How to Effectively Track Startups to Pursue Innovation

Startups are often the most innovative companies in any given industry. So, it is important for big companies to know what these emerging companies are doing. They (you) can do this by regularly tracking startups. Innovation managers like yourself have a tricky job — you need to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of startups, make sure your organization remains competitive, and evaluate existing partnerships.

Tracking startups is one of the best ways to do this. You can stay updated on new ideas, discover potential opportunities for collaboration, and prepare for the next big disruption. Let’s discuss everything you need to know about tracking startups as an innovation manager — from the benefits of tracking startups to what is the most efficient way to track startups, and more!

What are the Benefits of Tracking Startups?

Innovation managers should consider tracking startups as part of their innovation management strategy. Matured companies can use data from the startup ecosystem to improve decision-making and idea generation. Tracking is easier to understand when performed on a regular basis rather than occasionally. The benefits of tracking startups are numerous, but here are some of the major ones:

Enhanced Product Development

By understanding how startups in your industry are doing, you can gain valuable insights into the direction of your own company and see how your products are performing in comparison. This helps you identify areas that need improvement and adjust accordingly.

Also, tracking startups can be useful for marketing. By understanding which startups are successful and why you can tailor your own marketing strategies to better meet the needs of potential customers. This can help you maximize your reach and ensure that your product stands out from the crowd.

Access to Cutting-Edge Technologies

Tracking startups can be a great way to access cutting-edge technologies and stay ahead of the competition. By monitoring the newest trends and technologies, you can identify opportunities to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of your operations. Tracking startups can also help you build a dashboard to monitor key performance indicators as well as identify areas for growth.

Keeping an eye on the latest innovations lets you analyze how they can benefit your business. You can use this information to create strategies and processes that will help you stay competitive and improve your operations. Additionally, this startup data helps you to make informed decisions about when and how to implement new technologies.

Stay Up-to-Date with Market Trends

Innovation managers are not only responsible for creating new products, they are also responsible for ensuring that the company is generating enough revenue to cover its expenses. Tracking startups helps them identify trends and market opportunities to keep their companies competitive. This allows managers like you to stay ahead of competitors and make sure that your company isn’t left behind by new developments in the industry. Moreover, staying on top of this data helps you anticipate potential disruptions or changes in the market and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Identify the Best Opportunities to Collaborate/Invest in

Tracking startups allows you to keep tabs on any companies on your radar that might be worth investing in or partnering with (or both). Thus, you get a chance to engage with startups right when startup founders are looking for partners and investors. Startup founders are most actively looking for partners, funding, and investors at their earliest stages of growth. They eagerly want to know if there are opportunities for them in your space to scale their product or service.

Read this next: Why and How You Should Engage Startups

What is the Best Way to Track Startups?

The process of identifying and tracking startups can be very tricky and time-intensive. And it becomes even more difficult when you need to monitor numerous startups belonging to multiple industries. So, what is the solution? Before discussing that let’s quickly go through some of the old-fashioned startup tracking methods:

• Startup Newsletters — Some startup newsletters focus on early-stage startups, while others can be more broad or focused on specific industries like healthcare or agriculture. As an innovation manager, you should look for ones that have a wide variety of topics covered so that you don’t miss anything important going on in your industry.
• Monitor your local startup community — You can follow relevant groups and events, as well as social media pages and news blogs. Further, you can visit social media pages for popular incubators or accelerators in your area.
• Explore the world wide web — The web is a good place to find startups, but you have to look around thoroughly, which is again not very time-efficient. Moreover, startups are found in different places on the web and they are not necessarily grouped together by topic or industry.

As you can see, the methods mentioned above may get the job done, but, the question is — how efficient are these? Do you really have the time and bandwidth to search the web for hours or read long newsletters? If not, then our AI-powered Startup Discovery Platform has you covered.

How the StartUs Insights Discovery Platform helps You Effectively Track Startups

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to progress, data is playing a larger role in the innovation process. The good news is that you can use data to gather insights and make informed decisions. Powered by Big Data and AI, our platform covers over 3 million startups and scaleups globally. So, what does this mean for you?

• Use Your Time More Effectively — Replace weeks of desk research with just one click. You get all the information you need on startups, scaleups, technologies, and trends, all from one single source.
• Access to Fast & Exhaustive Scouting — Get the best results out of over 1.8 billion data points from the WWW, startup ecosystem, databases, company aggregators, publications, research, and patents, in a jiffy!
• Deep Innovation Graph — Our proprietary and unique data in combination with our fast and exhaustive search process allows you to discover hidden gems long before anyone else does.
• Large-Scale Search Capabilities — Our highly performant search process allows you to manage even the largest queries — 1 000 keywords? No problem!

Why is our platform better than others?

• When you already know companies that matter to you, you can easily find more like them by using the Similar Company Search.
• Find, mark, and manage relevant solutions all in one tool using the Scout Manager.
• Once you identify relevant solutions, simply export the list and integrate it into your CRM.

You might find this useful: Find 10X Business Opportunities with Data-Driven Startup Scouting

That is not all. We also provide you with a Trend Intelligence solution that gives you access to 29 500+ trends and technologies. This allows you to:

• Anticipate Future Trends & Business Opportunities — we deploy advanced analytics to hundreds of thousands of trusted sources on startups, emerging technologies, and industry trends to provide you with accurate insights into trends impacting your industry in a short amount of time.
• Stay Up to Date — Monitoring the business ecosystem continuously ensures the identification of emerging technologies, trends, and opportunities. Our service provides you with regular updates on recent developments through Trend Intelligence Reports, Innovation Maps, and Real-time Databases.

Also read: How does Trend Analysis drive Innovation

All this structured data and granular analysis of the same along with the monitoring of emerging startups and technologies in your industry and beyond helps you improve your business processes. We ensure that your decision-making is always built on the most recent insights available.

It’s time to hear from you — Do you already track startups to stay ahead of the curve? How do you do it? Would you like to try out our Discovery Platform? Wait no further, book a demo session today!