Smart entrepreneurs know it’s not the business model itself that creates success, it’s the mind and strategy behind it. It’s the long vision, the sleepless nights, the endless pots of coffee and that insatiable drive to keep going, no matter what.
The best startups are created by entrepreneurs who have enough drive and passion to see them through. Here are some startups that clearly have what it takes to succeed, and how you can learn from them:
- Winnie, helping parents find kid-friendly places
Review websites like Yelp do their best to provide users with important information about establishments. For example, you can find out if a business accepts credit cards, has Wi-Fi, offers take-out or has a drive-thru. But what you can’t find out is if there’s a diaper changing station in the restroom, and if you’re a parent, that’s more important than Wi-Fi.
In 2016, Sara Mauskopf and Anne Halsall founded Winnie to solve this dilemma by helping parents “find great destinations for kids, anywhere you go.”
Unlike Yelp, the data provided by Winnie is specifically relevant to parents.
With Winnie, you can find out where the best parks are to play, or if a restaurant has changing tables and high chairs. Most importantly, you can use Winnie to find the nearest restroom or the closest place to nurse your baby.
Related: 5 Productivity Tips for Entrepreneurial Success
- Zipline, delivering medical supplies by drone
Zipline is a revolutionary startup with a clear mission: to safely deliver medical supplies to areas with challenging terrain and gaps in infrastructure.
By using a fleet of drones called “Zips,” this company delivers vaccines, medicine and even blood to communities that can’t be reached by roads.
Healthcare workers place their order through a text message, and within minutes, a Zip drone is loaded and launched. Flying at 100 kilometers per hour, and requiring no pilot, these drones are able to reach their destination and deliver the goods faster than other delivery methods.
When the drone approaches the delivery zone, a hatch opens from the bottom and the package parachutes safely down to the ground to be retrieved.
Zipline is already making healthcare better for millions of people in Rwanda, but they’re not stopping there. Zipline wants to bring this technology to every country in the world.
- Dialpad, integrating communications with your CRM
Dialpad is ahead of the game when it comes to application integrations. They’ve already launched an innovation in business communication by making the desk phone obsolete and moving communication systems to the cloud. How they’ve integrated their technology with Salesforce is absolutely brilliant.
Dialpad’s Salesforce integration allows you to call a prospect with a single click, and personalize the conversation using the prospect’s profile data, which just might land the sale.
- Starry, providing lightning-fast internet
Who doesn’t want lightning-fast internet speeds without having to pay an exorbitant monthly fee? It’s now possible thanks to Starry, a device designed to give you a supercharged internet speed of up to one gigabyte per second.
Designed to be used where multiple people gather (such as cafes, office and apartment buildings), a device called a “Starry Point” attaches to the roof of the building by the existing wiring and uses airwaves (not cables) to deliver a fast wireless internet connection to anyone with a receiver unit.
The unit receiving the signal down below is called a “Starry Station,” and is significantly easier to configure than a traditional modem and router. Users can simply plug in their Starry Station and jump online.
With a pilot program already launched in Boston and more in the works, we’ll definitely be hearing more about this startup.
- Graviky Labs, turning toxic emissions into ink
This startup is nothing short of genius. The three founders from Bengaluru are capturing tailpipe pollution and turning it into consumer safe ink called Tiger Air Ink.
In November 2016, the city of Delhi was declared the most polluted city on the planet. Between dust, cars, crop and garbage burning, as well the pollution left behind by firecrackers after festivals, the air in this city remains heavily toxic.
The toxic pollution from tailpipe emissions contains fine, black particles of carbon based soot that come from incomplete fossil fuel combustion. These soot particles are smaller than dust, just 2.5 micrometers in diameter, and get sucked deeply into the lungs when inhaled. These chemical compounds wreak havoc on the lungs and can even cause cancer.
The founders of Graviky Labs created a method to capture this carbon and turn it into usable ink.
The process works by connecting a device to the tailpipe of a car, where it collects the raw carbon and soot. Next, the captured substance is purified through proprietary methods and turned into ink anyone can use.
Just 40 to 50 minutes of diesel car pollution can produce enough ink to make a large black marker.
Ink has always been a timeless mode of expression throughout the ages, and this company is keeping the pastime alive while saving the planet.
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Success requires determination
These five innovative startups demonstrate that success can be achieved when you have a great idea, a drive to make an impact on the world and the determination to see it through.
If your startup wants to achieve this level of innovative success, the best place to start is to look for a problem that needs a solution without paying any attention to what you currently think is possible. Once you find a problem you want to solve, allow it to consume you and the solution will become clear. But the passion has to come first.
The guys from Graviky Labs didn’t just casually think about converting diesel exhaust into ink. They let the idea consume them as a passion until they found a way to do it.
Find a unique problem in the world that you can be passionate about solving and then stay committed to seeing it through. Most importantly: never, ever give up.
