

Startups, it’s Time to Stop Calling Yourselves That - mjnaus
http://mashable.com/2008/10/10/startups-crisis/

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pg
This is nonsense. In any economy, most companies don't make money when they're
first starting. Even pizza places. That doesn't make them "projects" rather
than companies.

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wheels
Here's the message I take from this: get serious or go home.

After reading the first couple of lines I didn't want to like this article
(I'm getting a little tired of everyone whining about how hard it will be --
it was always going to be hard), but a little later in I grooved on it.

Starting a startup isn't just about putting up a website; you've got to kick
ass 8 days a week building a business, and yeah, it's going to be harder now
so it's a good time to start taking what you're doing seriously or realize
that you're just playing around.

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tdavis
Don't worry yourself with the semantics; this is extremely sound advice. VCs
are starting to say roughly the same thing nowadays too, albeit in a way with
somewhat less finality. It's a shame it took a huge economic hoo-ha for people
to start using common sense again, though.

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konsl
I thought most VCs refer to start-ups/companies as "deals" ;)

I'd much rather be called a "deal" than a "project" -- the former implies that
someone's investing in your start-up; the latter is just demeaning.

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tdavis
I don't really agree that a "project" is demeaning, if the person creating
that project properly recognizes it as such. Some things are businesses, some
aren't. I've worked on tons of "projects" in the past which had no real
business potential yet were still very fun and rewarding.

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einarvollset
Uhm.. What? Someone can't call themselves a startup when they take all the
risk of actually, err you know, starting something up? Taking the risk,
forgoing income and pursuing their passion?

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trezor
I think the point is more that starting up a traditional business involves
much higher costs, effort and risks versus setting up some website or web-
service, which pretty much any Joe Schmuck can do these days.

And I completely agree with him. I realize I might be pissing against the
wind, with the "startup"-focus on hacker news and all, but lots of these so-
called startups I see here, I would consider spare-time hobby _projects_ , and
even if they find a way to capitalize on them, I still wouldn't call it a full
business.

If your business can be summarized as a server, located in some data-center
somewhere, working out the stuff on its own, calling it a full fledged
_business_ is a bit over the top no matter how much time you spent writing the
initial code.

~~~
einarvollset
OH MY GOD. Are you really gonna have to force me to list some of the largest
cap NASDAQ companies that "can be summarized as a server, located in some
data-center somewhere, working out the stuff on its own"

Really? I mean christ, I'm trying to boost my chances of getting YC funding
here and you're forcing me to sound like a petulant teenager. Let's all get on
the same page here.

