Startup.com

GovWorks, Storysomething

http://www.storysomething.com/

Similar to co-founders Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman of the much maligned GovWorks startup of 2001 (documentary: Startup.com), the co-founder of Copious, Jim Rose, learned from a failed effort and quickly moved onto the next project.

This entry is less about actual site, but more about the idea of serial entrepreneurs. Jim Rose, previously was co-founder of StorySomething, a platform allowing users to create stories for their children. Let me just say, it was a good move. There are so many platforms existing and launching about helping people create stories, books, scrapbooks, etc. A more recent startup is GroupStory, focused more on events done in a group like bachelorette party or spring break.

People often make reference to the internet bubble of the late 1990s, early 2000's saying that VC and investors were carelessly throwing their money around and start-ups were unsustainable and ineffectual. We would like to think that we learned our lesson and the days of the wild west are over, but looking at the landscape of web 2.0 start-ups, many issues are repeating themselves.

Yes, we now suggest the 'Lean Start-up' model focused on speed-to-market and making a minimum viable product (MVP). Founding teams tend to be much smaller, usually a business co-founder and a technical co-founder and teams continue to remain small. VC and investors are more wary about their approach to funding companies, looking for a plausible business model. So, where is the lesson not being learned?

I would say on the side of the entrepreneurs and founders. There are even more web and mobile start-ups looking for funding at this point than there ever was back in the original internet bubble. Thankfully most founders have a basic idea of sustainable business models, but it does feel that the market is drying up in regards to simple novel ideas. The low hanging fruit is starting to be all picked off, and that makes the Lean model more difficult. MVPs are now getting harder to differentiate from one another, the capital is getting spread out too thinly and more complex and functional services are failing to surface.

For the VCs and investors, I would say that they need to challenge those seeking capital by asking them where they perceive the future of their business to lay. I've mentioned how services like FoodSpotting, Pininterest, Taap.it and other discovery tools will make themselves less useful over time. It's similar to review sites, that over time practically everything falls into the 3-4 star funk. So, Taap.it if you want to replace Craigslist for personals and wanted posts, focus on that. Pininterest, if you're more about collaborative events, do that. But when you keep it broad and keep it about trending, you'll get lost in the mix.

Imagine if Facebook did not make itself an app platform. There would be no games and no applications on it and it remained a more basic messaging, photo sharing site. It would have been popular but it might not have killed MySpace as quickly as it did. That was a genius move by Facebook, to open its platform to any developer. Apple followed suit with its iOS as did Google with its Droid marketplace.

So, I'm hoping that people can look into the future and see what would truly be useful for people.It's not about what's 'hot' now and what will get people to use it for the next year or two. It shouldn't be about just making quick cash now and letting it fall out of favor. We need to ask, what would truly be beneficial going forward. What information or services will make people's lives easier or more fulfilling?

Granted, I believe a service like GovWorks or EzGov would be amazing, an integrated governmental billing and payments platform integrated with banks, paypal, amazon payments, etc. Yes, I understand difficulties since each state, each municipality tends to have say over their own systems, but eventually it will happen. It might need to be government funded, but that gets scary. Better if a private sector company dedicated to transparency and security tackled the problem.

Same with the medical field and medical files. There should be a more standardized electronic filing system and a push for doctors and hospitals to digitize their documents. Again, yes it can be scary if done incorrectly or corruptly. Even scarier if it's controlled by the government.