startupi

A quick note. This week the winner of the Finep Innovation Prize was revealed. You can see the results on the Finep site. The tip came from Lucia Freitas via a post from Silvio Meira, on his blog “dia a dia, bit a bit.”

Since this blog is about startups, Finep is an relevant institution to cover in more depth. Finep stands for Fund for Studies and Projects (Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos). Finep is an institution of the the Ministry of Science and Technology tasked with promoting innovation and funding scientific and technical projects in both business and academia.

I’ve noticed in some conversations that the word “innovation” is being used erroneously, in a way that diminishes its importance. Many people have come to think that it is a fashionable but meaningless term. That’s a mistake. As Silvio Meira himself said in his post, without innovation your business is at risk. Easy to understand.

The big question, in any field, regardless of whether you are a startup or not, is avoiding becoming a commodity. Look at Apple, for example. With Apple’s rate of growth, as the blogosphere is always talking about, you have to see the innovation they promote in every one of their products. It never stops. To the point where there are jokes about Apple killing its own products to launch new versions. What they don’t want is to turn into a commodity.

The Finep Innovation Prize, then, has an important role in our market. If you want to participate in the next stage, pay attention. In March of 2009 the next round of applications begins.