Unicorns and cockroaches aren’t big or clever

Alex’s Agenda is the weekly column from the front-lines of the future by The Memo’s Editor in Chief, Alex Wood.

First came unicorns, now cockroaches.

Much of the tech startup world is drowning in unnecessary guff. Like any boom industry, trendy buzzwords spread like wildfire with one simple purpose – to alienate those outside of the know.

This is a personal bugbear of mine. Have people heard what they sound like in the real world?

Enough is enough

“Unicorns” are bad enough. For the uninitiated, unicorn is a god awful term for a “billion dollar business”. Unicorns are rare – and so are billion dollar companies, so goes the logic.

There are a couple of important distinctions here:

1) Unicorns aren’t rare, they’re fiction

2) So are the valuations of many unicorn businesses

Awful new unicorn related terms have also spawned. “I’m a unicorn hunter” says the guy at the party that’s best avoided.

If you’re ever visiting a trendy startup office and spot “We build unicorns” spray-painted on the wall, that’s your cue to up and leave.

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image credit: istock/MadKruben

Pest control

This week people in the know started talking about “cockroaches”. Hardly the most lovable of creatures, on Business Insider one banker described this new monster as:

“Unicorn, it’s a mythical beast, whereas a cockroach, it can survive a nuclear war.”

In other words a “normal business”. One that generates revenue (and profit!) and grows regardless.

Read these and weep:

"Some ideas are small. Others radical. But none of them are a unicorn, donkey, horse, ox or a cockroach." ~ @om https://t.co/TbEQ2bt5Ua

— Mike Dudas (@mdudas) April 6, 2016

Investors are looking for #cockroach tech startups – Is It the end of #unicorn ? https://t.co/cq48soFciu

— Stanislas Berteloot (@berteloot) April 5, 2016

Not again

Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Back in the boom years the financial sector was notorious for incomprehensible terms like “alpha” and “headwinds and tailwinds” to name but a few. All this language did was make the markets seem more alien to the average punter than they really are.

Who doesn’t want a billion dollar business? Or a profitable one? There’s nothing here not to like.

But if the so-called ‘digital revolution’ is going to change all of our lives, let’s lose the buzzwords and commit to a more inclusive future.

Isn’t it about time we all spoke the same language?