eMerge Americas Thoughts and Insights

I'm back from eMerge Americas in Miami. It's a tech event primarily focused on startups. One could expect to meet anyone, from people just dipping their toe in the ecosystem to representatives of investors looking for a potential match.

If anything, it was an interesting experience.

The Ecosystem

One obvious highlight of such gatherings is that one can get a helicopter view of the whole community. And it's anything but homogenous.

Depending on the stage, people would play a different game. At one end of the scale, people with an idea are trying to understand how this whole startup thingy works and what kind of support they might get.

Then, you'd have startups already embarked on their journey, sporting a booth, or just wandering around hoping to network with the right people. They'd either be looking for an investment opportunity or trying to attract potential customers.

The latter is probably barking at the wrong tree. Still, it may be a convenient merge of their agendas.

There are quite a lot of investors' representatives, too. They'd share their insights on various stages, judge on pitching contests, and network. I'm not sure, though, how actively they are looking for investment opportunities. There's a visible imbalance—aspiring startups heavily outnumber those with access to the investment money.

There have been successful entrepreneurs, too, although they mainly served as stars on the main stage.

Finally, there's a colorful crowd of people offering all sorts of help: universities, mentors, consultancies, tech agencies, and more. The crowd to which we belong, too.

In fact, that group's diversity of offers and agendas deserves an analysis on its own, but that's a topic for another post.

The Hype

One thing is who attends an event. Another is what's the vibe. If I had to summarize it with one word, it would be "hype."

• There's hype for going big and growing fast.
• There's hype for anything AI.
• There's hype for climate getting more favorable for startups.

One message shared at the main stage multiple times was, "Go bold, grow rapidly."

Then, there's a ubiquitous preach on how AI is supposed to streamline the "going fast" part.

If one were to distill all that hype, they'd instantly jump on the entrepreneurship bandwagon. And they'd be up for a rude awakening.

While I believe the climate for investing in fledgling startups is going to improve, it's anything but easy. The "go bold, grow fast" mantra promotes ideas that promise fast traction. Not just promise. Show the early signals of that growth pace.

I get the intentions of VCs behind that. However, it adds to the "do or die" environment, which isn't very forgiving for aspiring entrepreneurs while still telling them to try.

The AI

Of course, whatever idea one is about to try, it has to have an AI component (whose importance will, in turn, be overexaggerated). These days, everything has to be AI-powered. Or so you'd hear.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an AI denialist. It makes prototyping so much more rapid. It opens new avenues to explore with many products. It offers technical options that weren't viable a few years back.

Yet, it's not like AI is going to solve every problem. For some, even when it does, it only creates more mess. But you won't hear that message, unfortunately.

Unsurprisingly, AI is a shiny new thing. It's just easier to secure funding for whatever.ai than anything else. No wonder the response is everything claiming to be AI.

It's like blockchain all over again, except this time even more. After all, it's easier to grasp AI than blockchain.

I speculate the outcome will be similar, though. In a few years, we'll learn how to distinguish good applications from those that just jump on the bandwagon.

And all the failed investments into AI-powered eccentric fads will remind us that there's a learning curve to any new trendy thing.

The Dream

Add all these together, and you get an environment encouraging people to follow their entrepreneurial dreams.

It's easier to start. The climate changes to more favorable. You keep hearing the big success stories over and over again. It's as if the whole world conspired to make you build your own startup.

Indeed, it has never been easier to experiment with early prototypes. I've talked with a guy (with no technical background) whose whole investment was $60 and his time, and he's already had something to show.

There are pitching contests all over the place, including those for people in the ideation phase. Add a healthy dose of American optimism and cheerleading, and you have a recipe for...

For what exactly?

The Pre-Pre-Seed

The whole ecosystem thrives because so many people are living their dreams and trying to build a new product.

There is some early support coming from universities or non-profits. A founder can likely secure a little bit of technical work, some mentoring, and participate in pitching contests. And then?

Then they're on their own.

It's not even close to getting pre-seed money, let alone approaching angel investors. I don't mention VCs, as they won't even look at startups at such a stage.

It's like everyone was rooting for enough of these products to make it somehow and emerge on the other side of the chasm, where they're validated and ready for an investment.

There is a gap where there's little to no support for aspiring founders. Curiously enough, it's at the stage where their endeavors are most fragile. The funds are the tightest, and potential mistakes are plenty.

The industry shrugs and seems to say, "Hey, let's just get enough of 'em, and we're good."

So, that's my final insight from eMerge. There's a whole underserved cohort of startups. The pre-pre-seeds. They need a combination of product development expertise, technical savvy, and mentoring to have a fighting chance. And they can't afford to buy all of them separately.

It just so happens we know how to help them. So, if you are at this challenging point, let us know.

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