2016-01-13
6 分钟Ask somebody, let's call it six months into a new business what they did a generation ago, and they tell you, I'm an entrepreneur, or I run a company that does x.
Ask somebody six months into a new business what they do now, and they'll tell you, I run a quote startup or I'm a quote founder.
Semantics, right?
Actually probably couldn't be more wrong.
Here's the deal.
So that simple change in language, well, it signifies both a shift in the understanding of what you're really doing in the first, let's call it six to 36 months, along with a deeper shift in psychology that allows for both more risk taking and a greater willingness to put failure on the table.
So here's how it breaks down.
The purpose of a business or a company is to succeed.
And that can be defined individually, usually through some blend of profit, service, joy and growth.
Everything you do in a company is about succeeding at the business you've chosen to build.
When you use the word business or company, the implication is that it's thought out.
You know what you're here to do and your job is to do it.
Failure carries a certain gravity.
The purpose of a startup though, well, that's different.
So a startup is an experiment in search of a business.
Its job is not to succeed at actually making money and building and scaling.
Its job is to figure out whether a viable customer, a viable business model, a viable product, a viable mode of delivery even exists.
The core metric for a startup is learning, not money, not scaling.
If the learning yields no clear answer, well, then the startup has done its job and it folds for the most part.
That's why a lot of people look at this as no harm, no fail.