Some personal musings on the state of consumer startups: medium.com/@efeng/consume… . Will we see a next wave of iconic consumer companies emerge?
2009 - 2012 was truly the golden age of consumer startups. In 2009, we had @Pinterest, @WhatsApp, and @Uber. In 2010, @instagram and @xiaomi. In 2011, @Snapchat. And in 2012, @ToutiaoApp. Some of the greatest consumer companies ever all launching in a remarkable 4 year span.
2013 - 2018 has been a hard time for consumer startups during which the incumbents have widened their lead because of their talent, their distribution abilities, and most important their network effects. FAANG alone has added $3 trillion of market cap during this period.
But there's hope yet for consumer startups. Users are comfortable / fluent with today's tech and can seamlessly switch between multiple services. Apps still organically shoot to the top of the charts. And it's easier and cheaper than ever to build products.
