Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Investing in startups is like bird-watching, or at least that’s the quote from legendary venture capitalist Mike Moritz.

Over the past two weeks, I have listened to 146 startups pitch in rapid-fire succession at demo days for Y Combinator and 500 Startups.

Of those startups, probably five or six will emerge as the next Airbnb, Dropbox, or Reddit. The founders of the next billion-dollar startup have probably run through their pitch deck in front of me.

The rest of the flock will disappear from the sky, selling to a bigger company, going adrift, or maybe shutting down entirely.

For venture capitalists, Moritz advises not to look at the flock, but at each individual startup. “Each one is different, and I try to find an interestingly complected bird in a flock rather than try to make an observation about an entire flock,” Moritz has said.

But you can still learn a lot from watching the entire group. Here’s what this batch of companies showed about the direction startups are flying:...