In my last blog post, I mentioned that innovation is increasingly dispersed around the world. However today, I dare to say something perhaps more contentious: innovation no longer has borders.
This past September, AngelList announced a new service called AngelList Stack that aims to simplify the fundraising process for startups. Along with their existing crowdfunding platform, AngelList Stack further streamlines the entrepreneurial journey by serving as a virtual one-stop shop for startups to register their companies, provide banking services, and even manage equity and funding-related matters. From our own experience, we’ve had to help many of our portfolio companies take their first steps in launching their businesses. We realized that, although we have a community of incredibly entrepreneurial people and a will for execution, not every founder has the ability to manage all of these matters in a meticulous capacity, since many of them lack this sort of experience. As a result, this has prevented some people from even entering the startup world. However, while company registration and equity management are two important foundations for startup founders, the barriers to entrepreneurship will be greatly lowered if these matters can be simplified.
AngelList isn’t the only one providing these types of streamlining services. There is also Carta, a startup service provider, along with FundersClub, SeedInvest, all of which aim to lower the barriers to entrepreneurship and funding. Because of these companies, it’s becoming easier to establish funds and enter funding rounds as startups, signaling the next incoming wave of innovation where manifesting ideas into practice couldn’t be more convenient.
In fact, we’ve been able to see so much innovation in these spaces during the last several years. For example, there are companies like Notion and Asana that develop virtual team-working tools for remote work and Terminal and Andela that create cloud-based talent recruiting technology. There are even companies that now specialize in managing salary compensation, administrative processes, employee benefits, and team-building. These innovative companies have allowed startups today to be extremely lean and flexible while also being located anywhere around the world. Because startups now no longer have to be location-specific, I believe this is a sign that introduces the age of innovation without borders.
The global startup ecosystem has created an environment that makes it easier to innovate than ever before. Because of the comprehensive services to help establish and manage startup companies, the new generation of startup founders can now focus more on developing their business ideas as opposed to administrative matters. For an entrepreneur, this is a dream-turned-reality; there is now more time for building because of the innovation that made it possible.
