The startup market peaked in 2021. After that, we had a few turbulent years. Even the AI ​​boom, which attracted significant investment, could not jump-start markets hit by the banking crisis and unfavorable conditions across industries.

Beginning of 2024 brings hope that the venture capital (VC) market will stabilize and funding will begin to increase. This is good news for startups, especially in the tech industry, as new opportunities arise to grow and raise funds. However, these windows of opportunity will not be wide enough to suit everyone, and competition will be fierce. Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) can become the change maker for those startups that will excel at using it.

Connected: Think Like a Spy: How Open Source Intelligence Can Give You a Competitive Advantage

Challenges and opportunities for startups

In the heyday of tech startups, the general public and investors were enthralled by the visionary, relentless, fast-paced type of CEOs often called “genius” in the media. At least for now, those days are over. Harsh economic climate and ABSENCE available funds require frugal entrepreneurs who can demonstrate the ability to cut costs and achieve sustainable growth at a lower cost.

These startup founders and leaders will face challenges and opportunities, and turning the former into the latter without always having the funds to do so will require creativity.

An opportunity is given by the last wave of layoffs in the tech industry that made a lot more talent available. However, competition among tech startups will be fierce for everything this year, including top talent. Additionally, many well-known legacy companies will be more than happy to accommodate Google or Meta outcasts.

Another disruptive factor is that investors are paying more attention to European startups. For American companies, this means even more competitors for funding. On the other side, entering the US market it's never easy. If firms from elsewhere want to reach American audiences, they will need to invest in understanding and mastering digital marketing.

Additionally, navigating the ever-evolving regulatory landscape on both sides of the pond will be challenging. Public and legal scrutiny of the IT sector is increasing. Fintech is particularly under the magnifying glass as one of its latest superstars is now, RECITED, selling canned mackerel in prison. On the one hand, regulation brings legitimacy and fair opportunities. On the other hand, dealing with legal proceedings and their outcomes can significantly limit innovation.

Finally, technological innovation is as rapid as ever. Startups can use this to implement better solutions and introduce exciting new products. However, new developments can make their products obsolete even before they hit the market. Moreover, perhaps no one implements new solutions in their “business” faster than cyber criminals. And who is a better target than a promising young company with little or no money to spare for cybersecurity?

What is open source intelligence (OSINT) and how can it help?

Open source intelligence (OSINT) is the collection of information from publicly available sources to produce actionable knowledge. In other words, anything that is openly available, from books and archives to what is freely accessed on the Internet, can be analyzed to answer intelligence questions. This resource is great and powerful beyond imagination. What's more, it's free to get as long as you have a way to extract and use it.

Thus, this free resource can reduce a lot of headaches for frugal entrepreneurs. The following examples show how OSINT can help startups grow in a challenging market.

1. Market research: You can learn a lot about consumers in specific markets by gathering e-commerce OSINT—for example, which products sell the fastest. Furthermore, OSINT provides value competitive knowledge in those markets. For example, you can predict the plans of competitors from their job postings for specific specialists and in specific regions.

2. Identifying opportunities in the labor market: Following labor market events through open Internet sources can also boost your headhunting activities. In this case, automated monitoring is the way to go. This allows you to learn about layoffs as soon as they are reported or even rumored.

3. Adjusting marketing and pricing strategies: Digital commerce is extremely dynamic. Both customers and competitors can act and react in unexpected ways. OSINT allows you to gather real-time insights and adjust your practices immediately. For example, you can change your price to offer better deals than your competitors.

4. Navigating the Risks: OSINT helps you track cyber attack and threat reports and improve your cyber security. In addition, software tools can be used to keep track of international regulations and continuously check for data leaks that may affect you and your customers.

Achieving all this without blowing up costs will allow some startups to stand out when pitching their case to investors.

Connected: 3 reasons why you should spy on your competition

How to get OSINT effectively?

The Internet is the world's largest source of information. Manual collection of OSINT from the Internet is possible, but requires time and personnel to save. Early stage startups they often have neither. Even if they decide to devote a few hours of work to browsing websites and reporting on competition prices or the latest technology developments, the results may not be very thorough. Often, they will also come too late to be actionable.

Thus, the most effective way to obtain OSINT is automated web mining. Known as web scraping, this method uses proxies and sophisticated software tools to instantly collect large volumes of publicly available data. Real-time data obtained on a budget is exactly what companies need to survive and thrive in the still quite turbulent and always fast-moving tech startup market.

Connected: How Web Scraping brings freedom to research

The situation with big data today is sometimes compared to the gold rush of the nineteenth century. The gold was out there on public lands for anyone to find and take. Another valuable commodity, data, is also in the public domain, giving everyone an equal opportunity to use it.

Unlike gold, however, the same piece of information stays where it is, even if someone digs it out. However, time is still of the essence because, unlike gold, data loses its value over time and can become worthless quickly. Thus, the race to get to the first source and make the most of it is still on a daily basis. Startups that consistently and effectively use OSINT will have a strong advantage when competing for growth opportunities in these cautious times. FInanCInG.