You made me curious, so I did some quick investigation on the etymology of the word. :) (sorry, insomnia) Using Google NGram viewer, I looked up "startup" and

You made me curious, so I did some quick investigation on the etymology of the word. :) (sorry, insomnia) Using Google NGram viewer, I looked up "startup" and quickly noticed that the word (in modern usage) seemed to be short for "startup costs". Interestingly, "startup costs" seemed to only come into use after the 60s and 70s and was often connected to financial instruments. So, I also plotted the word "options" and was surprised that the shape of that curve was the same as the curve for "startup". They just had different magnitudes. I also learned that stock options became tradable instruments in the 70s. And, also, startups began being formed in the 70s. That is, they seemed to go hand in hand. In particular "startup" was used to describe speculative research and development ventures with high capital requirements. More recently though, the word "startup" became being associated with small teams, minimum viable products, and micro seed funding. So, that could be what you mean.