Entrepreneurship has become nothing short of cult-like in the last few years. From something once reserved only for the very risk-friendly, to something that all the ‘cool’ kids now do when they get out of school, starting a business is a way of life. Not only in the ‘Valley’, not even only in US and lately, not only in technology (think food trucks, for example).

In technology sectors, many factors have combined to fuel this fire:

• starting a business, especially a technology one, has never been so cheap thanks to open source software, API access and of course cloud computing.
• a new community of micro-investors have emerged, oddly named as Super-Angels, that defy traditiontial VC processes by making smaller investment decisions ($25K-$500K) often in less than month, and sometimes in less than a day.
• when there are no jobs, or not even close to enough to go around, creating your own can be quite inviting.

I’m pleased to say that while this craze is spreading everywhere , telecom is getting its share. After a small lull brought on by partly the recession and more so by the hangover of one too many startups building businesses to sell cheap phone calls, innovation has returned. And this time it’s rarely about the phone call, or the SMS for that matter. Instead, voice, SMS – and before long video calls – are merely the conduits of communications, while the layer of value around them is what will separate success from failure.

As a co-founder of a event focused exclusively on exposing early stage innovations that leverage telecom technology, I get a firsthand look at what’s coming down the pipe. Based on the applicants for what we call pitch slots, telecom’s future looks healthy, if not quite different from its past. The business ideas are in fact all over the map – including a verbal billboard for sharing and retrieving messages, an all glass smartphone for the business desk, and a platform merging telephony and local search. (You can see the full roster here). 

Many of these companies will ultimately require funding, so it was encouraging to see the likes of GroupMe and CallVine – both aiming to expand the group communications market in their own creative ways – receive funding in support of their early stage businesses this summer.

Entrepreneurship is alive and well in telecom. It may not look much like the days good old MaBell, and the sector may not as wildly hot as the core web/mobile app space, but evidence suggest it’s attracting the eager young minds it needs to for progress.

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