Had this conversation between some friends the other day and i realised there’s a few common misconceptions between startups and businesses. Not all businesses can be called startups, while startups most common entity is a business entity.

A start-up, by definition, is a temporary organisation designed to search for a scalable business model. Apart from typical business risks, there are more inherent risks such as finding product-market fit, research deficiencies etc.

A business is a corporate entity that is growth oriented. It has, by default, found its product-market fit and operating on a scalability model.

Starting a company on teleportation or building the next generation flying car is considered a startup. But opening a drink store selling sugared water is not a startup. The baseline being, if you are treading on a previously explored path then your entity is NOT a startup.

On a side note, startups should always move out of its current being as soon as possible. There is no glory in maintaining the buzzword title for x years.