• Alt Search Engines , Monday, March 10, 2008 11:31 AM

Although it's costly and takes a bit of time to get right, search is the perfect business for a tech-savvy entrepreneur, according to Spock CEO Jaideep Singh. "Once you've got it right, you've built something utilitarian and of lasting value. This is in sharp contrast to many web social web applications that can get be built quickly and cheaply and get mass adoption," says Singh. And that's why we'll continue to see an influx of search-focused startups.

Singh outlines the challenges that newcomers to the search space face, starting with defensibility--or the art of keeping your value proposition unique in the face of constant competitor innovation. Singh uses the example of blog search service Technorati, which built a good solution--albeit one that took a few years to streamline. "At the end of the day as the market for blog search became clear, Google quickly implemented a good solution, thereby ending Technorati's search ambitions," Singh says.

Maximizing distribution on a shoestring (or even large) marketing budget is also a major hurdle, as is building a team of developers and securing the hardware for them to work with. Still, Singh is confident that search remains a huge draw for great minds and VC firms alike--as long as they're willing to play nice with Google.

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