

Ask HN: What's a startup and what's a web app? - speek

How do you define a web startup with respect to a single web application?<p>I've seen things on HN that I would have classified as a web app, but the submitter touted it as a startup, so I was wondering what y'all had to say about that issue.
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daleharvey
if it is to make money, it is a startup. if it an application on the web, its
a web app.

it can be any combination of true or false for either.

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pg
And web apps can switch state. Delicious wasn't originally a company, but it
turned into one.

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zackattack
I've been reading Founders at Work and I've been thinking about this. It seems
that there's basically two main paradigms when it comes to tech startups:

1) Start out building a product/service that you think people will pay for
(Viaweb, Excite, VisiCorp) and evolve the idea where appropriate

2) Start out building a product/service that you want to use, and its immense
popularity makes it become a company (Facebook, Delicious, Yahoo, Google)

A lot of people (myself included) have thought "the way to make it big is by
doing #2: making a neat website, and hoping it takes off incredibly". But
perhaps a more statistically sound approach is to do #1. Has anyone done a
study of this kind of thing and looked at expected value?

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pg
These two are not exclusive. The first computer Apple made was something the
founders wanted, but also something they knew people would pay for.

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zackattack
Either way, you have to make something people want. I'm reading Four Steps to
the Epiphany now...hopefully it will successfully explain how to figure it out
what it is that people want.

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IsaacL
I think a lot of "startups" would be better off calling themselves projects.
There's nothing wrong with being a project: Wikiepdia's a project, GNU/Linux
is a project. But neither of them ever expected to make money; the same could
be said for many (by no means all) web apps that call themselves startups.

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patio11
Arguing about the definitions of words is productive if you're a lexicographer
or a lawyer.

For the rest of us, it absorbs time which could be used to separate customers
from their money by selling them things they want.

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davidw
Well, it is good to be clear about what things are and where you'd like to go
with them. The 'project' comment elsewhere here is right on - not everything
can or should be about making money, and it's good to recognize what sort of
thing you're dealing with at any given point in time.

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sgrove
I think the webapp/startup line blurred together in the funding frenzy of the
past few years where revenue-less webapps could be acquired profitably for the
founder.

But the line is growing more distinct starting as revenue regains its
importance in the scene. Startups are projects with clear _revenue goals_ ,
and relatively detailed plans by which to attain those goals, that the
founders expect to turn into some sort of business.

Webapps may just be useful and fun distractions without concrete monetization
plans and/or goals. They have the potential to grow into startups, but are
missing a lot of the other components that go along with it (business
planning, revenue projects, goal deadlines, etc.).

That said, there's still no absolutely clear delineation. Some may alternate
between the two definitions.

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speek
I always considered a startup as an incorporated legal entity and a web app as
an application on the web.

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quizbiz
At what point do you incorporate?

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aditya
When you absolutely must, ie. something would break horribly if you weren't an
incorporated legal entity. Like you have a term sheet from investors, or you
want to start charging people. Incorporating early is fairly pointless,
especially if you're just at the idea stage.

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swolchok
So you need a formal business structure to charge anyone any amount of money?
I just made a proposal to advertise for a local business that will get me two
figures per month if it's accepted, covering 25-50% of my current costs. I
would rather not drop the money on an LLC until I have some idea of how it
might get recouped...

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vaksel
To me a startup is something which is built with hopes for it to eventually be
profitable. A web app is something that you build that you don't really expect
to make money from

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rokhayakebe
A web app is a product. A startup is the structure that monetizes/wants to
monetize the web app.

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jack7890
They aren't mutually exclusive.

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arasakik
"A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service
under conditions of extreme uncertainty." -Eric Ries

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jmonegro
They're independent from each other. A startup is young company/business
offering a product or a service. A web app can be the service that a startup
provides, which is why you see many web startups as web apps.

I can create a web app without making it a startup/business, and vice-versa.

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wlievens
A web app is a product. A startup is a business. A business can field one or
more products or services in an attempt to make money. In the case when a
startup has one main product, a web app, the terms are sometimes conflated
(which I don't really like).

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mahmud
A startup offers services or products, some of which could be web apps.

A web app is another form of software distribution, via the web.

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christonog
Just to piggy bank onto your comment:

A start-up doesn't necessarily have to be a webapp or even in the technology
space. I believe any new business that could disrupt the status quo in an
industry to the benefit of customers could be called a startup. In it's early
days, Dell was considered a startup because of its disruptive distribution
system, not necessarily the technology.

I think the question should be more precise. What's an _internet_ startup and
what's a webapp?

