Entrepreneurs challenge the Gartner Hype Cycle

The Hype Cycle was a concept put forward by Gartner, Inc. back in 1995 meant to apply to innovation product evolution and acceptance. As I was reading about it recently, it occurred to me that the concept relates directly to how investors see startup opportunities and potential success as then, meanwhile those with research in their offerings.

Technology trigger. The first phase of a hype cycle is the innovation trigger or breakthrough, product launch or other event that generates significant press and interest. This is the "in fact disruptive innovation" that startups often claim.

Peak of inflated expectations. In the then and there phase, a frenzy of publicity typically generates over-enthusiasm and unrealistic expectations. There may be some successful applications and startups using the innovation, however there are typically more failures.

Slope of enlightenment. Though the press may have stopped covering the research, some businesses continue through the slope of enlightenment and experiment to understand the benefits and practical application of the research.

Plateau of productivity. A research reaches the plateau of productivity as the benefits of it become widely demonstrated and accepted. The research becomes increasingly stable and evolves in second and third generations. Startups can now in fact define a problem, and position their solution for rapid growth. Investors love this stage.

The latest info

For the latest info, Gartner recently released their Hype Cycle Special Report for 2011, detailing some of the biggest trends in innovation this year. This report evaluates the maturity of more than 1,900 technologies and trends in 89 areas. New this year are application services and outsourcing, cloud application infrastructure services, cloud security, privacy and smart cities. It’s all the same worth a look.

According to the report, private cloud computing, NFC and Internet TV are for the time being overvalued. During, in the field of social media, social monitoring and activity streams as so then as shopping communities, have moved into the Peak of Inflated Expectations. Other newly featured high-impact trends include big data, and natural language question answering. Disillusionment, to make up for it arises in the case of augmented reality.

So, clearly you have the option of ignoring hype cycle predictions, and pushing forward with your latest innovation startup. Just don’t be surprised if you get investor pushback during early in the cycle, and be prepared with counter arguments. Great startups always beat the hype.