Earlier this year my interest was twigged about Start-Ups. News articles, Reddit, Twitter & other Social media all told me big things were happening with Start-Ups, businesses founded by 2 guys and an idea written on the lid of a pizza box were making hundreds of millions of dollars in what seemed like overnight.

Being a someone who likes to know about new things when they happen, Start-Ups give the impression of innovation. The idea that someone in their garage right now is working on a jet pack which they are almost ready to present to the world, seems like a throw back to the concepts of the World’s Fair from the mid 1900s. So by the power of association much like jet packs Start-Ups just seem cool.

Start-ups are, at the moment, tremendously popular. With the possibility that with just an idea you too could become a millionaire tech industrialist it is a hard dream to argue. But what are the facts around Start-Ups? By the very name there seems to be a new one making a mint every week, selling out and being bought by a larger more established organisation to be offered as their new service.

The facts around Start-Ups are pretty sketchy. Across the global there are multiple Start-Up hubs (areas where start-ups are concentrated and the support network for them also exists), which if you were able to get information from even a cross sample of 5 of the top 15 (Berlin, Beijing, Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv, Australia) you may be under the impression something like 81,000 Start-Ups are founded each year. However, in scratching the surface to find the source of these facts you find these numbers start to look a little wonky.

The definition of a ‘Start-Up’ is radically different depending on where you look — Start-Up numbers, in some areas, translate into business name registration. One report listed 440,000 Start-Ups founded per year in a single hub but later citing business name registration as the source, is the new corner shop you buy milk from a Start-Up? In another case with a report that looks more realistic, you can find the numbers are based on a Silicon Valley incubator commissioned report (from 2 years prior) which were then adjusted for population differentials.

So why don’t we know much? In all honestly it is because of the nature of Start-Ups we don’t know much about Start-Ups. Start-Ups are secretive. Being a small body in a big pond, Start-Ups are hesitant to share information about themselves until it is time to launch more so in the tech sector than others. Start-Ups for the most part have an assumption that if too much is shared their idea will be stolen and they will fail.

There is a common statement that 9 out of 10 start-ups will fail, this only extends to Start-Ups that gets to a product/service stage and further to that the criteria for success is vague. Are Start-Ups which ‘survive’ past 12 months after bringing a product to market a success? Maybe just ones that are bought out by a Google/Microsoft/etc? Or is the bar for success just set based on taking a good product to market and getting it out there with money not being the criteria for success. Depending where you look, who you ask and what colour socks you wore today any of these can be true.

So do Start-Ups serve a purpose? Yes most certainly ,and it is the innovation I mentioned earlier. While SCRUM & Agile are bantered around as buzz words (not just in development I overheard a conversation between accountants using Agile as a verb that made me shudder not long ago) the small team approach that drives Start-Ups is something that helps us move forward. In a lot of cases Start-Up acquisition from a larger group represents a product/service investment in effectively an external R&D group. Could a large organisation do this themselves? Most certainly, but not with anywhere near as large an idea pool as they would support internally.

Start-Ups are important for innovation, not just in the tech industry but engineering, medicine and others as well. Start-Ups drive a lean approach with lower cost innovative solutions. The risk that Start-Ups have is the lack of visibility, the dotcom bubble should be a reminder about over investment in an area without the best information available. Not every Start-Up will be founded by Elon Musk. Not every Start-Up will change the world. And not every app is the next Facebook. Start-Ups are competing against each other in some areas very small turf and with not a hell of a lot of support.

So what would help? In short knowing more. Not to steal someone’s idea, hack their bank account, other some other nefarious purpose but to help them and ensure the frameworks exist to make as many that can be supported as successful as possible. Start-Up success may be a slightly Darwin like experience but ensuring that Start-Ups that will benefit innovation over ones that just get a lot of money to burn is something that helps the next generation of Start-Ups.

As an industry Start-Ups more information is needed to:

• Create programs for education or access to technology support Start-Up types (biotech, engineering, etc.) which may not be getting as much support as they could be.
• Government Support or Recognition of Start-Ups where possible for considerations if they act in an R&D capacity.
• The extending of germinators, incubators, accelerators, etc. outside of their current geographical focus. Silicon Valley is considered the main hub for Start-Ups, but what if it wasn't.

So who needs to do this? Well back to the problem at hand.

The nature of start-ups means a lot of this information isn't shared. Attempting to do this on a country by country basis may be possible but still will be incomplete. Best case is using registries such as Angelist.co to extrapolate data but even that will be limited to Start-Ups who register. As a non-profit exercise I even attempted to source some data myself but was met with great enthusiasm and little response.

The best that can be hoped for right now would be a common practice between Start-Up support mechanisms (incubators, forums, formal programs, other sites) to register Start-Ups in a manner non-specific to the Start-Up IP. But due to the commercial nature of Start-Ups that is probably unlikely to happen any time soon.

For the moment, the only thing I can tell you about the size of the Elephant right now is that it is big enough to worry about but it’s smaller than you are telling the girl at the bar you are trying to impress.