3 ms·

your point about "small business" versus "startup" is completely devoid of meaning Small businesses usually aim to stay small businesses; 37signals is not goin

by sabat 17y ago

your point about "small business" versus "startup" is completely devoid of meaning Small businesses usually aim to stay small businesses; 37signals is not going to grow to 500 employees and become like Salesforce. Startups, whether or not they take funding, aim for larger success and an exit, either a buyout or an IPO (whether it's within 5 years is beside the point). Those differences account for a big difference in management strategy. An uncharitable summary of your argument: 37signals has been too successful to know what they're talking about. You've misunderstood me. Since I think that there's a big difference in running a startup vs. running a small business, I don't think it makes sense for DHH to presume to give business advice to startups. Jeff Bezos? Sure, he could give advice; he's had a startup.

_delirium 17y ago
Until recently, I hadn't actually heard that definition of startup, at least outside of VCs talking to each other (because obviously VCs only care about the subset of startups that involve VCs and, ideally, large-multiplier exits). But in general I've thought of a "startup" as simply a new business based on technology. Some subset of startups were funded by venture capitalists, and a subset were aiming to grow huge and have quick exits. But others aimed at medium-sized businesses, or even smallish businesses. A large proportion of the people I know who've founded startups actively don't want an "exit", because they built it, and they aren't going to give it up anytime soon. I'm not even really sure how it became that people assumed that startups ought to aim for large funding and under-5-year exits. Is that just a legacy of the fact that anyone with eyeballs could (and therefore, often did) get funding in the first bubble, so it just became assumed that it was the norm?

by sabat 17y ago

_delirium 17y ago

Until recently, I hadn't actually heard that definition of startup, at least outside of VCs talking to each other (because obviously VCs only care about the subset of startups that involve VCs and, ideally, large-multiplier exits). But in general I've thought of a "startup" as simply a new business based on technology. Some subset of startups were funded by venture capitalists, and a subset were aiming to grow huge and have quick exits. But others aimed at medium-sized businesses, or even smallish businesses. A large proportion of the people I know who've founded startups actively don't want an "exit", because they built it, and they aren't going to give it up anytime soon. I'm not even really sure how it became that people assumed that startups ought to aim for large funding and under-5-year exits. Is that just a legacy of the fact that anyone with eyeballs could (and therefore, often did) get funding in the first bubble, so it just became assumed that it was the norm?