Trend Report: Chi-Hua Chien from KPCB

On my usual perusal of TechCrunch I found an unusually straightforward set of insights from an Ask A VC Interview with Kleiner Perkins’ Chi-Hua Chien.   Some key takeaways:

• Mobile first.  While they make life easier for consumers the real shift is what the enable on the supply side.  If you look at companies like Uber, Cherry, and Zaarly – they require that suppliers have mobile POS systems (iphones) that are able to take orders and manage payments for any vendor that is constantly on the move.
• Realtime reporting. Companies like Charity: Water have taken advantage of plummeting hardware costs and improved telecom technology to provide an unprecedented level of realtime reporting.  In the case of Charity: Water  they’ve used this to provide a new level of accontability to their charity operations – so a consumer can understand exactly how much water their specific well is providing – the most concrete measure of impact for your donation.
• Favoring enterprise over consumer.  This is a new trend driven by the fall of the frothy consumer financing market.  Just forget it. The top consumers companies (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) were founded in the dark days of the web (‘04-‘06) when people were fearful from the post ‘00 bust or the explosion of Google.

His closing thought (and my key takeaway):

“If you have a vision, passion, and a very clear problem as an entrepreneur don’t worry about what ventures investors are funding or not funding.  go build a great product in a great market and you’ll get funded.”