With the Internet evolving and freshly college-graduated students coming up with new ideas for companies and products, startup companies are becoming more and more prevalent. From popular websites like the t-shirt company, Threadless, to smaller companies, startups are showing up everywhere and gaining popularity daily.
“There’s never been a better time to be starting a company,” Edward Domain, CEO and founder of Tech.Li, an online media outlet “covering ‘Innovation Everywhere’ as it happens,” said. “In the 90s, you needed millions of dollars, now you can basically build a website, find a couple of people that are good at what they do and you can build a company.”
According to Domain, the biggest trend among startups nowadays is media and online publications.
“I think we’re going to see big media companies born during this next decade from now until 2020,” Domain said.
“I think that there are sites or companies that are really small now [that] are going to become media titans over the next nine years.”
Because of the increase in various companies becoming more online-based, those that do not utilize the Internet in any way put themselves at a great disadvantage towards the competition.
Many companies now have their own Twitter and Facebook page aside from just a website.
“I think anybody that is starting a company needs to be smart and be able to use the Internet,” Domain said.
“Some companies will say ‘I don’t get Twitter.’ That’s just like saying ‘I don’t get this new automobile thing.’ You have to use the tools that are out there to grow your business.”
According to Jeb Ory, CEO and co-founder of 5Degrees (5Degrees.us), a company that makes contact management tools for mobile professionals, college students looking to start their own companies should utilize the resources that are available at their respective university due to the fact that many universities have multiples means of getting a startup up and running.
“The challenges that a typical startup will face are [that] there’s a limited amount of time and money and talent,” Ory said. “Students and even graduating students should look at the different resources that universities have because quite often, especially [in] places like U of I, there are so many resources on campus to get an internship, ideas, money, and support to young entrepreneurs. If you’re so inclined, you would be silly not to take advantage of the opportunities that are [there.]”
Although there are many resources available to students be it through their university or organizations that specialize in startup companies, many challenges are faced by young entrepreneurs throughout their journey.
“[When I was starting out,] I wish someone had fully communicated to me that one of the reasons that most young businesses fail is actually not due to inaptitude but is due to lack of financing,” Adrissha Wimberly, co-founder and COO of Smarteys, (Smarteys.com), a company that “provides personalized and automated online software for people with student loan debt to manage their money,” said. “And in this current economy, the people who have money are being conservative with it. So it takes having a very strong network to have someone pull out their checkbook when it’s beyond your friends and family.
Aside from money being a major obstacle, another problem is a lack of experience and skill. Because many entrepreneurs go into the business fresh out of college or even before that, their experience is limited and therefore it becomes more difficult to succeed.
“It’s commonly assumed amongst venture capitalists that a first time entrepreneur is going to fail,” Domain said.
“Most people don’t get a home-run right out of the gate. Sometimes they do; Mark Zuckerberg [with] Facebook is a success story. But normally, like anything, building a company takes some skill. A first time entrepreneur can become almost paralyzed because they think ‘I know i want to do this, but what do I do?’”
Many startups end up being one of hundreds that sell the same product or offer the same service.
“One of the things I’ve learned over the course of time is that there’s nothing necessarily new,” Wimberly said.
“Everything has been done in some [way] once or twice. It is your job to get [people] excited about what it is that you’re doing, to let them feel the passion that you’re working for, to understand your story, communicate that clearly and continually follow up.”
Networking and getting the word out about a new startup is among one of the most important things that needs to be done. Be it through social networking websites, or other forms of advertisement, gaining popularity and having the name of a company become commonly known is one of the keys to standing out among the competition.
“I would think about it on the standpoint of what my network is, and who I know,” said Joshua Hernandez, founder and executive vice president of Tap.Me, a company that “connects games to brands and brands to gamers.”
“But at the end of the day, it really comes down to who you know and who you’re getting mentoring from, connecting yourself to people who have done it before and having them help you. And that’s one of the beautiful things about any entrepreneurial community anywhere is that usually other entrepreneurs love to talk to new entrepreneurs about how to get connected in X,Y, Z industry.”
Although there are a great deal of challenges that startups face today due to the amount of competition, lack of certain resources, or other factors, many of those who have succeeded with their startup recommend that anyone who has an idea to go forth with it and take the risk.
“If you fail you can fail fast, learn from your mistakes, pick up and move on,” Domain said. “[But] It’s defiantly not for the faint of heart. It’s a lot of long hours, a lot of work for little pay, but the payoff and the experiences that you have are far and above anything you get in corporate America.”