife duo Julia and Kevin Hart, which is today, the world’s largest event posting and ticketing company. Where they previously working in ticketing? No, just concern about where events happened and ridiculous ticket price tags.
H Bloom
Bryan Burkhart founded H Bloom out of the nervousness, inquisitiveness and research he forayed into trying to create something unique for the tech industry. His first idea, Flowers! He thought the flower industry lacked tech innovation. Flowers, lack tech innovation, can you believe that? Why should fresh flowers have anything to do with tech? Was this guy even a florist? No, he wasn’t.
Joor
‘Why can’t small stores easily stock high end designer clothing?’ was the thought which set up the process of creating Joor. The simple idea behind the startup – find a way to connect big fashion brands to buyers created by Mona Bijoor. Joor has become a wholesale marketplace for small fashion stores to purchase and stock the biggest brands seamlessly.
ZocDoc
Finding a Doctor was cumbersome after a cross-country flight which caused the ZocDoc founder a burst eardrum, leaving him to search for a Doctor for four days, and the idea? There should be a way to access Doctors for specific needs with a lot less stress.
Skillshare
You are a teacher, if anyone can listen to you. This was the idea behind SkillShare which has a goal of turning every address into a classroom.
Ideas can come when you are looking and a lot of times, when you are not looking at all and those sampled above are simple ideas, aren’t they? All these simple ideas were launched as tech startups, though they could have been plied as normal everyday businesses. This goes to show that anybody like you can have a simple idea which can be translated into a tech startup, all you need to be is always receptive to the things going on around you.
But what is their connection to tech, is the question?
Can you just put these simple ideas in a tech startup machine shake as hard as you can and voila! Out jumps a tech startup. Is it that easy? Well, let’s find out.
Tech as a Business
In this context, we focus on tech as businesses propelled by the global surge in internet use. So a tech startup as a business entity is one whose founders choose to trade their ideas with the use of the internet as a base model or channel for the distribution of their services.
In this regard, an ordinary idea is transformed into a tech startup by utilising tech’s functionality to drive it no matter how small the idea may seem. These functionalities include;
Web: The number one tool driving the digital world is the internet. And the use of the internet as a free distribution channel is the base for online businesses which could be largely termed as tech startups.
Infrastructure: The development of a software, website or application on a purchased domain name e.g. shoes.com, and hosted on the web.
Viable Idea: An idea possessing a visible marketplace need validated by a distinctive target market that is ready to pay for it is a viable idea. This idea should at least be in the form of a minimum viable product in terms of its infrastructure workability which means the smallest product or service version of what can be sold to clients in exchange for their money.
Innovation: Your idea should provide an innovative solution to your target market who will be delighted to opt for your service as a result of a certain value proposition which may come in form of ease of use, cost effective, convenience etc.
Global Reach: The ability to serve global markets (from China to Guinea, Madagascar to Bangladesh) with ease and minimal costs at the same time like ecommerce companies such as Amazon and Ebay in comparison to normal business models that can serve only their localities.
Scalability: The power to scale revenue exponentially without increasing costs is the basis of what makes a tech startup lucrative, as growth opportunities and profitability skyrocket and can happen within a very short timeframe. Costs could include employment or human capital development expenditures like Whatsapp serving over 500 million users with 50 employees before their acquisition by Facebook and Instagram serving over 100 million with only 13 staff.
Business Model: The business model is uniquely spurn to generate a form of recurring income from its users either via subscription, a recurring service demand or a streamlined partnership model allowing leverage of other people’s assets like Uber and AirBnB riding on vehicles and rooms respectively to earn through their apps which enables the tech startup to have a clear estimate of income projection with user growth.
Investable: As a result of the sporadic growth which can be realised by tech startups they are investable by design. This means that as a startup gains more paying users, like bees to flowers, they attract investors who wish to be in on the action. This brings in all kinds of people coming with all forms of resources, from skills to cash. At this point, a tech startup does not belong only to the idea creator or founder but to everyone with vested interest in its building.
How to start a tech startup without being techie
With an understanding of the above, how do you start a tech startup without being techie? By being techie here, I mean not having the ability to speak the Latin of tech – call it code or programming and you will be on track – the foundation for the creation of your website, app or software. Is this the most veritable skill to have when starting a tech startup? Yes, it is. But can you start a tech startup without having this skill? Of course you can.
The list below is proof of successful tech founders who knew next to nothing about how to write computer programs for their tech startups but launched tech startups which have become or are soon to become some of the world’s most phenomenal companies (the first person threw me completely off my feet – I found it hard to believe);
Reid Hoffman, started LinkedIn (we all most likely use this website) with a degree in Philosophy and no programming skills. He has all the trappings of a star programmer but is not. He recently sold his company to Microsoft for $19 billion in cash.
Jack Ma of Alibaba Fame, with its network of sister tech companies, was an English teacher before venturing into the exciting world of tech startups.
Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, Founders of one of the world’s largest disruptive startups, Airbnb didn’t know how to code.
The cheeky sisters led by Dawoon Kwang of dating startup, Coffee meets Bagel, were new to tech when the idea for making dating easier with a coded language popped into their heads.
Willing Founder, Eliam Medina had to take a crash course in code to build the first Willing platform.
Now you’ve sampled this list, let’s go into the nitty-gritty of how you can start a tech startup without having a hang of the internet’s golden language;
Build your Interest in tech
Purposefully spike your interest in all things tech by becoming a daily compendium of all things tech. This is the very first step to starting a tech startup and how can you achieve this? You go to every place where tech lives and become a full time learning member. This singular act will expose you to all kinds of tech startup ideas people like you are launching into the marketplace. You will learn firsthand how the idea behind the startup was birth, about the founders, their plans and how they hope to impact the world with their innovation. This should become a lifestyle, you want to get your interest up and keep it there because it is the momentum you need to maintain a successful outlook in this pursuit. Here are a list of things you can read to arouse your interest in tech, you can find more and add to this list;
Tech Crunch: Get daily news within the tech startup world as they happen.
Cruchbase: Crunchbase is the world’s largest directory of tech startups and it offers quality information about companies, website, founders and their investors. This may be the most important tool you have free access to in developing your curiosity into the tech world.
Mashable: This is another top startup blog with a very interesting perspective on all things tech.
TechinAsia: Tech in Asia is an interesting space which provides up to date info on tech and tech startups across Asia. It is innovative also in the sense that you can actively participate and contribute in this community with insightful write ups on tech and read what other members have to share also.
Seed-db: Seed database is an interesting idea collation hub bringing together funded ideas from accelerator programmes from across the globe.
Growthhackers: Growth hackers offer in-depth reviews and analysis on some of the most successful tech startups, discusses ideas and offers users a chance to post some of the most exciting articles on tech in the world as they happen.
Forums: Join forums like Reddit and Quora and follow sub-forums or tags of tech startups and you will learn firsthand from real people in tech, what you need to know. You can also post questions and receive feedback from real startup founders.
Paper.li: Paperli is a news aggregator application you can sign up to for free. By picking keywords of your interest, for example, innovation, tech and startup, Paper.li aggregates all the latest information on your subjects of interest into your personal paper on a daily basis.
MIT OpenCourseWare: Go to MIT OpenCourseWare and access free online course materials on Tech Strategy. In the course, you will understand the strategy behind some of the world’s largest technology companies like Apple.
Stanford Graduate School of Business: Watch Stanford Graduate School of Business videos on Youtube, they have hosted the most successful tech CEO speeches you would learn a lot from.
A tech industry review: Read my article on the tech industry to understand how far it has come and where it is headed.
theHustleco: Your smart good looking friend that sends you an email each morning with all the tech and business news you need to know for the day.
Research Ideas
Begin to research ideas and this is especially easy with Crunchbase, where you can research tech startup ideas as far back as 6 years ago or even more. What are you looking for by doing this? You are trying to understand the simplicity behind the ideas. Some of the ideas may be way off your league at first as a result of them being proprietary technology startups in fields you may know nothing about like biosciences, nanotechnology, hardware etc., read and understand their underlying themes but you don’t have to dwell on them except you absolutely need to. What you are trying to do is to be inspired by the ideas of people. You can also check out our startup reviews category to understand the inspiration, insights, strategy, models etc., behind some tech startups. For example, with a company like Ubeam, how can a girl just think that laptops, phones and electrical devices in general can have wireless charging? And how would the devices be charged? By sound. Sound? Yes, sound from the noise you make and all of the noises going on around you, in the park, on the streets, in churches and pubs etc. By researching the ideas of others, you begin to think differently and you will live in an expectation of finding your own.
Pick an Idea
You have been doing a whole lot of study on various ideas. To enable you select or develop your own idea, do researches in industries that may be of interest to you and think about how you can innovate upon the existing tech startup ideas within this industry to create an updated version or an idea that has never before existed. You can have a list of a series of ideas that may be of interest to you to choose from. You may also wish to just duplicate an already successful idea to cater to your own locality. There have been a great many successes from entrepreneurs who took this trail; it is very easy as you can have a template application and business model to duplicate to create yours. The Amazon ecommerce model has been the most duplicated tech startup idea catering to specific needs of the individuals within these communities; an example is Jumia in Nigeria.
Give your Idea a name
Your idea is coming to life. You have picked it. It is time to make it a living entity. Obviously before this time, you would have been wrestling with a name to call your new baby and that’s not a bad thing. A name is a big deal in tech. It can either make your startup outstanding, or it can turn it to drab. Sample the names of startups across the world? How were they created? Sample the names of tech startups in your industry, if they all sound alike; please go in the opposite direction. What has Coffee meets Bagel got to do with online dating? The founders thought it was a code for people to say they were going to meet up with someone. Isn’t that interesting? Or what is Zappos? The word does not even exist but it is one, or I could say the most successful shoe tech startup in the world. You can come up with as many as possible and zero down to one. Be creative about the name and try to hit perfection – zesty, two syllables, created and legally yours i.e. buy the domain.
Have a Lion’s heart
You have decided on a startup idea and I won’t mince words on your next move – You need a lion’s heart to start a tech startup. Why? Because building a normal business can be daunting and it can be so much more with a tech startup. Project seen and unforeseen challenges even before you venture and have enough gusto to know you can surmount these challenges against all odds. An ever growing knowledge of how to create magic with your tech startup will in no small way boost your confidence. So keep learning, you will need this for the road.
Be passionate about the Idea
Whatever the idea you decide to go with, be so passionate about it that you master it every teeny-weeny aspect of it. Get updates on everything happening within the idea’s industry as it happens. This passion will keep you going in the toughest of times.
Find a market that needs your Idea
The next thing is to find the core market or demography for your idea. Why do they need this? What are their likes and dislikes? What is the age range of this target market? What is their earning power and how do they spend? Are they big on internet use? Do they use social media channels? How do they shop? Do they like subscription services or they buy when they only have to?
Validate your Idea
After determining your target market, you need to validate it by testing it within this market. Go to where this market is and ask questions. You can start online by posting in forums where your target audience converges and pose conversational questions that will enable you weigh their thoughts on the issue. It is really cool if you can get 100 positive responses from people or potential customers but overall, the best validation is when a good number of these people are willing to make cash commitment for this service, and you are moving into tech startup mode already.
Build a Virtual Community
As soon as you are able to validate your idea with paying customers, start building a community for it on the social spaces, such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin etc. Update this community on what they can expect from your service and provide a stipulated time in which they could be joining you for a testing of your first minimum viable product sample. This community will drive your product launch for you and you will learn to incentivise these referrals as well to make them feel like a part of the journey.
Find a partner(s)
It is possible for you to be the sole founder of your tech startup but remember you do not have a hang of the basic technicalities to build a tech startup, so you need help. There is a lot of work when it comes to developing a tech startup and founders understand this and are willing to share the burden and the vision with other people. If you watched the movie, Social Network, you may have a glimpse of how that works. Your new partner will become your cofounder even if he or she was not there when the idea was created. As a non-techie, you want to consider a techie cofounder who will do the technical development (by this I mean programming) for the website or application you want to build. Your cofounder may also be a person who can support the idea with the cash it needs to build a minimum viable product for the startup if you do not have. You can have more than one cofounder in this regard to help you birth this baby and you can find this person(s) within tech communities, on forums, on social media or you can sign up to sites like Cofounderslab and Founders2be to get one who may be willing to go this journey with you. A cofounder with a good knowledge of programming is of great value to your startup as he or she will manage the technical part of your tech startup while you focus on strategy, operations and marketing.
Design a mock up
During your research, you sampled a host of startups in your industry, what did you notice about those sites? You can do a copy design wireframe with a pencil and paper as mock up or choose to come up with something really creative and different to give you a unique advantage over your competition. You can get a graphic designer (UI/UX designer) to something professional for you to see what your site may look like but one thing for sure, know exactly what you want delivered in terms of the overall outlook of your product including the content within your platform which should be determined by you before discussing with a developer.
Outsource your development
If you have the money, you can decide to outsource the development of your first website or application to professional coders, this is if you have not been able to secure a technical partner for a cofounder whose job is to get this first phase done for your market to test. The process of outsourcing your development can be very tricky. In Asian countries, programmers may be cost effective but you should ensure seamless communication is standardized between you and the company. Poor communication may cost you more money as you may need to repeat yourself over and over again. You should have a sample website for them to use or you may get burnt. In western countries like the US and Canada, programmers can easily innovate with you even if you are trying to achieve something without a sample but their ingenuity comes at a good price. Upwork, Guru and Freelancer are good places to start and you can find some of the best programmers within strictly code communities like Gigster. If you are going into ecommerce as a tech startup, you can lighten the startup process by going with a great CMS software like Shopify for starters before going ahead to build your own platform.
Leverage your development
Let’s say you have not been able to find a programmer as a cofounder and you also have no money to build your application or app and your idea is in ecommerce. You could leverage on existing platforms such as Shopify, Bigcommerce etc. which offer unique templates for you to choose from to host your online store without delay. Also even with limited knowledge of programming skills, platforms like Salesforce, Project Spark and Windows App Studio enable entrepreneurs build and launch applications without writing any programs.
Test your product
You will need to test your product within your community and target audience to know how they feel about it. These groups of people will help you refine it for the mass market before launch. Be open to the details they highlight and recommendations they make so you can make adjustments if necessary.
Plan your startup
After you have tested and updated your minimum viable product, design definitive plans – a strategic action plan, showing a breakdown of steps to take for user acquisition or sales and craft a strategy document showing how you intend to top the market and subdue your competitors, if any.
Launch your startup
When you launch your startup, you are sending the tested minimum viable product out into the marketplace for users to begin to use and enjoy its benefits. Some startup founders do this with a lot of pomp and pageantry, for you, you can only do this if you feel it is absolutely necessary. The most important thing here is trying to get it into the hands of as many of your target users as possible within a very short timeframe, with maybe, a limited amount of money. So your strategy to launch has to be good. You can get social media influencers to put in a word for you, a tech star to endorse your product or build an awesome referral base right from the start to give first users the opportunity to win big by earing an income or some form of benefit while spreading the news about your website or application.
Bootstrap your startup
If you have money to help boost the development of your startup, please put it to great use. However, most tech startup founders find themselves cash strapped at the beginning of their journey and need capital. The secret here is to bootstrap. Bootstrapping as the name implies is getting oneself out of a situation using existing resources. So, tech startup founder, what do you have in your hand? There are many skills you possess which can come in really handy in building your tech startup. This could be management, marketing, writing, graphic design, social media marketing, internet marketing, search engine optimisation, editing, voiceovers, animation, copy writing etc. These skills and more are essential to any business and instead of you paying for them; you have to create time to do them in order to cut cost. You can also use what you have to get what you want – you have a great idea, get people to share it with you.
Recruit people
As a founder, you are going to keep your eyes open to recruit people who can aid you in accomplishing a lot of skilled tasks, listed and not listed, and you may have no money to pay for their services. A form of bootstrapping too which has worked successful in the startup world is recruiting staff and making them foundational part of the company by sharing them on the equity of the startup. These staff will work judiciously as owners within this startup and do everything possible to ensure its success because they know what is at stake. Have a recruitment plan where you fill in the most essential jobs first and follow with other jobs as the opportunity arises.
Acquaint yourself with code
No matter how little, you need to acquaint yourself with code. Why, you are not techie? While this is not very necessary it is important to have a little understanding of what your tech team is doing on a daily basis for your startup. Code in itself has many languages, you can start by understanding what is being used to write programs for your own startup. There are many online tutorials where you can start from or if you have the money and really wish to have a hang of code in general, you may wish to apply for a paid or tuition free boot camp. If you are not interested in doing this, that is fine. Alibaba founder, Jack Ma does not bother himself with learning how to code but he is the richest man in China. He has trusted programmers and he is glad to work hard to keep them happy.
Build a tech network
A tech network is the single most important secondary entity in tech. Here, the phrase ‘your network determines your net worth’ holds true as this network will bring you a lot of good in the future. From cofounders, sound technical team to investors, the more formidable you can build your tech network into, the better for your startup in the long run.
Prepare yourself for funding
To grow your tech startup, you need to be funded and to be funded you should be able to show prospective investors the traction your tech startup is receiving in user acquisition and sales without any reasonable doubt. This step may be the last but it is so important if you wish to build an enviable business. You may decide to leave your startup small and personal but be sure you are generating enough sales to keep you excited about starting a tech startup without being much of a techie.
Do we start?
So even though you know next to nothing about tech, you can start a tech startup by patiently and carefully following these steps to your success. You may also be asking, “Does this mean by following all these steps, I will make great success at any tech startup I start?” By sampling as many ideas as possible, researching and validating their need in the marketplace and doing all the above listed and even finding much more steps on your own, you can start a tech startup and truly succeed even if you know next to nothing about tech.
Do you find this article helpful? We would be pleased to hear it in the comments below.
So, please leave us a comment; I look forward to your addition on this conversation if you have any to add. I talk back to help you succeed in your journey to making money online or off.
Also, click on the icons and share on social media. Somebody somewhere may need this information to move to the next level in life and that person may just be you, receiving a shared content.
Disclosure: This review, article or report was first posted on http://www.babeonideas.com blog in 2017. The http://www.babeonideas.com blog no longer exists. Some information may be outdated or a startup may no longer exist in the form or all of its form when it was first reviewed.
Well, I’m guessing you do. The populist idea to make money behind the book was with buying and selling of stocks and shares at the right time.
You probably do because you love to make money. In fact, we all love to make money. And considering ideas to make money, stock trading has been a staple past time for the patient and tactical minded as the chance to grow your assets off someone else’s sweat remains as lucrative and almost as sweat free as ever.
While stock trading may have been limited to fat pocket class executives, how about every other person in the world being let in on the party?
Robinhood takes centre stage
Walks in Robinhood, the disruptive stock trading application designed to put institutionalized trading firms out of business once and for all by letting not-so-fat and even almost flat-and-out pockets in on the trading action.
This simple tech startup idea which is now taunted as a disruptive behemoth has attracted all classes of investors, from hip hop artists to Hollywood actors to Venture Capitalists who are willing to bet big on the future of the idea behind the brand.
Robinhood is a stock brokerage application democratizing access to financial markets by enabling customers’ trade US stocks with zero commission.
Industry
Fintech, Financial Services, Stock brokerage, Technology, Mobile
Strategy
Robinhood had a clear market entry strategy from the onset – allowing everyone access to trade in quoted US stocks and ETF on the financial market by offering zero commissions against the $7 – $9.99 commissions charged by its competitors which is just the first of the many innovations it has unleashed from its magic hat.
The app has its eyes set on 18 to 35 year olds, a market not so robust in purse to afford commissions per trade but robust in attitude to make money against all odds and utilising the buzz and zeal which comes with the nod from this demography to steal rich customers from established brokerage firms.
The launch of the Robinhood premium package has been the latest joker strategy with the most profiteering advantage to the company so far, even offering multiple advantages to its users. From early to late trading, beginning 30 minutes before the market opens and 2 hours after the market closes, a strategy once reserved only for institutional investors is made available to all.
Robinhood utilizes technology to run a lean scale model free from the encumbrances which comes with running physical corporate offices; it has strategically positioned itself to share savings with its already privileged users.
The use of a simple mobile only trade application is in tune with trends favoured by the masses which the company’s core target market falls within.
Revenue Model
Robinhood offers a premium feature to generate revenue for its mobile app.
Users of the premium Gold feature subscribe for only $10 monthly to skip the usual 3 day wait, to immediately make instant deposits and reinvestments and can also purchase higher priced subscriptions of $20 to $50 to generate greater buying power of $4000 to $50,000.
Growth and Market prospects
Robinhood began its accent by reaching out to its pre-registered 300,000 membership base through Reddit and has made inroads into China through its Google-like platform, Baidu. Today, Robinhood is registered as a SEC broker and has membership with FINRA and SIPC. It has over one million registered users in less than four years from launch, dealing in over $12 billion worth of transactions and saving its customers over $200 million in commission fees. The current pre-money valuation of the startup is $1.3 billion.
Founders
The founders are two young Stanford graduates who worked as developers for hedge funds and got the inspiration to build Robinhood during Occupy Wall street protests of 2011.
Robinhood has largely been a VC funded tech startup idea;
Seed: $3 million – Dec 2013
Series A: $13 million – Sept 2014 Series B: $50 million – May 2015 Series C: $110million (most recent funding as of April 2017) Total Funding: $176 million
Investors
Robinhood has proven to be a Hollywood celebrity investment haven with A listers like Jared Leto and Aaron Levie and hiphop moguls Snoop Dogg and Nas joining institutional venture capitalists investors to take Robinhood to its present billion dollar valuation;
DST Global
New Enterprise Associates
Index Ventures
Andreessen Horowitz
Elefund, GV
IT Ventures
LocalGlobe
Machine Shop Ventures
Snoop Dogg
Aaron Levie
Dave Morin
Howard Lindzon
Jared Leto
Jordan Mendell
Nasir “Nas” Jones
Future Strategy
The development of the Robinhood web platform to support its mobile first approach.
Upgrade features of the Gold premium package to offer more enticing services
Win customer trust to enable storing their money on the application like any brick and mortar Bank
Industry Insights
Financial markets are a global staple which traverses all kinds of businesses in all kinds of industries with proven profits over decades. Hence, the opportunity for a stock trading application offering zero commissions is bound to be oversubscribed.
However utilising technology applications poses security threats to monies stored by users from theft or hacker activities which could see customers scampering to standard trading firms at the point of any breach.
Disrupts
Robinhood is disrupting institutionalized traders who earn on commissions per trade with its zero commission model.
Opportunity for Idea Creators
Robinhood has put up innovations other possible entrants could only envy but could capitalize on and become really profitable even if the tech startup retains first mover advantage.
This is open to innovators across the global stage in customised markets albeit regulatory hurdles must be crossed for bullish startups like Robinhood and its future startup predecessors who wish to take advantage of an landslide opportunity such as this, before entry can be made into any financial market.
On the look out to create more value within this industry sector should be;
Stock brokers
Financial Analysts
Brokerage firms
Financial service institutions
And any other crazy head who thinks and can, can make things happen
Could you create a startup like Robinhood or like Jared Leto, Snoop Dogg and Nas, could you invest in a startup that can completely change the way the world invests?
Think about it and before you go, please do all or one of these three things;
Please leave us a comment. I will like to share in your thoughts and have a good conversation with you on this startup idea.
Click on the icons and share on social media. Somebody somewhere may need this information to move to the next level in life and that person may just be you, receiving a shared content.
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Disclosure: This review, article or report was first posted on http://www.babeonideas.com blog in 2017. The http://www.babeonideas.com blog no longer exists. Some information may be outdated or a startup may no longer exist in the form or all of its form when it was first reviewed.
We do that a lot, consciously or unconsciously. While talking, gesticulating, dancing to beats, well, it’s a lifestyle.
But how about clapping your way to a service provider each time you need one?
A tough one I must say, but UrbanClap says it is possible.
UrbanClap!
What is UrbanClap?
UrbanClap is an on-demand service marketplace matchmaking clients’ to service provider that best fits their budget, date, location and timing. UrbanClap says they can make this service as easy as clapping your hands.
Startup: UrbanClap
Founded:September 2015
Founders
Varun Khaitan, Raghav Chandra, Abhiraj Bhal
Founders’ Inspiration
Founders of UrbanClap were desperate to solve a really big consumer challenge and they chose to zero in on local services as the industry has not seen real innovation in decades.
Headquarters: New Delhi,India
Vision: To use technology and smart processes to structure the highly unorganized services market in India and emerging markets. (imagined by them).
UrbanClap is an application utilising technology and smart processes to help clients find the right service providers easily.
Industry
Mobile app, Data Analytics, Software
Strategy
UrbanClap is the largest proprietary mobile based services marketplace in India.
The app is designed to help prospective users find the exact service provider they are looking for.
It has a unique matchmaking algorithm which allows seamless and nearest form matching between professional services providers and clients by highlighting relatable pointers such as budget, event, location and date.
Clients receive details of five professionals that meet their stated requirements.
Over 80 service categories are offered on the platform.
UrbanClap sieves through professionals in every service category by asking for references, selecting only one out of ten applications to ensure they offer only the best services.
All listed professionals on the platform are required to pay a fee to convert client lead into real business to enable the right match.
Professionalism and customer service support is key to UrbanClap’s strategy and it has a software equipped with a chat option for users to access customer support.
The startup has a five level strategy to meeting the needs of its users;
First level; being a marketing solution to get new customers for service providers
Second level; being a client relationship management platform
Third level; content sharing, online contracting and payments
Fourth level; training the supplier
Fifth level; providers of equipment and products used to deliver service to clients
The startup does not offer permanent services e.g. the hiring of a driver or house keeper.
The startup acquired competitor apps, Goodservice and HandyHome.
Revenue Model
UrbanClap charges a fee to service providers to convert the lead to work.
Service providers pay 20% of income from clients to UrbanClap.
Growth and Market prospects
UrbanClap receives over 5000 daily service requests with up to 50% conversion rates.
The company expanded to cities across India, including Mmbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.
Funding
UrbanClap is funded by investors;
Seed: $1.6 million – April 2015
Series A: $10 million – June 2015
Series A: $25 million – November 2015 Venture: Undisclosed – December 2015
Debt Financing: $3.09 million – April 2017
Total Funding: $39.69 million
Investors
UrbanClap has successfully raised investment funding from some of the best venture capital institutions and individuals. Some of these investors include;
Kunal Bahl
Rattan Tata
Rohit Bansal
Saif Partners
Accel Capital
Trifecta Capital
Bessemer Venture Capital
Future Strategy
The future strategy of UrbanClap is to have all services meet its strategic five level plan for customer service delivery and satisfaction.
Industry Insights
Services based industries are a dime a dozen with all kinds of service providers available to meet client needs across a large spectrum of services. Be it car repair, beauty services, wedding planning, electrical fixing or babysitting, customers want the best service possible at the best possible rates making this a market with a larger than life size possibility in search of new innovations.
Disrupts
UrbanClap is disrupting the uncoordinated services industry in India which is mostly driven by word of mouth advertising.
Opportunity for Idea Creators
This is an opportunity idea creators can take advantage of and really win.
On the look out to create more value within this industry sector way should be;
Developers
Data Analysts
Database Professionals
And any other crazy head who thinks and can, can make things happen
UrbanClap is empowering small business owners access to a genuine stream of serious clients at little costs and guaranteeing quality business services to users of its platform.
And before you go, please do all or one of these three things;
Please leave us a comment. I will like to share in your thoughts and have a good conversation with you on this startup idea.
Click on the icons and share on social media. Somebody somewhere may need this information to move to the next level in life and that person may just be you, receiving a shared content.
Leave your email above. I will take you through my free starter course so you learn how to strategise for start-ups and get paid.
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Disclosure: This review, article or report was first posted on http://www.babeonideas.com blog in 2017. The http://www.babeonideas.com blog no longer exists. Some information may be outdated or a startup may no longer exist in the form or all of its form when it was first reviewed.
Money to afford a 5 star hotel is not in your pocket. You can only afford one probably in the slums right now. But you know it won’t be fun. You have tried it before, broken sinks, torn mattresses, no sheets, no wifi, no TV, no way!
But does it have to be this bad?
Not if OYO Rooms can help it.
OYO Rooms!
What is OYO Rooms?
OYO Rooms offers guests predictability, accessibility and availability of standardised hotel experience on a budget.
It is a tech startup idea with the ability to ensure a hotel awaits you wherever you find yourself in India.
Startup: OYO Rooms
Founded: May 2013
Founders
Ritesh Agrawal
Founders’ Inspiration
Agarwal imagined an India where hotels can be a home away from home, not the usual poor standards lodgers were used to.
Headquarters: Haryana, India
Vision: To standardize and build efficiency into all forms of real estate such as budget hotels, apartments, guest houses and resorts. (imagined by them).
OYO Rooms is a technology based hotel management application simplifying, standardising and disrupting the Indian hospitality industry.
Industry
Hotels, Mobile app, Data analytics
Strategy
OYO Rooms app technology is enhanced to offer check-in, check-out, check and cash payments, corporate rates, toiletry audits through one click reconciliation.
The app utilises data analytics to highlight high demand areas while its scientific algorithm determines room prices.
The startup is offering predictability and affordability in hotel access for travellers across India.
OYO Rooms partnership hotels are co-branded to guarantee predictable room availability and room standard quality.
It standardised partner hotels by offering training to staff, refurbishing and bringing rooms up to OYO Rooms standards which includes mattresses, showers, flatscreen, wifi, breakfast, branded linen sheets and toiletries.
These standards are audited daily to maintain great customer experience across board.
The company maintains a minimum guarantee model where it pays hotels upfront for rooms and only takes the incremental revenue off the sale on each room. A model it adopted to keep its partner hotels loyal to its brand.
It acquired ZO Rooms, a low budget technology driven hotel chain which grew to 200 hotels in 11 cities within a year.
Revenue Model
Its revenue model consists of budget ranges between $19 to $25 for small rooms and $26 to $66 for medium rooms.
Growth and Market prospects
OYO Rooms offers over 50,000 rooms in 200 cities and targets to grow to 500,000 rooms in three years.
Funding
OYOrooms is funded by investors;
Seed: Undisclosed
Series A: Undisclosed – February 2015 Series B: Undisclosed – July 2015
Series C: $200 million – April 2016
Total Funding: $200 million
Investors
OYOrooms has successfully raised investment funding from some of the best venture capital institutions including its biggest rival, Google. These investors include;
Softbank
Lightspeed Ventures
Greenoaks Capital
Sequoia Capital
DSG Consumer Partners
Future Strategy
The future strategy of OYO Rooms is to expand internationally, adding up to 200 townhouse hotel tending towards a more upscale strategy.
Industry Insights
The hospitality industry in India is rife with travelers, both tourists and indigenes alike as 415 million Indians, about a third of its population journey to different destinations within the country annually; the market potential is estimated at $10 billion.
However, this has created a vast amount of unsafe and unsanitary hotel models across India which has awaited revamping or quality assurance improvements.
Disrupts
OYO Rooms was blocked by online travel agencies because it disrupted business and stole a weighty chunk of its market share.
Opportunity for Idea Creators
This is an opportunity for idea creators to take advantage of and create something new and different.
On the look out to create more value within this industry sector way should be;
Developers
Hoteliers
Hospitality Professionals
And any other crazy head who thinks and can, can make things happen
Can you imagine an idea like OYO Rooms across major cities in the world? What can you do about it?
And before you go, please do all or one of these three things;
Please leave us a comment. I will like to share in your thoughts and have a good conversation with you on this startup idea.
Click on the icons and share on social media. Somebody somewhere may need this information to move to the next level in life and that person may just be you, receiving a shared content.
Leave your email above. I will take you through my free starter course so you learn how to strategise for start-ups and get paid.
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Disclosure: This review, article or report was first posted on http://www.babeonideas.com blog in 2017. The http://www.babeonideas.com blog no longer exists. Some information may be outdated or a startup may no longer exist in the form or all of its form when it was first reviewed.
Whether you invest or not, you wonder about it because everyone wants to ensure they are very prepared for the future when they can no longer be in full time work or business.
Planning your retirement, finding money to build your luxury dream mansion or start that business you feel can change the world?
Perhaps you could ramp up your investment with Wealthsimple.
What is Wealthsimple?
As a tech startup idea, Wealthsimple will put your investment on autopilot, remove the guesswork and risk on your long term effort to increase your assets, provide you a personal virtual wealth concierge and it will do all these for you at a very low cost.
Wealthsimple can help you earn better on your investments for a whole lot cheaper?
After the acquisition of the startup he worked for, Michael and his co-workers ended up with huge sums of money. He set up an excel spreadsheet with tips to aid his collegueas set up thoughtful investments. This was the beginning of wealthsimple.
Headquarters: Toronto,Ontario
Vision: To enhance investment prospects of every individual by offering low cost, dedicated virtual financial advice. (imagined by us).
Wealthsimple provides automated technology which will enable users run their investments on autopilot by providing their financial data.
Each client of Wealthsimple is allocated a Wealth Concierge, an investment advisor who matches investmenst to the long term goals of the client, and his or her ability to tolerate risks.
These Wealth Concierges are available only online, including video chats and text messages to understand what clients need to create a diversified, low cost portfolio.
Client’s use the Wealthsimple mobile app which allows them track investments at any time.
The company requires no minimum amount for account opening and targets all kinds of users, as opposed to the market’s target for high end users.
Wealthsimple charges clients 0.5% annual rate of their assets.
It educated its clients and prospects through its online magazine.
Wealthsimple has structured a long term strategic partnership deal with Power Financial, an investment company with $1.5 trillion in assets in financial companies to make expansion funding readily available to the startup when needed.
It has a premium model which unlocks extra features to accounts above $100,000.
Its range of services include Portfolio Rebalancing, Dividend Reinvesting, Automatic Deposits, Human Advisors, Tax Loss Harvesting, Financial Planning, VIP Airline Lounge Access
Revenue Model
Wealthsimple charges client’s annual rate of 0.5% of their asset under its management and will charge 0.4% for clients under its premium package.
Growth and Market prospects
Wealthsimple has over 30,000 clients and over C$1 billion worth of Canadian dollars in assets under management. The company is expanding in the United States.
Funding
Wealthsimple has been funded in three rounds to enable its growth and as a tech startup idea, it is funded by investors;
Seed: $1.9 million – September 2014
Series A: $30 million – April 2015
Series B: $20 million – January 2017
Series B: $37 million – May 2017
Total Funding: $77.92 million
Investors
Power Financial has taken a strategic investment position in the startup. Wealthsimple investors include;
Christian Lassonde
David Ossip
Impression Ventures
Joe Canavan
Power Financial Corporation
Future Strategy
Dave may consider increasing its payday loan in the future.
Dave plans on using the same approach to address other forms of Bank charges.
Dave also sets its sights on using a similar model to stop unpopular charges in other industries in the future.
Industry Insights
The popularity of robo advisors have soared in recent years and are slicing the pie off traditional financial advisors. This is because they take out the guesswork from investing and are appealing to all levels of investors than traditional financial advisors who would rather streamline their services to meet the needs of high end investors.
Hence, investors are taking to this option. Robo advisors like Wealthsimple also offer cheaper fees which creates high demand. Traditional financial advisors have seen this trend leading to a synergy between them and robo advisors which is becoming a win-win for all parties.
Disrupts
Wealthsimple primary disrupts the expensive Canadian investment market which has the average investor paying 2.5% for mutual funds.
As a robo advisor, it disrupts the traditional financial advisor industry.
Opportunity for Idea Creators
Wealthsimple has created a simple automated way to invest your hard earned cash. Has its methods never existed before? Far from it, yet its future success seems guaranteed as the market for investments remains a sought after one globally. Creating massive potential in both established and growing markets for new robo advisor entrants who are smart at their own unique niche strategies in launching their own products, services or applications.
Also, there is room for this business model to be transferred into other industries with the same effect, thereby opening doors of opportunities to idea creators to take advantage of and add value within various sector.
On the look out to create more value within this industry sector in a technology driven way should be;
Financial advisors
Financial analysts
Financial personnel
Finance institutions
And any other crazy head who thinks and can, can make things happen
Wealthsimple is helping you earn better on your investments for a whole lot cheaper.
How about benefitting from something as unique as that
And before you go, please do all or one of these three things;
Please leave us a comment. I will like to share in your thoughts and have a good conversation with you on this startup idea.
Click on the icons and share on social media. Somebody somewhere may need this information to move to the next level in life and that person may just be you, receiving a shared content.
Leave your email above. I will take you through my free starter course so you learn how to strategise for start-ups and get paid.
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Disclosure: This review, article or report was first posted on http://www.babeonideas.com blog in 2017. The http://www.babeonideas.com blog no longer exists. Some information may be outdated or a startup may no longer exist in the form or all of its form when it was first reviewed.
It’s the way we can have energy to do whatever we want to do and it is one of the major reasons why we work, we, our families, need to eat.
And when it’s time to eat, we all love having great meal experiences and that’s were Faasos comes in.
What is Faasos?
Faasos is a food on-demand technology start that creates the most well prepared and deliciously packed meals and delivers them right at your door step.
By setting up various independent delivery centres dedicated to working on a particular item or dish, Faasos convenes all of these meals into its experience centres for your customised package set up and mobilizes the meal right to your doorstep.
Faasos is a mobile app based tech startup idea that wants you to stop bothering about what you will eat because it has you covered.
Startup: Faasos
Founded: 2011
Founders
Kallol Banerjee, Jaydeep Barman
Founders’ Inspiration
Anger against bad food is the inspiration for Faasos, and a love for Kolkata Kathi rolls.
Headquarters: Pune, India
Vision: To replace the refrigerator of the young Indian professional with Faasos. (imagined by them).
Faasos is a food technology mobile app that prepares and delivers almost perfect food from its delivery centres right to your doorstep.
Industry
Food technology, Mobile app, Ecommerce
Strategy
Faasos integrated its quick service restaurant with technology by launching a mobile app for placing orders in 2014.
It is positioned as a delivery centred restaurant chain using its network of over 160 delivery centres to fulfil orders.
Faasos curates foods for its clients through commissioned kitchens to ensure it lists a wide range of variety the best local foods on its menu.
It revamped its model from a quick service restaurant to a food on-demand service allowing it reduce costs of rental and restaurant branding as it does not need to be located within high traffic and consequently more expensive locations.
By utilising data, the company selects the least repeat ordered food items on its menu and creates huge discounts on them.
It created independent fulfillment centers for respective delivery centers that make supplies to a central delivery center which then put dishes together for delivery.
The founders created the Faasos Entrepreneur in Residence programme, enabling the company leverage on the skills of 7 of the best business school students passionate about entrepreneurship to be its co-founders.
Faasos maintains uniqueness over other mobile food technology startups of being a food first company by controlling the food quality and customer experience.
Its loyalty program Faasos Elite offers priorities delivery to clients inclusive of free desserts, pay later options, birthday presents, order cash back and a chance on its Food Diaries events.
Revenue Model
Clients pay for orders on Faasos menu.
For curated meals, the company prices the product after factoring in the margins for the kitchen and cooking costs to create the final cost.
Growth and Market prospects
Faasos fulfils up to 18,000 daily orders from over 160 delivery centres in over 25 cities.
Its delivery centres break even in 6 months allowing the company increase its revenues by 400% over the past year.
Funding
Faasos is funded by investors;
Angel: Undisclosed – July 2010
Series A: $8 million – January 2011
Series B: $16 million – February 2015
Debt financing: $4 million – February 2015 Series C: $30 million – December 2015
Series C: $6.4 million – April 2017
Total Funding: $60.4 million
Investors
Faasos has raises funding from existing investors. These investors include;
Sequoia Capital
RB Investors
Ru-net
Lightbox
Sudip Chakraborty
Future Strategy
Faasos looks towards enhancing its curation services as a future strategy, projecting half of its revenue coming from this service.
Industry Insights
It is fast becoming a crowded space with all kinds of food delivery services using mobile apps. However, most of these startups rely on an extensive network of already existing restaurant menu to sample meals and pull in orders. This has so far not proven to be the most sustainable model for this industry as a host of startups have taken the hit.
Disrupts
Faasos disrupts the way people approach their most essential daily sustenance, from cooking your own meals at home to going to restaurants to have a quick bite or take out, the company will serve it fresh and hot at your convenience.
Opportunity for Idea Creators
This is an opportunity for idea creators to create something unique by innovating on existing models of food technology startups. Starting from the perspective of the Faasos founder, you need terrible brilliance to continue to strategise to get scalable and sustainable results, but by and large, it is possible.
On the look out to create more value within this industry sector way should be;
Developers
Foodies
Restaurant chains
And any other crazy head who thinks and can, can make things happen
With an food app like Faasos, which is a startup not just interested in delivering you meals from restaurants, you can own catalogues of awesome food experiences because they are first passionate about the food creation experience.
And before you go, please do all or one of these three things;
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Disclosure: This review, article or report was first posted on http://www.babeonideas.com blog in 2017. The http://www.babeonideas.com blog no longer exists. Some information may be outdated or a startup may no longer exist in the form or all of its form when it was first reviewed.
Maybe you own a business or you have launched your startup but wonder where you are going to get the money to really drive it to become the success you know it could be. You have sought funding from all the popular options – Banks, but are not eligible yet. Your family, friends and colleagues, have a lot on their plate to consider this idea of yours at the moment, they like it but well, the time is not right. You have gathered up all of your savings and its running out really fast and you are looking towards the next course of action.
Courtesy: corporatevision-news.com
Comes in Startup Business Funding Competitions
Startup or business funding competitions are life savers and, business power boosters if you can access the funds – or correctly put, if you can win the funds. So how can you position yourself to ensure you can absolutely win funds when you apply through a startup competition?
As you already know, competitions are competitive, because every entrepreneur or startup founder could make do with the cash to jumpstart or totally overhaul a business, so expect a tough run on this one.
Business Startup funding competitions can be time sapping, as you need to go through painstaking thought process when it comes to filling the application. Hence, picking your battles wisely is essential to success.
To apply for startup business funding, there are necessary things you need to understand and follow to the letter if you desire to come out tops. They include;
Truths – understand these truths and take your rest
Startup competitions are a dime a dozen. Determine which ones are for you and those that are not and leave them alone
The more competitions suitable to your business or startup you can find and participate in, the more your chances of winning
You can win the very first competition you apply for. Don’t be cork sure about that and don’t count on it but stay as positive as you can about it.
Dos – do these and expect the best
Thoroughly read the entire content provided about the competition you wish to apply for.
Again, thoroughly read the entire content a second time without skipping a line.
Copy the content on a word document and if you can print it out.
Properly understand the objectives of the competition.
Read the ‘About us’ page on the website to have firsthand knowledge of the company or organisation behind the competition.
Determine if the competition is for your kind of business, your nationality, your stage of business etc., by fitting your business into the objectives of the competition. Do this by underlining or taking notes of specific, important points that relate to the competition which intersects with your business.
If it states that the competition is providing seed funding to startups and you are in growth stage, don’t apply.
If traction is required in terms of user acquisition, sales or revenue generation and your business is still at idea stage, please don’t waste your time.
Try to almost perfectly fit yourself into every objective of the business, and you are very well above good standing
Creating your Application – The Real Deal
I tell all entrepreneurs and startup founders I work with one thing; it is not the smartest entrepreneurs that get the competition cash, but the bolder, strategic pitching and fine writing entrepreneurs who do.
So to get your application listed as a strong contender for the cash from the word GO, here are things you should do;
Pitch with gusto
Most competitions will need you to fill out boxes on the application form, not exceeding specific number of words. Make every word count and hit home like a missile that knows exactly where it is going. It is not the number of words you can write but how good you can punch home the words that matter. With that said, updating your business writing skills is a plus for any person who wants to win business startup funding competitions.
Be Strategic
Speak industry words like you created the industry yourself. Tell your evaluator where you think your industry is headed and why you may very well be the game changer the world is waiting for. Use industry facts, data and numbers where necessary, supporting these with relevant references.
Be innovative
Competitive funding applications always present you the opportunity to think through your business model and your differentiation strategies. This is your chance to emblazon your innovativeness. Why are you different from all the other market players? You need to bring on your A game here.
Seek professional help
Don’t be shy to seek professional help when you need it. As an idea strategist, I have hosted an idea challenge funding competition and worked with all kinds of entrepreneurs to access loans and grant funding from business competitions, running into millions of dollars. I can categorically say that the entrepreneurs who seek help from professionals such as accountants, strategists, business developers etc., when they are stranded, are better positioned to win the cash. Why is this so? They are humble enough to understand that they know the business they are driving but they lack the wherewithal to express this business in a strategically assertive and spellbinding way. While some competitions may state that applicants go through the process alone, no real business that has truly succeed has not drawn advice, help or support from people, consultants, experts etc., no matter how small. So seek help where and when necessary.
Show Proof of Success
If your business has proof of success, show it. If this is demanded, have it ready with real numbers. Funders, investors or startup competitions love to know their money is going in the right direction and a little proof of success will definitely go an awesome long way.
These steps will get you the money if you follow through on them. And the only thing that may stop you will be the narrowing down to fit a certain number. But the good news, it can still get you on the top of the narrowed down number. So should you be applying for your next startup business funding application, take these steps personal if you want to win.
Leave us a comment
Do you find this article helpful? We would be pleased to hear it in the comments below.
So, please leave us a comment; I look forward to your addition on this conversation if you have any to add. I talk back to help you succeed in your journey to starting a tech start-up.
If you wish to have access to professional help in your applying for business startup funding applications, send us a message on the contact page.
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Disclosure: This review, article or report was first posted on http://www.babeonideas.com blog in 2017. The http://www.babeonideas.com blog no longer exists. Some information may be outdated or a startup may no longer exist in the form or all of its form when it was first reviewed.
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