By Paolo Privitera, CEO of Pick1
The formula for success in business can rarely be boiled down to a simple set of rules or best practices. A sound business plan, hard work, and passion are just some of the prerequisites to developing a competitive advantage. As an early-stage startup just trying to make it to the next day, it can be difficult to think of yourself as someday being a large, global organization with thousands of employees.
Having the right tools and infrastructure to support an enterprise, however, is a critical component that is often overlooked, particularly by new startups at the beginning of their incorporation. Similar to making a pie with everything but a baking dish, running a business without a scalable architecture to drive organic growth -- no matter how young the company -- is a recipe for disaster. Not having the right tools will prevent even the most well thought-out startup from being successful in the long run.
The cloud has quickly emerged as one of the best tools to meet this challenge. Many successful startups have embraced the benefits of cloud early on in their business journey, which makes it easier for them to set up operations, scale to new workloads as demand increases, and access new application programming interfaces (“APIs”) to build out competitive features in their products. And perhaps most vital for budget-conscious startups, the cloud can virtually eliminate resource constraints by rapidly connecting companies to what they need to get products and services to their customers quickly and seamlessly. As many successful startups say now, getting hooked up with the cloud is a no-brainer if your goal is to run a lean, streamlined and profitable business.
I launched my own startup, Pick1, to provide organizations with a much needed social survey and analytics platform that harnesses the power of social media opinions, data and insights to give our users the intelligence they need to compete in different demographics and audiences.
When you start to have a lot of data to collect, process, crunch, analyze, yet still provide almost real-time analytics and reporting, you need software that you can rely upon. With the quantity and quality of data we are collecting through the launch of our new products to help brands get to know more about their audiences, we chose IBM BlueMix and IBM Watson Analytics to provide timely reports and business intelligence to help our clients taking actions on our data.
Though cloud is increasingly becoming a make-or-break tool for early stage companies, many entrepreneurs still need help. Like any technology, cloud services cost money, which many aspiring entrepreneurs don’t yet have. To further the pace of progress, innovation and healthy market competition in the tech industry, cloud technology must be available to startups from the very start -- even before major investors come to their aid or they start moving towards being in the black.
Acknowledging this need, large tech firms are responding. IBM, for example, recently launched its Global Entrepreneur Program for Cloud Startups, a program designed to help qualifying early stage startups tap into the power of the cloud to scale up and build a solid business. The program, which also offers consulting and mentoring through its global network of Innovation Centers, Bluemix Garages and other sources, helps entrepreneurs.
Cloud has not only become essential to startups like ours, but also to our clients, who want services that are unique, flexible and comprehensive. The cloud has also helped us in the social analytics market, adding distinctive technological advantages that set us apart in a vastly competitive field.
Fueling innovation at this level of the tech ecosystem is a big step toward leveling the playing field of the tech industry, and helping all aspiring entrepreneurs to secure a chance at making dreams become a reality. As programs such as this continue to develop and grow, we look forward to seeing the diversity of ideas and companies they will help bring to the forefront of the industry.
To find out more about IBM Bluemix visit ibm.com/bluemix or join the conversation at #NewWayToWork.
Paolo Privitera is CEO of Pick1, a business-to-business market research firm based in San Francisco.
