Can Tech Startup Schools Teach #TheNextBigThing?

STARTUPS -- November 22, 2011 at 6:31 PM EDT

Can Tech Startup Schools Teach #TheNextBigThing?

Very few of the technology startups that came to define the dot-com boom of the mid-'90s are still standing today: They are part of the truism that most startups fail. What's interesting about entrepreneurs is their self-belief, their vision that the thing they are building solves a problem, that the world will frankly be less interesting without their solution.

A recent Kauffman Foundation study of Census data pointed out that new firms are responsible for 3 million jobs in their first year, and existing firms are responsible for losing a million jobs. How and why they fail is being studied closely by the Startup Genome project, which is tracking more than 15,000 startups around the world. Getting too big too fast, and doing something your customers didn't ask for or need, is called premature scaling.

More Videos

Images by Garry Tan

Please share this story, and continue the conversation with #NHStartups on Twitter/ Facebook/Google+.

Many thanks to: Angelpad, TechStars, Vivek Wadhwa, Wade Roush, Blackbox Ventures and to our friends and co-producers at KQED. Crispin Lopez and Chris Bauer produced the pieces; Justin Scuiletti edited the online extras.

Follow @Newshour and @Hari on Twitter. Like NewsHour and Hari on Facebook. Circle NewsHour or Hari on Google Plus.

Beginning October 24, 2012, PBS NewsHour will allow open commenting for all registered users. We hope that the elimination of our moderation process will enable a more organic discussion amongst you, our audience. However, if a commenter violates our terms of use or abuses the commenting forum, their comment will be removed. We reserve the right to remove posts that do not follow these basic guidelines: comments must be relevant to the topic of the post; may not include profanity, personal attacks or hate speech; may not promote a business or raise money; may not be spam. Anything you post should be your own work. The PBS NewsHour reserves the right to read on the air and/or publish on its website or in any medium now known or unknown the comments or emails that we receive. By submitting comments, you agree to the PBS Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which include more details.

Depending on where you live, the word startup has different connotations. For some, it means embarking on an adventure filled with unknown risk and ending in likely peril; for others, like those in our story on Tuesday's NewsHour broadcast, it's just what is: a reality few others can understand. Very few of the technology startups that came to define the dot-com boom of the mid-'90s are still standing today: They are part of the truism that most startups fail. What's interesting about entrepreneurs is their self-belief, their vision that the thing they are building solves a problem, that the world will frankly be less interesting without their solution. A recent Kauffman Foundation [study](http://www.kauffman.org/newsroom/u-s-job-growth-driven-entirely-by-startups.aspx) of Census data pointed out that new firms are responsible for 3 million jobs in their first year, and existing firms are responsible for losing a million jobs. How and why they fail is being studied closely by the [Startup Genome](http://startupgenome.cc/) project, which is tracking more than 15,000 startups around the world. Getting too big too fast, and doing something your customers didn't ask for or need, is called [premature scaling](http://gallery.mailchimp.com/8c534f3b5ad611c0ff8aeccd5/files/Startup_Genome_Report_Extra_Premature_Scaling_1.56.pdf).