what is the difference between a startup and a business?
In: 0
Nothing. A startup is a business, just one that is relatively new. It may not be producing a product yet or generating sufficient sales to keep itself going, but it is a business.
all startups are businesses but not all businesses are startups.
The term is generally used to refer to enterprises that are being developed rapidly with an intent to go public or sell. Whereas a nonstartup, or traditional business generally is one that seeks to grow organically allowing demand and production capability to dance together scaling as appropriate over time.
A startup is usually just the tech/business world term for a new business in the early phases of growth.
A startup is typically a business that is still ramping up in size, trying to build out their product and bring it to market, gain a foothold of customers, figure out a business model. They’re burning through investor capital and that the plan at that point.
Once they’ve gone to market, landed customers, and are attempting to generate profits they’re just a business.
A startup is just a type of business.
Typically, when someone uses the word “startup”, they have a few key things in mind:
1. It’s tech-related. Not necessarily *computer* tech, but some sort of advanced, high-technology, and it has a “disruptive idea” that is – if it can be realized – worth a lot.
2. It is relatively new, relatively small, but is either about to or is in the process of rapidly expanding in size. It is a company that is actively “acquiring talent”, i.e. highly skilled and qualified technical staff to achieve its goal.
3. It is typically funded by venture capital – that is, people or organizations give the startup chunks of money in exchange for equity (ownership stake) in the company.
4. All of this is leading to a specific business path: go public, sell or bust, quickly. Either the company gets big, and gets bought by some larger (usually, Fortune 500) company for a ridiculous sum of money that gets everyone (the owners, venture capitalists, and likely employees with stock options too) rich; it goes public on its own and becomes a behemoth in the space (rarer), or it fizzles out, people lose money, but that’s the risk in the startup ecosystem. And all of this happens on the timespan of a few years, or the VCs get antsy, the employees leave, and the business goes bust.
This is all in contrast to most “traditional” businesses which seek to grow slowly but consistently over time, carving out a niche for themselves to make ownership, perhaps not rich, but at the least comfortable.
So, really, it’s just a fancy buzzword for a company that is trying to grow extremely quickly with a goal of getting bought for tons of money.
A startup is a new term referring to a young business. Typically called a tech startup.
Businesses used to grow and expand organically. There were plans to repay any debts.
Around the millennium, companies began raising money to get more customers with the idea that the company will someday become profitable.
Startups keep raising money, then…profit.
A startup is a temporary organization built to search for a sustainable, repeatable business model. Once it’s found one, it graduates to being a business.
Or more colloquially, I’ve heard a startup described as a business where you don’t know:
1. Who your customers are?
2. Why they’d buy your product?
3. How to make money?
Latest Answers