Bob Dylan was right, the times they are a-changin. Although I bet even Monsieur Bob of Dylan can’t keep up these days as times are changing at an unbelievably faster rate it seems than ever before. It is constant. Perhaps it’s the company I keep or the magazines I read but it seems to me as though one outcome of the speedy times we live in are all the utterly amazing start-ups springing up all over the place and frankly it’s hard to keep up.
Having recently consumed Wired magazine’s Europe’s 100 Hottest Start-ups supplement, I was blown away by the sheer amount of innovative, expanding and exciting companies in Europe alone never mind so-called Silicon Valley (Mark who?). It got me thinking as to why now, more than ever, is it possible to get your business going, online, mass-producing and raking in the cash?
There are of course many obvious reasons – ease of access to your business requirements via the internet, democratic shared use of online resources and open source software, DIY marketing and of course social media means anything is possible and everyone has access. The ease of the digital age means anyone under the age of 25, essentially don’t know they’re born it’s so easy these days (sorry kids! I am just jealous!).
Gotta love the maker generation coming through though. It is an awesome, awesome thing to be so empowered, entrepreneurial and ready to run with something new as soon as you want. I am inspired just writing this.
Now of course the Internet is the real rising star in all this and in my mind the true award goes to the Cloud. Without cloud computing and services now readily available to your average start-up, we wouldn’t be seeing the same level of innovation taking place across the globe.
Ten years ago a new company would need to invest in a serious amount into their infrastructure before they could even begin to think about setting up. Without software services like Exchange hosting, setting up company emails, huge outlays, actual real, tangible equipment, servers and IT managers would have all been on the shopping list. Not now. Not today. The Cloud and hosted Exchange has liberated us all and has begun a wonderful journey that everyone can take together.
So start-ups – listen up – these really are golden times. So before you become the next gazzillionionaires, enjoy the ride and get some Dylan going on your cloud based music collection, because nobody knows what’s coming next, but I’ve got a feeling, it’s going to be good.
Tags: Business, Cloud, computing, Email, Exchange, Hosted, Hosting, IT, medium business, Saas, services, small business, SMB, SME, startups
