Just read an insightful article by fellow Forbes blogger Ilya Pozin, 10 Startups Changing the World and What We Can Learn from Them. He dedicates a brief paragraph to each of ten companies, some of them very well-known and already bought by larger companies for mega-bucks (Instagram, Zappos), others less household-name-ish but with sky-high valuations (Airbnb, Square). For each one, he offers a 'lesson to be learned.'
As I read through them, however, I noticed that all ten of the companies Ilya profiles have done one of two things - and in some cases, both:
They're either creating a community online, or using technology to make it enormously easier to do something people already want to do.
Instagram and Pinterest are the primary examples of the former (although Zappos and BetterPlace - a company that focuses on creating a transportation infrastructure for electric vehicles - definitely have a strong element of community). Both Instagram and Pinterest have brought a greater visual element to social networking, further reinforcing the idea that people (especially younger people) want to curate and then share who they are and what their lives are about with their communities online. And companies that provide easy, fun, flexible ways to do that can succeed - sometimes to a mind-boggling degree.
The rest of Ilya's top 10 use the power of technology to offer a simpler path with more choices to doing things people want to do. From improving the world - Global Giving and BetterPlace, to improving your brain - 2tor and DocStoc; from making it easier to do business - BetterWorks and Square, to making it easier to play - Zappos and Airbnb, these companies have put their finger on a core need and figured out how to fulfill it online.
Of course, in order to be truly successful, you still have to do all the other things any successful entrepreneur has to do - online, at home, or in a store front downtown. But if you've got tenacity, risk tolerance, creativity, intuition and passion - AND you've figured out a simpler, better way for people to fill a need that's important to them, or to create stronger bonds with their existing communities, you may just have a shot at doing something big.
And if you think about it - that's been the prescription for a successful business since the first caveman traded a mastodon haunch for a seat at the fire.
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