It’s a question that we get asked all of the time. It’s a question that doesn’t have a simple answer.

Surprisingly, Wikipedia provides one of the best definitions:

…the phrase “startup company” is often associated with high growth, technology-oriented companies, many of which seek to disrupt an existing market or to create a new market. [source]

Let’s break this down a little further.

Often Associated with High-Growth, Technology Oriented Companies

Notice the word ‘often’. While it is true that startup companies are usually technology companies, this isn’t always the case (though it is the norm).

Many of Which Seek to Disrupt an Existing Market or Create a New Market

For me, this is the crux of the definition: the market. Startups seek to disrupt an existing market or create a new market. What does it mean to ‘disrupt’ a market? The Innovator’s Dilemma offers this great explanation:

A disruptive product addresses a market that previously couldn’t be served — a new-market disruption — or it offers a simpler, cheaper or more convenient alternative to an existing product – a low-end disruption. [from this great article on Techcrunch]

So, in order to be considered a ‘Startup’ a company is usually (though not always) focused around a high-growth technology and has the goal of disrupting a market or creating a new one.

How Does The Startup America Partnership Define a Startup?

The Startup American Partnership (Startup Colorado Springs’ parent organization) offers us explanations of the different stages that a startup typically experiences:

• Startup: At least two people* have created a business entity with the ambition to build a scalable company.
  (*Two people = one founder and one co-founder, or one founder and one part-time or full-time employee.)

• Rampup: A team of five or more people that has secured at least two customers and has a clear focus on customer growth.

• Speedup: A company that employs at least 25 people and has established a revenue run-rate of $10MM or more.

Is Your Company a Startup?

Hopefully these definitions will help you determine if your company is considered to be a startup.

Are you a (potentially) high-growth company?

Are you focused on disrupting an existing market or creating a new one?

Does your company align with one of the mentioned stages of a startup company?

Be sure to come to any of our events and we’d love to talk startups with you.

“We were so energized and inspired by the Denver event last October that we knew we had to bring a Startup Weekend to Colorado Springs as soon as possible. This is a great event for anyone interested in business at all. The education and experience that the teams get throughout the weekend is priceless.” said Ian Lee, Board Member of Startup Colorado Springs and Co-Organizer of Startup Weekend Colorado Springs.

All Startup Weekend events follow the same basic model: anyone is welcome to pitch their startup idea and receive feedback from their peers. Teams then organically form around the top ideas (as determined by popular vote) and then it’s a 54 hour frenzy of business model creation, coding, designing, and market validation. The weekends culminate with presentations in front of a panel of judges with another opportunity for critical feedback and a selection of the overall best team.

“This event will be great for the local entrepreneurial community. We’re hoping to have a excellent mix of students, developers, designers, seasoned entrepreneurs, and everyone in between. It’s a great crash-course in taking a company from idea stage to viable product. The amount of knowledge gained over the three days is astonishing.” said Nick Lee, Board Member of Peak Venture Group and Co-Organizer of Startup Weekend Colorado Springs..

$75 Early registration is available through March 12th. Regular tickets are $99. Students qualify for discounted tickets. The event will take place at Epicentral coworking space downtown.

Colorado Springs Open Coffee Club has grown into an awesome event and we’re looking to make it even better! Over the next six months we’ll be hearing from some incredible entrepreneurs with a wide range of experiences. Each will have 30 minutes to tell us their stories followed by a 30 minutes Q&A session — this is your chance to get advice directly from some seasoned entrepreneurs. All sessions are free and please RSVP so we know how much coffee to provide.

We will be giving away signed copies of Brad Feld’s book ‘Startup Communities‘ at the December 6th event!

A HUGE thank you to this session’s sponsor CFOwise.   CFOwise is the outsourced CFO firm for startups and small businesses.  Peter Skalla is the local presence of the firm and specializes as a startup CFO helping technology startups define, validate, and scale their business models.

The full lineup:
12.6.2012 – Brad Feld, Foundry Group, Writer of ‘Startup Communities’
1.3.2013 – David Cohen, Co-Founder Techstars
2.7.2013 – Ted Philip, Managing Partner, Consumer, Highland Capital
3.7.2013 – Paul Berberian, CEO, Orbotix (Sphero Ball)
4.4.2013 – Jim Franklin, CEO, Sendgrid
5.2.2013 – Greg Gottesman, Managing Partner, Madrona Venture Capital

RSVP NOW!

All sessions will take place at 7:30 am at Epicentral (409 N. Tejon Suite 106)

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We’ll be in Centennial Hall room 188. Campus Map HERE.

Please not that you must park in LOT 1 or the Parking Garage.  Parking is $1.75/hour. Pay for 2 hours and you should be good.

RSVP NOW!!

Day 1:

The evening kicked off with dinner and networking followed by a great talk by CaptainU CEO Avi Stopper.  Next, it was time for the pitches.  The pitch session was a rapid-fire, high energy delivery of ideas.  Each person has 60 seconds to pitch their idea to the crowd.  Any and everyone can pitch and there were about 30 pitches this year.  After the final pitch, the crowd votes on their favorite ideas (by sticking post-it notes on large pieces of paper describing the projects).  Teams then form around their favorite projects and the initial work begins.  The teams worked late into the night.

Day 2:

Day 2 is crank time for the teams.  This day is solid development, design,  market examination, real customer validation, and maybe a pivot or two depending on the progress being made.  A break is made sparingly only to eat and listen to a couple of great speakers throughout the day.  The teams worked at Uncubed until midnight and then headed home to work even more.   Justin coded in our hotel room until 4:30am!

Day 3:

The beginning of Day 3 is a continuation of Day 2 — more hacking away.   The judges started showing up around 2:00pm and started checking out the teams and networking with everyone.  Around this time the teams started practicing their pitches and doing tech tests on the A/V system.  Work stopped at 4:30pm.  We all listened to another great speaker and then it was time for the final pitches!!!  Each team gets 5 minutes to pitch and demo their final product.

Every single team made amazing progress over the course of the 3 days. We were all completely amazed.  Videos of all of the final pitches below!  We all can’t wait for the next Startup Weekend!

SMS4Babies - sms platform to enable babysitters let the parents know how things are going (and vice-versa)

InstaProps - View all of the likes and comments on all of your photos in one centralized location

CADmirror - Platform that enables collboration between emergency services departments.

Shared Bottle - Pandora for Wine. Finished in 3rd place!

theBookcase - Book search on steroids. Find a book on any topic no matter how esoteric.

NowWeRide.com - App that allows cyclists to find posses to ride with. Finished in 2nd plalce!

Crystal Ball Trades - Helping give small investors an edge on the analyst algorithms using social media.

Thyme - THYME is an iPhone APP that allows customers to interact directly with full-service restaurant without the need for getting the waitress’s attention.

Trufffle - Think Dribbble for cooks.

H2Lo.co - Automated simple platform that helps you save thousands of gallons of water. FIRST PLACE!!!

It can’t be avoided (nor should it), no matter what your startup is involved in, design will sooner or later be a crucial part of your company. Not all founders can be an expert in amazing design or even basic design principles.  However, Silicon Valley-based Interaction Designer Wells Riley  created an amazingly designed and easy to consume website, ‘Startups, this is how design works‘ to help anyone understand the foundations of good design. Take 20 minutes and full experience the site — the world will thank you for it.

Startups, this is how design works  

It’s important that financial reporting meet the IMPACT standard:  Insightful. Meaningful. Precise. Accessible. Comparable. Timely.  A pile of numbers just doesn’t cut it.  One useful way to make the Profit & Loss statement (P&L or Income Statement) more meaningful is to show expenses by department, such as Customer Support, Development, and Sales.

Here are two examples, first a standard and then a department-level P&L…MORE

“ After prepping yet another emerging company for their Series A, I can’t get the book “The Founder’s Dilemmas” out of my head.  In many ways, Noah Wasserman is the Jim Collins of the Entrepreneurial Set – combining years of anecdotes into a cohesive understanding of why our newco brethren spin out when they least expect it.  In concert with some of the other new books enveloping the management techniques associated with these organizations“dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty” (thanks Eric Ries), more than ever it’s apparent that we create more uncertainty and more risk when we don’t check that box which reads“founders and funders agree on high growth approach”.

Said simply, along with all of the other items we’re quick to check off in the spirit of ‘alignment’ (pro formas, term sheets, business plans, gap analysis, legal formation, etc.) we need to make sure we clearly understand founders’ and partners’ expectations in terms of whether the company will be managed as a small business or a high growth business. From my perspective, I tend to look at a company from their capital formation backwards, a technique I learned many years ago when runningWhite Summit. I looked at over 700 new tech companies during that time frame and came to appreciate that if money had changed hands as part of a capital injection, then the source of that funding had to discuss and agree upon the growth strategy for the company prior to funding. Or not.  But either way, a strong precursor of success or failure was evident based on how this was handled.

One thing that Wasserman reminds us of in his outstanding text is that the clearly defined differences between a small business and a high-growth start up are remarkably clear and understandable, as long as they’re discussed prior to any funding event taking place. The fact that this dramatically lowers risk either way – heading forward as a small biz or as a high-growth startup – shouldn’t get lost on anybody. And yet I continue  to run into confusing expectations – and the resulting ‘people issues’ – at about the same pace as Wasserman suggests. Around 70% of the newco wipe outs are related to the misaligned expectations of the founder(s) and their funding arm.

As I’ve been discussing new leadership opportunities with a variety of startup ventures, I can instantaneously appreciate whether or not there’s an issue at hand simply by understanding whether or not the check box for ‘expectations’ is in place or not. When it’s in place – let’s call it 30% of the time as Wasserman suggests – then the business feels healthy, vibrant, and focused on the collective strategy/execution process. When it’s not, there’s a clear feeling that the ‘push me – pull you’ effect of the misunderstanding is undermining the ability of the concern to actually focus on the business challenge at hand instead of the drama surrounding unclear expectations.And startups need extra drama like we all need a proverbial hole in the head.

Pete Skalla and I have discussed as of late the need to accentuate this issue with all of the startups in our collective ecosystems. Via Startup Coloradoand Startup Colorado Springs, we really feel compelled to get the word out that one major risk factor can be eliminated simply by addressing the issue head on. As Pete so eloquently put it in his blog last week, the differences are clear and easy to understand – neither is wrong per se – but both require completely different mindsets, commitments, and understandings related to decision-making and approach. Without this understanding, bad things happen. His fantastic overview can be read here:  Startup or Small Business?

I’d urge everybody in the process of supporting our heroic entrepreneurs to make sure that they clearly understand the differences for the sake of their company’s future. In the absence of this simple understanding, we can look forward to over two-thirds of these newcos heading through the guard rail. With an astute appreciation for what it means – thanks to guys like Wasserman and Skalla – we can lower the mortality rate and see more of these revolutionary companies through to a big win.

Grow big! 

- Jan”

If you follow Brad Feld‘s blog (feld.com), then you’ve seen a few recent posts about mapping and startup communities.  We at Startup Colorado Springs loved the idea so much that we decided to follow suit and create Colorado Springs’ own Startup Map (www.StartupColoradoSprings.com/map).

The idea is to develop a visual representation of the great startup community that we are all working so hard to foster in Colorado Springs.  The map is based on the open-source project Represent-Map that is the engine behind RepresentLA.  As time allows, we hope to add more features to the map such as automatically pulling data from Crunchbase, more in-depth startup profiles, getting events on the map, etc…

Put your Startup on the Map now!