Questions

For example, as noted by Andrew Chen in his post "Why investors don't fund dating"(http://andrewchen.co/why-investors-dont-fund-dating/), dating startups, in general, seem to have trouble getting funding because of high churn, among other factors. Also, by and large, markets exploiting newer technologies, and those with a high growth rate seem to be favored (by investors, and by success). So, generally speaking, which other market factors, or even markets as a whole, might make fundraising/success more difficult (or, conversely, play to my advantage)?

Firstly, you should seek out solving a problem that you are passionate about and have useful expertise in. Building a business with the sole intent on making it appealing to investors will often have the opposite effect.

With that out of the way, markets that are getting a lot of attention from VCs tend to be areas that are ripe for disruption by hot technology trends. At the moment, two of those are AI and Blockchain technologies.

AI is opening up new opportunities in lots of areas: eCommerce, cybersecurity, marketing automation,, business intelligence / analytics (and the interpretation of that data), healthcare, and finance. If you can find things that can be made cheaper, high quality, more personalized or faster through the application of AI, there's potential for VCs to be interested.

Blockchain technology has the potential of disrupting many markets. Just be careful not to use it simply as a buzzword; investors are wising up to shallow uses of Blockchain that are designed merely to attract investment. Some markets that Blockchain will disrupt is finance, cybersecurity, transactions that need to be secure such as real-estate, supply chain management, voting and elections.

AI and Blockchain technology can also be paired up in a complimentary way, so there's ample room for innovation that is also interesting to investors here.

But in the end, the main thing is finding a problem that needs a solution, rather than building a solution then looking for a problem.

If you're looking for advice on evaluating and vetting startup ideas that investors can get excited about, I'd be happy to dig into it with you on a call.


Answered 6 years ago

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