What Exactly is a Startup?

We’ve all heard about startups. You read about people who created an Uber for X in the news. You have friends who have proudly proclaimed that they’re working at Startup Y for the summer. You know people who have started their own startup. The word “startup” has been tossed around for a couple of years like flyers at a school club/organization fair. It has been used to describe everything from huge companies with global reach like Uber to small, scrappy side-hustles that your friends have.

But what is a startup really?

For a term that seems relatively simple, there are actually a lot of definitions. The founder of Warby Parker, a prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses founded in 2010, describes a startup as “a company working to solve a problem where the solution is not obvious and success is not guaranteed.” More official source Merriam-Webster states “a startup is a fledgling business enterprise.” Paul Graham, head of Y Combinator, describes a startup as “a company designed to scale very quickly.” So, compiling these sources together, one could put together a workable definition of a startup: “A young company capable of scaling quickly while undertaking significant risk.”

All right, so we know what a startup is now. What’s the problem?

The problem is that most people think everything is a startup.

Nowadays, every little thing has become a “startup.” Built a website and started selling your handmade crafts on it? You have a startup! Made an online newsletter and got 20 subscribers? You have a startup! Sold school-colored shoelaces to people on game day? You have a startup! It is ridiculous how people slap the label on quite literally anything. Years ago, people had to start their own company, grow it to hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in revenue, and gain widespread attention, all in a span of a couple of years at most, in order to be called a “startup.” Now, all it takes a website and a Facebook page.

It doesn’t stop there. Established businesses have also moved to try to co-opt the “startup” buzz. Some companies like Google and Facebook advertise their “startup-like” culture and how anyone can be a “mini-CEO” of their own project. Companies like AT&T and Delta have built “internal startups” or “innovation centers” in order to keep pace with the new product life cycles and to seem more attractive to fresh talent. Smaller companies heavily advertise their youngness and “startup” nature in recruiting pitches, as if the age and type of the company were the ultimate factors in deciding to work for a company. It adds a touch of “freshness” to a business, suggesting that the company is looking towards the future.

The label “startup” has turned into a badge of pride, of sorts. Too many people believe that by adding the word to the name of a company or venture, it increases in value by 10x. It has become an epidemic.

But where did all this startup buzz come from anyways?

Here’s a theory. Let me explain. We (the millennials, that is) grew up hearing that we can do anything that we want to do. In other words, the famous “sense of entitlement”. We don’t want to just work at the same company for forty years and then retire. We don’t want to work a boring job. We want to be our own bosses. We want to forge our own path in our lives, different than the ones that our parents led. We all want to be different. That is not a bad thing inherently, except that everyone wants to be the boss. Too many chefs in one kitchen.

The gig economy is a perfect example. As a contractor for, say, Uber, we get to decide what hours we want to work, where we want to work, who we want to work with, and how we act when we work. It was practically made for our generation: unconventional, flexible, and sexy.

And as we’ve grown up, we were bombarded with contemporary rags-to-riches stories. Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook while at Harvard and dropped out of college. Larry Page started Google in his dorm room and it became a runaway success on accident, prompting him to drop out of Stanford. Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia made the website for Airbnb out of their small loft in San Francisco. There is an endless amount of stories just like them, and they all have a recurring theme: Young people can start world-changing businesses with a laptop in their bedrooms.

Then you have Silicon Valley. Like Hollywood attracts young actors and directors wanting to show the world their talent and defy all the odds against them, Silicon Valley has become the Mecca of young, hip techies looking to get rich and meet other young, hip techies. Its beginnings lay in the semiconductor industry, later turning into the center of computing and even later the center of the Internet, AKA the dotcom bubble. Silicon Valley has been a tech-centric place for a very long time. Not only is it filled with giant tech companies like IBM, Apple, and Oracle, it is also filled to the gills with venture capital firms, beginning with Kleiner Perkins back in 1972. It’s no secret that you can just waltz into a coffee shop near Sand Hill and run into a partner at a VC, who probably gets pitched by dozens of young entrepreneurs every day at the coffee shop because they have the exact same idea. While this next point may be contentious, it is easier to locate sources of funding today than it has ever been in history. Combine that with the availability of tech and the top universities feeding hungry talent into the ecosystem, throw in a fun city and beautiful weather, and you have hundreds of thousands of young professionals flocking to Silicon Valley to get a slice of the proverbial pie. It’s like a vague validation for anyone who thinks they have invented the next Facebook: “I have something that could shift the entire industry, if only I had the money and connections. It happens all the time in Silicon Valley. So I’ll go to Silicon Valley.”

On top of all that, the Internet itself dramatically lowered the barrier to entry to a market that used to require a ton more time, effort, connections, and hustling. We can access terabytes of information and data in a couple of hours that people in the past could only dream of accessing in a couple of years. It’s no exaggeration to say that any young, disaffected college student could start an international business with his/her laptop in an apartment within a couple of weeks. Especially if it’s a software product. Distribution of your world-changing product has never been easier!

Combine the Internet, a place like Silicon Valley, a few sensational stories about young, relatable people creating Unicorns from their bedrooms, and the way we were taught to think, and it’s no wonder that startups have been popping up absolutely everywhere.

But where do people get the idea that their side-hustle graphic design freelancing is in fact a startup? Or that their website that they made on the weekend and the media content that they send out to some subscribers is a startup? It’s kind of like being an actor: “Oh, I have a lot of talent, almost like actor X, but it’s just a matter of some big director noticing me and the world recognizing that I’m different than everyone else.” Same with people and their “startups”. Because, somehow, their side businesses are on the same wavelength as big, rapidly-scaling companies like Slack or Airbnb that actually merit the title of “startup.” They buy into the hype and want others to think that they’re legitimately part of that world?—?minus the risk and commitment, of course. People like the idea of calling themselves “self-made” or entrepreneurs (which is a title far too many people give themselves these days). On the inside, they are all “wantrepreneurs”, inflating their sense of self-worth and reveling in the hype and buzz surrounding startups today.

I actually have a business of my own. It’s called Elevated Solutions, and we provide video, photography, and graphic design content for entrepreneurs, startups, small companies, and big companies. I run that business on the side while I go to school and take classes. Often, people will talk to me and, when the conversation turns towards it, ask me “how my startup is going.” I can only wince and bite my tongue, not even bothering to explain what exactly a startup is and how entitled and pompous the term “startup” makes me feel. Is it a registered company with customers and revenue streams? Yes. Is it a startup?

Hell no.

Unfortunately, all this buzz and hype will continue to proliferate for quite a while. At least, until the next bust, when the unicorn bubble pops or something dramatic like Uber crashing happens. In the meantime, all we can do is to take a closer look at the vocabulary people spout and peer behind the curtains of jargon. The next time you hear someone bragging about their startup, just think: is that person actually an entrepreneur, or is he just trying to be a part of the hype?

Now, some people may disagree with virtually everything I’ve said. You may say, “Hey, I’m not an wantrepreneur! I actually have a business/app/hustle that will change the way we think about X! You just don’t understand!” My only response:

Then prove me wrong, and change the world.

And that’s it. Now you know just a little bit more about startups. Now, remember, at the end of the day, I’m not a foremost expert on any of this. It’s just an observation, and I would be happy to discuss the subject with you. I only have one request.

Please don’t call that vague idea in your head a startup.

-Indra

Feel free to follow me on Medium, where I write other pieces like this.