State of the Startups (a rant)

Last Monday was TechCrunch50, a two-day gala of fledgling startups, marketing demos, blunt questions by panelist entrepreneurs, and exciting games of Twitter Hangman. With a free ticket in hand, I went in to survey the DemoPit, indulge in fresh-made sandwiches, and furiously tweet about flunkers early in the first morning. (You don’t want to hear me rant about the first two sessions.)

I left during the evening of the second day with my friends, exhausted and slightly buzzed by the DemoPit clamor, and subsequent days got me thinking.

Is it me, or were the startups at the conference simply… drab?

The finalists that I saw present on stage were very ho-hum in their goals. “We’re bringing together your feeds.” “We’re gonna change the way you work.” “We’re gonna change the way you game with friends.” And so on. Yet, the only promising startups I saw were CitySourced and Udorse. All other finalists, even the eventual winner Redbeacon, left me feeling somewhat cheated, if that’s the right word to use.

A fairly recent TechCrunch article by Sarah Lucy showed that generally, the panelists at TC50 shared my feelings. Many of the startups I saw played it safe in the current economy, introducing no revolutionary ideas, but rather a tiny step of evolution, whether for improving workflow or aggregating information. Even one of the startups, though it could revolutionize… something, played it safe. “Bringing everything together” seemed to be a prominent theme of the year, as well as “let’s work better”. Still, there were nothing significantly new or promising, and I believe I know why.

It is not the current state of the economy that is dragging down innovation. Rather, it is the narrow scope of these startups’ purposes that left me and the panelists of TC50 unimpressed. As I said before, two themes prevailed at the conference, nothing more, and rather than solving a problem, they merely stuck bandages around carelessly. I believe that to be truly considered a worthy startup, one that will impress future TC50 panelists and have people talking, takes a bout of self-analysis with two questions:

Do we really need it (or “Seriously, is this actually a problem”?)

iMo had a nice idea, but it was just about games. YourVersion had a good interface and purpose, but it was essentially StumbleUpon without website submission. Udorse is promising, but sublime advertising always gave me the chills. Threadsy… is that it? A search box is all I need.

Startups really should take a step back and question the necessity of their ideas. When questioning this, make sure at least one of the following has a solid answer:

• Will my time management be any better with this idea? (Game-related startups, skip this question. Your focus helps waste time :P)
• Will this help me work better with my colleagues? Besides communication, will work be done as a faster or more efficient rate (efficient doesn’t mean faster, by the way)?
• Can this make my social life better? In other words, do I need to stay in the know about my friends all the time, in every way possible?
• Does this actually solve a problem that’s worthy of being called a crisis or an impediment?

Is it accessible to everyone?

I saw a lot of startups that launched with iPhone apps or relied on reliable Internet access. What about people without Internet access or an iPhone? How are they being helped? I realize TC50 may be all about for-profit companies and high-tech, but surely there are ways to solve problems without needing a constant Internet connection or fishing out an expensive phone. To say the least, can your service be usable offline?

These are tough questions. They might not even apply to TC50’s target demographics. But I think it’s about time startups look less at clobbering Twitter and Facebook together and start bringing people together. I think it’s about time startups stop dreaming about Internet-enabled toys and start working on better education. And I think it’s about time startups do something that, for once, is goddamn useful.