The Web Startup, or new Commodity
This post was inspired by Fred Wilson’s response to Paul Graham’s Future of Web Startups. Both of these gentlemen agree that web startups are becoming commodities and that it’s going to be much harder to wade through the clutter of the thousands of web startups launching each year.
What’s interesting here is that Fred is an investor who focuses primarily (unless I don’t know something) in the web. Many venture investors don’t like investing in commodities because the market becomes volatile. That’s why we have bankers and traders who have giant analytics teams & analysts who study, study, and study more about their next position or holding.
What struck me about Fred’s post was his comment:
So it looks like we are going to need to hire our own Ruby/Java/PHP developer sometime soon. I guess that’s the way it is. And I am OK with it.
YES. They get it. It’s like trying to do A&R in the music world without having played music in the past. However, every label has A&R reps so you’re going to have some stiff competition.
I like the way Union Square is thinking and this will not just help them on their technical due-diligence, but should help them on solid deal-flow of solid tech startups as the developer probably has great people around him.