Weekend Digest: The Top 50 Start-ups In The World

For our weekend business readers:

TOP 50 START-UPS ARE RANKED
Looking for the “Next Big Thing?”  Well the Wall Street Journal has ranked its Top 50 start-ups and this year’s list shows a focus on business technology, “as health care and energy fade.”

The Wall Street Journal’s third annual ranking of the top 50 venture-capital-backed companies shows a crop of contenders that overall are focused less on online consumers than in years past. The top three ranked companies are all business-product makers and several other companies on the list offer products or services designed to help businesses run more efficiently.

But two huge sectors have either dropped off the list altogether or plummeted in ranking.

Unlike in years past, none of the companies on this year’s list are in the energy sector, underscoring the challenges faced by that industry. This year was also the first time that a health-care company didn’t top the ranking.

Read the entire Journal post to find out what makes a company eligible for the list and what criteria is used to select the Top 50 from almost 6,000 candidates.

Overall, how many start-ups are new to the list and what happened to last year’s top-ranked company?

Find out by clicking this link.

WHAT GENERATION WINS THE JOB HUNT PROCESS?
It would have to be tech-savvy Millennials over Baby Boomers right?  But could it be just the opposite?  That’s what Forbes says in its analysis of which job searching group is superior.

In a survey released this week, Baby Boomers beat their younger competition in online job-hunting and more than twice as many Boomers than Millennials are doing any sort of offline (read: real world) networking to find employment.

And what about the so-called “Generation-Tech” advantage Millennials supposedly have since they’ve lived with it all their lives?

According to the co-branded survey by Millennial Branding, a Gen-Y consulting firm and Beyond.com, which looked at job-search trends in 5,268 job seekers across generations, while unemployed Millennials are more optimistic than their parents about finding jobs, they’re less tech-savvy when it comes to getting it done.

A stunning stat that Forbes breaks down in its online piece:  Is it possible that Boomers also lead in the effective use of social media and maintaining professional web sites?

For and in-depth look and complete survey results, click here for the full story.

IT’S DEFINING THE PROBLEM, STUPID
So your company or organization sets sail on a new path only to be stymied or stopped altogether.  What happened?  Harvard Business Review has published a piece called “The Power of Defining the Problem,” which it says can lead to “breakthrough solutions.”

How many times have you seen a project go down one path only to realize in hindsight that it should have gone down another? How many times have you seen an innovation program deliver a seemingly breakthrough result only to find that it can’t be implemented or it addresses the wrong problem? Many organizations need to become better at asking the right questions so that they tackle the right problems.

Harvard Business Review found three companies that did ask the right questions in tackling the right problems with rave success and in its post HBR analyzes each and describes how the problem was defined for a “breakthrough.”

Click here to find out more about how “critically analyzing and clearly articulating a problem can yield highly innovative solutions.”

WHAT’S REALLY EATING INTO YOUR BUDGET?
If you thought perhaps your cable bill, think again.  The Wall Street Journal points out what is becoming a budget-buster for many families.  Pricey cellphones.

More than half of all U.S. cellphone owners carry a device like the iPhone, a shift that has unsettled household budgets across the country. Government data show people have spent more on phone bills over the past four years, even as they have dialed back on dining out, clothes and entertainment—cutbacks that have been keenly felt in the restaurant, apparel and film industries.

And is it going to get worse?  The Journal thinks so as faster speeds and technology escalate bills to even higher amounts.

Read the post to find out the huge amounts on average households, especially multi-phone households, are paying each month for phones and look at the comparison between what customers are spending on usage today as compared to five years ago, despite wireless companies cutting off unlimited plans.

How much has spending on food, apparel, and entertainment dropped because of cellphone bills?  Get the story by clicking here.

DROUGHT FINDS FARMERS FEEDING COWS RADICALLY DIFFERENT
Cows eat hay and grain right?  But what if there isn’t much because it’s been burned out by one of the worst droughts in U.S. history causing feed prices to skyrocket?  Well, according to American Public Media Marketplace, midwest farmers have come up with some interesting alternatives to save money.

Some brokers have gathered up discarded food products and sold them to the highest bidder. Some of the sugary sweet foods your cows are digesting on? Cookies and gummy worms for starters. And there are a whole lot of other foods you might be surprised to learn cows consume.

To check out what they are, dial up this list of “cowlinary” delights.