

Tech Startup Trends of 2013 - jjb123
http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2012/12/24/the-top-5-tech-startup-trends-of-2013/

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zanny
> Our phones are becoming our remote controls for life.

I feel really freaking old for a 21 year old. I got an Iphone 3gs back in 2009
before going into college. I should have been the target market for most of
the tech revolution, right? I only used the thing to watch youtube, read pdfs,
browse websites (never write anything), and take really ugly photos and video.
I rarely made calls with it and canceled text messages entirely in 3 months.
The battery died this summer, and I just got a tracfone just so I can call my
grandparents because almost all my vocal communication is done via skype,
jabber, or mumble. Maybe most importantly? I not only never paid for an app, I
downloaded a total of like 5 in 3 years.

I have a Transformer tablet though, which I still wouldn't call the center of
my tech environment, I just use it to read articles, books, and watch video. I
don't even do the picture taking with it because its a giant book and it is so
obtuse to photograph with it. The high DPI screen makes reading wonderful on
it though, which is the main reason I have it. I did get the Transformer +
keyboard dock so I had the ability to write when needed.

I don't think I'll ever get a 4 - 6" smartphone again. Anywhere I go I'll just
throw my tablet in a backpack and bring it with me if need be, or just carry
it. You won't shrink the screen any more and I just prefer the 10" form
factor.

I still carry about my dumb phone just because we still live in the stone ages
of ubiqutious internet. I don't want to pay $50+ a month for data just to have
internet on the go. I already pay way too much to run a DSL signal to my home
router.

I dunno, I just feel like the smartphone market is saturated. Modern computers
have a very finite limit of influence over the world since they can only
impact it through vibrating air, itself, or through emitting electromagnetic
radiation in various forms. And I already have all the audiovisual stimulation
that I want already, so I won't be adding any more. An RSS feed of all my
choice webnews and the front page of reddit and HN for laughs is all the
digital media consumption I really need anymore.

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slash-dot
Paying 50$ a month for unlimited 3G is just outrageous. Here in Finland you
get half a mb a second starting at 5€ a month. The fastest plans go at 15-20€
a month or something like that.

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SyneRyder
Agreed: here in Australia I get by on $5/ month on prepaid. The 500MB data
credit rolls over & I can't use it fast enough - I now have 3.5GB accumulated.

It's a good idea to research cellphone plans, you can probably find something
very affordable that suits your usage.

~~~
i386
Australian here. What provider are you on?

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pbiggar
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the doom-and-gloomers have a
very narrow view of that startup landscape, and only really see consumer
companies.

The real trend of 2013, IMO, is that the consumer space is dead, as far as new
startups are concerned. Supporting evidence is the "series A crunch", the
reaction to the Facebook IPO, and Chris Dixon's "10 million is the new 1
million" article.

However, startups in other spaces, notably B2B and "enterprise" (the new sexy
as of very recently, and my prediction for the number one trend of 2013)
should be fine. If your startup makes money and has customers, you'll have no
problem raising money (and less problems going it alone).

[Supporting evidence: basically my own (limited) experience from fundraising
over the last few months]

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benesch
I don't think consumer space is dead. I think the mentality of "get users now,
get money later" is dead. It was always a flawed philosophy. There's no
guarantee that if you build a network of people, those people will actually
want to pay you. (Case in point: Facebook.)

So I'm agreeing with your last point: "If your startup makes money and has
customers, you'll have no problem raising money."

~~~
arkonaut
Agreed. People often use the term "consumer space" as if it only means some
free app or product being given away for free ad infinitem... Dropbox, Airbnb,
Uber, Kickstarter are all consumer services that all had huge years in 2012.

Dropbox is a particularly interesting example because it has a B2B counterpart
in Box. Dropbox however is 2 years younger and about worth about 8x more.
Consumer is certainly not dead. Free consumer maybe, but even then, Snapchat
just showed us that VCs still have an appetite for free apps that skyrocket in
user growth. (and appetite is an understatement.)

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rdudekul
Decent list of observations on startup landscape. If you are interested and
haven't had an opportunity to read, Mary Meeker's Internet trends
(<http://kpcb.com/insights/2012-internet-trends>) report provides a much more
comprehensive view on the subject.

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paul9290
I didnt see 3D Printing on that list? Though the cost of home 3D printers
probably wont drop to 500 or less, so maybe 3D printers isn't 2013 but
2014/2015?

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i386
I love the concept of 3D printing but there is not one story out there that
tells me what consumers could practically want with a 3D printer.

~~~
paul9290
printing up any physical object like a belt, shoe, toys, iphone
covers/cases... whatever you think of and can design using 3D printing
software it can be printed/created.

It's the next huge thing that will change the world and economies. I don't
feel it's a positive for our struggling world economies though. Why buy that
physical good you desire thru a store (online or offline) when you and
everyone else will be able print it up at home?

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marek12886
It'll be interesting to see how our interaction with our phones will change
once data transfer rates of 1GB/s are common. Sensors will play an
increasingly important role, and who knows... probably many new innovations
will be funded through the rising crowdfunding eco-system.

~~~
vlokshin
and once data limits/caps/throttling by the providers gets a bit more
reasonable :)

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zanny
I had unlimited 3g data in 2007 for $30. Today, to get something similar, it
would cost $70. We're going backwards, not forwards, in terms of wireless
data. There needs to be some fundamental reforms to break up the AT&T and
Verizon duopoly and to open up a significant amount more wireless spectrum for
data transmission.

~~~
cperciva
Unlimited 3G data in 2012 is a lot more than unlimited 3G data in 2007 was.

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keade
Two weeks ago we encountered a need for a hosted "launch rock style" landing
page that would function like kickstarter, to fund and grow our customer base
in the same fashion as lockitron. We built Tractio.co to solve the need for a
crowd funding landing page without technical chops, and helping to foster the
growth of companies and services that need help raising funds, and want full
control. We are looking for beta testers still.

Trends be warned. The worst thing about a trend is that they create
overpopulation of products/businesses in a small space, causing distraction
and undue competition to serious businesses from "can do it for free and leave
it" day hacks.

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lysol
Reads like a top 5 tech trends of 2012 at times.

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d--b
Couldn't agree more. The decline in funding shows that investors start seeing
that start-ups that don't plan to make money from the start won't get free
lunches anymore. My view is that enterprised-focused start-up will make a big
come back in 2013.

~~~
arkonaut
I've heard this over and over, but the reason it won't become a "trend" in
terms of people around the nation talking about it, or even people in tech-
early-adopter capitols like SF and NYC, is that founders might try to pattern
match what's getting funded (terrible idea and motivation to build a product),
but people really just don't care about enterprise/b2b startups (press,
startup people, casual americans reading 'Wired' and discussing startups/apps
at the dinner table). So even if it's taking off underground, it will only
take a few more SnapChat* series-a announcements to shake people back to
meteoric growth, no sales-cycle, brand building type of companies.

*Everyone was writing articles about them this week - and with good reason. Startup people (founders, employees, press, wannabes, VCs, angels) love reading that kind of shit and talking about things like 'Will Facebook's X kill Company Y?', etc... If it was a b2b company, it wouldn't have gotten any attention. Not 'just a little attention', but like, none. On top of the great things the consumer sector provides (customers, no sales cycles, meteoric growth, easier to build, etc), this reason above is one of the biggest reasons enterprise will never be a real "trend".

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woah
Lol, people are not looking to read about work.

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j2labs
We shouldn't look to WSJ for insight on startups. The trends are already
passed by the time they're aware of them, which is why the article feels like
it's talking about 2012 instead of 2013.

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bradfeld
I participated in this WSJ series and suggested you should simply ignore the
trends.

[http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2012/12/20/ignore-
trends-a...](http://blogs.wsj.com/accelerators/2012/12/20/ignore-trends-and-
predictions/)

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jiggy2011
So a big trend will be being able to order services via your phone?

Now instead of calling a phone number I download an app and do the same thing?

Not quite seeing the huge win here.

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woah
The big difference is that the services are also delivered by phone. With
Lyft, Uber, Exec, etc etc, the people providing the services are not employees
of the startup but independent contractors using the app to get referred to
customers. Instead of going into work, having some guy tell them who their
customer is and taking a cut, they have the app tell them who their customer
is and take a smaller cut.

That is the big difference.

~~~
jiggy2011
So the benefit is really to the service provider? However this relies on
changing user behaviour, so I guess service providers using such services will
be all able to charge lower prices?

