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Idk if a hard line can be drawn, but I would say some markers that might mean a "start-up" has graduated to just being a regular old company are:
-No longer raising capital, or doing so past about a Series D
-Publicly traded
-More than 6 or 7 years old
-Acquiring other companies
-More than a couple thousand employees
-Growth is less than 20% YoY
tl;dr An employer will stop calling themselves a startup when they feel it no longer is advantageous to do so, especially as it relates to their key areas of operation/profit/revenue and attracting talent/capital.
Words have meaning and the more precise we can express our world, the better change we have of others coming to the same understanding both quickly and with fewer errors.
I would flip the question around to tailor it to your specific situation and ask "what does it mean to the company (or those who hold the power) to be called a startup?" And maybe more importantly, "what does it mean to those the company is trying to recruit for more labor and/or capital?" In a complete vacuum, I would guess that more people would find "startup" sexier than "small business."
Until there is a "Startup Authority" who certifies companies are still startups and punishes those falsely calling themselves one, all we can do is see what general stats appeal to the most people right now. To play the devil's advocate, you could call any company a startup by qualifying it such as Series F startup, "Post IPO Startup," or "129 year old startup, GE" 😂
I was wondering this too… a company advertised themselves as a start up but also recently acquired several companies to help expand internationally… which doesn’t seem like a start up
> ~50 employees is a “mid-sized business” in my book. Or if they stop growing at > 50% each year
I believe the technical crossover point from start-up to growth is 2.7 years. Weird, but apparently true. This is probably based on the expectation of investors to start seeing some revenue and return on their investment.
Of course, there are other aspects to the definition, and here’s a good, simple summary
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-stages-startup-life-cycle-hardik-shah-csm-
I see it used as an excuse for solvable screw ups and failures. agree that if you’re established, you’re no longer a start up.
Mentor
Im at a series F startup founded in 2012 with a multibilion dollar val. We're a late stage startup, esp. because we're at hypergrowth stage.
Startup doesn't mean two coders in a room hoping they'll figure out MVP. It means incorporation to exit, the whole lifecycle.