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> successfully “exited” the market, either by getting acquired by another company or going public in an IPO > ...twice as likely to have a one-in-1,000 fastest
by jaden 7y ago
> successfully “exited” the market, either by getting acquired by another company or going public in an IPO
> ...twice as likely to have a one-in-1,000 fastest-growing company
Is fastest-growing or an IPO necessarily a good measure of success for a startup? For one, it excludes successful lifestyle businesses.
- jrimbault 7y agoActually defining what "success" is should be the first step... What is "sucess" in the general sense ? I'm quite happy and successful, but I'm not an entrepreneur, nor do I want my revenues to rise exponentially. I'm sure for other people "success" is measured in the amount of money they get, but that seems really reductive.
- JohnFen 7y agoYes, this is exactly why I get a little nervous when the topic of "success" comes about. More often than not, "success" is used as a synonym for "wealth". Particularly in a study, where you really want to have something objectively measurable. Personally, I define "success" as "achieving your goals". For some, that may be to maximize wealth. For others, it may be to live a certain sort of life, or to have personal satisfaction, and so forth. There are probably as many definitions of "success" as there are people.
- aaavl2821 7y agoThe main measure used in the article to define success is growth in employment. They say they also look at sales growth and exits but i dont see the data on this in the paper. I think there are major issues with relying on jobs growth as a success metric for a startup and thus think that while this is a nice addition to the literature on age and startup success it is far from "definitive" as it is described in the tagline on the summary article