I asked my investor friend what he considers the "special sauce" that convinces him to buy into a technology startup. He replied with five simple words: social, mobile, geolocation, and commerce (meaning both the online and mobile varieties). If a company does three of these things in concert, it gets his attention. Four of them and he's seriously interested. Five and it's guaranteed his checkbook will be open.

What is so fascinating about venture capitalists is that they always seem to be ahead of the market. How do they catch those waves so early? How do they know a certain company will be a hit while others will fizzle? My friend said it's not necessarily about the company or its leadership team, but about the trends themselves. In today's market, the business trends of tomorrow are being created by what's happening now in the social and consumer ecosystems.

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