Entrepreneurs, who presumably know the hot investment trends, are keen to quickly prepare a business proposal and a concomitant team to present to potential investors. This is decidedly the wrong way to start a company. Great entrepreneurs find opportunities based on market needs and their own capabilities. They define investment trends rather than follow investor-specified concepts.2016 was a difficult environment for entrepreneurs and investors alike. Founders had to deal with intense competition and the discount-driven business models adopted by rivals, high operating expenses as well as a dearth of capital for growing companies. Many startups had to shut down or consolidate. Investors looking for economically viable business models in high-growth markets and with long-term potential, were held back by unsustainable industry dynamics.It is useful, therefore, to understand where we stand today. Most startups now have access to all the existing technologies, products, services and infrastructure. Smartphone usage continues to expand globally and is reaching ubiquity. Cloud service providers added significant capabilities to their stack, making a cloud-based development and deployment model ever more attractive for startups, even those with sophisticated needs.Tremendous advances in containers and API (application programming interface) technologies and increasing availability of commercial grade micro services are making it possible to prototype, and in many cases build, sophisticated applications very rapidly . However, there continues to be a dearth of pre-packaged micro services in areas of finance, location, networks, logistics, ecommerce and sales.2016 was also the year that big data finally made it to the big league. Artificial intelligence , natural language processing and machine learning technologies are part of this stack. We expect to see major developments in all aspects of big data and decision-making. This will offer potential game-changing opportunities in healthcare, education, commerce, consumer services, customer and partner-relation management and other business applications.India has seen several cycles of growth in the past few years. During much of 2015, home services scheduling apps was a hot investment trend. At one time we met over a dozen companies trying to address this opportunity. Most of these companies don't exist today and the ones that do are mere shadows of the glorious future they projected. On the other hand, Google started in 1998 when no one talked about search as an investment trend, and Facebook started in 2005 when social networking was not even a phrase in common parlance. Undoubtedly these observations are nothing new.Investment principles and trends do not change from year-to-year much like human nature. Investors focused on transactions rather than building local and global leaders will hype certain areas only to change direction at the first sign of shifting winds. Great entrepreneurs, must pay no heed to what investors rate as emerging investment trends. As Indian entrepreneurs define trends in 2017, they should aspire to create such large sustainable businesses and investors will follow.(The writer is the cofounder of Nexus Venture Partners)