When is a start-up no longer a start-up? When do you start referring to yourselves as a “growth stage” company, or an “established” company? Are you a start-up for a certain time period, or until you meet certain revenue and profitability goals? Are you a start-up until you have a certain number of employees or clients? Is it merely a state of mind and you can be a start-up forever?
As InCrowd moves closer to our 2nd anniversary (we launched with our first client in April 2011) I’ve been contemplating this question quite a bit.
At InCrowd we have had an amazing year and three quarters, we’ve grown to nearly 15 employees (including a few interns), more than 40 clients, over 12,000 respondents, thousands of answers delivered to our clients, we are well financed and financially stable…so, is it time to stop referring to ourselves as a start-up?
I think clients have a love/hate relationship with start-ups. They like the energy, enthusiasm and innovations that come with many start-ups, but they don’t necessarily like the idea that a company is not well established, possibly not well resourced and could be on shaky ground as go through the process of building their business. Clients want to know that the company they are working with will have the resources to service their needs properly and that they will be around for the foreseeable future.
I like being a start-up! I like the notion of being new and fresh and all of the cool things people associate with start-ups. I like being part of the start-up community, I like sharing war stories with other entrepreneurs, I like being forced to be more creative then established companies because we have to be… but how long can we carry that moniker?
According to Wikipedia, Paul Graham, founder of one of the top startup accelerators in the world, defines a startup as: “A startup is a company designed to grow fast. Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup. Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of “exit.” The only essential thing is growth. Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth.” [emphasis added]
If you agree with Mr. Graham, a start-up can be a start-up so long as it’s growing and if there is one word to describe InCrowd at this moment it’s growing. This is good news for me at least, as we see no end to our growth. Does that mean we can be a start-up forever? I hope so!
What do you think? How do you define a startup? When can a company no longer claim startup status?
http://bostinno.com/channels/when-can-we-no-longer-call-ourselves-a-startup/
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