New York Times writer Erin Griffith reported last week that, “One day this quarantine, who can say which, I encountered the following pieces of information: Zoom, the videoconferencing company, saw its stock hit a new high; Zūm, a ride-sharing venture, cut its work force by a third; and Zume, the robot pizza start-up, failed to raise more funding.
“In other words: Zoom boomed while Zūm pruned, and maybe Zume was doomed?
“Fast-sounding start-ups, it seems, have bloomed. There’s Zoomd, Zoomi, Zumi, Zoomy, Zoomies, Zoomin, Zoomvy, Zoomly and Zoomph. Zoom.ai offers virtual assistants, Xoom is a payments service, and Zumobi does mobile content marketing. Tractor Zoom, in Urbandale, Iowa, says it is revolutionizing the acquisition of farm equipment at auction.”
The Times article stated that, “Start-ups are supposed to be very, very fast. They ‘move fast and break things,’ they ‘hire fast, fire fast‘ and they certainly fail fast. They have a magazine: Fast Company. They have a diet: intermittent fasting.”
Ms. Griffith noted that, “Fact: There have been at least 120 start-ups whose names include something that sounds like ‘zoom‘…Fact: Around 40 or so of the start-ups — a third — appear to be dead.”
