Startup company
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model.[1][2] While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to go public, startups are new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo-founder.[3] During the beginning, startups face high uncertainty[4] and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to become successful and influential.[5]
"Startup" redirects here. For other uses, see Startup (disambiguation).Internal startups[edit]
Internal startups are a form of corporate entrepreneurship.[81] 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 the Bell System 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.[82]
Critiques of the start-up mode[edit]
According to Nikos Smyrnaios, Silicon Valley's start-ups are emblematic of the post-Fordist enterprise,[85] reflecting a move toward values of liberty, autonomy and authenticity, and away from the Fordist emphasis on solidarity, economic security and equality.
For some researchers, such as Antoine Gouritin, the start-up model, like many digital-related objects, is underpinned by a "solutionist" logic, as Evgeny Morozov describes it. Technological solutionism corresponds to the belief that thanks to digital tools such as those created by start-ups, simple and technical solutions can be found to all kinds of problems. Therefore, what is expected of start-ups is not that they address the root causes of problems, but that they find effective technical solutions quickly.[86]
The organizational model of start-ups is also questioned by former employees. For example, Mathilde Ramadier, a former start-up employee, brings the debate to the fore in France with her book Bienvenue dans le nouveau monde. Comment j'ai survécu à la coolitude des start-ups [Welcome to the new world. How I survived start-up coolness] in 2017.[87] Since then, awareness has been growing.[88] The non-hierarchical organization of start-ups means that all employees bear equal responsibility for their running smoothly. They are based on voluntary commitment and internalized behavioral norms rather than formal hierarchical constraints.[85] Employees, encouraged to meet targets, often exceed overtime limits. Professional and personal life often blend in this highly connected environment. Employees are expected, without discussion, to give of themselves without counting the cost, to be always reachable and available, without asking for compensation commensurate with their professional commitment (in terms of time and activities), and to place the general interest of the organization before their personal interest. Finally, the employment contracts of start-up employees are often precarious since the company itself is not completely stable.[89]
Economist Scott A. Shane has used data on start-ups published in many countries to draw conclusions in terms of public policy. He is critical of public policy that encourages start-ups, pointing to evidence that these policies lead people to create marginal businesses that are more likely to fail, have little economic impact, and generate a very limited number of jobs.[90]