2016 is Going to be an Exciting Year for Tech

It’s that time of year, when venture capitalists reflect on all of the interesting and not-so interesting conversations they’ve had with founders from the previous year, and write a blog post predicting what will happen in 2016. I always find those posts fun to read and it makes me start thinking about my own predictions for 2016 and what I am most excited about. Plus, when I grow up I’d like to get into the Venture Capital game so it’s fun to throw the VC hat on.

In the past 12 months I went from being co-founder of Augmate, a company in the wearable/IOT space, to co-founder of Wade & Wendy, a company in the AI/messaging space. Both are sectors that warrant a substantial amount of predictions. I can compliment those experiences with insights from what I see as a volunteer NYC Managing Director of FounderDating, a mentor at startup incubators, and as a 2015 NYC Venture Fellow. I am entrenched in this startup ecosystem, and as a founder myself, have generated some interesting thoughts and predictions. It’ll be fun looking back on this post next year.

Wearable Technology

Google Glass was a pioneer for wearable technology and like many of the world’s most famous pioneers, they took a lot of heat in the process of paving a path in unknown territory. Wearables from a hardware perspective came out of the gates with a ton of buzz but were underwhelming. The good thing is that wearable developers have not thrown in the towel;although consumers have been complaining, the builders have been listening and learning. The immense technical and user experience discoveries over the past 12 months will fuel some much needed progress in this industry over the next 24 months. My favorite hardware player to keep an eye on is Osterhout Group (ODG). Check out their glasses below, they are awesome.

Internet of Things

Last year at CES the talk of the show was IoT. Everything from a basketball to a dishwasher was connected to the internet. This year at CES, the only thing that would have shocked us about IoT is if there was a product at the show not connected. Now what? What’s next for IoT? What do we do with all this data coming from everything we touch? I expect this year to be about the de-fragmentation of IoT. Platform leaders will rise to the top by integrating a wide range of data sources, making sense of combining the data and providing unique insights, ultimately presenting it in an awesome UX. Although details are fuzzy, if you follow Dick Costolo, former CEO of Twitter, he recently announced his new company and I am eager to see if he can finally make sense of the chaos in the health and fitness sector and provide a platform we can all use and benefit from.

Bitcoin / Blockchain

There is a lot of money flowing in and out of Bitcoin and Blockchain startups. Any company with a couple smart engineers with Bitcoin in their description was able to raise seed funding, either by traditional venture capital, or by suddenly spinning out their own cryptocurrency and selling it to the open market. Now there are heated debates across core Bitcoin developers on whether they can improve the Bitcoin infrastructure for a more sustainable future or if the entire system is too fragile that one hiccup would send the entire currency crashing down. I never hear about people buying alternative crypto-currencies anymore.

I understand why Bitcoin started as a financial instrument and currency but I am eager for 2016 because this will be the year where the Blockchain has its time in the sun, and it won’t have anything to do with the price of Bitcoin. My expectation for 2016 is that we will see platforms created where artists, creators of limited edition goods, even new forms of digital collectibles are tagged and sold on the Blockchain. In the past when you used to buy something that was a limited edition, it would be represented by a limited edition number like 5/100 and maybe come with some certificate of authenticity. The Blockchain will replace all of that and if you want to buy something you see in a gallery or right off a friend’s wall, they will transfer record of ownership to you across the Blockchain. Also, keep a lookout for event tickets sold on the Blockchain, I am confident by the end of 2016 the days of purchasing fake tickets off Craigslist will be forgotten.

Digital Media

I read all of my news online. I am a huge fan of Twitter, it is the absolutely perfect form of information consumption for someone with ADD and many interests, like myself. Twitter is truly a mobile first content platform, unfortunately they still need to figure out a business model but that’s a conversation for another day. Snapchat exploded in 2015, it is no longer a platform for high school kids to sext, but an intimate story-telling tool for the new generation. Snapchat is our bridge to the world we will soon experience inside virtual reality. Get ready for that.

In 2016, the things I am most excited about and paying attention to is reimagined story telling for the mobile-first ADD culture. I came across an app called Hooked and when I engaged in their text message-style story telling, my feeling reflected the name of the app…I was hooked. I don’t know if this app will be the winner, but I am keeping my eye on them and eager to see what other forms of story-telling we will discover.

eSports

I am throwing eSports in this post because I think we are about to embark on a new phenomenon. I never understood eSports and why it mattered until I watched Jimmy Kimmel mock the industry. It’s easy to laugh at people watching other people play video games. What proceeded to happen next, to me, has to be a Venture Capitalist’s “Oh Shit” moment when they should be scrambling to learn everything they can about the space. An entire community of gamers, so passionate about eSports, created such heat for Jimmy, that he had to basically apologize in a following monologue a day or two later. When you have a community so passionate about a product or brand, it is time to take notice. eSports have been around for a while but still in its infancy as a investable or developed sector. Sponsors will begin to gravitate to the league’s, players are getting major endorsement deals not because they are great gamers, but because they are great entertainers and understand that they need to connect with their audience through Snapchat, Twitter, Vlogging and whatever else. With ESPN recently throwing their hat in the ring for coverage and content, a brilliant move to enable them to expand their reach to an entirely new audience, the exposure should generate new product development supporting and expanding the sector. If I was Vince McMahon of WWE, I’d be making my next XFL size bet and I’d be doing it on eSports.

Virtual Reality

I get a little giddy when I think and talk about VR. I haven’t been this excited for a new technology platform since Nintendo 64. 2016 will be the most important year in the history of Virtual Reality because this is the year the Oculus Rift will be released to the public. One might think, okay it’s gold rush time. Well, as with the adoption curve of most new technology these days, major consumer adoption of VR is hinged to when Apple decides to throw their hat in the ring, and so far not a peep. This year will be the year that the mass will test virtual reality for the first time. You will go to your friends house or some exhibit somewhere with a Gear VR or an Oculus and put it on and be blown away by the possibilities. But just as Makerbot and 3D printing was represented as a DIY service, but no normal person could actually do 3D printing by themselves, VR adoption will be limited to gamers and experts only in 2016.

With that said, the companies I am super excited about in the VR space now are the ones that present a tangible value proposition in the near term. My friends over at IRIS VR working on a platform for architects, or the companies working on pain management for hospital patients through VR, or therapy to overcome phobias. I’ve tested these types of experiences and they are revolutionary, and I don’t throw that word around lightly. Startups listen up, you have 6–9 months to build something cool and then raise as much capital as you can (18 months runway), because after the Oculus buzz dies down a bit, there is going to be a wait and see period after that. Then once Apple throws their hat in the game with their own iVR, and/or we can connect the Oculus to the Mac, its game on and the world will be changed forever. It’s that powerful.

Messaging as a Platform

Product of the year goes to… SLACK! You might find it odd that a tool enabling team members in an organization to message each other would be my favorite product of the year, but it’s because it is so much more than that. My former engineering team introduced me to Slack as a tool to enable more effective communication. Instead of bothering my engineering team and ultimately breaking up their flow, Slack was a way to get my thought out of my head immediately, and it was a way for our engineers to respond at the most convenient time for them.

Now it is the brain of our company. I honestly cannot remember the last time I actually emailed anyone on my team. They did it. They beat internal email! We connect all our other tools to Slack, product management, OKR management, ATS systems and CRMs. Why I am putting a cool 2015 product in my post about 2016, because as they say in show business, the best is yet to come for Slack! Slack just raised an $80 million dollar fund to invest in new products and bots built on their platform. If anyone believes that conversation is the new UI, Slack is one of a variety of platforms that are going to be the infrastructure for this new user interface. As you all will learn more about in the coming months, I am eager for you all to meet Wade & Wendy, you can find them hanging out in Slack ;)

Artificial Intelligence

I saved best for last. Okay, I am biased, Wade & Wendy are two Artificially Intelligent assistants making hiring more human, so I have a certain fondness for the exciting new developments in AI. Take what I have to say in this section with a grain of biased salt, but nonetheless I am going to tell it as I see it. Over the past decade, AI has been relatively quiet. With new technology they often say timing is everything, and this very well might be AI’s time. There are many factors that influence my opinion of why AI is ripe for immense progress and experimentation.

1. Computer storage is almost infinite. As opposed to having to write and rewrite data because of limitations in memory, data can evolve as time evolves and concepts can evolve in turn.
2. Open-source is enabling us to stand on the shoulders of others progress. Many large companies are open-sourcing tools, data sets, and algorithms that will enable smaller companies with limited resources to leverage the progress made by larger organizations.
3. Big Data needed a UX and AI is just the thing. I am sure you have heard the term big data, because everyone who has users and analytics would refer to their company as big data. Everywhere we go, eat, shop, whom we socialize with, what we chat about, research, and watch on TV is creating immense amounts of data. We can continue to leave it in graphs or we can start doing something with it. Artificial Intelligence is just the experience for this immense data revolution we have gone through.
4. Messaging has become the platform for entirely new wave of apps, bots and products. We have finally reached a breaking point. I don’t want to have to download a new app and remember to go to it. I just want to chat with my apps like I do my friends, get the information I need and be on my way. That’s what it’s like interacting with AI on a messaging platform.
5. The success of AI is going to hinge on solving real business problems and I am super excited to hear people working on applying AI to things like assessing legal contracts, scheduling issues, organizing and booking travel or in our case the recruiting industry. If we all approach AI to solve a direct business problem, it will enable us to accomplish some of the technical challenges that will allow the industry to reach new heights.

My other assumption when it comes to AI is that we will discover training algorithms that rely on less data than the Deep Learning techniques. If we can teach a child a concept by showing it to them a couple of times and relating it to other concepts they understand, then why do we feel the need to teach a computer something by showing it to them a million times. Data Scientists, let’s get on this!

I am a technology optimist, and I cannot wait to see what the year ahead has in store for us. If you are interested in making your impact on the technology landscape in 2016 and beyond, reach out to us at Wade & Wendy or email me directly at Drew@WadeandWendy.ai, we are working on some awesome technical challenges and having a blast doing it.