The Startup Revolution Series

For the past decade or more, Max and I have either heard or experienced endless stories of startup failures. We took as a given that more than 90% of startups go bust instead of bang, but we were also inspired by the amazing success stories — from Salesforce to Google to Kickstarter — that built new industries, created tens of thousands of jobs and transformed society.

And so we asked ourselves one day in the backyard of a house in Atherton: What if that failure rate could be reduced by even a small percent? How much could society benefit if 1% fewer startups failed? 2%? We became bolder. If the code could be cracked on what factors led to more favorable outcomes, could we actually help maximize success rates??

The following series of posts is a detailed look at why, at this unique moment in human history, we firmly believe that nurturing startups is critical to the well-being of our world.

So we reached out to entrepreneurs across the globe, and over the past several years have been overwhelmed by the tens of thousands of people who have shared their data in service to the entire startup community. The findings from our communal efforts have been published in reports, articles and blogs, have been incorporated into the curriculums of hundreds of universities and have been referenced by the Obama Administration, Chancellor Merkel and leaders in dozens of countries.

Then we built benchmarking dashboards to help individual companies, partners and ecosystems make more informed choices, given their unique circumstances and peer groups. We continue to refine Compass Benchmark, Compass Monitor and Compass Ecosystem, and have many releases in process.

Does this mean we’ve achieved our mission? Hardly. For all we’ve achieved as a community, there are always more questions to be asked, more data to be analyzed, more algorithms to be refined. So we continue to chip away at the code of startup success, with a special focus on delivering an updated version of The Startup Ecosystem Report in spring of 2015.

In the meantime, here is a look at the series of posts that will lead up to its release.

As we begin the new year, we wish you the greatest possible success with all your ventures.

— Bjoern Lasse Herrmann, CEO of Compass

The Startup Revolution Series Overview

• Part 1: The Great Transition: Industrial to Information Revolution
• Part 2: The Decline of the Blue Chip
• Part 3: The Rise of the Startup
• Part 4: The Critical Role of the Startup Ecosystem
• Part 5: Startup Ecosystem Report 2015 (coming soon)

Coming Soon