Techcrunch 100 startup list for Europe - worth looking at?
Ralf Haller
February 3rd, 2010
Techcrunch Europe just brought out a top 100 Europe startup list. The ranking is done by some (secret) but - as they say - accurate algorithm that can not be gamed and is updated constantly. They partner with YouNoodle who says about its scoring:
YouNoodle Score is a quantitative measurement, on a scale of 0 to 100, of a startup’s progress and traction based on its traffic, funding, employees, buzz and other activity. The score is based on information pulled in from thousands of online sources: traffic sources, mainstream media, funding sources, the blogosphere, conversations on Twitter, and other key factors.
Personally I have a problem with such attempts to rank startups based on - as it seems - online buzz simply because it says practically nothing about how viable, close to a good exit etc. the startup is.
Any algorithm is highly subjective and open for BIG manipulation. I don’t want to suggest that Techcrunch or YouNoodle supportive startups are higher ranked than the ones who could care less about them but at the least questions remain and that should not be.
Therefore I call to either publish the algorithm and make it transparent or do no scoring at all. Better would be to rank the startups by simple metrics alone like funding, revenue (already tricky since this can be manipulated as well by private companies), number of employees. Or, what I would consider the best for a social media blog like Techcrunch, let the crowd do the ranking.
