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If you think a start up is about technology, you are missing the point. A "start up" is a seed for a big company. Lyfe Kitchen in Palo Alto is a startup because

If you think a start up is about technology, you are missing the point. A "start up" is a seed for a big company. Lyfe Kitchen in Palo Alto is a startup because it's a single restaurant to get product market fit before opening a chain through raising massive capital and/or franchising. A web development shop is a normal small business because it's not developing a product that's going to scale

JacobAldridge 14y ago
So normal small businesses don't grow? Where do you draw the arbitrary limit between seed and normal? Can Lyfe Kitchen learn anything from a single-site restaurant? And vice-versa? My contention is that a startup is any early stage business that intends to grow. And that they all have things in common, regardless of whether their vision is billions or thousands. They may move through that stage at different speeds - eg, in particular relation to your raising capital point. But drawing a day one distinction based on vision - not reality - increases risk of failure.
- brudgers 14y ago
  I agree that business is business and there are common elements between all business. An example from my small business experience is the 46-46-8 equity split - I was the 8 - at MB Architects in the mid 90's. The suggestion of a buyout offer was made by another firm in passing. Relationships went to shit because any two of us could have sold out from under the other. The difference between it and a startup is that my equity stake could never have made me Fuck You Money rich. Sure the company was growing - I was employee #3. Less than two years later when I left there were six and the value of the company was about double. That's the way small businesses grow. If we had raised $1,000,000 there would have been few good ways to spend it. The differences between small businesses and startups are important if one's goal is to have a startup. It's a distinctly different goal than owning a business.

JacobAldridge 14y ago

So normal small businesses don't grow? Where do you draw the arbitrary limit between seed and normal? Can Lyfe Kitchen learn anything from a single-site restaurant? And vice-versa? My contention is that a startup is any early stage business that intends to grow. And that they all have things in common, regardless of whether their vision is billions or thousands. They may move through that stage at different speeds - eg, in particular relation to your raising capital point. But drawing a day one distinction based on vision - not reality - increases risk of failure.

brudgers 14y ago
I agree that business is business and there are common elements between all business. An example from my small business experience is the 46-46-8 equity split - I was the 8 - at MB Architects in the mid 90's. The suggestion of a buyout offer was made by another firm in passing. Relationships went to shit because any two of us could have sold out from under the other. The difference between it and a startup is that my equity stake could never have made me Fuck You Money rich. Sure the company was growing - I was employee #3. Less than two years later when I left there were six and the value of the company was about double. That's the way small businesses grow. If we had raised $1,000,000 there would have been few good ways to spend it. The differences between small businesses and startups are important if one's goal is to have a startup. It's a distinctly different goal than owning a business.