An Alternative Guide To Startup Terminology
Sooooo, it’s been a while since I wrote on here and I wanted to do a quick little something. After numerous years around the startup world, first as a founder and more recently advising/supporting startups at early to mid stage you get to see a lot. One thing always comes through for me: solving problems can be fun, just as long as you know the risks involved.
There is no doubt in my mind that cross-skilled, Lean teams can create great startups and grow them to be great businesses. It’s also never been cheaper to do. All ideas have a chance at some point, at least for a period of time. It’s simply a matter of excellent execution and the alignment of the planets of the ecosystem and market (ahem! Sounds easy, right?).
With this context in mind, I was thinking about all the terminology and buzzwords that float about and wanted to take a tongue-in-cheek look at what they might mean. Here’s my intentionally obtuse guide to startup terminology (please feel free to add your own alternatives too):
Startup — I drew this idea on the back of a napkin. Screw you all, I’m going to build it. See also: Pivot
MVP — what can I bolt together to start selling the crap out of this idea? See also: Lean Methodology, Beta
Business Plan — shredder food
Pivot — Ooopsey, everything I assumed a month ago was wrong!
Product/Market Fit — no-one used to care, now some people do. Hurrrrah, thank Oden’s Beard for that! I can move out of that angry, rat infested bedsit
Lean Methodology— I know I should do this, but…
Doing things that don’t scale — send the intern to the shop, we’ve only gone and got an ooooorrrrrrddddeeerrrrr! See also: Hustle
Bootstrap — I’m putting everything on red. Spin, spin! See also: Lean Methodology, Validation
Seed Funding — who is brave (or foolhardy) enough to give me money to burn n’ learn?
Planning — why’s a napkin not enough? Have you shit for brains, man, it’s all there! See also: Strategy
Product Roadmap — a gazillion unread post-its on the Dev teams’ desk
Series A — aaaaaarrrrggggghhhhh, we made it past the great early stage filter of failure! Hang on a hot bloody minute, no we didn’t, this just got real serious, real quick
Series B — hey, where did everybody go?
Scale — where the holy shit snacks do I get 100x customers from? See also: Hockey Stick
Customer Pain — CEO had this problem. Once. See also: Validation
Validation — my mum/mom said it was cool. See also: Lean Methodology, Early Stage Validation
Early Stage Validation — why do I have to talk to people? See also: Hypothesis, Customer Development
Customer Development — you mean I REALLY do need to talk to people? See also: Validation, Customer Pain
Strategy — you, boy, get me my idea cannon. Thank you. Now, what do we load into this thing? See also: Hustle, Planning
Hustle: [glances admiringly at idea cannon] I’m going to fire turd bullets at the wall continuously and see what sticks but doesn’t slide to the floor. See also: Experimentation
Data-Driven — what do you mean a sample size of six isn’t significant? See also: Validation, Metrics, Growth
Hockey Stick — shhhhiiiiittttt our servers are crashing and our backend has melted, it’ll take 3 days to get a 404 up
Beta — they’ll be more forgiving if we say it’s in beta indefinitely, maybe
Cap Table — say what, how badly am I getting shafted again? See also: Dilution
10x Return — Scaling the crap out of it. See also: Venture Capitalist, Scale
User Experience — ummmmmm, you mean that’s different to design?
Onboarding — you mean they won’t just “get it” and automatically know what they should do next? Outragrous, Sir, you are a madman!
Metrics — things we should probably care about. See also: Data-Driven, Growth
(Insert industry prefix)tech — vaguely tech related, in some way, maybe
Hypothesis — I believe (read: assume) [insert here]. See also: Lean Methodology, Validation, Data-Driven
Growth — what do you mean there’s no goddamn werewolf slaying, behaviour modifying silver bullets from day one? Hack some! Now! See also: Metrics, Data-Driven
Biz Dev — operation saturation SPAM commence!
Experimentation — so, what you’re telling me is that we’re more wrong than right…and that this is a good thing? See also: Hypothesis, Hustle, Pivot
Exponential Value Creation — hang on tight, something weird is happening here. See also: 10x Return, Valuation
Customer Success — woooooaaaahhhhh, they don’t hate us anymore…!
Team Meeting — who can draw the best picture on the wall. Me, me, I can. My turn!
Disruption — smashy smashy, bam bam, kerrrplunk
Crowdfunding — Fun, startup class gambling. See also: Seed Funding
Traction — Someone did something we wanted them to do! See also: Product/Market Fit, Monthly Active Users, Validation
Friction — it’s like they’ve seen a ghost, they just stop dead right there…and there…and there. See also: User Experience, Onboarding
Monthly/Daily Active Users — sum total of people who care
Unicorn — what did you mean by “rocking horse shit”? See also: 10x Return
Black Swan — I gaze into my crystal ball, sham-callazam-behooozavaaar
First Mover Advantage — everyone that tried before failed
Venture Capitalist — What do you mean they said they wouldn’t talk to us? See also: 10x Return, Validation, Product/Market Fit, Series A
Dilution — what the hell does this funding round mean? See also: Cap Table
Valuation — [sucks index finger, sticks up in the air]. See also: Exponential Value Creation
Working Late — I was pissing about too much today, it’s warm beer and pizza again for me tonight. I can’t remember what my bedroom looks like…
Failure — welcome to the team. Dust yourself off, learn and go again
Think I’ve missed a few: let me know if there are any in particular and I’ll add them.
I’m on a mission to build better startups with data-driven product development and growth marketing. Will you join me?
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