Startup-related words you should know
Bootstrapping, MVP, Growth Hacking, Lean Startup, Hockey Stick – what are those words?
Hey! 👋
This is Dovydas from Exponential Founder. Twice a month, I share resources & information for aspiring founders, entrepreneurs, and startup enthusiasts.
In today’s post, you’ll find:
Explanations of some startup world terms.
Guidebook for ChatGPT use in education.
Jobs/internships in Venture Capital or startups.
And much more! 😎
“The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas and throw away the bad ones.”
- Linus Pauling
Startup definitions you need to know
In the past few weeks, I noticed that not many people know about the vocabulary of innovative business. Even I sometimes don’t know the exact meaning of some words.
This is why I created this post and researched the meanings of startup-related words.
Try to go through it before looking at the definitions. Do you know all of them? 😄
Those words are startup, unicorn, acquisition, accelerator, bootstrapping, the 3 Fs, pitch deck, B2B, B2C, digital nomad, iterate, MVP, lean startup, hockey stick, growth hacking, freemium, traction, value proposition, thought leader.
Definitions
Let’s start with the simplest ones that we can hear almost every day.
Startup – a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model.
Unicorn – the term unicorn refers to a privately held startup company valued at over $1 billion.
Acquisition – an acquisition is when one company or investment group buys another company.
Accelerator – a hub where startups are given mentorship, space to work on their ideas, and sometimes capital.
Bootstrapping – when you use your own cash or revenue of the business to scale successfully.
The 3 Fs – getting money from Friends, Family, and Fools for your business. :))
Pitch Deck – a presentation that covers all aspects of your business in a succinct and exciting way. They are mostly used to present your idea to investors.
B2B – offering a “Business To Business” product or service to other companies.
B2C – you offer your products or services to other consumers (Business To Consumer).
Digital Nomad – typically a developer or a marketer who travels the world while working remotely.
Iterate – means to try something, refine it, try again, and keep trying using small steps until successful.
MVP – a minimum viable product is the simplest form of your product. This can be used to attract Beta users/early adopters or to pitch for funding.
Not that hard to understand, right? 😎
Let’s look at some more complicated ones.
Lean Startup – a lean startup is one that has been launched with as little startup capital as possible while getting data that can be used to improve the product. Speed is the key factor here. Eric Ries has presented this methodology.
Hockey Stick – an expression mostly used by investors to describe the shape of the growth curve they want to see in businesses they invest in. They want to see their startups grow quickly and at least double sales every year.
Growth Hacking – a marketing technique that focuses on quickly finding scalable growth through non-traditional and inexpensive tactics such as the use of social media.
Freemium – is when giving your basic product away for free and then trying to upsell other features to your customers.
Traction – proof that your executive summary (hypothesis) is working. Someone is buying your product.
Value Proposition – is what makes your business uniquely attractive. Also known as USPs (Unique Selling Points).
Thought Leader – is someone who is seen as being a leader in their field.
Those are some essential words that I thought would be interesting to explain.
If you liked it and it was valuable, let me know. We will make version 2 of it as there are many more words! 👀
And that’s a wrap about today’s topic, “Startup-related words you should know.” Below you’ll see some other opportunities, resources, and job offers that could be interesting for you.
Opportunities
🇱🇹 13-million EUR public tender for international accelerator in Lithuania. Spread the news!
🩺 New MedAccelerator in Lithuania for MedTech startups.
Interesting resources
🤠 Turing College prepared a guidebook for ChatGPT use in education.
💰 Jackson is trying to experiment if ChatGPT could help him build a company and earn money with an investment of just 100$.
😮 Story of how Justin.tv became Twitch and why YCombinator is an excellent place for your startup.
👉 Simple rules on how to build an MVP for your idea.
👀 Story of the fastest-growing SaaS company in the world – Deel.
Jobs
Looking for an internship or an entry-level position? Vinted has plenty of those all over Europe.
News
💰 Cast AI raises $20M to help reduce cloud spend.