The term startup more reflect the growth curve than the type of business, is it something that could grow 10-100x+ fold in a short (~5 year) time period. So som

The term startup more reflect the growth curve than the type of business, is it something that could grow 10-100x+ fold in a short (~5 year) time period. So something like Groupon or Zappos could have been considered a startup even though they were essentially retail businesses they had that hockey stick growth curve. Similarly a tech business which is very labour intensive (for example a consultancy firm) is unlikely to be a startup because scale that type of business tends to be a very slow and expensive process.