Instapaper - A Startup with Star Potential

Instapaper is a business with star potential. Here's why:

1. It's creating a new category which I would describe as the "Save Now for Later Reading" business. It's target market would be everybody who comes across some interesting web-page etc. and want to save for later reading.

2. It's value proposition is clear and simple. It's tag-line is understandable. They've not messed up their positioning with any other "social" features.

3. I also like the name which takes generic words (Instant + Paper) to arrive at a noun like company name.

The only thing that I consider as a negative is the fact that they've begun to act a little like Yahoo by offering a section called "editors picks" on the home page. While they've probably been clever and have used some software to automatically generate the editor's picks, I still think that this is probably diluting their basic value proposition and begs the question:

Is Instapaper a provider of a time-management technology or a content website?

Of course, they need to solve other problems like revenue model (advertising?), handling competition, handling VC's (if they raise VC money) etc.

But overall, it's an interesting business with potential.