Innovation Anywhere
What I learned across startup ecosystems in a year of travel ✈️
There is not a corner of this planet where people are not building and inventing. There is something innate in the human spirit to use their minds and their hands to create something from nothing.
Since the start of the dot com era, that drive to build and invent has accelerated. The first step of this evolution was access to the Internet and tools to create and launch websites. Then it was the rise of cloud services from infrastructure like AWS to applications like Salesforce. Then mobile phones and app ecosystems exploded, opening up the Internet to everyone across the world.
The combination of the Web, mobile, and cloud services has enabled anyone to build scalable software solutions that could reach millions. However, up until a decade ago, most innovation was still centered in technology hubs like Silicon Valley, Tel Aviv, and Shenzhen or economic powerhouses such as New York, London, and Tokyo.
Now we are in an era where innovation is happening anywhere and everywhere. With the rise of AI, developers and startup founders now have access to incredibly powerful tools to stand up apps in no time that deliver incredibly rich user experiences. This new stack of Internet, cloud, mobile, and AI is also accessible on a global basis that is nearly free to use.
I have had the privilege of seeing this enormous outpouring of innovation around the global over the past year. Much of this is powered by startups that are launching in every country. Here is a brief rundown of where my travels took me, all 220,000 miles of plane travel across six continents:
Traveled to Tel Aviv twice for AWS Community Day & AWS Summit to interview founders
Returned to Bangkok for an awesome panel on the rise of Southeast Asia startups
Despite the SVB drama, SxSW AWS events at Capital Factory & Midwest House were stellar
MC'ed AWS Startup Day Miami, relaunching our in-person US startup events series
Invited to the mega startup community event, StartupGrind Global, in the Bay Area
Hosted AfricArena at the AWS Startup Loft in NYC to connect African startups to US audiences
Presented on building web3 communities at Ava Labs' Avalanche conference in Barcelona
Dove deep into the Egypt & Kenya ecosystems with AfricArena & AWS Kenya Startup Week
Joined 42Geeks in South America & East Asia, opening doors to new startup ecosystems for me
Delivered new keynote startup talks at AWS Startup Day in Taiwan & Hong Kong
Spoke at RALLY 2023, first conference to connect the entire Midwest startup community
Gave several talks for the awesome AWS UG Conf Peru and other startup events in Lima
Wrapped up the year with AI Day 2023 in Saigon & several other events in Vietnam
Launched Startup Socials in major cities to gather, connect & help founders find resources
Even through the rough patch of a venture capital winter in 2022 and 2023, startups are still launching and entrepreneurs are still building. Nothing is holding them back, and with new tools available for AI, I fully expect to many more startups emerge in 2024 and beyond 🚀
On another note, to months ago, I announced my goodbye to this newsletter 😢. As you can see, my constant travels as the Global Startup Advocate at AWS made sending regular newsletters difficult. But the biggest factor was the shift in focus from purely engineering & leadership topics to startups, which led to the launch of a new newsletter called Founders in the Cloud.
How have things gone? The newsletter has been a success with 5,300 subscribers, an open rate of 55%, and over 100,000 views on LinkedIn. Over 40 weekly editions since May 2023, topics have covered everything across the startup universe. Some of the top posts include how to engage VC’s, how to get started using AI, how to be a startup CEO, and how to get more value from your cloud provider. I also wrote about various startups ecosystems such as Thailand and upcoming big trends in tech startups.
The newsletter is free to sign up! I will still keep this site running so the knowledge is stays available for all. If you want to see what is happening the world of startup innovation, I encourage you to become a subscriber of “Founders in the Cloud” and share with your network.
Thanks again for all your support over the past few years. Feel free to email me and let me know how you are doing. Till next time!
Mark Birch, Editor & Founder of DEVBIZOPS
P.S. I am still on the road this year, just wrapping up some time in Mexico City recently and heading off to Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, and Malaysia starting next week. If you are around and want to meet, ping me and we can find a time to catch up!
