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Examples of good timing that I have seen in startups: - Rise of a new use case (e.g. Checkr doing background checks for fast-growing on-demand companies like U
by lpolovets 9y ago
Examples of good timing that I have seen in startups:
- Rise of a new use case (e.g. Checkr doing background checks for fast-growing on-demand companies like Uber and Instacart).
- Legal/regulatory change (e.g. a key patent is about to expire, or a new govt regulation is about to impose more requirements on an industry).
- Technology is finally adequate for doing something useful (e.g. VHS cassettes were replaced by DVDs, which were much cheaper for a company like Netflix to mail. Or maybe some sensor is finally miniaturized enough to be embedded into a constrained space for a good use case).
There's still a lot of luck, but many smart founders think hard about the "why now?" question. If the answer is "this couldn't be done until the last year or two because X, Y, and Z" then that's promising; if the answer is "no one has thought of this before" or "many people have tried this but failed," then that's often a sign of danger.
- danieltillett 9y agoSo much effort is wasted because the "why now" question is not asked with enough serious intent. I can kind of excuse 21 year old founders for ignoring this, but no serious investor should put a dime in until they have a great answer to this question.
- robterrin 9y agoThank you for this comment Leo. My cybersecurity company (http://tailriskconsulting.com/ http://tailriskconsulting.com/) was spun up to help small and medium sized financial institutions doing business in New York State deal with new regulations (http://www.dfs.ny.gov/legal/regulations/adoptions/dfsrf500txt.pdf http://www.dfs.ny.gov/legal/regulations/adoptions/dfsrf500tx...). If you anybody is interested, we've written a guide to help understand the law: http://tailriskconsulting.com/TailRisk_NYSDFS_RR500_Guide.pdf http://tailriskconsulting.com/TailRisk_NYSDFS_RR500_Guide.pd...