Avoid reading Twitter when you decide your next startup!

Most of us seem to follow the same persons on Twitter, read the same articles in TechCrunch, and go to the same events like GeekNRolla. In many ways this is fantastic to build relations and keep updated about trends and new exiting opportunities. However, the problem arises when most of the entrepreneurial talent is funnelled into looking at the same type of ideas.

Example: Groupon has been widely quoted and discussed in nearly any European forum read by entrepreneurs. And since people so easily can share links and documents via Twitter and other media the hype becomes even bigger than what a great success story like Groupon would have generated some years back.

The consequence is that many entrepreneurs start to think: “This is THE next thing – and we have to jump onboard now to not miss the train”. It is obviously great that we can all learn from other success stories and be inspired to develop new and modified startups in other countries, however, I would claim that many entrepreneurs would benefit from looking left or right of the mainstream and super hyped ventures, and instead find a less crowded space where they can create significant value with less competition.

Example: In Rainmaking we have entered the market for eye laser treatments in the Nordics and Germany. As far as I know we are the only entrepreneurs who have taken this step in that industry, which is 100% dominated by doctors and industry players. But we have proven that entrepreneurs with no medical backgrounds can make significant success and decent exits.

And I am confident there are plenty of such spaces out there waiting to be explored by some of the entrepreneurial talent that dares to think them self and not just follow what is mentioned on Twitter.

/Carsten