Stowe Boyd

The thousands of startups today that are pitching themselves at app competitions or in industry conferences all seem to think being a startup is enough. That daring to come up with some idea, any idea, and build a beta site is enough. That the users will come and then the business model will come and then the money will come. Somehow the act of creating a startup has become the goal instead of the building of a business…Yes, it has become cheaper to start a business, but has it also cheapened what it means to build a startup?

Stacey Higginbotham, Have Startups Become a Fetish?

bryce says:

I wonder. With Startup weekends, Startup bootcamps, Startup schools, Startup incubators, Startup America, and on and on I wonder if the term “Startup” has officially become meaningless.

There was a time when “Startup” meant innovation, rebellion, drive, vision, troublemaking, disruption and choosing a road less travelled. Now, a couple minutes of thought and a couple hours of work at a hackathon and you’re a “Startup”. Friendly funding flows freely. Quick flips or take off chips in the next round. Pivot, pivot, fail. Repeat. A web so packed with how-to blogs and ninja like methodologies you’d think starting a successful company was a solved problem.

For fear of being overly dramatic, I’ll stop. And ask. Is the word “Startup” meaningless? If so, why and does its loss of meaning really matter? If not, what does it mean now?

whit adds:

The word is definitely suffering through some of what “entrepreneur” went through a couple of years ago, but it’ll pass: the word will lose its hotness as its overused by the ridiculous.

(via whitneymcn)