Startup 2.0
Starting a new business is a lot easier now than back in 1998, when I started Fireclick. Set aside the fact that I have more experience, the cost of doing business is nowhere near what it used to be. A few examples:
- Phone and internet: today you can really good office connectivity for $75/mo, with VoIP limiting your bills to $50-70/mo for a 6-8 people office (we use Asterisk, the open source PBX for phone switching).
- Office rent: costs are about 40% of 1998-2000’s (Silicon Valley)
- Marketing costs: this won’t be of any surprise to anyone, but all the pay-for performance marketing programs, getting in front of your prospects is more a science than an art.
- Outsourcing: there are now lots of options for Web site development, specific engineering projects, QA, Operations. Non-mission critical tasks are easy to outsource for cheap.
Clearly there are exceptions (medical insurance costs, local Silicon-valley wages, etc), but overall, things have changed, big time. Entrepreneurs are the big winners here, since they need less capital to get off the ground.