The competition to earn a spot as one of Startup50-Network World’s 10 Hot Storage Startups to Watch began with 58 nominees.
The competition consists of three separate rounds, with a variety of data points accumulating as we progress. We’ll use these data points to distinguish good-bet startups from high-risk longshots.
Round One: Will Readers Care?
In Round 1, I evaluate each nomination with an eye primarily towards startup-audience fit. Network World’s audience consists primarily of enterprise IT pros, so the startups in the final roundup must appeal to that demographic.
Startups were cut in Round 1 for a variety of reasons, but the most common was that they are not enterprise storage startups. Why vehicle storage, peer-to-peer physical storage sharing, or backyard tornado-proof dome startups – to name only a few examples – are pitching a Network World competition is a mystery to me.
Poor startup-audience fit is a major consideration that I cannot ignore if I want editors to keep commissioning these startup competitions.
A few other “startups” were eliminated because they aren’t startups. Others were cut because they belong under a different enterprise-tech umbrella, such as Big Data, cloud, or IoT. (Hopefully, we’ll have competitions for most of those other sectors in the future.)
And, finally, a handful of startups were knocked out because they failed to follow directions. (Pro tip: I’m dealing with 50+ nominations for these competitions. If you don’t meet the requirements I set forth in my query, or you force me to do the legwork I asked you to do, I’m just going to hit delete. Problem solved.)
Round 1 eliminated 19 startups.
Round 2: Online Voting
After the first set of cuts, we’re left with 39 storage startups that range from high-risk/high-reward stealth-mode startups to more established startups with big-dollar VC rounds in their back pockets.
Each could be the next big thing in storage, and I need your help to narrow down the field!
To learn more about these 39 storage startups, refer to our Hot Storage Startups Contenders post.
Vote for your favorite storage startups!
The top 20 vote-getters will move on to Round 3, while the bottom 19 will be eliminated.
How We’ll Evaluate Startups in Round 3
Startups that accumulate enough votes to enter Round 3 will be evaluated on the following criteria:
- The uniqueness and strength of your value proposition
- Funding
- Named customers
- The strength of your market niche (i.e., is there a good mix of incumbents and hot startups?)
- The strength of your most direct competitors (i.e., if you’re targeting a bunch of no-names or have “no competitors,” we’re not going to believe you’re positioned in a viable market.)
- The track record of your C-level execs and co-founders
- The B.S. Detector test
Wait, you use B.S. detector as part of your evaluation? Really?
Yep. Really.
Well, okay. Kind of really.
I’ve been evaluating startups since the dotcom bubble started to inflate. So, I’ve been working with, in, and around tech startups for close to two decades now.
In those years, this old dog has learned some new tricks. For instance, I’ve developed shortcuts and tripwires that help me avoid B.S. startups. You know the ones, those startups who are “leading providers” before they even ship their first product, who have “no competitors,” or who “are going to be bigger than Uber” or Google or Airbnb, etc.
Of course, a certain degree of hyperbole is inevitable. Comes with the territory. All startups do it, but there’s a difference between well-earned confidence and blatant B.S.
There’s a difference between a startup full of over-enthusiastic employees and startups that have been breathing their own exhaust for way too long.
I’m not going to reveal any more about my tricks here, but let’s just say that if you seem too good to be true, I’m going to suspect that you are.
If I ask you about the problem you solve, your target market, and your ideal customers, and, instead, you just pepper me with boilerplate about how great you are. . . well, you’re going to have a tough time making the final 10.
And that’s all there is to it.
Good luck to our 39 remaining startups! It’s a tough competition. Congratulations for joining it!
