Betting on a Technology Trend
Startups often have to bet on a technology trend. Most are founded on the cusp of a shift in how technology is affecting a market. Those early cusps can go deep and be big, or they can peter out and be lame.
In 2007, our technical and high-performance computing market was just beginning to explore heterogeneous processing as a viable trend for computing, with NVIDIA as the major champion of heterogeneous processing through GPU computing. Of those that intimately understood the technologies, there were more naysayers of the technology trend than there were proponents.
We honestly had no clue if GPU computing (and the general heterogeneous computing trend) would break out of enthusiast mode to receive general adoption. But we knew that there were real and important use cases that would benefit. And we knew that we had software that would be vital to the market if the trend stuck.
So we placed our bet on GPUs and heterogeneous computing.
Luckily, the bet was spot on. GPUs and heterogeneous computing are here to stay and will grow tremendously over the next decade. Even more, the same technology exists in smartphones and tablets with all major mobile phone vendors looking to tap GPUs for extra processing cycles in those devices.
There are many risks in a new startup. Betting on a technology trend is just one of those.
What technology trends is your startup betting on? What other bets is your startup making?