🦄 Why the unicorn needs to go 🦄 There are a lot things you can bank on seeing at a startup conference: strobe lighting and techno at 11am; some free but disgusting snacks (often vegan); one of those robot dogs; and a life-size statue of a unicorn. It’s time for nearly all of them — but especially the horned horse — to go. We’re 12 months into a downturn. Thousands of people have been laid off from European tech companies. We’ve just survived a full-scale bank run caused in part by interest rate rises and VC groupthink. And all this still hasn't broken the industry’s collective idolisation of the mythical creature. Shouldn’t we be finding another animal to put on a pedestal? 2023 is, after all, the year of profitability. This year VCs are (still) advising startups to break even and posting on LinkedIn about revenue over growth. It’s the second year in a row in which startups are laying off 10%, 20%, 30% of their teams to achieve said goal. And it’s so far a year in which just one new billion-dollar business (DeepL) has been minted — and far more unicorns have been de-horned. So what should we elect our new mascot? My vote is for the honey bee. (Bear with me.) Bees are good for the planet. They work well in teams. They have a woman in charge (and we could do with a few more of them). And they are extremely productive. We’re on track for climate disaster, says the latest IPCC report. We have no real idea how to care for our ageing populations or properly fund our creaking health systems. Paris is burning, British doctors are striking. But technology could help — if we focus on the right kind. Let’s start idolising the businesses that sort out the world’s BIG, BIG problems (we’ve recently written about a few) and make stuff we really, really need. Let’s start giving headline speaker slots to the founders who figured out how to build happy hives. And let’s start celebrating the startups that do a lot with a little. After all — unicorns aren't real. 𝙁𝙤𝙧 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨, 𝙨𝙞𝙜𝙣 𝙪𝙥 𝙩𝙤 𝙎𝙞𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙙'𝙨 𝙣𝙚𝙬𝙨𝙡𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧: https://lnkd.in/dkagZZTv #startups #technology #business #unicorn
Paula Gould
1y
i was quite sure we decided the capybara is the mascot of 2023.
🐝Honey bees are the ultimate totalitarian collectivists: No individual goals or needs of their own, just slaves serving and sacrificing themselves for the queen, including self-destructive attacks on outsiders. Perhaps not the best analogy for a thriving, human-centric culture that values its employees? 😉 🐫 Camels are a popular analogy for embodying resilience, endurance, frugality, and self-sufficiency in times of draught. But this analogy doesn't really inspire innovation, out-of-the-box thinking or impact. 🔥From the mythical world, phoenixes also come to mind, rising from the ashes, but the analogy might lead to a strategy of wishing for a miracle or just raiding the bankruptcy estate 😆 Cockroaches and rats are good at frugally utilizing leftovers, but perhaps not the best examples of trust or collaboration. 🐶 Perhaps we should strive to be African wild dogs, with 80% hunting success rate due to their stellar teamwork and adaptable strategies?
The most interesting part of your post isn’t about the unicorn (good hook though 😉). It’s this: “Let’s start idolising the businesses that sort out the world’s BIG, BIG problems (we’ve recently written about a few) and make stuff we really, really need. Let’s start giving headline speaker slots to the founders who figured out how to build happy hives. And let’s start celebrating the startups that do a lot with a little.” The point I am trying to make requires that I put modesty aside for a moment. My company has solved a huge global problem. It reduces risk and increases effectiveness by as much as 8X. At the same time it helps build bridges and heal the divisiveness in the world by rewarding those who change how they think about other people. While shifting our admiration to small companies doing big things from big companies doing big things is a fabulous objective, the reality is small companies battle every day to be heard. Small is quiet and big is loud. Resources make it so. Not sure how to fix it, but that’s the fundamental flaw. How many potentially revolutionary ideas & advances are lost because the companies who create them aren’t heard? #valuegraphics #humancentric #data
I’m a VC who looks for businesses with potential for real success, not unicorns. Call me a cynic, however, but high growth, money losing companies and crashes are what feed the startup media machine. Those are the stories readers gravitate to. Just like the overall economy, the startup economy is cyclical. In two years or less, the media and VCs will be back to overhyping high growth startups that are lousy businesses with no possibility of becoming profitable other than through lucky acquisitions. In fact, it’s already happening with Generative AI.
Enda Eames
1y
Excellent article and philosophy…especially the notion about taking the ridiculous horn of that nice white horse. I like the “Bee” metaphor and not least because it has a woman in charge - as men have done enough damage in positions of leadership to date (and we’ve now officially crossed over into the Age of Aquarius). The ‘Beehive’ (behave) structure is all about collaboration and ensuring the benefits go to the community before the individual. This is why my own clean energy startup is focused on becoming a ‘co-operative’ entity rather than vehicle for the shallow objective of self-enrichment. Yes, I hope to make a living..but not a killing - as the latter approach is what’s gotten the world into the sorry state we’re in today. https://puregreenhydrogen.com
Martin Barry
1y
Hi Amy - we’ve been writing to you for 2 years because we are building a company and brands that do exactly what you’re saying. And, we’ve done it with high profitability nearly since inception in 2018. Media outlets like Sifted have idolized flash-in-the-pan startups, unicorns and big funding rounds based more on FOMO than companies and products that actually add value to the world to build happy hives. Bringing vibrant, urbane life back to sad city centres is a life’s work and needs more companies doing it. Nothing wrong with strong 4-wall, tech enabled consumer businesses solving problems one site at a time in the real world. We’re still doing it - so feel free reach out anytime :)
Sam Brown
1y
THANK YOU. I spoke to Eleanor Warnock about this ages ago - what are the effects of climate change and other social issues and where is the funding for those who are looking to tackle those problems? Where are there gaps and why? Might be time to let go of purely digital solutions as well, and recognise that physical infrastructure and human socialising need to be in the mix.
Not sure that it's businesses that should be taking responsibility for, or attempting to solve, political issues ("There be dragons.....") but sadly, and in the US in particular, there are a lot of relatively inexperienced investors (typically single individuals or small partnerships), that have been quite fortunate in pursuit of 'bubbles', in so much that they have managed to exit before said bubbles burst. The unicorn has become a modern, and very current, global icon (signifying support for singularity; gender; sexuality etc.), although for typically inexperienced (and indeed often sadly gullible) investors it represents a relatively easy return on invested capital. If a company is good for the planet and promotes equality that's excellent. But above all else it has to deliver, and that involves hard work - pit ponies and Shire horses rather than legendary horses. The investment world is for hard-headed and hard working realists, not myths.
“After the plague and the conflagration that follows, the smoke will clear and you will look around to see who is still standing, and you will see the Cockroaches. The Cockroaches will be fewer, and thinner, but will have survived into a time of greater starvation and less hype, but where talented teams are easier to hire, and more loyal to the companies who hire them. Office space will have freed up, and will be cheaper. Many fearsome, funded competitors will have fallen away.”
Business Builder | Entrepreneur | Investor | Director | Venture Partner
1yhttps://hbr.org/2020/10/startups-its-time-to-think-like-camels-not-unicorns