A startup or start-up is started by individual founders or entrepreneurs to search for a repeatable and scalable business model. More specifically, a startup is a newly emerged business venture that aims to develop a viable business model to meet a marketplace need or problem. Founders design startups to effectively develop and validate a scalable business model. Hence, the concepts of startups and entrepreneurship are similar. However, entrepreneurship refers all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend to grow big or become registered, while startups refer to new businesses that intend to grow beyond the solo founder, have employees, and intend to grow large. Start-ups face high uncertainty and do have high rates of failure, but the minority that go on to be successful companies have to potential to become large and influential. Some of startups become unicorns, i.e. privately held startup companies valued at over $1 billion. According to TechCrunch, there were 279 unicorns as of March 2018, with most of the unicorns located in China, followed by the USA. The largest unicorns founded as of October 2018 included Ant Financial, ByteDance, Didi Chuxing, Uber, Xiaomi, and Airbnb.
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Startup Actions
Startups typically begin by a founder (solo-founder) or co-founders who have a way to solve a problem. The founder(s) of a startup will begin market validation by problem interview, solution interview, and then building a minimum viable product (MVP), i.e. a prototype, to develop and validate the business models. The startup process can take a long period of time, by one estimate, three years or longer, (Carter et al., 1996; Reynolds & Miller, 1992), and hence sustaining effort is required. However sustaining effort over the long term is especially challenging because of the high failure rates and uncertain outcomes.
Design principles
Startups concerns possibilities of starting ventures and therefore is a design science. Design science uses design principles which are a coherent set of normative ideas and propositions to design and construct startups. For example, one of the initial design principles in effectuation is 'affordable loss'.
Heuristics and biases in startup actions
Because of the lack of information, high uncertainty, the need to make decisions quickly, founders of startups use lots of heuristics and exhibit biases in their startup actions. Biases and heuristics are parts of our cognitive toolboxes in the decision making process, and they help us to take a decision as quick as possible under uncertainty, but sometimes become erroneous and fallacious .
Entrepreneurs often become not only overconfident about their startups but also about their personal influence on an outcome (case of illusion of control). Entrepreneurs tend to believe they have more degree of control they have over events, discounting the role of luck. Below are some of the most important decision biases of entrepreneurs in start up a new business .
- Overconfidence: Perceive a subjective certainty higher than the objective accuracy.
- Illusion of control: Overemphasize how much skills, instead of chance, improve performance.
- The law of small numbers: Reach conclusions about a larger population using a limited sample.
- Availability bias: Make judgments about the probability of events based on how easy it is to think of examples.
- Escalation of commitment: Persist unduly with unsuccessful initiatives or courses of action.
Startups use a number of action principles (lean startup) to generate evidence as quickly as possible to reduce the downside effect of decision biases such as escalation of commitment, overconfidence, and illusion of control.
Mentoring
To get some kinds of reality-check, many entrepreneurs seek feedback from mentors in creating their startups. Mentors guide founders and impart entrepreneurial skills and may increase self-efficacy of the nascent entrepreneurs.
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Startup principles
There are many principles in creating a startup.
Lean startup
Lean startup is a popular set of principles to create and design startups under limited resources and tremendous uncertainty. Lean startup focuses on a few lean principles:
- find a problem worth solving, then define a solution
- engage early adopters for market validation
- continually test with smaller, faster iterations
- build a function, measure customer response, and verify/refute the idea
- evidence-based decisions on when to "pivot" by changing your plan's course
- maximize the efforts for speed, learning, and focus
Market Validation
A key principle of startup is the validate the market need before building a solution. Because startups are uncertain, you don't want to waste time or money building something that has weak demand . Validating your ideas before deciding to invest heavily in building something, is a wise move no matter how confident you are.
Sure you may think you've solved a major problem, but does your target market care enough to invest in it themselves? Being overconfident in an idea and failing to validate it early on takes on unnecessary risk.
Design thinking
Design thinking is used to understand the customers' need in an engaged manner.
Decision-making under uncertainty
In startups, many decisions are made under uncertainty , and hence a key principle for startups is to be agile and flexible. Founders can embed options to design startups in flexible manners, so that the startups can change easily in future.
Uncertainty can vary within-person (I feel more uncertain this year than last year) and between-person (he feels more uncertain than she does). A study found that when entrepreneurs feel more uncertain, they identify more opportunities (within-person difference), but entrepreneurs who perceive more uncertainties than others do not identify more opportunities than others do (no between-person difference).
Partnering
Startups may form partnerships with other firms to enable their business model to operate. To become attractive to other businesses, startups need to align their internal features, such as management style and products with the market situation. In their 2013 study, Kask and Linton develop two ideal profiles, or also known as configurations or archetypes, for startups that are commercializing inventions. The inheritor profile calls for a management style that is not too entrepreneurial (more conservative) and the startup should have an incremental invention (building on a previous standard). This profile is set out to be more successful (in finding a business partner) in a market that has a dominant design (a clear standard is applied in this market). In contrast to this profile is the originator which has a management style that is highly entrepreneurial and in which a radical invention or a disruptive innovation (totally new standard) is being developed. This profile is set out to be more successful (in finding a business partner) in a market that does not have a dominant design (established standard). New startups should align themselves to one of the profiles when commercializing an invention to be able to find and be attractive to a business partner. By finding a business partner, a startup has greater chances of becoming successful.
Entrepreneurial learning
Startups need to learn at a huge speed before running out of resources. Proactive actions (experimentation, searching, etc.) enhances a founder's learning to startup a company. To learn effectively, founders often formulate falsifiable hypotheses, build a minimum viable product (MVP), and conduct A/B testing.
Business Model Design
With the key learnings from market validation, design thinking, and lean startup, founders can design a business model. However it is important to dive into business models too early before there is sufficient learning on market validation. Paul Graham said "What I tell founders is not to sweat the business model too much at first. The most important task at first is to build something people want. If you don't do that, it won't matter how clever your business model is."
Founders/Entrepreneurs
Founders or (Co)founders are people involved in the initial launch of startup companies. Anyone can be a co-founder, and an existing company can also be a co-founder, but the most common co-founders are founder-CEOs, engineers, hackers, web developers, web designers and others involved in the ground level of a new, often venture. The founder that is responsible for the overall strategy of the startup plays the role of founder-CEOs, much like CEOs in established firms.
The language of securities regulation in the United States considers co-founders to be "promoters" under Regulation D. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission definition of "Promoter" includes: (i) Any person who, acting alone or in conjunction with one or more other persons, directly or indirectly takes initiative in founding and organizing the business or enterprise of an issuer; However, not every promoter is a co-founder. In fact, there is no formal, legal definition of what makes somebody a co-founder. The right to call oneself a co-founder can be established through an agreement with one's fellow co-founders or with permission of the board of directors, investors, or shareholders of a startup company. When there is no definitive agreement (like SHA), disputes about who the co-founders are can arise.
Self-efficacy
Self-efficacy refers to the confidence an individual has to create a new business or startup. It has a strong relation with startup actions. Entrepreneurs' sense of self-efficacy can play a major role in how they approaches goals, tasks, and challenges. Entrepreneurs with high self-efficacy--that is, those who believe they can perform well--are more likely to view difficult tasks as something to be mastered rather than something to be avoided.
Stress
Entrepreneurs often feel stressed. They have internal and external pressures. Internally, they need to meet deadlines to develop the prototypes and get the product or service ready for market. Externally they are expected to meet milestones of investors and other stakeholders to ensure continued resources from them on the startups. Coping with stress is critical to entrepreneurs because of the stressful nature of start up a new firm under uncertainty. Coping stress unsuccessfully, entrepreneurs could be victims of stressors and lead to emotional exhaustion, and the founders may close or exit the startups.
Emotional exhaustion
Sustaining effort is required as the startup process can take a long period of time, by one estimate, three years or longer (Carter et al., 1996; Reynolds & Miller, 1992). Sustaining effort over the long term is especially challenging because of the high failure rates and uncertain outcomes.
Founder Identity and Culture
Some startup founders have a more casual or offbeat attitude in their dress, office space and marketing, as compared to executives in established corporations. For example, startup founders in the 2010s may wear hoodies, sneakers and other casual clothes to business meetings. Their offices may have recreational facilities in them, such as pool tables, ping pong tables, foosball tables and pinball machines, which are used to create a fun work environment, stimulate team development and team spirit, and encourage creativity. Some of the casual approaches, such as the use of "flat" organizational structures, in which regular employees can talk with the founders and chief executive officers informally, are done to promote efficiency in the workplace, which is needed to get their business off the ground. In a 1960 study, Douglas McGregor stressed that punishments and rewards for uniformity in the workplace are not necessary because some people are born with the motivation to work without incentives. Some startups do not use a strict command and control hierarchical structure, with executives, managers, supervisors and employees. Some startups offer employees incentives such as stock options, to increase their "buy in" from the start up (as these employees stand to gain if the company does well). This removal of stressors allows the workers and researchers in the startup to focus less on the work environment around them, and more on achieving the task at hand, giving them the potential to achieve something great for both themselves and their company.
Failure
Many startups fail. The failure rate of startup companies is very high. A 2014 article in Fortune estimated that 90% of startups ultimately fail. In a sample of 101 unsuccessful start-ups, the top five factors in failure were lack of consumer interest in the product or service (42% of failures); funding or cash problems (29%); personnel or staffing problems (23%); competition from rival companies (19%); and problems with pricing of the product or service (18%). In cases of funding problems it can leave employees without paychecks. Sometimes these companies are purchased by other companies, if they are deemed to be viable, but oftentimes they leave employees with very little recourse to recoup lost income for worked time.
Re-starters
Failed entrepreneurs, or restarters, who after some time restart in the same sector with more or less the same activities, have an increased chance of becoming a better entrepreneur. However, some studies indicate that restarters are more heavily discouraged in Europe than in the US.
Female entrepreneurs
Female entrepreneurs may differ from male entrepreneurs in some aspects, which are important to understand.
Startup training
Many institutions and universities provide training on startups.
"The best way of learning about anything is by doing." - Richard Branson
Founders go through a lot to set up a startup. A startup requires patience and resilience, and training programs need to have both the business components and the psychological components. Entrepreneurship education is effective in increasing the entrepreneurial attitudes and perceived behavioral control, helping people and their businesses grow. To date, much of the entrepreneurship training is yet personalized to match the participants and the training.
Startup ecosystem
The size and maturity of the startup ecosystem is where a startup is launched and where it grows to have an effect on the volume and success of the startups. The startup ecosystem consists of the individuals (entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, angel investors, mentors, advisors); institutions and organizations (top research universities and institutes, business schools and entrepreneurship programs and centres operated by universities and colleges, non-profit entrepreneurship support organizations, government entrepreneurship programs and services, Chambers of commerce) business incubators and business accelerators and top-performing entrepreneurial firms and startups. A region with all of these elements is considered to be a "strong" startup ecosystem. One of the most famous startup ecosystems is Silicon Valley in California, where major computer and internet firms and top universities such as Stanford University create a stimulating startup environment, Boston (where Massachusetts Institute of Technology is located) and Berlin, home of WISTA (a top research area), numerous creative industries, leading entrepreneurs and startup firms.
Although there are startups created in all types of businesses, and all over the world, some locations and business sectors are particularly associated with startup companies. The internet bubble of the late 1990s was associated with huge numbers of internet startup companies, some selling the technology to provide internet access, others using the internet to provide services. Most of this startup activity was located in the most well known startup ecosystem - Silicon Valley, an area of northern California renowned for the high level of startup company activity:
The spark that set off the explosive boom of "Silicon startups" in Stanford Industrial Park was a personal dispute in 1957 between employees of Shockley Semiconductor and the company's namesake and founder, Nobel laureate and co-inventor of the transistor William Shockley... (His employees) formed Fairchild Semiconductor immediately following their departure...
After several years, Fairchild gained its footing, becoming a formidable presence in this sector. Its founders began leaving to start companies based on their own latest ideas and were followed on this path by their own former leading employees... The process gained momentum and what had once began in a Stanford's research park became a veritable startup avalanche... Thus, over the course of just 20 years, a mere eight of Shockley's former employees gave forth 65 new enterprises, which then went on to do the same...
Startup advocates are also trying to build a community of tech startups in New York City with organizations like NY Tech Meet Up and Built in NYC. In the early 2000s, the patent assets of failed startup companies are being purchased by what are derogatorily known as patent trolls, who then take the patents from the companies and assert those patents against companies that might be infringing the technology covered by the patent.
Top Startup hubs in the world
Below is a list of leading startup hubs in the world by regions .
- North America: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Edmonton, Houston, Los Angeles, Montreal, New York City, Ottawa, Phoenix, Quebec City, Seattle, Silicon Valley, Tampa Bay, Toronto-Waterloo, Vancouver
- Asia-Pacific: Bengaluru, Beijing, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Melbourne, New Zealand, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Singapore, Sydney, Taipei City
- Europe & Middle East: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Frankfurt, Greater Helsinki, London, Malta, Munich, Paris, Stockholm
- Middle East and about: Bahrain, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv
Start-ups in Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley, better known as United States' technology capital, is home to many tech giants such as Google, Apple, Facebook, etc. The tech giants in the Silicon Valley have gained dominance. With the tech giants gaining dominance over Silicon Valley, it has made it difficult for start-ups to succeed.
Startup investing
Startup investing is the action of making an investment in an early-stage company (the startup company). Beyond founders' own contributions, some startups raise additional investment at some or several stages of their growth. Not all startups trying to raise investments are successful in their fundraising. In the United States, the solicitation of funds became easier for startups as result of the JOBS Act. Prior to the advent of equity crowdfunding, a form of online investing that has been legalized in several nations, startups did not advertise themselves to the general public as investment opportunities until and unless they first obtained approval from regulators for an initial public offering (IPO) that typically involved a listing of the startup's securities on a stock exchange. Today, there are many alternative forms of IPO commonly employed by startups and startup promoters that do not include an exchange listing, so they may avoid certain regulatory compliance obligations, including mandatory periodic disclosures of financial information and factual discussion of business conditions by management that investors and potential investors routinely receive from registered public companies.
Investors are generally most attracted to those new companies distinguished by their strong co-founding team, a balanced "risk/reward" profile (in which high risk due to the untested, disruptive innovations is balanced out by high potential returns) and "scalability" (the likelihood that a startup can expand its operations by serving more markets or more customers). Attractive startups generally have lower "bootstrapping" (self-funding of startups by the founders) costs, higher risk, and higher potential return on investment. Successful startups are typically more scalable than an established business, in the sense that the startup has the potential to grow rapidly with a limited investment of capital, labor or land. Timing has often been the single most important factor for biggest startup successes, while at the same time it's identified to be one of the hardest things to master by many serial entrepreneurs and investors.
Startups have several options for funding. Venture capital firms and angel investors may help startup companies begin operations, exchanging seed money for an equity stake in the firm. Venture capitalists and angel investors provide financing to a range of startups (a portfolio), with the expectation that a very small number of the startups will become viable and make money. In practice though, many startups are initially funded by the founders themselves using "bootstrapping", in which loans or monetary gifts from friends and family are combined with savings and credit card debt to finance the venture. Factoring is another option, though it is not unique to startups. Other funding opportunities include various forms of crowdfunding, for example equity crowdfunding, in which the startup seeks funding from a large number of individuals, typically by pitching their idea on the Internet.
Startup valuations
If a company's value is based on its technology, it is often equally important for the business owners to obtain intellectual property protection for their idea. The newsmagazine The Economist estimated that up to 75% of the value of US public companies is now based on their intellectual property (up from 40% in 1980). Often, 100% of a small startup company's value is based on its intellectual property. As such, it is important for technology-oriented startup companies to develop a sound strategy for protecting their intellectual capital as early as possible. Startup companies, particularly those associated with new technology, sometimes produce huge returns to their creators and investors--a recent example of such is Google, whose creators became billionaires through their stock ownership and options.
Investing rounds
When investing in a startup, there are different types of stages in which the investor can participate. The first round is called seed round. The seed round generally is when the startup is still in the very early phase of execution when their product is still in the prototype phase. At this level angel investors will be the ones participating. The next round is called Series A. At this point the company already has traction and may be making revenue. In Series A rounds venture capital firms will be participating alongside angels or super angel investors. The next rounds are Series B, C, and D. These three rounds are the ones leading towards the IPO. Venture capital firms and private equity firms will be participating.
History of startup investing
After the Great Depression, which was blamed in part on a rise in speculative investments in unregulated small companies, startup investing was primarily a word of mouth activity reserved for the friends and family of a startup's co-founders, business angels and Venture Capital funds. In the United States this has been the case ever since the implementation of the Securities Act of 1933. Many nations implemented similar legislation to prohibit general solicitation and general advertising of unregistered securities, including shares offered by startup companies. In 2005, a new Accelerator investment model was introduced by Y Combinator that combined fixed terms investment model with fixed period intense bootcamp style training program, to streamline the seed/early stage investment process with training to be more systematic.
Following Y Combinator, many accelerators with similar models have emerged around the world. The accelerator model have since become very common and widely spread and they are key organizations of any Startup ecosystem. Title II of the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act), first implemented on September 23, 2013, granted startups in and startup co-founders or promoters in US. the right to generally solicit and advertise publicly using any method of communication on the condition that only accredited investors are allowed to purchase the securities. However the regulations affecting equity crowdfunding in different countries vary a lot with different levels and models of freedom and restrictions. In many countries there are no limitations restricting general public from investing to startups, while there can still be other types of restrictions in place, like limiting the amount that companies can seek from investors. Due to positive development and growth of crowdfunding, many countries are actively updating their regulation in regards to crowdfunding.
Investing online
The first known investment-based crowdfunding platform for startups was launched in Feb. 2010 by Grow VC, followed by the first US. based company ProFounder launching model for startups to raise investments directly on the site, but ProFounder later decided to shut down its business due regulatory reasons preventing them from continuing, having launched their model for US. markets prior to JOBS Act. With the positive progress of the JOBS Act for crowd investing in US., equity crowdfunding platforms like SeedInvest and CircleUp started to emerge in 2011 and platforms such as investiere, Companisto and Seedrs in Europe and OurCrowd in Israel. The idea of these platforms is to streamline the process and resolve the two main points that were taking place in the market. The first problem was for startups to be able to access capital and to decrease the amount of time that it takes to close a round of financing. The second problem was intended to increase the amount of deal flow for the investor and to also centralize the process.
Internal startups
Internal startups are a form of corporate entrepreneurship. Large or well-established companies often try to promote innovation by setting up "internal startups", new business divisions that operate at arm's length from the rest of the company. Examples include Bell Labs, a research unit within Bell Corporation and Target Corporation (which began as an internal startup of the Dayton's department store chain) and threedegrees, a product developed by an internal startup of Microsoft. To accommodate startups internally, companies, such as Google has made strides to make purchased startups and their workers feel at home in their offices, even letting them bring their dogs to work.
Unicorns
Some startups become big and they become unicorns, i.e. privately held startup companies valued at over $1 billion. The term was coined in 2013 by venture capitalist Aileen Lee, choosing the mythical animal to represent the statistical rarity of such successful ventures. According to TechCrunch, there were 279 unicorns as of March 2018, and most of the unicorns are in China, followed by the USA. The largest unicorns included Ant Financial, ByteDance, Didi Chuxing, Uber, Xiaomi, and Airbnb.
See also
- Business incubator
- Innovation
- Business plan
- Liquidity event
- Unicorn bubble
- Wikiversity:Learning Resource about Start-up Finance
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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