It’s always fun to capture “first blush” early information. After the first week of taking applications for Startup Runway, I was super curious to see which sectors we were attracting.
See, I’m not even sure how many startups we have in Atlanta. I hypothesize around 1,000 net new tech startups each year that have a certain viability. For Startup Runway, we mostly don’t want this year’s brand new startup–we want last year’s, or the year before’s–after they have some early success.
If we just look at Atlanta, using the stat that 41% of founding teams are women or minority led, that puts the target population in our city around 400–big fuzzy guesses. Our goal is to get 100 applications before our deadline, September 30. The top 10% will participate in our November 3 Showcase for cash prizes and one-on-ones with investors who are interested in hypergrowth startups from diverse backgrounds. (Apply here.)
Startup Runway Early Sector Results: B2C
So what we found is, in the first week, we got 30 applications from active startups that met many of our basic requirements. Here’s the industry breakdown from this first early sample:
You can’t tell B2B or B2C from this.
The reality is, 2/3 of the applications were for B2C ideas, even in fintech. Logistics and Big Data weren’t e pure b2b either–one of the big data apps was for personal decision making. How about you–notice anything surprising from the sectors where early stage startups are creating?