Workleaf

Apparently, according to a recent survey report, 47% of current venture backed start-ups have immigrant founders. I knew that immigrants had a significant impact on the American economy. But this is probably the first time I am seeing numbers on this. Wonder what makes people perform better outside of their home countries?

The survey apparently found that 25% of venture-backed, public companies that were established in the last fifteen years were started by one or more immigrant founders. Within the high technology sector, that percentage rises to 40%. The aggregate market capitalization of these companies, which includes Intel, Google, Yahoo!, Sun Microsystems and eBay, exceeds $500 billion. The study also found that immigrant founders are responsible for building a high percentage of the most innovative American companies, with 87 percent operating in sectors such as high-tech manufacturing, information technology and life sciences. These companies are headquartered across the country but are concentrated in five states: California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Washington and Texas.

Fifty-six percent of the emerging companies founded by immigrants were headquartered in California, followed by Massachusetts and New York. Sixty-two percent of the companies were in the high technology or life sciences sectors. India was the most prevalent country of origin with 28 percent followed by the United Kingdom (11 percent), China (5 percent), Iran (4 percent), and France (4 percent).

Interesting… isn’t it? Download the full report here

Trust the “Outsourcing Journal” to come up with predictions in the outsourcing market for 2007. Although obvious, it does prove to be useful articulation of what is bound to happen in this hyper-growth market. Summary of the trends -

1. Start-up costs go down (supplier margin compression, increase in competition, etc.)
2. Strategic choices increase (e.g. – location)

3. Supplier market will consolidate (due to a super increase in the number of suppliers)

Overall, looks like a good time to get into outsourcing – for those who have been toying with the idea this year.

Start-up costs are tumbling down these days (Yes… it has almost become a cliche these days!). Some of the reasons are – Open Source, Offshoring, Online Marketing, Cheap Hardware.

All that is fine, but how does a person actually get to these resources and see what is the most cost-effective way of ploughing ahead with her/his ideas? My recent discovery as an answer to this question is the “now famous” tech blog – http://www.techcrunch.com/

Apparently, there are so many start-ups out there providing services that could, in turn, help other start-ups cut down their initial expenditure significantly. Recently reported start-ups were – Amberjack and Weebly. Amberjack helps you build a “site tour” for first time visitors pretty easily. Weebly helps you in creating Web 2.0 ready sites.  I will personally give these sites a try and see if it helps in my attempt moving forward with Alef’s product development. Till then, I strongly recommend subscribing to TechCrunch’s feeds. You never know what start-ups are out there that are providing exactly what you need to get moving!