What is a startup?

What is a startup? There is a lot of discussion going on about starting a business, entrepreneurship, and startups.

This is because the topic of startups is a new concept and many may not be familiar with its true meaning.

Stay with us today with a comprehensive definition based on important sources in this field. Based on various definitions from authors and researchers such as Mr. Steve Blank, Eric Ries, and various books and sources, the best and most comprehensive definition that can be provided for a startup is:

What is a startup?

A startup is a temporary team or organization that is based on innovation and, in conditions of uncertainty, is constantly searching for an expandable, repeatable, scalable, and profitable business model.

And it intends to grow and expand rapidly.

Organization: An organization is any type of collection of individuals (even individuals), tools, and relationships between them, whether registered as a company or not.

Whether it's an office or the basement of a house.

Temporary means a 1-year startup.

The job of a startup is to quickly find the right business model, as defined above, in the shortest possible time.

Speed ​​and time are important factors in startup success.

The later you discover the desired business model, the greater the chance that competitors will reach results sooner and even the patience, energy, and financial capacity of the operator will run out.

Finding this word is important in this definition.

A startup is searching to find its purpose, is always researching and developing, and must be able to discover its desired business model and prove to itself that it is repeatable and scalable.

Uncertainty Another phrase hidden at the heart of startups is uncertainty.

In fact, as a startup, you don't know exactly which method works and which doesn't.

As a startup, you are not sure what the right answer is.

In popular parlance, startups can't do what they're doing, and as a result, you and your teams must be people who are comfortable with stepping into the unknown, trial and error, failure, and rejection.

A business model is a set of methods and approaches that a company, firm, or organization uses to create, deliver, and obtain economic, social, cultural, etc. value, which should not be confused with a business plan.

The repeatability of a business model that is created with the aim of generating revenue can be repeated over and over again, and with each repetition, revenue increases.

In simpler words, the product or service offered can be mass-produced.

Scalability: the ability to expand that business model in the future by increasing financial resources, human resources, etc.

Developed and improved methods of creating, delivering, and capturing value.

The repeatability and scalability of a business model will bring with it the possibility of growth.

So the goal of a startup is rapid growth.

These are two important concepts that will bring you profitability and wealth.

What a startup is not! A startup is not an entrepreneurial event or conference.

A website or mobile app is not necessarily a startup.

A startup is not a small company that is generating revenue and growing.

To better understand a startup, let's take a non-startup example: Consider a traveling juice vendor who sells juice on his cart.

He has to buy fruit first thing every morning, wash them, put them in a cart, and walk long distances from alley to alley, shouting for customers to come to him.

Then, at the request of each customer, he prepares the desired juice with a hand-held juicer and finally demands his salary.

This traveling juice seller has to repeat all these tedious tasks every day in order not to lose his income, and if one day he gets sick and cannot leave the house, he will have no income.

Now, what if this juice seller could buy and store a lot of fruit at once?

Instead of a manual juicer, use an electric one, have several wheels instead of one, hire people to spin the wheels in different areas, and the juice seller can manage his business, collect money, pay his workers, and take his profit.

Now, even if he can't leave the house for a few days, his income remains the same.

Now compare this business to an industrial juice factory where everything is automated and the production volume and market size are very large.

Startup Example: Facebook is a familiar company and a good example of the concept of repeatability and scalability in the startup world.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg started his career from his Harvard University dormitory in his early months and years.

This site was initially welcomed by his classmates, then students from other universities joined it, and even though it was just a website, its users were added day by day.

In the first months and years of their work, Mark Zagerbark didn't know what they wanted to do or where their work would lead.

They initially had no monetization model and didn't know how to make money from such a website with so many users.

Until in 2012, Mark Zagerberk dropped out of college and moved to Silicon Valley with his friends to focus all his time and energy on developing Facebook.

They were desperately looking for revenue generation, and the first thing that came to their mind was online advertising.

What is a startup? The place of innovation in startups Startups are usually built around innovative and creative ideas.

In fact, a bright person or people with new ideas are looking for ways to monetize that idea and mass produce products or services based on that idea.

Innovation in startups manifests itself in the form of market innovation or innovation in products and services.

Correcting misconceptions: Not every startup needs to be in the field of computers and the Internet.

The reason why most of the noise about startups in this field is made is for 4 reasons: The costs of hardware, software, and infrastructure required to start a business in this field are decreasing day by day, and as a result, a startup can be launched with minimal capital.

In many businesses in this field, this is often done by providing platforms that can increase the number of users, the number of processors, the amount of permanent and temporary memory, bandwidth, etc.

Repeatability and scalability can be achieved.

Not every website or mobile app can be a startup, but it falls within the startup framework when it is repeatable and scalable.

Small and even growing businesses are not necessarily startups. The startup mindset Since large, established companies are always threatened by new companies and often disappear, as soon as these large companies see themselves in danger, they try to prevent this danger by launching a new unit within or outside their group.

Since smaller units are usually more agile than large organizations and companies, this would be a good way for these giants to reduce their high inertia and laziness with the help of smaller, more agile units.

For this reason, most large companies foster this type of startup mindset and encourage their employees to work and think like members of a startup team.

Source: Itroz Blog