I have just returned from teaching a program at Babson College to a group of entrepreneurs from across the U.S. A few observations:
- More and more women entrepreneurs, who tend to be better educated than the men (in my opinion)
- The trend toward older startup entrepreneurs is confirmed in my experience
- Many people innovating in medical care, focused on improving the customer experience through personal approaches (as opposed to digital)
- Much interest in applying technology to improve services for mental health
- Starting to see companies that have developed information management products for the government thinking about how to commercialize these products in the private sector; suggests to me that the government may be ahead of the private sector in information capture and collaboration
- People that offer professional services such as attorneys, accountants, architects are very concerned about their future viability; they lack any method to understand where in the customer service process the value is created
- Everybody thinks they understand the need for cybersecurity, but few people really understand the depth of the issue; affordability is an issue for most SMB (Small and Medium Businesses)
- Most SMB still do not have effective web presence for e-commerce
- Marketplaces are an area of great interest for new businesses; few companies understand the complexity of starting such a venture despite the quality of writing on the business model
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