All of us at USV hate that question. The interrogator is expecting a crisp answer - wireless, local, realtime, or video. In an earlier era, they might have expected gigabit routers, gallium arsenide chips, high capacity flash memory. There’s the problem. The next big thing is becoming increasingly abstract. It used to be hardware, then it was software, then web services of various kinds, but even as moves away from technology and toward human nature, people still cling to crisp technological descriptions. Fred yesterday, said he now answers the question with a quick recap of the current buzzwords, but then says it is none of the above, rather it is the soup that is created when you mix all these technologies together with lots of users. That is the right answer, but unsatisfying to someone who wants a headline.
Brad Burnham from What is the next big investment idea?
This is right up there with my least favorite questions asked of VCs. Regardless of how clever or provocative you try to be in answering it, the questioner is generally underwhelmed by the answer. I’ve come to believe that the most interesting areas of investment don’t have a label yet. They don’t fit nicely into an established box. That’s why the start-up business is such a fascinating one- the next big thing probably looks and sounds terribly disappointing and uninteresting today. But give it time…





1 year ago

