7 Spooky Entrepreneurship Terms, Demystified

Have you ever experienced that awkward moment when a successful business person mentions a term that goes over your head like Britney Spears with clippers in 2007? But seriously, not understanding entrepreneurial terms while in an entrepreneurial environment can be embarrassing, take away from your learning experience and simply leave you feeling intimidated.

1. Bootstrapping — Imagine pulling yourself out of an unpleasant environment with only the straps on your boots! Bootstrapping is a frequently used metaphor for entrepreneurs, because it perfectly illustrates the financial circumstance many entrepreneurs start off in. In entrepreneurship, bootstrapping means using your available resources to further your business. One example of bootstrapping is using a platform such as like elance.com to hire a graphic designer within your budget to create your new logo instead of hiring the top notch graphic designer whose price range is far beyond your budget. Another example is to initially start an online store rather than renting or purchasing a brick and mortar location.
2. MVP — If you live in certain cities with certain sports teams, you may have never heard the term MVP. Luckily, this MVP does not refer to sports teams at all, so anyone, anywhere can have one! When speaking in terms of entrepreneurship, MVP stands for minimal viable product. Many times entrepreneurs will bootstrap to develop the most basic version of an applicable prototype, also known as their MVP. In short, an MVP is a functioning version of your product/service that requires the least amount of funds, time and effort to create. Once an MVP is created, it is used to gain more information about your customer and product.
3. Angel Investment— Angel investors are typically individuals or members of a club who invest their own funds into start-ups for equity, royalties or profit from interest (less common). This type of investor can range from a family friend to a wealthy business owner. Regardless of the investor’s background, their sole purpose for investing is to receive a higher return.
4. Venture Capital (VC) — Venture capital usually comes from a firm rather than an individual or club. These firms are comprised of limited partners and general partners. Limited partners are the people who make the investments for the venture capital funds. General partners manage the funds and work directly with the entrepreneur who is seeking funding. VC is typically reserved for businesses with high growth potential. The amount of money distributed from VC firms is relatively higher than an angel investment. Additionally, VC investors usually offer mentorship and expert advice as a part of their investment in the company.
5. Business Model Canvas (BMC) — As intimidating as this may sound, it is one of the most simple ways to organize your business. Thanks to Alexander Osterwalder, in some cases, this can be an alternative to a lengthy business plan. Osterwalder created the business model canvas to help entrepreneurs organize their business using nine simple building blocks of marketing and operations.
6. Business Incubator — Business incubators are organizations that foster the growth of start-up and early stage companies. This growth is usually fostered by providing the entrepreneurs with space, a networking environment with other entrepreneurs, expert mentorship and advising, and access to sources of funding. The duration of an incubator program can vary from months to years
7. Business Accelerator — Although some people may use the terms business incubator and business accelerator interchangeably, they are not the same. A business accelerator offers expert mentoring and advising services to business that are already developed. As the name suggest, the objective of the accelerator is to promote rapid growth in company. Therefore, accelerator programs typically only last for a few months.

A quick tip:

While I’ve listed a few elusive terms above, there are many more in the world of entrepreneurship. Never get discouraged or intimidated when you hear these sort of words. Instead, ask the speaker to clarify or simply do a quick Google search!