What is a startup?

What is a startup? A startup is a temporary team or organization based on innovation and in conditions of uncertainty.

April 14, 2017

What is a startup?

A startup is a temporary team or organization that is based on innovation and is constantly searching for an expandable, repeatable, scalable and profitable business model in the conditions of uncertainty. And it intends to grow and expand rapidly. Organization Organization means any type of group of people (even one person), tools and relationships between them, whether it is registered as a company or not. Whether he has an office or is in the basement of the house. temporary It means that a 1-year startup is meaningless. The work of a startup is to quickly find the right business model according to the above definition in the shortest possible time. Speed and time are important factors in startup success. The later you discover the desired business model, the more chances that the competitors will reach the result sooner, and even the patience, patience, energy and financial power of the manager will come to an end. Find This is an important word in this definition. A startup is searching to find its goal, it is always researching and developing, and it must be able to discover its desired business model and prove its repeatability and scalability. uncertainty Another expression hidden in the heart of startup is uncertainty. Actually, as a startup, you don't know exactly which method works and which doesn't. As a startup, you're not sure what the right answer is. In the colloquial speech, startups cannot do what they are doing, and as a result, you and your teams must be people who do not have problems and fear by stepping into unknown valleys and trial and error, failure and rejection. Business model It is a set of methods and solutions that a company, enterprise or organization uses to create, provide and obtain economic, social, cultural, etc. value, which should not be confused with a business plan. Reproducibility The business model that was created with the purpose of generating income can be repeated many times and the income increases with each repetition. In simpler words, the product or service provided can be mass produced. Scalability It is possible to develop that business model in the future by increasing financial resources, human resources, etc. The repeatability and scalability of a business model will bring with it the possibility of growth. So the goal of a startup is to grow quickly. These are two important concepts that bring you profitability and wealth. What is not a startup! 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 making money and growing. To better understand the startup, we will give a non-startup example: Consider the itinerant juice vendor who sells juice on his cart. He has to buy fruits first thing in the morning, wash them, put them in the rotation and walk long distances from alley to alley, yelling for customers to come to him. Then, at the request of each customer, he prepares the juice of his choice with a manual juicer and at the end demands his salary. In order not to lose his income, this itinerant juice seller has to repeat all these boring tasks every day, and if one day he gets sick and cannot leave the house, he will not have any income. Now if this juice seller can buy and store many fruits at once. instead of manual juicer, use an electric type, have several wheels instead of one wheel, hire people to turn the wheels in different areas, and the juice seller can manage his work, collect money and pay Give his workers and take his profit. Now, if he can't leave the house for a few days, his income remains the same. Now compare this business with an industrial juice factory where everything is automatic and the production rate and market size are very large. Startup example: Facebook is one of the familiar companies and a good example for the concept of repeatability and scalability in the startup world. In the first months and years, the founder of Facebook, Mark Zagerberk, started his work from the dormitory of Harvard University. This site was first welcomed by his fellow students, 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 Zagerberk did not know what they wanted to do and where the fate of their work would take them. In the beginning, they didn't have a monetization model and didn't know how to make money from such a website with so many users. Until 2012, Mark Zagerberk dropped out of college and moved to Silicon Valley with his friends to devote all his time and energy to Facebook development. They were desperately looking to make money, so 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 person or people with good ideas are looking for ways to make money from that idea and mass production of products or services based on that idea. Innovation in startups is shown in the form of innovation in the market or innovation in their products and services. Correcting misconceptions Every startup does not have to be in the field of computer and internet. The reason why most noises about startups are raised from this field is for 4 reasons Day by day, the costs of hardware, software, and infrastructure required to start a business in this field are decreasing, and as a result, a startup can be started with minimal capital. In many businesses in this field, often by providing platforms where the number of users, the number of processors, the amount of permanent and temporary memory, bandwidth, etc. can be increased. Repeatability and scalability can be achieved. Not every website or mobile app can be a startup, but it is included in the framework of a startup when it is repeatable and scalable. Small and even growing businesses are not necessarily startups Startup mindset Since large and established companies are always threatened by start-up companies and often disappear, these large companies try to prevent this risk by launching as soon as they see themselves in danger. Get a new unit in or out of your collection. Since smaller units are usually more agile than large organizations and companies, this will be a good way for these big giants to reduce their high interest and laziness with the help of smaller and more agile units. For this reason, most large companies give this kind of startup mindset full wings and encourage their employees to work and think like members of a startup team.