Life in Balance: Amit D. Chaudhary’s Blog
• • • • •

From the Fortune The Midas List

No. 4 Ram Shriram of Sherpalo, the angel investor in Google.
HOT: The growing, consuming Indian middle class. Tech that powers mobile phones, which are the PCs for many Indians. Clean water in India.

NOT: New consumer Internet startups in search, social networking or video.

No. 20 Mark Tluszcz of Mangrove Capital Partners

HOT: Russia, especially administration, encryption and security software. Technology that bridges the Internet to mobile devices. Targeted advertising. Intuitive search. Internet TV. Security for mobile devices; third-party attacks on phones will surge in coming years.

NOT: Copycats in VOIP, music and photos.

No. 32 Peter Barris of New Enterprise Associates

HOT: Technology services companies that handle business functions like printing or logistics. Communications services companies. Bringing mature offerings, like dish TV, to emerging markets in Asia. Wi-Fi.

NOT: Security is overfunded. The old models of delivering enterprise software.

No. 37 Arjun Gupta of TeleSoft Partners

HOT: Biometrics for identity management in mobile commerce. Location-based wireless services. Strained silicon for low-power, faster chips. Mobile advertising.

NOT: Most enterprise software and semiconductors.

My thoughts:

-I believe that consumer internet startups will do well, though they will have to provide real value to users. As always, except the year 2000.
-Because there are a large number of these (web 2.0) startups, quite a few will not make it in the next 2-3 years

-Mobile is getting as crowded as the internet consumer space and it is more difficult a space due to the service providers being the middle man and risk averse, that typical consumers particularly in the US are not on a mobile lifestyle like in Asia and many existing companies are targetting the mobile market.