The startup world — like any field — has its own lexicon. Living in this world, I am guilty of overusing industry jargon myself. But there are several buzzwords that have become overused and misused to the point they are useless.
Here are three of the most annoying terms I hope will disappear from the startup lexicon soon.
We live in a bubble in Silicon Valley. By this, I mean we often forget that outside of Silicon Valley, the larger population experiences technology differently from us and our neighbors. And this we need to remember when investing in new companies and when starting new businesses focused on consumers, particularly worldwide.
A recent reminder for me was a conversation with my sister-in-law. An East Coaster, quite intelligent, very educated, she asked if I still use that “Errand Bunny” service I previously recommended. After some confusion, I realized she was referring to Task Rabbit, a service for outsourcing small jobs to people in your neighborhood. Sure, Task Rabbit, like Uber, may be a part of our everyday language, but it’s not necessarily familiar to people outside the San Francisco-based tech industry.
Consumerization of IT is one of the areas I’m most excited about these days. The trend has two sides. First, there’s the consumerization of IT within an enterprise, in which employees access corporate data and business systems from their mobile devices. Second, there’s the “enterprise-ation” of IT among consumers, in which anyone with a smartphone can use apps with enterprise functionality.
Business productivity apps are examples of enterprise functionality in the hands of consumers. Here’s a sample of some of the more interesting ones I personally use:
The Empiricist VC 