Is technology the best way to a quick startup success/exit? 

Great news this week about a 3-year old startup from Hyderabad, Tuplejump, being acquired by Apple. They were in the big data space building a product that allowed use of nosql databases. Deep tech mumbo jumbo. But, think about it. When starting up, how does one pick the idea to pursue? Sometimes, there are a lucky few, where in their immediate experiences they come across a problem that deeply resonates and then find a solution for that. How about the others?

One common path is to take something that worked elsewhere and pivot it to make it work in a different context or geo or domain. Many startups that have done phenomenally well with such ideas. Amply demonstrating, rarely is it the idea that determines success. It is always the team and execution that determines the success.

And then there are people that have knowledge and  experiences that are a bit removed from real world problems or use. Like say a hard core techie that builds solutions based on specifications given. Here the rei sno understanding of the customers domain nor empathy of the customer’s problems. Just specifications, to design and build and deliver to. Now even here there maybe a startup opportunity. To build a technology platform.  That other techies may use to build their end solution. Here no business domain or customer context needed. Just an understanding of how someone builds solutions.

This is exactly what the startup Tuplejump did. Built a technology product that other techies and developers will use. Built it to enable access to new types of data with new ways of storing data that was rapidly coming up as users got more active in the internet and enterprises went more actively to the cloud. Data was now more to mine insights into what users we redoing and less about transactions user performed. And this was a solution with a global appeal. That caught Apples interest.

Is this a way to build a product that can grow very quickly or get aquired more easily? Maybe.

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