SEO, MRR, PMF and 176 other Business and Startup terms you ought to know
A glossary of terms and phrases you’ll encounter dealing with businesses, startups, investment, and technology.
Everything is at its Acme; especially the art of making one’s way in the world. There is more required nowadays to make a single wise man than formerly to make Seven Sages, and more is needed nowadays to deal with a single person than was required with a whole people in former times.
- The Art of Worldly Wisdom, by Balthasar Gracian
Any organization is a system composed of processes, people, and other “things” working together. The output and success of any such system is related to the decisions made by people. Decisions made by people within that organization are influenced by the information and experience they possess when making the decision. Access to current information, expertise, and diverse opinions (other experiences) lead to better decision-making. Thus the effectiveness of any system is directly related to the level of awareness of those who operate it.
Awareness is enabled by information, knowledge, and communication but all these rely on context — that which forms the setting and the terms in which each is to be understood. To better navigate the world of technology, startups, business, and investment we compiled a list of 176 Terms related to Business Environment, Technology and Product, Financial Terms, Pricing Models, Metrics, Marketing, Sales, Investment, Investment Phases, Company, Branding, C-Suite, Management, Economics, Career, and General — Enjoy!
Business Environment
Accelerator (aka Incubator): Sort of like boot camps for starting and building a business — some of the most well known include Y Combinator and 500 Startups
Bootstrapping: using minimal means to build up a system — typically a company, IRL it means long days ending with Ramen noodles
Intellectual Property (IP): The ownership of intangible property resulting from a spark of creativity and/or innovation
Lean Startup: Eric Ries — Learn more or buy the book here
Pivot: Is a course-change of the direction of a company — typically refocusing company efforts to a new product/solution/business model
SaaS: Software-as-a-Service is a distribution model for software in which end users can access software from third parties on the web
PaaS: Platform-as-a-Service typically functions at a lower level and enables many SaaS applications — one example is Heroku
IaaS: Infrastructure-as-a-Service typically functions at the lowest level of a software stack and enables both Platforms and Software— e.g. AWS
XaaS: The rise of popularity of Software-as-a-Service has led to the concept being applied to multiple other business areas — hence XaaS being Anything-as-a-Service
AWS: Amazon Web Services is “a secure cloud services platform, offering compute power, database storage, content delivery and other functionality to help businesses scale and grow” — Learn more
Demo Day: Typically at the end of an Accelerator program, business that took part pitch their idea and product to a hand-picked group of investors
Patent: An official license, usually from a government, that signifies ownership over an idea or concept and is bound to certain legal protections for said idea or concept
Technology and Product
Product Market Fit (PMF): refers to the relationship between a given product and the market/need it’s serving. There’s lots of different definitions of when exactly this is — To learn more check out this post from Christoph Janz
Feedback Loop: Refers to the inclusion of multiple stakeholders, including end users, into the process of designing and building products
Iterate: Refers to working in steps to reach the final version of a product and depends heavily on the feedback loop to drive product development
Launch (aka Go-live): When a product is ready to be put on the market and given to “normal customers”
Soft Launch: Introducing a product to a small segment of a market typically without large fanfare at first
MVP: A Minimum Viable Product is simplest version of a product done with minimal effort needed to give to pilot users to gather feedback and make iterative improvements
Continuous Development: The development process championed by The Lean Startup advocating for quick product iterations based strongly on customer feedback.
Responsive Design: “is the approach that suggests that design and development should respond to the user’s behavior and environment based on screen size, platform and orientation” — Smashing Magazine
Adaptive Design: Adaptive web design is different from responsive design in that there isn’t one layout that always changes. Instead, there are several distinct layouts for multiple screen sizes. And the layout used depends on the screen size used— Medium Well
Adaptive vs Responsive: Responsive is harder to make and faster than adaptive, Adaptive is easier but also much less flexible.
Latency: refers to the time interval observed in a system (typically a program) between the cause and effect of an action
Scalability: used in reference to the capability of a system to adapt to increased usage
Stress Testing: refers to increasing the load on a system to see where its limits are, used to analyze systems
Onboarding: used when referring to the process of bringing customers or employees up to speed relating to a specific product or process
Tech Stack: refers to the combination of software products, technologies, and programming languages used by a business
Pain Point: This relates to a tangible or conceived problem had by a user or customer and is a starting point to build solutions around
Wireframe: Wireframes are sketches or mock-ups used in product development to visualize ideas and make conceptual improvements
Pilot Users: Typically the first users you can convince to test your product and give feedback — as a startup your main goal is pampering your first users!
Roadmap: A tool used by companies to plan next development steps and communicate upcoming features to users
UI: User Interface is “the series of screens, pages, and visual elements — like buttons and icons — that you use to interact with a device”
UX: User Experience “is the internal experience that a person has as they interact with every aspect of a company’s products and services” — User Testing
Proof of Concept: refers to validation of the feasibility of an idea
Full Stack Developer: A programmer who is able to work on both the front (interface) and back end (processing) of a Project — Learn more Coderbyte
i18n (aka Internationalization): The process of designing a product to be available in many languages — why 18? Count the characters between i & n
API: Application Programming Interface is the way that softwares and programs connect and talk to one another — e.g. A Slack channel receives data from Jira through their API
Webhook: A webhook is a sub concept of the API that provides a way to provide other connected applications with real-time information. They basically are links between systems that ensure information is up to date
Logs: The records of events of a system, application or program that are used to discover and track down errors
DNS: Domain Name Server is sort of like an online phone book for websites — they translate domain names into IP addresses which are linked to where the content behind websites is stored
Financial Terms
Subscription: This refers to a contract between an end user and a company for continued access to a product/services for a fee usually stipulated through a plan — Learn more in the Pricing section
ARR: Annual Recurring Revenue refers to the revenue generated in a year that is planned occur again in the next year through subscriptions
MRR: Monthly Recurring Revenue is the measure of all revenue generated in one month by subscriptions
Burn Rate (aka Run Rate): This refers to the rate or speed at which a company burns its cash reserves
Runway: The amount of time a company can exist based on its Burn Rate and Money in the Bank — Runway = Money in the Bank/Money spent per month. Runway is infinity if a company is profitable
ACH: Automated Clearing House is an electronic network for financial transactions in the United States — Learn more
Wire Transfer: a classic and common form of monetary transfer
Cash-on-hand: the amount of capital available to a company that also helps determines the tactical and strategic moves it can make
Balance Sheet: An organizations statement of revenues, expenses, liabilities, assets and capital — typically used in due diligence processes
Income Statement: also known as a profit and loss statement, this shows a summarized version of revenues and expenses
Cash Flow Statement: Financial sheet showing changes in the balance sheet
Audit: The official inspection of the company ledger and accounts
Bond: a form of debt. Bonds are loans, or IOUs, but you serve as the bank. You loan your money to a company, a city, the government — and they promise to pay you back in full, with regular interest payments — Learn more
Arbitrage: “Arbitrage is basically buying a security in one market and simultaneously selling it in another market at a higher price, profiting from the temporary difference in prices” — Learn more on Investopedia
Accounts Payable: Money owed by a company to its creditors
Accounts Receivable: Money owed to a company by its debtors
Amortization: Spreading payments out across multiple periods
Bottom Line: Refers to the final total of the balance sheet
P&L: Profit and Loss is a report given to investors to show the performance of a business unit or product
CAGR: Compound Annual Growth Rate refers to the constant rate of return on an investment over a period of time longer than 1 year — Investopedia
COGS: Cost of Goods Sold refers to the accumulated cost to produce and sell a product or carry out a service — typically used to calculate unit costs
Coupon: relating here to the annual interest rate paid on a bond. Expressed as a percentage of the face value — Learn more
Credit: “the ability of a customer to obtain goods or services before payment, based on the trust that payment will be made in the future” — listed on the right-hand side of an
Debit: “an entry recording a sum owed, listed on the left-hand side or column of an account”
Discounted Cash Flow: Simply a method of assessing investments made when also taking interest into account
EBIT: Earnings before interest and taxes
EBITDA: Earnings before interest and taxes, depreciation and amortization
FY: Fiscal Year
General Ledger: “the main accounting record of a company or organization”
Gross Margin: “the difference between revenue and cost of goods sold (COGS) divided by revenue”. Expressed as a percentage — Learn more
NPBT: Net profit before tax, actually pretty self-explanatory
Overdraft: a deficit typically in a bank account that happens when drawing out more money than the account contains
Overhead: Overhead is an accounting term that refers to all ongoing business expenses not including or related to direct labor, direct materials or third-party expenses that are billed directly to customers — Learn more
P/E: Price/Earnings is the ratio of a company’s stock price to the company’s earnings per share — used to value companies
PEG: Price-Earnings-Growth the growth of earnings per share over a specific period of time
Market Capitalization: total number of shares multiplied by the present share price
Pricing Models
Tiered Model: Refers to the use of multiple pricing plans to sell a product — e.g. Bronze, Silver, Gold Plan
Per Seat: A model wherein customers pay for each user of a product/service
Product: An entity defined by a company that is attached to a price/plan
Plan: An amount of money tied to the sale/usage of a product/service
Fixed: Plans can be fixed, in that users pay the same without being tied to other factors like usage/users
Variable: Plans can be variable and the amount paid at the end of a period is dependent on the number of users, usage or other variables
Freemium: A pricing model that offer the product to all users for free at the expense of limited functionality or their data being sold to advertisers
Usage Based: The amount paid is tied to the usage of said product, typically storage space
Flat Rate: A fixed price users pay for a typically variable usage based product/service
Overage: Typically associated with fees for using more than the allotted amount of bandwidth or storage space
Trial Period: A period of time (typically 7–28 days) in which users can test the product and assess if they find value in it
Metrics
Cohort: A grouping of users or customers that share a common characteristic — typically signup date or organization size/value — Cohort Marketing Analysis can be extremely valuable — learn more at Kissmetrics
Traction: Defined well by Naval Ravikant as “Quantitative evidence of market demand” — typically this means sign ups, # of customers, unique website hits
Organic Traction: When people find your product/service without the use of paid channels to generate traffic
Signup Rate: The number of acquired users / emails over a given period of time — high sign up rates are an early indicator of traction
Conversion Rate: The measure of units that move from one stage of measurement to another — connotatively a positive conversion — e.g. the conversion rate of sign ups into paying customers
Churn Rate (aka attrition rate): The measure of units (individuals/customers) that move out of a specific group over a period of time — e.g. if you lost 6 of 80 customers in the last month CR = 7.5%
Retention Rate: The opposite of Churn Rate, relates to how many customers also stay as such
CAC: Customer Acquisition Cost is the cost in dollars of acquiring one additional user or customer — can be calculated by “dividing all the costs spent on acquiring more customers (marketing expenses) by the number of customers acquired in the period the money was spent”. Learn more
KPI: A Key Performance Indicator is a metric or combination of such used to measure the performance (success) of a company and make better decisions
North Star Metric: Metrics determined to be critical to success of a company and to be used in guiding its actions in sales/marketing/development (sort of like the most important KPIs)
MAU: Monthly Active Users refers to the number of users that have logged in within a given month to a product/platform
Marketing
Market Penetration: Measures a given products sales volume in comparison to the volume of all other competing products— Formula: Sales volume of a product x 100 ÷ Total sales volume of all competing products
Market Saturation: Refers to the point at which a market no longer generates demand for a product / service in their given forms
TAM: Total Addressable Market (aka total available market) refers to the total revenue opportunity of a given market
SAM: Serviceable Addressable Market refers to the portion of a total market that can be served/reached now
TAM/ SAM Example:The global candy cane industry might have a TAM of $30 Billion, but a small US company might only be addressing the US market currently that has a SAM of $12 Billion.
NPS (aka Net Promoter Score): A tool used by companies to measure customer loyalty online — read more on Harvard Business Review
Market Subset: Refers to a piece of the pie of a total market — e.g. all households with kids as a subset of all households
Use Case: Refers to the usage of a product(s) in assisting in the completion of a task within a system. A use case typically results from a pain point, and helps show how a product helps complete a Job-to-be-Done.
CRM: Customer Relationship Management System is a sales/marketing tool to keep track of customers, activities, and the pipeline
CMS: Content Management System refers to an online platform (like Wordpress) where one can store and make use of content of different types — like posts, photos, testimonials and much more
Outbound Marketing: The traditional method of seeking, contacting and acquiring customers
Inbound Marketing: The creation of content and resources and their placement online in an attempt to garner customer interest and organically generate leads
Inbound vs Outbound Marketing: Outbound marketing is a traditional method of marketing seeking to obstruct potential customers. Outbound marketing includes activities such as trade shows, seminar series and cold calling. It is costly and the ROI is much lower than inbound marketing.
- Hubspot
Funnel: A reference to the system of phases in the buyers journey — typically starting with an awareness phase, then interest, evaluation, decision, and purchase.
Lead Generation: The use of tools/services to identify viable sales leads for a business through a variety of activities
SEO: Search Engine Optimization refers to tinkering with a websites html, metadata, and other factors to make it more likely to be found by users through Google or other search engines
SEM: Search Engine Marketing refers to the use of online search engine advertising services, like Google Adwords, to strategically place advertisements and generate new leads
The success of inbound marketing is strongly tied to SEO and SEM. Content is still king and relevant content will grow your awareness and your business.
Keyword Research: SEM is strongly tied to placing advertisements by linking content to certain keywords that target users might search for — this makes knowing which keywords your potential users search for critical to SEO and SEM success.
A/B Testing: This refers to the testing two or more items of content, websites, templates on an otherwise identical group of users — this applies scientific experimentation techniques to improve business results
Customer Journey: This refers to the series of touch points a user experiences with a company, product or combination of both
Magic Moment: A point within a customer journey typically within a product, where a user realizes the key value add to his needs and experiences how it helps him/her solve a pain point and accomplish a job-to-be-done
Channels: Different methods used to reach potential customers — these may include but are not limited to Facebook, Twitter, Medium, Adwords, etc.
ACV: Annual Contract Value of a customer within your company — typically used to show the average contract value and make better estimates about company valuation
CLTV: Customer Lifetime Value (sometimes seen as LTV) relates to the average amount of revenue that is generated from a single customer throughout the lifetime of all their interactions with a company
Hockey Stick Growth: This relates to the growth chart many young companies experience when their product catches on or goes “viral”
CTA: Call to Action refers to the action associated with a marketing page or message — e.g. enter your email at the end of this article 🙌
Marketing Mix: The classic term referring to the tools and domains related to marketing and selling a product — traditionally referred to the 4Ps: product, price, promotion, and place.
ARPA: Average Revenue per Account refers to the revenue generated from all customers divided by the number of customers
Referral Marketing: Refers to the method of promoting products or services to new customers through existing customers — this typically happens through Word-of-Mouth
Network Effects: The customer experience becomes better for later users because the product/platform becomes inherently more useful
Data Network Effects: As more users join the network, algorithms will be able to better curate content and actions and improve the User Experience
Sales
Sales Cycle: Refers to the amount of time and process of acquiring a new customer
Prospect: Refers to a prospective customer of a company, also known as a validated lead
Pipeline: Stages of the sales journey put together to track sales progress visually — Popular web based pipeline management tools include Pipedrive
Low Hanging Fruit: This refers to easy access customers that are often favorite first targets of startups
B2B: Business to Business like Salesforce, offering a platform to businesses to increase their sales
B2C: Business to Consumer like Instagram, offering a product for consumers to browse and upload photos
C2C: Consumer to Consumer like eBay, where users can sell to others through a platform
B2B2C: Business to Business to Consumer like Unaty — selling a community platform to organizations that then attracts and directly adds users
Target Customers — To be successful, companies must define their target customers to set the scope of their operations. The type of Customer targeted has an impact on all areas of how a company operates, so it’s important to distinguish which types of customers exist — learn more about this and building a $100 Million Business by Christoph Janz
Whales: Large enterprise customers paying you $1M+ yearly
Elephants: Enterprise customers paying you $100k+ yearly
Deer: Medium-sized companies paying you $10k+ yearly
Rabbits: Small businesses paying you $1k+ yearly
Mice: Consumers paying you $100+ yearly
Flies: Active consumers who you monetize at $10+ yearly by selling ads
Investment
Deck (aka Pitch Deck): a brief presentation used to provide investors a quick overview of your business plan and generate interest
Reading Deck: a text heavy version of a pitch deck that is sent directly to investors and meant to be read not pitched with
Term Sheet: a non-binding agreement setting forth the basic terms and conditions under which an investment will be made — Learn more
Exit Strategy: a pre-planned means of extricating oneself from a company
Convertible Bond: “a bond that can be converted into a predetermined amount of the company’s equity usually at the discretion of the bondholder” — Learn more
ROI: Return on Investment is a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or compare the efficiency of a number of different investments — Learn more
Sweat Equity: “the equity or ownership interest created in astartup by it’s founders as a result of their contributions in the form of hard work, labor and toil” — Learn more
Round: A reference to the sale of company stock to investors in the construct of a defined amount to a defined period of time — See Investment Rounds
Valuation: an estimation of the worth of a company
VC: Venture Capital fund is a company that invests in other companies — typically startups
Business Angel: “independent individual who provides capital for the development of a business” — Learn more
Bridge Financing: A smaller investment round or raising of capital to continue company operations — usually to avoid the end of the valley of death before the next round of financing
Fundamental Shift: Something VC’s look for when investing in startups — do they fundamentally change the way we work/live — if so, then they are more likely to be an outlier among outliers
Domain Expertise: Knowledge and experience possessed by certain persons about a market, product or other entity, that typically enable better decision making with topics related to that domain
Founder/Market Fit: The founders of a startup possess special knowledge (Domain Expertise) that give them a competitive advantage in a given market
Call: “an agreement that gives an investor the right, but not the obligation, to buy a stock, bond, commodity or other instrument at a specified price within a specific time period” — Learn more
Buyout: the purchase of a controlling share in a company
C-Corporation: refers to any corporation that is taxed separately from its owners
S-Corporation: provides the same protection from personal liability as a C-Corporation. However, owners of an S-Corporation can report their share of profit and loss in the company on their individual tax returns — Learn more
Collateral: something pledged as security for repayment of a loan, to be forfeited in the event of a default
Common Stock: is a security that represents ownership in a corporation
Drag-along: a legal concept in corporate law in which if the majority shareholder(s) of an entity sells their stake, the prospective owner(s) have the right to force the remaining minority shareholders to join the deal. However, the owner must usually offer the same terms and conditions to the minority shareholders as to the majority shareholder(s). Drag-along rights are fairly standard terms in a stock purchase agreement — Learn more
Tag-along: a legal concept in corporate law in which if the majority shareholder(s) of an entity sells their stake, the remaining minority shareholders have the right to join the deal and to sell their shares at the same terms and conditions as the majority shareholder(s), and the new owner must purchase those interests as well — Learn more
Due Diligence: The process during an investment in which the company to be bought or invested in is proofed and audited by the investing company
Merger: The combining of two business entities and fusion of their personnel, technology, and business processes
M&A: Mergers & Acquisitions is division within a company that seeks to acquire new companies and deals with mergers of companies — typically found in consultancies like PwC, Accenture, Mckinsey, etc.
Carve-out: The selling of a part of a company and the act of cutting it out of that company and integrating it in the new company
Pre-money Valuation: refers to the valuation of a company or asset prior to investment.
Vesting: To encourage loyalty among employees and also keep them engaged and focused on the company’s success, such grants or options are usually subject to a vesting period during which they cannot be sold. A common vesting period is three to five years — Learn more
Reverse Vesting: when co-founders receive their shares up front (along with all economic and voting rights), but are subject to vesting — Learn more
Dilution: “reduction in the ownership percentage of a share of stock caused by the issuance of new shares” — Learn more
JV: Joint Venture is a commercial undertaking done jointly by two or more parties which otherwise retain their distinct identities
Ramen-profitable: “a startup makes just enough to pay the founders’ living expenses”— Learn more from Paul Graham
Investment Phases
Friends & Family: The first financing round used by many companies to typically raise between $25,000 to $150,000 from close friends and family
Pre-seed: “A pre-seed is an early round of financing that is designed to help a company achieve certain intermediate milestones PRIOR to the magic combination of strong PMF + meaningful traction” — Nextview Ventures
Seed: With initial traction and a path to PMF defined, a seed round is typically between 500k and $5M and carries the goal of achieving PMF and building up traction to then raise a Series A round (this can vary greatly however)
Series A: PMF has been achieved and companies need money to scale up operations and more aggressively target their market.
Series B+: Higher rounds are typically raised to expand operations internationally to target new market or conquer existing ones
IPO: The goal of many (not all) businesses is the Initial Public Offering — basically another raising of funds through public sale of common stock
Early Stage: Refers typically to a Seed round and below
Late Stage: Series A+
Validation Stage: Another term for the phase of a company working on a proof-of-concept
Company
ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning relates to the planning of resources within a company and is supported by an ERP system typically which digitally integrates data and business processes — Oracle and SAP are the main players in the ERP System market
USP: Unique Selling Proposition “refers to the unique benefit exhibited by a company, service, product or brand that enables it to stand out from competitors” — Learn more
Board: Every company is required by law to have a board of directors. The board doesn’t need to be elaborate, or even more than one person. “The board will ultimately be responsible for making the critical decisions for the company, like whether to raise money, whether to be acquired, whether to enter into important strategic transactions and whether to hire or fire senior management” — Learn more
Advisors: Acquaintances with expertise on building and running a company who advise founders on the best course of action and help make decisions
Holding Model: The creation of a separate business entity used to buy a stake in a child company refers to a holding model
Liquidity: the availability of liquid assets (like cash) to a market or company
C-Suite: Referring to the highest-level executives in senior management
BI: Business Intelligence refers to a dashboard of KPIs or to activities meant to provide better information upon which a company can act
Economies of Scale: a proportionate saving in costs gained by an increased level of production
NDA: Non-disclosure Agreement is a confidentiality agreement signed by employees and contractors
ESOP: Employee Share Options Pool consists of shares of stock reserved for employees of a private company — Learn more
EIN: Employer Identification Number is a unique nine-digit number assigned by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to business entities operating in the United States for the purposes of identification — Learn more
LLC: Limited Liability Company — one of the most common forms of businesses in the USA
GmbH: Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung — the German equivalent of an LLC
UG (Haftungsbeschränkt): Unternehmergesellschaft, a mini GmbH with less than 25k in Capital
SAS: Société par actions, the french equivalent of the LLC
Equity: the value of the shares issued by a company
Escrow: the holding of a document or funds that are kept in the custody of a third party and only are transferred when a condition is met
GAAP: General Acceptable Accounting Practices are a common set of accounting principles, standards and procedures that companies must follow when they compile their financial statements — Learn more
SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats is a managerial construct to assess the risks and opportunities of a business model, product, or strategy
SMEs: Small and Midsize Enterprises that have between 100 and 999 employees
SMBs: Small and Midsize Businesses that have between 21 and 99 employees
EOM: Enterprise Operating Model relates to the business process standardization and integration that enables operations and execution within an organization — Learn more
Branding
Trademark: “a symbol, word, or words legally registered or established by use as representing a company or product” — Learn more
Brand Guidelines: are essentially a set of rules that explain how your brand works including its’ history, vision, personality, key values and much more
Usage: Brands tend to also limit the usage of their logos and colors to make sure they are used in a consistent and aesthetically pleasing fashion
Brand Assets: The collection of logos, branding materials, slogans, and more that are available as resources in representing a brand
Vector: Refers to to a graphic file that uses a combination of lines, shapes, points and colors to make an image or representation — these are popular because they can be scaled to virtually any height/width without losing their form. They typically are to be found as a .svg document
PNG vs JPG vs GIF: All are picture file types. A PNG is like a JPG except that it can have a transparent background and is therefore often used for logos. A GIF typically has poorer quality by can be animated.
Copyright: Refers to the exclusive right to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material
Creative Commons: A framework that “helps you legally share your knowledge and creativity to build a more equitable, accessible and innovative world” — Learn more
C-Suite
CEO: Chief Executive Officer is responsible for creating the vision, leading, and representing a company
CTO: Chief Technical Officer is responsible for the technological architecture and product/platform work done in a company
CMO: Chief Marketing Officer is responsible for leading marketing efforts by creating the message, defining channels and growing the business
CFO: Chief Financial Officer is responsible for handling the finances of a company and enabling the other areas of a business to operate effectively
COO: Chief Operations Officer is responsible for building and maintaining the company and making sure it is a well-oiled machine
CBO: Chief Behavioral Officer is relatively new to the C-Suite and is responsible for better understanding the customers or users of a company — the results of this division have a direct influence on all others
CIO: Chief Innovation Officer is responsible for driving a company forward in all areas — sometimes referred to as Chief Information Officer, however Information ought to drive Innovation and therefore I believe Innovation is more fitting for the goal of this position
CSO: Chief Security Officer is responsible for employee safety within the company
CDSO: Chief Data Security Officer is responsible for protection of customers and users data
CHRO: Chief Human Resources Officer is responsible for hiring top talent for an organization and strengthening and ensuring the wellbeing of existing employees
CAO: Chief Analytics Officer is responsible for analyzing and making use of the data collected within a company to enable other areas to operate better
CDO: Chief Digital Officer is typically found in SMEs and is tasked with using new tools and technologies to improve and digitalize business processes
CCO: Chief Compliance Officer is responsible for conduct inside an organization and making sure rules/regulations are followed
CLO: Chief Legal Officer is responsible for legal council and representation of the company
Management
Agile: “refers to a group of software development methodologies based on iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams” — Learn more
Scrum: “a subset of Agile. It is a lightweight process framework for agile development, and the most widely-used one” — Learn more
Sprint: A construct within agile in which teams work on tasks in short, narrowly defined time frame — typically 2–4 weeks
Backlog: Refers to the ‘todo-list’, typically of features to develop and bugs to fix, used by teams in agile to plan next steps
Retrospective: An event at the end of a sprint in which a team reflects on the work done and exchanges constructive criticism and makes suggestions
Performance Review: A method used within organizations to review the performance of an individual or team, and make suggestions on improvement
Benchmark: Typically a metric to which a product, team or organization is measured against
Organizational Design: The definition and build of an organization referring to its structure, roles, teams, processes and coordination of that system
Supply Chain: Refers to the processes, people and mechanisms that enable a business to deliver a product to its customers
FTE: Full-time Equivalent refers to the hours worked by an employee on a full-time basis. This construct is typically used to convert the hours worked by several part-time employees into a full-time equivalents
EOB: End-of-Business refers to the end of the business day, typically 6 PM 🍻
SBU: Strategic Business Unit refers to a part of company typically isolated from a management perspective from the rest that follows a specific target market or product. The management goal with SBUs is to create flexible entities within a larger organization better able to react to a market and customers
SME: Subject Matter Expert is someone who is especially qualified in a certain area and is called upon for advice in that area
Bottleneck: A problem area relating to business processes and their connections — this is where things get stuck and errors occur
Competitive Parity: Refers to the allocation of funds meant to protect the position of a company against competitors — aka defensive spending
Competitive Advantage: This refers to the superiority gained by a company through technological innovation, marketing, business model or otherwise
OEM: Original Equipment Manufacturer refers to a company that makes parts and equipment to be marketed and sold someone else
Six Sigma: A proven set of management practices to improve business processes — Learn more
Corporate Governance: This term refers to the set of mechanisms and processes that enable accountability, control and steering of an organization
Economics
GDP: Gross Domestic Product is the total value of goods produced and services provided in a country during one year
GNP: Gross National Product is the total value of goods produced and services provided by a country during one year, so equal to the GDP plus the net income from foreign investments
Hedge Fund: An investment fund, typically formed as a private limited partnership, that uses borrowed capital or funds to make investments
Levels of Systems: When considering organizations, companies and non-profits, scale is an important distinguishing factor.
Micro: Study of Economics at an individual level
Meso: Study of Economics at an group level
Macro: Study of Economics at an national level
Mundo: Study of Economics at an world level
Inflation: “a general increase in prices and fall in the purchasing value of money” — Prices go up, money can’t buy as much as it used to.
SEC: Securities and Exchange Commission was founded by Franklin D. Roosevelt to regulate and protect investors.
Career
CV: Curriculum vitae (aka Resume) is what you send employers when applying for a job
MBA: Master of Business Administration is what one obtains typically to move into the management level of a company and make a next career step
LLM: Master of Laws is an additional degree for those studying law that has a deeper academic focus
JD: Juris Doctor is considered as the first degree one acquires when studying law
PhD: Doctor of Philosophy is the highest form of academic achievement acquired after years of research and academic work
Cum Laude: Latin academic honor meaning “with honor” — awarded typically to students in the top 25–30% of their class
Magna Cum Laude: Latin academic honor meaning “with great honor” — awarded typically to students in the top 5–15% of their class
Summa Cum Laude: Latin academic honor meaning “with very great honor” — awarded typically to students in the top 1–5% of their class
Generations
Greatest Generation (aka G.I. Generation): Those born between 1900–1924
Silent Generation: Those born between 1925–1945
Baby Boomers: Those born between 1946–1964
Generation X: Those born between 1965–1979
Generation Y (aka Millennials): Those born between 1980–2000
Generation Z: Those born between 2001-Present Day
Identity Access Management
Authentication: verifies you as a person. Logging into a PC with a username/password is the process of authentication.
Authorization: verifies what your logged in user has access to. Basically checks which permissions you have within a system
General
Unicorn: Refers to a startup that has achieved a $1 Billion+ valuation
Jobs-to-be-Done: A concept that is meant to promote product innovation through increased and singular focus on helping an end user or customer accomplish a job-to-be-done — Learn more at HBR
Initial Traction: Referring to the early stages of a company taking a product to market and initial positive reactions of customers to said product
White Paper: A report by a government, company, or academic institution meant to give information or present a proposal on a certain issue.
Intrapreneur: A term relating to employees driving innovation and advocating entrepreneurship within the company they are currently with
First Mover Advantage: Being the first company to reach a market with a viable product gives you the advantage of acquiring customers without significant competition
Last Mover Advantage: Being the first to a market has its advantages; however ideally companies should seek to build monopolies on singular markets, and being the last mover means you can assess the situation, apply a 10x innovation and kick your competition to the curb
Porters Five Forces: A framework for assessing the competitiveness of a business — these being the bargaining power of suppliers, the threat of new entrants, bargaining power of customers, and the threat of substitute products — Learn more
Stealth Mode: Referring to a company, typically a startup, that is operating ‘under the radar’ without making public appearances, and shielding their work from public scrutiny. Increasingly used as a technique to generate interest from potential customers and investors
Vanity Metrics: Business metrics that misleadingly indicate positive trends without having any actual bearing over company success
Opportunity Cost: refers to “the loss of other alternatives when one alternative is chosen” and is typically associated with the sacrifices a person makes when choosing one option over another
Black Swan: A theory introduced by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to describe the appearance of anomalies in our world with disproportionate impacts on elements within a system — e.g. the Fukushima disaster, 2008 Financial Crisis, or in the positive sense the invention of a better combustion engine — Book
Evangelist: A person who speaks out and promotes a product/company/service — some companies even hire Chief Evangelists now
Early Adopter: Typically refers to tech savvy individuals who tend to be open to and adopt new technologies and products before the most others
Convergence: Two or more entities coming together and fusing into one
Ecosystem: Multiple parties/products/services being aligned to deliver a stronger, focused value to end users — e.g. Apple Ecosystem
10x Improvement: Refers to a sought improvement over the status quo in relation to products or services necessary to disrupt a market
Black Hat: Used in reference to malicious hackers that seek to disrupt or inhibit the function of systems
Valley of Death: Referring to the last months of a runway before running out of money
Golden Parachute: Refers to the exit compensation package typically offered to Executives leaving a company
Business Model Canvas: Developed by Alexander Osterwalder as a strategic tool to document and improve business models in a visual way — Learn more
Anti-fragile: The ‘actual’ opposite of fragile systems, in which the systems grow stronger with outside disruptions or stress. Revolutionary concept developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb that explores and questions the design of organizations and systems. Reading this book will change the way you think
Initial Scale: https://www.saastr.com/how-youll-know-youve-got-first-traction-in-saas-the-moment-when-youve-got-something-special/
ICT: Information and Communication Technology refers to infrastructures built to enable system operations
A pillar of sustainable Democracy is an educated citizenry. Building a Better World means starting by raising the awareness of all who are part of it — only then can we truly work together to build a better future for everyone.
