5 ms·

But this is a conversation about startups.

idlewords 10y ago
Not everyone buys into the redefinition of a startup as a company pursuing massive growth. The word has a broader meaning that encompasses other kinds of strategies for becoming a viable business.
- chiefalchemist 10y ago
  Starting a business is not the same as a startup. Just like having your own business doesn't make you an entrepreneur. Finally, an idea can be great but that doesn't necessarily make it innovation. Where's the confusion?
  - oblio 10y ago
    > Just like having your own business doesn't make you an entrepreneur. ... http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entrepreneur http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entrepreneur
- jessedhillon 10y ago
  > The word has a broader meaning that encompasses other kinds of strategies Does it really? I don't actually accept that, but around here at least, this is a common enough definition that you should call it out when you're going to deviate from it: A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of "exit." ~ http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html
  - idlewords 10y ago
    The word is a regular English word that has a widely accepted meeting outside this message board, and had that meaning for decades before Paul Graham tried to redefine it. [https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/start-up https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/start-up] Litigating what the correct meaning of "startup" is on HN is not productive, but we should recognize that not everyone agrees with Graham's redefinition, and therefore arguments that cite his essay are begging the question.
    - vinceguidry 10y ago
      > Litigating what the correct meaning of "startup" is on HN is not productive I disagree. It's really really really hard to build a business and make it grow. Any logical tools we can use to cut down on the space of strategies and goals worth pursuing is worth its weight in gold. Coming to more restrictive definitions of "startup" does exactly that. More prosaically, if we don't do it ourselves, investors are just going to do it for us and leave us in the dark as to what their real criteria for funding is. We want them to be a part of the conversation because bootstrapping everything sucks. Being needlessly inclusive hurts everybody.
      - idlewords 10y ago
        I'm not sure I understand your second paragraph. Could you explain further what you mean, especially about being 'needlessly inclusive'?
        vinceguidry 10y ago
        So, let's say you're a would-be entrepreneur looking to start a business and run an enterprise and get rich. How do you know where to begin? If you don't have connections to help, you're stuck with only your own understandings, your own resources, and your success or failure will be mostly attributed to luck. Cutting down on this luck factor is the problem the startup landscape is trying to solve. We can provide two things to would-be entrepreneurs, information and resources. Information can obviously be free, but resources have to be limited. It does the industry, the collection of people providing information and resources, the most good if following the information, which they can get for free, leads easily and directly into provisioning of resources. A more transparent process makes it more democratic and a better route for real social change. So we want to constrain the definition of words like 'startup' so that they better conform to what investors are looking for in ventures to fund. Sure, anybody can use the term any way they want, but for this community, 'everybody starting a venture is a startup' does nothing to help the would-be entrepreneurs to do the right things they need to do to get investment. It's too inclusive, it does not provide a pathway for people that want to join the community to gain real, material help with their venture. It needs to be a useful tool of exclusion.

Not everyone buys into the redefinition of a startup as a company pursuing massive growth. The word has a broader meaning that encompasses other kinds of strategies for becoming a viable business.

chiefalchemist 10y ago
Starting a business is not the same as a startup. Just like having your own business doesn't make you an entrepreneur. Finally, an idea can be great but that doesn't necessarily make it innovation. Where's the confusion?
- oblio 10y ago
  > Just like having your own business doesn't make you an entrepreneur. ... http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entrepreneur http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/entrepreneur
jessedhillon 10y ago
> The word has a broader meaning that encompasses other kinds of strategies Does it really? I don't actually accept that, but around here at least, this is a common enough definition that you should call it out when you're going to deviate from it: A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of "exit." ~ http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html http://www.paulgraham.com/growth.html
- idlewords 10y ago
  The word is a regular English word that has a widely accepted meeting outside this message board, and had that meaning for decades before Paul Graham tried to redefine it. [https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/start-up https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/us/start-up] Litigating what the correct meaning of "startup" is on HN is not productive, but we should recognize that not everyone agrees with Graham's redefinition, and therefore arguments that cite his essay are begging the question.
  - vinceguidry 10y ago
    > Litigating what the correct meaning of "startup" is on HN is not productive I disagree. It's really really really hard to build a business and make it grow. Any logical tools we can use to cut down on the space of strategies and goals worth pursuing is worth its weight in gold. Coming to more restrictive definitions of "startup" does exactly that. More prosaically, if we don't do it ourselves, investors are just going to do it for us and leave us in the dark as to what their real criteria for funding is. We want them to be a part of the conversation because bootstrapping everything sucks. Being needlessly inclusive hurts everybody.
    - idlewords 10y ago
      I'm not sure I understand your second paragraph. Could you explain further what you mean, especially about being 'needlessly inclusive'?
      - vinceguidry 10y ago
        So, let's say you're a would-be entrepreneur looking to start a business and run an enterprise and get rich. How do you know where to begin? If you don't have connections to help, you're stuck with only your own understandings, your own resources, and your success or failure will be mostly attributed to luck. Cutting down on this luck factor is the problem the startup landscape is trying to solve. We can provide two things to would-be entrepreneurs, information and resources. Information can obviously be free, but resources have to be limited. It does the industry, the collection of people providing information and resources, the most good if following the information, which they can get for free, leads easily and directly into provisioning of resources. A more transparent process makes it more democratic and a better route for real social change. So we want to constrain the definition of words like 'startup' so that they better conform to what investors are looking for in ventures to fund. Sure, anybody can use the term any way they want, but for this community, 'everybody starting a venture is a startup' does nothing to help the would-be entrepreneurs to do the right things they need to do to get investment. It's too inclusive, it does not provide a pathway for people that want to join the community to gain real, material help with their venture. It needs to be a useful tool of exclusion.