Startups tend to lead the way for innovation. The following are three startups that have led the way in terms of innovation.

Uber

In just a few years, Uber has completely revolutionized the traditional taxi industry. The company leveraged technology to create a business approach that allows almost anyone to become a taxi driver while making more profit than a traditional taxi driver. Uber’s gross booking for the first half of 2015 was $3.63 billion. As of 2016, the company has a market valuation of $62.5 billion.

Airbnb

The company revolutionized the hotel and rental housing market and influenced how people travel. Airbnb made it possible for the average person to rent out their home, rooms and apartments. In the year 2013, the company earned a total of $250 million. In mid 2015, the company’s total earnings for the year was projected to be $900 million, and projected to rise to $10 billion by 2020. Airbnb currently has a market valuation of $24 billion.

Slack

Slack developed an innovative platform that edged out Apple’s iMessenger, Facebook’s Messenger and traditional email to become the prime digital communication tool for companies and organizations across the world. As of May 2016, Slack had a total of 3 million active daily users, up from 750,000 in April 2015. At the same time, Slack is generating over $25 million in annual recurrent revenue.

The main reason why startups lead the way for innovation is because they usually take an ‘outsider’s approach’ to business. They have a raw outlook and a desire to infiltrate the current system. All the companies mentioned above analyzed their respective markets, identified gaps and sought to create a product that could fill those gaps and improve on the current infrastructure. On the other hand, well-established firms have difficulty innovating because they are too scared to take risks.