You could spend a whole bunch of time putting together 5-year projections for your new tech business, but that’s so 1999. (And you know what happened to those projections, don’t you?) Or your could make sure your company can pass the “toothbrush test.” That’s allegedly the test Google founder Larry Page uses to determine if he’s going to open the Google vaults to acquire a company or technology. The “toothbrush test” is pretty simple: if people are likely to use your product like a toothbrush–that is, more than once a day to make their lives better–then your product has value.
The New York Times wrote a Dealbook article about it recently, but we first heard about the “toothbrush test” back in January of 2013, when Fortune wrote about it. And Larry Page didn’t invent the “Toothbrush Test”–he just has the most toothpaste to put on your brush, if it meets the criteria. Page, Google and other companies apparently see a lot of good start-up hygiene out there–there has been $100 billion in tech deals made so far this year, according to the Times.
