My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again
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My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again
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Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again
#2Seems they didn't even have a minimum viable product or some basic customer research. So they weren't even a startup. That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet - Shakespeare Calling it a business wouldn't have helped.
Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again
#3Great minds think alike
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3242765
I think you've hit the nail on the head. Calling it a startup is avoiding facing the fact that you are trying to start a business, which needs to be profitable to ultimately put food on the table.
Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again
#4It's not the terminology's fault that you didn't understand what "startup" meant (even to yourself) when you used it to describe your project.
And if "startup" is indeed the correct abstraction for your project, why not use it?
Finally, consider your audience when picking your words. Your family is likely to be more interested in what you're doing than the fact that you're doing it in a startup. You wouldn't tell them "I work in a company" either, you'd say "I am a software developer on product X that does Y for Z. I especially like that I get to do W".
Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again
#5It's not the terminology's fault that you didn't understand what "startup" meant (even to yourself) when you used it to describe your project. And if "startup" is indeed the correct abstraction for your project, why not use it? Finally, consider your audience when picking your words. Your family is likely to be more interested in what you're doing than the fact that you're doing it in a startup. You wouldn't tell the…
ALOT of people in this industry don't understand what the terminology means, at that rate..
Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again
#6Advice to call your business a business? Hrm.
I think the picture painted here is the larger problem. Someone who gets out of school and immediately sees client work as "just another client" is an issue. When someone sees self-employment as an easier option to the daily grind we have an issue. When someone thinks that their untested idea is worth devoting two years to, when everyone in their life has solid questions, it is an issue. And then to blame semantics for why you thought all of the above...terrifying.
When someone introduces themselves as an entrepreneur it is a symptom of an ego. Some people love being an entrepreneur more than they love being a great business.
Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again
#7Doing a startup is similar to writing a book. You put in the time investment up-front (sweat equity) in the hopes it pays off. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
It's not a traditional business where you sell gadget A to person B and make the difference in buy/sell.
If you want to do the latter, go ahead, if the former, go ahead. But don't let labels hold you back from either.
Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again
#8I think the tech-sector has significantly skewed what it means to be a "startup". But that has mostly to do with that fact that we only hear of the "startups" that are funded by some well-known VC for some large amount of money. Money that is used to build a product and advertise yet have no signs of being profitable in the near future (http://www.color.com/ comes to mind as an example of this). The media paints a pretty rosy picture of what it means to be a startup making it a glamourous venture to be associated with.
There are however plenty of companies that are just starting up, being bootstrapped from the beginning, and are happily putting food on the founders' table, but these are the startups you never hear about.
Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again
#9It's not the terminology's fault that you didn't understand what "startup" meant (even to yourself) when you used it to describe your project. And if "startup" is indeed the correct abstraction for your project, why not use it? Finally, consider your audience when picking your words. Your family is likely to be more interested in what you're doing than the fact that you're doing it in a startup. You wouldn't tell the…
ALOT of people in this industry don't understand what the terminology means, at that rate..
That's probably true, but it doesn't logically follow that we should abandon the term.
Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again
#10I'm in total agreement and think we should ditch the term entirely, as I wrote here:
http://themodernprogrammer.com/post/ditch-the-term-startups/