I have trouble with limited definitions. To me, "startup" encompasses any newly started business, regardless of its aims. Why? Because I find most other defin

I have trouble with limited definitions. To me, "startup" encompasses any newly started business, regardless of its aims. Why? Because I find most other definitions are set by someone with an agenda, or rule out companies most would agree are startups for arbitrary reasons. "Acquire venture funding" was not a 37 Signals goal. Ask most venture capitalists and that will be in their definition, though. "Hire more employees" is arbitrary. Why is that a goal any more than "buy office chairs?" Hiring employees is a side effect, not a goal. Ask someone who thinks single founder companies don't work and their definition will likely exclude companies like del.icio.us. Ask techies, and startup means "a tech company" but personally, I would call Ben & Jerry's in the 70's a startup. In terms of goals, sometimes the process evolves--like hotornot.com and the goals aren't there at the outset. Sometimes the goal is "build a better search engine" and everything else evolves later. For these reasons, I prefer an inclusive defintion of startups, rather than something that means "startup like mine, or startup I'm looking to invest in"