My problem with TechCrunch (which I don't read regularly, because reading about unqualified hucksters getting $8-million acq-hire welfare checks for IUsedThisToilet apps is not going to improve my life) is that it seems like an attempt to create the old, broken social regime within the new one. Instead of focusing on potential, it seems to document the whims of these wizard-priests called "venture capitalists" who, as a class, don't seem to be doing better than they would if they selected startups randomly.
For example, if you think velvet-rope parties at SxSW are a good thing, you're not a technologist and you don't belong in this century. Technologists want to make the world inclusive and prosperous, not exclusive and shitty.
I have nothing against TechCrunch but if that's your main news source on startups, you have a problem.
I attend a lot of entrepreneur events, Startup Weekends, etc and one of the common threads is the navel-gazing or me-too startups. If I have to sit through yet another "social sharing for X" or "group-curated Y" presentation, I'm going to kill someone.
They focus on the follow-on startups and think "because so-and-so did it, I can too!" instead of actually looking at the problem and trying to understand it. They appear to be startups for startups sake.
If you read TechCrunch as if it's the center of the world, it's easy to get into that mindset. Instead what you have to realize that it is a tiny piece of the whole world and will never cover 99.99% of the startups out there who are solving major life-changing, make-everyone-rich sorts of problems.
Go out, kick ass, and don't worry about what that 0.001% of the world is up to.
>They focus on the follow-on startups and think "because so-and-so did it, I can too!" instead of actually looking at the problem and trying to understand it. They appear to be startups for startups sake.
I saw this mentality when I went to a Mountain View meetup (for a semi-related hobbyist group). One young woman there was a nurse (or related medical professional) and announced that she wanted to get involved in a startup, and could someone point her in the right direction. Immediately a group member asked her what kind of start up and she looked completely surprised by the question and said "something in medicine ... front ... end?"
I've also gone to a Startup Weekend where something like 95% of the ideas were things I had literally thought of myself already but dismissed long ago because of obvious problems, or that the proposers couldn't answer the most basic questions about. When it came time to cast our three votes, one of mine was basically to say "not really exited by this, but ahead of virtually everyone here".
More accurately, that 'college kids' wanted an exclusive place to share information with 'college kids'. 'College kids' initially meaning 'Harvard students'.
For example, if you think velvet-rope parties at SxSW are a good thing, you're not a technologist and you don't belong in this century. Technologists want to make the world inclusive and prosperous, not exclusive and shitty.