Your startup is not a startup, it’s just a website.

I love this post. People always ask you "Are you doing a startup? A hobby? A side project?". I always respond "I just wanna make revenue, damn it, call it whatever you want".<p>There's this website called MyFitnessPal.com. Has over a million uniques. Run by just 2 guys from their own house. No coverage in TC, VentureBeat, or any startup publications. Yet they probably get more visitors and more revenue (and less employees) than 99% of the startups covered.

Having had my own revenue-positive "startup" called a hobby, a toy, a blog and various other diminutions, generally by people who've never managed their own company's budget or, if they have, have blown millions in startup capital, this was great.<p>Whether your company's a startup or not can drive you up semantic walls, when the the focus should (for some people) being on building something of value, whether that value's for shareholders, investors, or just yourself, and to hell with all the labels.

Well it's not as clear cut as the post suggests, though it's clearly stated as an opinion piece so they are entitled to whatever they want to think/believe.<p>The difference I'd like to point out is how scalable and reliable the business model is for generating value (aka money.)<p>For example, I run a web design company that offers custom services and consistently generates revenues each month. However it's not a scalable business. If I got 100x more sales next month, I would need more people and the number of people needed would most likely be a linear function of the number of sales I got. Also, it's not a completely reliable business model in the long run.<p>Compare that with that of Wix.com, which is a DIY website builder software. I would bet that they know that for every X free users, they'll generate $y in add-on sales. If they got 100x more users/customers, they would need more people and resources but likely it would be an logarithmic function.<p>Now if you had a "startup" like Wix without a clear focus on figuring out how to generate revenue, that's just foolish. That wouldn't be a startup. That would be wishful thinking.<p>Basically what I'm saying is that it wouldn't be fair to say that my business that consistently generates $x/month is better than a "startup" that might generate 1/10 of the revenue each month <i>IF</i> they are deliberately trying and succeeding at figuring out an effective, scalable &#38; reliable business model because in year Z, they could be 10x my revenues.

This trend needs to change. There's too many guys out there running Wordpress blogs on shared hosting plans and/or making Android (or iPhone) apps, just to call it a 'start-up'...my Facebook friends list is full of these guys, calling themselves with ridiculously random titles like CEO/Founder/Co-Founder/MD of &#60;insert-wordpress-blog_or_mobile_app_here&#62;<p>Back in the days, a start-up was something different, something the society looked down, you know...a real challenge (which is why the society looked down). Today, the scenario is like as if its cool to run a Start-up (and fail).<p>X: "Hey dude, I run a startup..howz about you?"<p>Y: "Cool story bro..I runz one too..wanna be my co-founder?"<p>X: "sure thing bro...right away"<p>[now X can call himself a 'Serial Entrepreneur' because he sabotaged his old start-up for a new one]

The definition of startup that I like is Steve Blank's, <i>a temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model</i>. By that definition, his website was not a startup. It was a lifestyle business.<p>Note that this definition does not describe startups as inherently good thing. Just inherently different than other types of businesses in many key ways.

I can really relate to this. I have a site that provides a service, does about 175k uniques &#38; 900k pageviews per month and generates revenue from paid accounts ($1k), adsense ($4k) &#38; partnerships ($10k).<p>Do I consider it a startup? Not really. But I don't really consider it to be just a website either. I guess my definition of a startup is an entity that has a team behind it, provides some type of service &#38; could be substantially scaled with funding or revenue.

Words mean different things to different people.<p>Startup. Ninja. Hacker.<p>There's absolutely nothing to be gained by arguing about word definitions, people treat definitions as axiomatic. People don't logically derive what a word means through etymology or historical usage, they define it as what they understand it to mean.<p>Telling someone that their definition of a word is wrong is like saying their preference for one colour over another is wrong. It's a personal view, accept it and move on.

Call me old-fashioned, but if you're not making new technology, you're not a start-up, you're a small business. Making a small business is cool, and if your small business happens to be a website, that's cool too.<p>But if all you want is to make a successful small business, and you don't care about technology, you're not really part of my community, and I don't really want you there. I want my community to be people who care about technology first, and business second. People who care only about business and don't care about technology tend to be the kind of people who ruin the companies and the communities I like, where people care about technology first, even if those companies became valuable because they were full of people who cared about technology first.

"You are not the CEO, you are the fucking janitor" <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4169206" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4169206</a><p>As someone said already, it is not how you call your "company" or the position you have in there. The results should be the important thing.<p>The whole thing about Startups, definition, is that every single John Doe, want to say he is a hacker "just because he knows how to code", and want to say he has a startup "just because he has an idea, and a software/site based on it".<p>Well, definitions might be OK, but I agree with you. At the end of the day what really matters is how much money comes into your wallet, it does not matter if you are called "the janitor of the website".

Startup is about starting a new business isn't it? If your first project was making money, but wasn't a business, with at least a rudimentar business plan, goals, and all the formality involved in doing real business... then maybe it was really just a web site that was making money as a side effect.<p>It looks like people enjoy romanticizing this darker side of starting up a new business. It's not your fault if you don't fail the first time you try :)

I'm with the author on this one. I'd pick a simple blog with millions of pageviews per month than a fledgling start-up idea that is losing money.<p>Is it super sexy? Of course not, but in the end, who cares?

Trying to define <i>startup</i> these days is like trying to define <i>hacker</i>. The meaning changes, depending on your company. This is a good thing. It signifies a culture shift.

Somewhat related- foreign correspondent (a news show in australia) ran a story last night on the new goldrush for people creating apps. Besides the cliché camera work, it seemed to be full of 'founders' who had written a single, sometimes unproven phone app and were talking about getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding, and getting acquired for a billion dollars.<p>I'm not sure if you can watch it outside of australia, but it's available here: <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2012/s3572792.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2012/s3572792.htm</a>

The guy who runs the accelerator program at my university once yelled at me for calling my startup a website when I was explaining it to him. He told me to call it a product or a service and that I should NEVER EVER call it a website - and that "fuck, my 5 year old son can make a shit website". It really made the rest of the phone call awkward since he kept talking down to me and I was being super careful to avoid the W word.<p>Thoughts on his advice? He was the only investor I've ever talked to so just wondering for the future when talking to other investors...

Trying to follow the logic here. Keep getting stuck. The problem appears to be that folks feel like the term "startup" is abused and watered down to the point of being meaningless. Admitting a self described content aggregator (from one source!) into the club helps out how?<p>I think it's awesome this individual displays the ability to generate $10K in free cash flow per month. (I edited this as it sounded snarky when I read it back) The more you widen the definition the weaker the definition becomes.

A startup usually comes with the connotation that you will scale it to some sort of ideal (whether that be revenue, the people or businesses you have an impact on, etc.). A site that pulls in a decent income via advertising is really just a lifestyle business with little chance of scaling. Now if you made a network of these sites or found some other scalable product coming from this site.. then you'd have a startup, no? No one says you have to build a startup though.

Anyone have more info on the gaming site mentioned?<p>From the tone of the article it seems like it's no longer earning, Google slap? The old Adsense ban? Game fell out of popularity?

Really, so much revenue from 100K uniques and 1.5M page views a month? I wonder if that's typical or just some kind of Crranky's blog speciality?

A startup is a company that has captured a small percentage of the overall market it is attempting to fulfill. For example, I would say Tesla Motors is still a startup.<p>By contrast, I would not consider crranky's Blogspot website a startup because I suspect it has captured most of the small, shrinking market it targets.

Both the OP's and that guy at the conference's attitude is wrong. One demeaning someone's work, the other chasing a ghost.<p>Where did that revenue-generating website go?<p>That said, this might not be the case, but if your work is creating the same value as the standard car salesman (i.e. none), you'll get corresponding respect.

A company with a goal of making revenue and dividends is a normal company (or 'a website' in some cases). It may be a large company or a small company, growing or shrinking - but not a startup. A company with a goal of making huge (not 100%, but 100 times) growth is a startup.<p>100k company aiming to be a 200k company is not a startup;<p>100m company aiming to be a 200m company is not a startup;<p>100k company aiming to be a 200m company is a startup;<p>0$ company aiming to be a 200k company is a startup.<p>IMHO. Does it make sense?<p>P.S. and it is often determined by the actual business ideas. There are some ideas that can grow and scale if everything goes well; and there are some ideas simply that have a market ceiling of, say, a few million even if everything goes perfectly.

Both the author and his critique have different labels for the same thing. Its a non-issue.<p>A startup is company which doesnt have a stable cashflow and is searching for one. Thats about the only difference that really needs to be applied from a taxonomy point of view.<p>Impact is also completely unrelated to the label "startup". Private citizens, companies, NGOs, social communities and even projects-on-the-internet (eg: Linux) have had a huge impact on the world and its hard to say who has had more. Again another inane and useless conversation - who has more impact.<p>First make enough money to attempt to make an impact. Then you can try your hand at actually making an impact.

The best definition of a startup that I've heard so far is from Eric Ries's book, the Lean Startup:<p>"An organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty."<p>I think anyone that wants to take a risk and actually create something should be allowed to call themselves at startup. Does it really matter if it's a business, website, startup? At the end of the day, it's pretty easy to tell who is serious and generally talented verses the people who are just hobbiest or not putting their full effort into their businesses.

I mashed this down into a tweet a few weeks ago.<p>:%s/startup/website/gi<p><a href="https://twitter.com/reustle/status/224870973923532800" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/reustle/status/224870973923532800</a>

I rather have 10k monthly from a blog than headaches and stress that will give me nothing in return besides telling my friends I am a serial entrepreneur.

I would say that a startup is something that generates value (hard to do), not cash flow (which is easy).<p>I had a lot of businesses that generated $10 K+ a month, some without me doing much at all, or working 5-10 hours a week. But they didn't worth a dime, so they weren't startups. I couldn't sell them for any meaningful amount. So is yours.

Good post, even though had a bad experience.<p>I think whether site or startup, it is just a (hopefully informed) crapshoot. In the end, the goals are to be happy, make money, and make a difference. Whether you do that via startup, or other means, doesn't matter. And, if you fail, you (hopefully) learn and can do better next time.

What if the website's hosted on Geocities?

Sometimes it's not a website. When you make an app, the App Store really plays a big role in both promoting and selling it. I just wrote about how to get your apps promoted there:<p><a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4415473" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4415473</a>

Actually, a startup doesn't even need a website, or be anything software, a startup is a new company trying to create a new service or product that will bring revenue. No revenue, no company, no startup. Tesla motors is not a startup?

I always felt the same way doing internet marketing stuff. I had fun and was making money, but I didn't consider my company a "startup" because I wasn't really creating any new technology. I think that is kind of the difference...

Do what you want. Build what you want to work on. Bills need to be paid, but ultimately I would rather work on an application that provides needed functionality than on copying and pasting blog posts and negotiating ad deals.

This article made me think of profitable Internet companies in two categories: 1) content monetizers / producers 2)software projects making apps<p>I think engineers admire apps more than content. But money and fame can be made with either.

If it makes money it's a business. If it doesn't makes money than it's a problem.

Something I wrote on the matter:<p><a href="http://www.kludgecode.com/index.php/startup-in-the-silicon-valley-sense/" rel="nofollow">http://www.kludgecode.com/index.php/startup-in-the-silicon-v...</a>

Completely agree. My favorite 'startup' that's 'just a website', handsdown: Slickdeals. That forum probably pulls in more revenue than 99% of startups.

Literally speaking, if you have "started something up", it is a start-up!

I just have a website that sells people websites. What do we call that?

<a href="http://boxngo.tumblr.com/post/29561118300/5-things-startups-do-that-i-hate" rel="nofollow">http://boxngo.tumblr.com/post/29561118300/5-things-startups-...</a> Covering the same thing

I always feel awkward with things like this... I'm more interested in building cool things and making them open source and/or interoperable than I am instantly trying to revenue-ize it. I'm so tired of all of these apps that do the same damn thing with (insert some random useless gimmick) that will <i>never</i> amount to much because they're all competing with each other for critical mass because their products are largely useless without a large-enough network.

Paying someone for developing a (IMHO not really fancy and useful) webapp isn't the same thing as leading "real" startup. A "Startup Guy" works on his product 24/7, talking to investors, partners, costumers and much much more...