Welcome to the Unicorn club

Techrun - Welcome to the Unicorn club
by Aileen Lee, Founder of Cowboy Ventures



Lee talks about the Unicorn club - the super companies that have been backed by VCs and grown into $ l billion companies.  Some of them are:    Facebook, Google, Amazon.  Most of them are consumer and IT based.

Money is made from the vc backed companies on the exits (ipo, sale of the companies)

Here are more, copied from the article:

Learnings to date about the “Unicorn Club”:

1. We found 39 companies belong to what we call the “Unicorn Club” (by our definition, U.S.-based software companies started since 2003 and valued at over $1 billion by public or private market investors). That’s about .07 percent of venture-backed consumer and enterprise software startups.

2. On average, four unicorns were born per year in the past decade, with Facebook being the breakout “super-unicorn” (worth >$100 billion). In each recent decade, 1-3 super unicorns have been born.

3. Consumer-oriented unicorns have been more plentiful and created more value in aggregate, even excluding Facebook.

4. But enterprise-oriented unicorns have become worth more on average, and raised much less private capital, delivering a higher return on private investment.

5. Companies fall somewhat evenly into four major business models: consumer e-commerce, consumer audience, software-as-a-service, and enterprise software.

6. It has taken seven-plus years on average before a “liquidity event” for companies, not including the third of our list that is still private. It’s a long journey beyond vesting periods.

7. Inexperienced, twentysomething founders were an outlier. Companies with well-educated, thirtysomething co-founders who have history together have built the most successes

8. The “big pivot” after starting with a different initial product is an outlier.

9. San Francisco (not the Valley) now reigns as the home of unicorns.

10. There is very little diversity among founders in the Unicorn Club.

Some deeper explanation and additional findings:

1) Welcome to the exclusive, 39-member Unicorn Club: the Top .07%

• Figuring out the denominator to unicorn probability is hard. The NVCA says over 16,000 internet-related companies were funded since 2003; Mattermark says 12,291 in the past 2 years; and the CVR says 10-15,000 software companies are seeded each year. So let’s say 60,000 software and internet companies were funded in the past decade. That would mean .07 percent have become unicorns. Or, 1 in every 1,538.
• Takeaway: it’s really hard, and highly unlikely, to build or invest in a billion dollar company. The tech news may make it seem like there’s a winner being born every minute — but the reality is, the odds are somewhere between catching a foul ball at an MLB game and being struck by lightning in one’s lifetime. Or, more than 100x harder than getting into Stanford.
• That said, these 39 companies have shown it’s possible  – and they do offer a lot that can be learned from.

                      

--

Prof Jorge Saguinsin

BIDDA:   BELIEVE, INSPIRE, DREAM, DO, ACHIEVE

New Business Models for Parking Areas.

Promoting Entrepreneurial Revolution

As I biked this morning to Antipolo Church, I noticed that the municipal parking lot was finished.  However the parking lot does not look like a parking lot;  it looked more like a mall.  It all started with glorietta and the greenbelt parking.  Maybe, in order to maximize the income from the parking lot, and to serve those who just arrive, and those who have impulse buying, so that chauffers can eat, the additional food stalls were placed in the the parking areas.

In the case of Shangrila, they discovered that the drivers to shopping are the parking areas.  So therefore the high end food tenants and shopping areas were placed in the 5th and 6th floor adjacent to the the parking areas (and the mrt terminals.  that is another story)

And so the new megamall parking areas in front now are parking areas with malls;   a new business model.  It is not just a parking area.  They would not be spending millions just to accommodate cars;  they want you to buy buy buy....

Siam Niramit Cultural Show; I was a Surprise(?} Performer!

An Ateneo Graduate School of Business Advantage

Saturday evening, February 4, we attended a cultural show- Siam Niramit.  There was usual, to justify its astronomic price a buffet.  It was good though.  There was a magician show while we ate, and parade of the performers while we dined.  There were elephants at the center grounds.

The operators of the elephant show and the cultural center understood their business model very well. The tour guides were their partners as well the owners of transportation.  Like the bus drivers here, the tourist guides and drivers get free food.

What are the revenue sources:   buffet  that is about  300 bahts;  picture taking with tiger -  l00 bahts,  orchid show and sales,  elephant feeding and croc feeding.  (I am sure they sell the crocs for meat and leather afterwards) Bundling these together makes for big revenues.

And keeping the customers entertained and filled with food and fun make them happy!

The show was just dance and musical numbers on the history of Thailand - how the Cambodian influence came in as well as the Chinese influence and the Buddhist beliefs.  However we should admire:

l.  The degree of audience participation -  there was a lot;

2.  The stream pond on the stage where boats sailed,  where lotus floats were sent, fountains and where the actors took a bath.

3.  The flying angels  -  there was a lot of scenes featuring this.

4.  The elephants passing through the audience ranks

5.  The stage that opens up and rises with the star from beneath the stage.

Incidentally, the travel agent set me up in the intermission where I was the  missing musician who plays a bamboo instrument.  Boy, I sure made a lot of people laugh that night.

About the cultural show,  the cultural center shows can be made as money maker for DOT or PTA.  We could make our culture make money for us;  tie it up with a buffet.  Do state of the art stage and show.

Siam Niramit

Pictures from the Elephant show

                              The buffet area greets you upon arrival at the Elephant and Croc Zoo

         He said he is just the collector;  actually the owner;s brother;  hands on management

                   Elephant, the iconic symbol of the zoo which is privately owned

                                 The electric fan with mist spray keeps everyone cool

                                   An elegant elaborate carving near the comfort room

                                  Kalachuchi flowers in the toilet is a novelty


When the elephants come rumbling in

Magic is the entree before the elephant show

                                 The brother of the owner (a collector?) is also a spectator