How much can I sell my startup for? | Hacker News Reader

How much can I sell my startup for?

venturebeat.com

26 pointsklsvu7 comments

When does a startup stop being a startup? [..] The company may even have reached profitability, but growth has slowed to low-mid double digit percentages.

A good article generally but I'm tiring of attempts to narrow the definition of "startup" to meaning an extremely high growth, unprofitable business. That's a type of startup and while those types of startup are common in this community, it's a myopic definition in general.

I don't understand your problem.

A startup is simply a company trying to get off the ground. Once it is established with customers, a product and a stable source of revenue, no matter how small (or big) it is or how much growth it is experiencing, it is no longer a startup. It is an established company.

Frankly, I don't understand people who try to widen the definition of startups to include nearly every non-public company on the planet.

An example would probably make this comment a lot more valuable.

If you're sick of hearing of "high growth" as the only type of startup... why not point out some examples that you think better fit the term?

Here's a freebee: Steve Blank's startup definition is that a company is searching for a business model, and when it's found the model, it is no longer a startup.

It has to find and validate the model, but that's an amorphous goalpost. Startups stop being startups retroactively. They could look back a the recent past and say, "that point in time was when we finally validated the business model that we're now kicking ass on, that's when we stopped being a startup and became a fast-growing company."

that sums it up well to me, the switch is not so immediate for most companies

I take a pretty libertarian approach to it: if I say "startup" and you understand what I mean, then I'm using the word correctly

A startup is simple a new business. Legally, a startup is a business in the process of setting up its operations, and ceases to be a startup once it has completed its setup activities and begun its ongoing business activities.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com