DISQUS

Martin Ringlein · 1 year ago

What is the criteria for a "start-up"; is it money or time or both?

If you start a company with $100 million, are you not still a start-up in the beginning? If you start a company with $0 and stay small and nimble for 2 years are you still a start-up or just a small business? What is the difference between a small business and a start-up?

And most people associate start-ups with web entities; but a 10 year old that creates a lemonade stand on the corner has a "start-up". It feels as though people think its "cool" to be labeled as a start-up; people debating who is and who is not.

Essentially a start-up is a new company whose success is unknown. The more stable the company gets with respect to profits, revenue, funding and age the less and less it is a "start-up".

Jared Goralnick · 1 year ago

While revenue might enter the picture for the term "startup," I don't think funding does.

I view level of maturity, revenue, and size as the chief determinants. I'm not going to try to go into much depth here on how these play a role since there is no dictionary definition...

I just think that that TC50 companies might not have been tiny upstarts...but they were startups. None had made much money, gotten many customers, or shown their product off much. Most of their products were very unfinished, they were mostly small companies, and they hadn't proven themselves with their current endeavors.

So I'm okay with the companies that were there being labeled as startups, at least in terms of their financing.

--

re: Martin's comment, completely agree (I missed it when I was originally writing this)

Paul Capestany · 1 year ago

My 2 cents: A startup is a company that has not yet broken even for the first time

Scott · 1 year ago

As a demopit participant I read Jeff's article and felt a little upset - not exactly sure you can sum-up a "startup" into a nice neat definition but at $1 million dollars in funding you definitely have more capital than your average fast food franchise and those aren't commonly referred to as start-ups. Maybe they are or maybe the aren't but hopefully you see my point.

Overall I think TC50 was a good experience but like other conferences and even raising VC money you need to have some flash and excitement which costs money and it was clear that many of the companies on stage had a lot of funding.

I won't be disclosing how much money I have raised but I will say I bet I spent less than what Ashton Kutchers startup Blah Girls did on they're 8 minute presentation. Which in my opinion will probably be successful and is an interesting idea but I fail to see the innovation - which I think should at least be a common theme among all "start-ups" regardless of they're funding.

CraigK · 1 year ago

A start-up is usually used as a term regarding websites although could be used in other industries. I don't think breaking profit for the first time should elevate out of start-up status, cause in some companies or industries that could take years.

A start-up should be more defined by the time the company has been around and not the money involved. Whether it is defined by 6 months, a year, 2 , 3, etc. That has a better indication of a company or site being claimed as a start-up than the money involved.

Craig
www.budgetpulse.com

Mike Subelsky · 1 year ago

Jimmy, I don't think TC50 is necessarily a platform for launching startups -- they just want to see brand-new products that have not been publicized before and might not otherwise get much attention. So conceivably even an established company could get in, if they were doing something really brand-new (which I guess is why Yammer and Blah Girls made it).

The demopit certainly had more excitement and diversity though.

Jeff · 1 year ago

Thanks for the link.

If you look at the cost of startup a decade ago versus the cost of a startup right now, it is definitely diminishing. The startups at TC50 with under $300,000 probably would have had a lot tougher time with fixed cost in the past. Money is a factor, but it is not the only one. But the question is open and is a good discussion :)