Episode 32: Thad McIlroy on Publishing Startups

The BookSmarts Podcast, with Joshua Tallent

Thad McIlroy, an electronic publishing analyst and author who writes about publishing technology at his site, The Future of Publishing, joins me to talk about publishing startups. Thad has been working for many years on a database that provides interesting details on these companies, and the list has now been published by Publishers Weekly.

Thad describes how he got started with the list, and how he defines what a startup is for the purposes of the list. The list includes key information about each startup, including a mission statement or description about what the startup does, and a description of how successful they have been. The list provides publicly available details on investments into these companies, as well as information about whether they have exited via acquisition, merger, etc.

The list now includes about 1300 startups, around 10% of which have exited, and at least 37% have shut down. There a many vulnerabilities a new startup encounters, but one of the biggest is being "a solution in search of a problem." Thad says that the real metric for success is being able to innovate and having a clear definition of the problem the company is offering a solution for. Market research and solid marketing is key to the success of any startup endeavor.

We also talked about trends in the startups that have started in the last few years, the lack of innovation in startups focused on helping publishers, and the potential opportunities available to publishers who are looking to innovate.

Thad's article at Publishers Weekly provides a great overview of the startup database, and a link to the list itself.