How Innovation is helping Startups Change the World?

The past decade- the 2010s- was truly a decade of startups. Indeed, lots of successful startups are changing the world over the last 10 years. They impact our daily lives directly or indirectly.

Perhaps at no other time in history save the Industrial Revolution have so many small businesses begun operating with what would appear as an innovative yet laughable idea. And succeeded.

Startups are nothing new to this world if we look closely at history. However, we also need to look at how startups are changing the world if you’re planning on launching one.

Therefore, let’s start with some hard facts and figures

Startup Facts & Figures

Anything between 60 per cent to staggering 90 per cent startups flounder and fail within the first two to five years of opening. The paucity of funds to keep a startup afloat is the prime factor that causes them to flop. However, there’s one more major factor that most startup founders overlook. And that’s innovation.

Majority of startups we see nowadays are mere copycats of existing, flourishing businesses. Often, entrepreneurs try to replicate their success stories in an altogether new environment or country, expecting success. However, that’s not always the case.

Despite such a high failure rate, a few startups do flourish and emerge as giant corporations. And such startups are changing the world.

How Startups Change the World?

There’s only one reason why startups succeed. And that’s because they make life easier for individuals or help organizations perform better and record optimal profits. No startup can succeed unless it’s useful to the people in general or at least some sector of the economy.

If we closely examine every successful startup that’s changing the world, it’ll be clear that each of them began as an idea or a concept in the minds of their respective founders.

Here’re some examples of how startups change the world.

Online Shopping Startups

Amazon is perhaps the single largest and most successful example of how startups are changing the world. Because Amazon touches the lives of ordinary citizens of all ages- from neonates to seniors, regardless of where they live on this planet.

Online shopping was quite common in America much before founder Jeff Bezos could launch Amazon. In its earliest days, online shopping would mean that you could reserve something through a website, sometimes by making token payment. And you had to collect the stuff yourself.

Amazon changed the way the world shops. It lists millions of products- from esoteric equipment to the ubiquitous needle and thus touches our everyday lives.

Artificial Intelligence Startups

Artificial Intelligence in various forms is another way how startups are changing the world. You may not realize that quickly, therefore, I’ll illustrate this with an example. Visit the website of your bank. Or call up an investment company. There’s every possibility that your call will be answered by an Interactive Voice Response or IVR system. And the IVR will guide you through simple instructions through what would be otherwise complex processes to complete a transaction.

Machine learning is another area where Artificial Intelligence is making a mark. According to various sources, over 8,700 startups in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning were making their mark in 2019. And these startups are slated to become major players in various industries that require Artificial Intelligence, especially Machine Learning applications, for their operations.

Healthcare Startups

From complex stem-cell technology and cancer treatment to simple online shopping for medicines are some of the healthcare startups that are changing the world. On the face of it, the technologies or sciences of some of these startups would appear irrelevant to a common person. But when we examine closely, these are groundbreaking ventures that are from entrepreneurs who believe their technologies can change the world.

How healthcare startups are changing the world is through advanced diagnostic and treatment technologies for diseases whose causes are extremely complicated. However, their dedicated research is helping pharmaceutical industries to create medicines that can stem these diseases or cure their victims. And helping patients that cannot travel long to get vital medicines delivered to their doorstep.

Hospitality Startups

Without exception, I will vouch that Airbnb is the most successful startup in the hospitality sector of the world. As you would know, Airbnb is changing the world through its innovative ways that travellers stay at any destination. Airbnb also allows homeowners to make a side income by letting out a room to guests from other cities or countries.

Little had the founders, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia known that their small startup to rent mattresses to airline passengers boom into a company that’s valued at about US$4.2 billion at the end of 2019. There’re several copycat startups are replicating the Airbnb model with some success. Because the demand for services from Airbnb is so high that even a new startup finds itself in the same sector finds itself changing the world.

Transportation Startups

Uber and RedBus are the two most successful startups that are changing the world in the transportation sector. These two startups are now large companies that touch millions of lives every day in several parts of the world. As you would know, Uber is the single largest taxi aggregator in the world with operations spread across several countries. RedBus is now part of a large Indian travel and tourism group. It began as a startup that enables ordinary people to reserve seats on long-distance buses.

Entrepreneurs or the brains behind Uber and RedBus had unique concepts that they brought to realization. And the sheer utility of these concepts were the main drivers of their success. Again, there’re several copycat organizations that try to replicate the success of these two startups that changed the world. They meet limited success and have yet to become global leaders or brands.

In Conclusion

The above examples will amply highlight how startups are changing the world. However, determination and tenacity by their founders as well as the willingness to innovate rapidly, are the main causes of their success.