The 20 Most Innovative Startups in Tech

I just finished reading the article on “The20 Most Innovative Startups in Tech.” The concepts these twenty entrepreneurs have come up with are definitely fascinating and some of them I never would have thought you could make money with. However, they all are doing well enough to have made this article and provide some motivation for those who are considering pursing they own tech startup in future.  As I read through the startup profiles, the following thoughts occurred to me:

1. Some of the concepts seem similar to ideas I that I have heard talked about for years. For instance, BankSimple which allows people to keep track of their bank account in one place is basically the same idea as many other financial websites other there, including mint.com.  Just goes to show you do not necessarily have to have an earth shattering idea to start a successful business…so far BankSimple has raised $13 million dollars of venture capital! 
2. Another business that seems less than novel is Dowolla, which allows people to transfer money to each other without using credit cards. Sounds to me like the idea of using your phone to pay for stuff instead of a credit card and is just an electronic check. The only question I have it what is the company’s security procedures and what happens if someone hacks my account using Dwolla? My credit card offers me zero fraud liability for unauthorized transactions…I would not use Dwolla unless they offered the same protection.
3. As I read though the businesses I was surprised to see TaskRabbit listed as one of the startups. Why, because earlier this evening I watched two Wall Street Journal video clips on “Virtual Assistants,” both which spotlighted sites like Task Rabbit and a competitor,  Zaarly.  Check them out here: http://online.wsj.com/video/daunting-task-hire-someone-from-the-web/971E8FE5-B201-4406-8FDA-6B3CF3B60B01.html and http://online.wsj.com/video/a-new-kind-of-task-master-virtual-assistants/6D9B0E56-2E9C-4107-87F8-2B122CB90C4D.html.
4. Many of the ideas do not appear to have any IP associated with them. For instance, H.Bloom, Kaggle, MoviePass, Joor, Dropbox, and Makerbot to name a few do not appear to have any IP associated with their business. Yet, each has raised venture capital and seems to be expanding in size. Their ideas might provide a good opportunity for someone to be a quick follower and jump on board the market opportunity.

Overall, the twenty ideas were very fascinating to read about and got me thinking about some twists that I potential could pursue on my own to make a few extra bucks on the side. Of course, the biggest limiter I see to competing with these companies is having the technical know-how to create the web-interface they use to make their business successful. So, while these companies may not have much patentable IP, they have closely held company trade secrets that are leading to their success over the competitors.