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Pedantry around the definition of something as vague as "startup" is itself a form of social signaling which I find both tiresome and also the type of thing whi
by dasil003 10y ago
Pedantry around the definition of something as vague as "startup" is itself a form of social signaling which I find both tiresome and also the type of thing which people who hope to succeed in "real startups" need to really not be spending any time thinking about.
- k__ 10y agoI find the fact that many people who run companies that don't even think about building a product, let alone one that enables fast growth, call them startups rather tiresome.
- dasil003 10y agoYou see the irony right?
- ci5er 10y agoMy parsing brain must be on the fritz... What does that mean: "people who run companies that don't even think about building a product"? What do these companies you refer to do?
- bravura 10y agoThey provide services. A "product" is when someone identifies that a repeatable solution exists for many customers. This is not as common as one-off solutions for a particular customer.
- ci5er 10y agoSo, you mean like a web/mobile-development consulting/job-shop? I haven't come across any of those describing themselves as a "start-up", but I probably just don't get out enough...
- danielrhodes 10y agoNot pedantry. A startup is usually understood to be a company which is formed to test a new market or disrupt an existing one. The fast growth thing is not necessarily true since new markets are often not there. But to describe just any new company as a startup is very misleading both in terms of describing risk, but especially to potential employees. This isn't to knock the value of entrepreneurship: there is quite a bit of virtue in starting a company that wants to tap an existing market. All things considered, these companies will likely do much better over the long run than most startup companies which end up failing.