An Easier Path to Your Own Startup Company: Y Combinator

Scott Berkun Real-World Innovation RSS Feed

4:59 PM Monday July 21, 2008

The running excuse many people have for not starting their own companies is they haven't found a big idea, yet. The curious thing is that waiting for a big idea is not the way most entrepreneurs get started: they find an area, a problem, or a question and start exploring ways to fill it in. They don't wait for the idea -- they hunt the ideas down.

The folks at Y Combinator, a new kind of venture capital firm, are doing all sorts of smart things to help people start companies. Unlike other firms, they do more than provide funding: they coach, teach and support the conversion of ideas into companies. They're focused on tech, but their model deserves to be emulated in other fields. They recognize that innovation needs to be nurtured if it's going to grow.

And now the Y Combinator folks offer this -- 30 startup ideas we'd love to fund.

If you're one of those people who's been waiting for an idea, thanks to Y Combinator you have fewer excuses to wait much longer.

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Scott Berkun

Scott Berkun is the best-selling author of The Myths of Innovation and Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, Wired Magazine and on National Public Radio. He is a recurring expert on the 2008 CNBC TV Series, The Business of Innovation.

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