Aral Balkan
Do I want it?
↓
Is it by a startup?
↓
No.
(A ‘startup’ is not just any new small business. It’s a temporary venture capital funded company that must either fail fast or exit. An exit is where you’re either bought by Big Tech or become Big Tech through an IPO. To understand this better, if you have a sustainable small company, a startup is what will put you out of business.)
#startups #SiliconValley #ventureCapital #vc #SurveillanceCapitalism #PeopleFarming
Aral Balkan
PS. They won’t necessarily put you out of business because they have a better product or anything like that. They will put you out of business because they’ll have a minimum of $5 million to burn to undercut you and starve you out.
#startups #SiliconValley #ventureCapital #vc #SurveillanceCapitalism #PeopleFarming
Aral Balkan
@t0k People do, wrongly, use it to refer to any type of new company. And that’s just great as far as Silicon Valley and venture capitalists are concerned. They know what a real startup is but if there sustainable, ethical companies that self-identify using the term, that’s great for the brand. They can turn to those and say ‘look, not all startups are toxic, extractive, exploitative ventures…’ So it helps them a lot in resisting regulation…
tok 🕊️
@aral Is this a generally accepted meaning of 'startup'? I always thought the term refers to any type of new company, but have no clue.
Aral Balkan
@t0k … But would they ever invest a cent in such a company. No, never.
If you want to know what is and what isn’t a real startup, just look at what Silicon Valley and venture capitalists invest in and what they don’t.
Aral Balkan
@alee What about them? A real startup will happily put them out of business too.
Alex Lee
@aral I think you'll find people who disagree with this. What about bootstrappers?
Aral Balkan
@t0k I quite like calling them “stay ups.” :)
tok 🕊️
@aral Thanks for the explanation! That's actually good to know.
Is there some better naming for a "new small company" which will stay small?
Aral Balkan
@danjac Yeah, it’s hard to compete with “free.”
danjac
@aral it's "price dumping" that in practice is rarely enforced although is often illegal.
For example in the UK maybe 20 years ago supermarkets would pretty much charge pennies for bread to put local bakeries out of business, then jack up the prices once the competition was wiped out.
Aral Balkan
@arielcg That was the bit I was referring to with ‘To understand this better, if you have a sustainable small company, a startup is what will put you out of business.’ :)
But yes, exactly that.
Ariel C.G.
@aral you forgot the part where you burn money to attract more users while killing possible competitors, and then raising your prices to try and make some profit (spoiler: many times you don't). See any startup that offered a killer free tier and when everyone started using it they enshittified it and made it more expensive, while locking you in making it hard (or impossible) to take your data somewhere else.
But guess we'll never learn as a society to not trust companies that lose money on purpose...
Sibshops
@aral I've worked at 4 startup tech companies. They didn't do this.
In my experience, they usually get private investors.
Are you trying to reinvent "startup company" to mean something else?
Aral Balkan
@Sibshops Damn, you caught me. 🤭
Tom
That's not the worst part, they don't even have to make a profit later. They just burn capital to keep prices low, put enough competitors out of business to make the IPO/sale attractive then cash out to the rubes who bought their BS.
After that, why should they give a shit? The VC/founder business model NEVER has to work long term for the players to win big.
Aral Balkan
@antranigv Thank you for mainstreamplaining that to me. I very much appreciate your effort.
Antranig Vartanian :freebsd:
@aral that's not the definition of a startup. many startups are not VC funded.
A Startup is a new small business with the potential to grow big.
Aral Balkan
@ellenor2000 The word has always been theirs.
Ursidinoj/The Bjornsdottirs
@aral exit-oriented startup
vc-funded startup
anything but letting Them keep the word
Aral Balkan
@landley @Tallish_Tom @arielcg This.
Rob Landley
@Tallish_Tom @arielcg @aral It also grinds up founders who WANT to make a sustainable business but are naieve enough to take VC funding.
You could be profitable at 6 people (like a dental practice) but have to hire 20 in a big office to show "growth". So you overshoot your revenue and must pursue a second and third round of VC funding.
Teaching someone to swim by giving them a 500 pound scuba tank with a second tank on the bottom of the ocean. Keeping your head above water vs go straight down.
Aral Balkan
Glitzersachen.de
@arielcg @aral
no no, the part "the part where you burn money to attract more users while killing possible competitors" should read "the part where you burn money to summon a venture capitalist from the dungeon dimension". The pentagram on the floor is not optional.
Antranig Vartanian :freebsd:
@starbreaker @aral yet, data shows that most startups are *not* VC funded. most are funded by friends, family. Many are bootstrapped.
Even in the US, most startups don't get VC funding.
but Aral's "algorithm" that “Made by startup? don't want it" is a very bad generalization towards a group of people who try their best to solve problems (for them and others).
Rejecting Big Tech makes more sense than rejecting startups.
starbreaker
Aral Balkan
@hjvt @antranigv @starbreaker We should be careful not to conflate the two. Scamming consumers is the business model. If you scam investors, however, you will go to jail.
HJVT
@antranigv @starbreaker @aral I think the word "startup" has specific connotation of "a group of techbros trying to scam investors and possibly consumers".
Aral Balkan
@christian @t0k If you don’t have VC and aren’t trying to grow as large as possible while screwing people over by mining them for their data and engaging in other extractive and exploitative practices, then, no, you’re not a startup. You’re way better than a startup. So, yes, you don’t need to legitimise their toxic funding and business model with your business. Hopefully, you’re a stayup :)
Christian Alder
That's interesting to know, thanks. I was wrongly thinking any new company was termed a startup (Even referring to my own attempts as such - luckily only said in my own head, not to others 😅)
Aral Balkan
Christian Alder
@aral @t0k Yep absolutely no plans to screw people over or exploit them - heck, I don't even want to grow super large, ideal if it stayed just just my partner and myself 😅
Will start referring to it as Stayups instead of startup from now on 😊
GNU social JP is a social network, courtesy of GNU social JP管理人. It runs on GNU social, version 2.0.2-dev, available under the GNU Affero General Public License.
All GNU social JP content and data are available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license.