Quite simply, there are lots of buzzwords thrown around the startup world. You might have heard some of them but not known what they mean. In fact some of the people throwing them around sometimes don't even know what the word means! So here are a few of those terms and their meanings... in the startup world.
Angel - An individual who provides capital to a startup company in return for equity. Make friends with these guys and you can learn more about what they look for when making an investment. Whether you're currently looking for investment or not.
Acquisition - When your startup gets bought by another company. Tip: don't start a business with the sole ambition of being acquired , it doesn't happen very often and your're more likely to succeed if you truly have a passion for what you're doing.
Burn rate - This is your monthly cost, how much cash are you burning through. Typically at the early stage startups are burning through their investments raised and not generating enough revenue to sustain this. You need to measure your burn rate and how long till you run out of money.
Bootstrap - Ah, an old favourite of startups. Bootstrapping is running on very little money, making the most of your limited financial resources. If you're eating cereal for breakfast, lunch and dinner to save money for your startup, you're bootstrapping!
CEO - Just a tip, if you don't want to sound like a complete douche, don't call yourself a CEO if your a one man band. I wouldn't even use it till you have about 10 employees at least. I'm sure you all know what CEO stands for, but since this is titled startup dictionary it stands for Chief Executive Officer.
Churn - How many customers you lose over a period of time. If you gain 100 customers and you lose 5 in one year, your churn rate is 5%. This is related to subscription service models. Try make sure you're getting more customers than your losing... simple, right?
Crowdsource - Multiple contributors to a goal. Typically attributed to the growth of crowdfunding, lots of small investors to reach your funding target, as opposed to one or two large investors.
Disrupt - We're disrupting the market. No you're just part of an evolution which is something that has been happening in every industry, every year. Some faster than others but it continuously happens. Some companies can survive as these changes happen (bigger ones, slow to react but can ride the downturns better), some don't. No one disrupts an industry on their own. You need multiple players to make a change and introduce something new as the industry evolves.
Deck -A presentation for which you present your startup pitch. usually for investment.
Dogfooding -You should all be dogfooding your own product. Yes, using your own product.
Early adopter - These guys are the first users of your product or service. Treat them well. Unless they are one of those 'just here to be cool and get my preferred username in case this gets big' early adopter. Still be nice but don't overspend time on them.
Embargo - When you have a PR story you might put up an embargo to ensure no one shares the story until an agreed upon time. Unless you're TechCrunch ;).
Equity - This is ownership of a company. Example, giving up equity (ownership of shares in company) in return for x amount of money.
Any I missed in A-E? Let me know in the comments.
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