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> A startup is just a new business I've only ever heard of startup used to refer to a new business that hopes to become extremely scalable. In my opinion, star

> A startup is just a new business I've only ever heard of startup used to refer to a new business that hopes to become extremely scalable. In my opinion, starting a burger restaurant isn't a startup, unless you're hoping to be on every streetcorner competing with McDonald's in the next 5-10 years. It's just much easier to scale with a tech/software company. The 8/10 claim is still baseless any way you define it though. The Forbes article this presentation links to only cites "Bloomberg.com" as the source, not linking to any specific article.

amackera 11y ago
> I've only ever heard of startup used to refer to a new business that hopes to become extremely scalable. I think the recent popularization of the Facebook story, Google rise to dominance, and Apple's romanticized origin story have all contributed to many people thinking of "startups" as isolated to tech or to high growth scalable business. But before this, the term "startup" was used to refer to many things. A chemical company goes through iterations of plant "startups", even while railing many hundreds of millions in capitol, that will only pay off after a decade of plant operation for example. Personally I don't like to think I'm starting a "startup", but rather founding a business.
brandall10 11y ago
It does seem to be the definition bandied about here as espoused by pg's essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html As a software engineer working nearly 2 decades, prior to discovering HN some 5 years back I always just thought it was a small, relatively new tech company that was designed to grow beyond a lifestyle business. I never thought about the hypergrowth factor. I still use the term in that fashion. Interestingly enough, my gf works in commercial finance and they use the term to apply to any new business where there is no like prior for the applicant. In your example above a brand new burger business is certainly a startup until they open up a second location. IOW, they're no longer a startup once they've proved successful enough to grow to a second location with the ability to use the first as collateral reducing their inherent risk.

amackera 11y ago

> I've only ever heard of startup used to refer to a new business that hopes to become extremely scalable. I think the recent popularization of the Facebook story, Google rise to dominance, and Apple's romanticized origin story have all contributed to many people thinking of "startups" as isolated to tech or to high growth scalable business. But before this, the term "startup" was used to refer to many things. A chemical company goes through iterations of plant "startups", even while railing many hundreds of millions in capitol, that will only pay off after a decade of plant operation for example. Personally I don't like to think I'm starting a "startup", but rather founding a business.

brandall10 11y ago

It does seem to be the definition bandied about here as espoused by pg's essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html As a software engineer working nearly 2 decades, prior to discovering HN some 5 years back I always just thought it was a small, relatively new tech company that was designed to grow beyond a lifestyle business. I never thought about the hypergrowth factor. I still use the term in that fashion. Interestingly enough, my gf works in commercial finance and they use the term to apply to any new business where there is no like prior for the applicant. In your example above a brand new burger business is certainly a startup until they open up a second location. IOW, they're no longer a startup once they've proved successful enough to grow to a second location with the ability to use the first as collateral reducing their inherent risk.