Crowdsourcing and new crowd-enabled platforms are facilitating a golden age of innovation. Crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter provide startups access to customers, investors, and partners. Accelerators like YCombinator connect startups to these groups plus expertise. Corporates are also using crowds through venturing, challenges, and accelerators to generate ideas and find startups. While acquiring customers and funding remain challenges for startups, and offering value beyond money is a challenge for investors, better aligning crowds through combinations of these platforms will further enable innovation to happen more easily than ever before.

1. How Crowds Are Enabling
a Golden Age of Innovation
Shaun Abrahamson
@shaunabe

2. @shaunabe startup life
Investor: ZocDoc, Trialpay, Refinery29, Retrofit,
Crowdtwist, Sense Networks, Tonx, Jovoto, Modria,
Mealku, Stylyt, Everest, Minbox, Care at Hand,
Workana, Social Amp, SOMA, Spuni...
Builder: (good, bad + ugly) including: Oculus,
govWorks(Startup.com), Starmedia, MediaSentry
2

3. First, lets go back to 1999

5. Corp Dev
Why was
the
50k great?
Founders Investors
Customers

6. BUT
For Founders -> Finding Customers,
Finding Investors, Limited Media
For Investors -> Complex evaluation of
Opportunities (Team, Idea)
For Corp Dev -> No real structures to work
with startups

7. What’s new in 2013?

9. also
new, better organized
crowds
Crowdfunding
Accelerators
Crowdstorming

10. Source: Crowdsourcing.org

11. Angel.co
More Connections, Better Signals

12. Kickstarter
Customers + Investors +
Partners

13. Corporates Venturing
Funding + Expertise +
Customer Acquisition

14. Source: f6s.com

15. YCombinator
Customers + Investors +
Partners

16. Corporate Accelerator

17. 2009 Spend
Explosion in
Open Innovation
Spending
2015 Spend (Projected)
Source: OIA Survey 2013

18. GE Ecomagination
Identify Specific Types of
Opportunities

19. Amazon Studios
Make Use of
Open City Data

20. Corp Dev
Better organization and alignment
FoundersInvestors
Customers

21. What’s still hard?
For Founders -> Acquiring Customers
(Feedback, Testing, Sales), Funding
For Investors -> Offering More Than
Money (Expertise, Customers)
For Corp R&D -> Assuring That Ideas
Succeed (Money, Expertise, Customers)

22. What’s Next?

23. Fund + Accelerator + Crowdstorm ++

24. Crowdstorm + Accelerator ++

25. Crowdstorm + Accelerator ++

26. Corp Dev
Ever better crowd alignment
FoundersInvestors
Customers

27. Aligning crowds is very,
very powerful.

28. It’s never been easier to
make innovation happen.

29. How Crowds Are Enabling
a Golden Age of Innovation
Shaun Abrahamson
@shaunabe