I have trouble with limited definitions. To me, "startup" encompasses any newly started business, regardless of its aims. Why? Because I find most other definitions are set by someone with an agenda, or rule out companies most would agree are startups for arbitrary reasons.

"Acquire venture funding" was not a 37 Signals goal. Ask most venture capitalists and that will be in their definition, though.

"Hire more employees" is arbitrary. Why is that a goal any more than "buy office chairs?" Hiring employees is a side effect, not a goal.

Ask someone who thinks single founder companies don't work and their definition will likely exclude companies like del.icio.us.

Ask techies, and startup means "a tech company" but personally, I would call Ben & Jerry's in the 70's a startup.

In terms of goals, sometimes the process evolves--like hotornot.com and the goals aren't there at the outset. Sometimes the goal is "build a better search engine" and everything else evolves later.

For these reasons, I prefer an inclusive defintion of startups, rather than something that means "startup like mine, or startup I'm looking to invest in"

I buy the 'grow rapidly' part - but what does venture funding and hiring part have to do with it? Take 37Signals (your own example) as an obvious counter example.

I'd argue that 'scalability' is an important component of a startup though. I don't think anyone would consider a consultancy to be a startup - although many do meet your three criteria. They don't scale since there is an upper bound to revenue per employee (while a software product/website has no such bound).

That makes "startup" sound like a kind of disreputable thing. What's wrong with building a sustainable business that you enjoy running, and continuing to run it, instead of looking for the quickest way to sell out?

out of curiosity, what part of my comment made it sound like aiming to grow rapidly to scale was disreputable? i don't mean to pass value judgments on either small businesses or growth-oriented startups

That was my editorializing, not read into yours, sorry. My view is that "startup" is a pretty broad category, that's mainly based on someone who has an idea they think is interesting or will be useful to someone (possibly a large group, or possibly a small group). There's a certain subset of those people who are mainly in it for the money: they want to get big and sell out quick. If those are the only kind who really count as startups, then I'd have to take a pretty negative view of startups...

FWIW, I plan on opening another location on the other side of my city. I also plan on hiring some help for both locations.

Paying a college student $9/hr is a win-win in my opinion.

"Paying a college student $9/hr is a win-win in my opinion."

If you find college students who actually know shit about computers might they not have some other means for making better than $9/hr?

I have no idea what the market is like for these things, but I'm wondering if you'd be better off somewhat overpaying and making sure you had people you could trust to sort out problems when some repair routine doesn't quite work.

They might, but will they? My experience is that most people really don't want to run businesses. They want to come to work, do the job, get paid and go home. Most also go for a comfortable lifestyle rather than absolutely maximizing their income (too much work!). In that case, the college student who likes computers will probably choose to work in that field for $9/hour rather than for $10/hour at WalMart.

that's the what i normally mean by startup, but whenever there is confusion what we are describing is accurately described by the term: "growth venture"